The Tackle: Mark Robinson’s likes and dislikes from Round 11 of the 2022 AFL season
Two clubs are mired to the bottom of the ladder, but only one has been feeling the heat. Mark Robinson says fans have “fatigue” as one “pathetic” team borders on irrelevant.
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As we approach the first byes of the 2022 season, there are plenty of teams in need of some soul-searching.
Mark Robinson looks at the big talking points emerging from Round 11.
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Read all the Herald Sun Chief Football Writer’s likes and dislikes in this week’s edition of The Tackle.
DISLIKES
1. Jacob’s lot
If the AFL changed its rules on vaccine mandates, then Liam Jones could’ve been a ready-made replacement for Jacob Weitering via the mid-season draft. But he can’t be, so the Blues will be looking elsewhere. Maybe former Kangas big man Sam Durdin is an option. The Blues were gallant on Sunday against the Magpies, but gallantry won’t play centre halfback while Weitering is nursing his shoulder injury. The Blues without Weitering are a mystery. He hasn’t missed a game since 2019 and, with Oscar McDonald already ruled out for the season, the Blues have Lachie Plowman and Lachie Young, and their mid-season draft pick to fill the key back positions. Time will tell, but the Weitering injury has the potential to shape whether Carlton finishes top four or not. Yes, he’s that important.
2. What’s worse? A bump or a punch?
Two weeks back, Richmond’s Marlion Pickett nailed Hawk Dylan Moore with a near perfect and team oriented shepherd/bump which brushed Moore’s head. He received a week for it. On Friday night, Lance Franklin was bumped/blocked by Trent Cotchin. Franklin was angry about the contact, which apparently hit him on the chin, and, in a moment of lost control, he punched Cotchin in the jaw. He received a week for it.
One was a footy action, the other was a non-footy action, yet both got the same penalty. That’s not right. A shepherd v punch and the AFL calls it even stevens?
3. How Fremantle dismantled the Demons?
There is the tactical and there is the attitude. The Dockers were hungry and, without sounding stupid, they out-Demoned the Demons. When it got too hard, the Demons laid down, which is rare in the past two years. So, what happened?
1) The Dockers outscored Melbourne by 35 points on turnover which was Melbourne’s worst result since Round 13, 2020. In plain speak, the Dockers won the ball off Melbourne and then were able to get through Melbourne’s defence, which was without Steven May. There’s a talking point: Melbourne without May.
2) Melbourne lost clearance (-10) which gave the Dockers field position.
3) They lost contested ball (-12) which, with clearance, meant the Demons were beaten around the contest. Again, very rare.
4) And Melbourne’s pressure was 163, which, against the league average of 180, was pretty meek.
5) Christian Petracca was crook and, in hindsight, should not have played.
So, after halftime, the Demons were beaten between the arcs, they were opened up at the back, and their forwards had low impact. Brown and Weideman combined for one shot at goal. It’s far from the end of the world for Melbourne but, for the other teams, to borrow a line from Leigh Matthews, the Demons do bleed.
4. Where’s Luke Jackson’s footy?
Earlier this year, former Croweater Josh Jenkins said of Jackson, who is out of contract at the end of the season: “To get Luke Jackson, I said you’d need to offer him eight years at $10 million. Now, I need to reassess. I need to up it to $12 million for eight years.’’ That’s a big dollar for a 20-year-old who has taken 34 marks and kicked five goals in 10 games, playing a bit of key forward and ruck in a team which, before the weekend, was unbeaten. They are not massive numbers compared to the hype. He has huge promise, Jackson, but no-one’s selling the farm to get him out of Melbourne. Certainly not $1 million a year at this point in time. Six players earned $1 million or more in 2021 and it’s suspected they include Lance Franklin, Dustin Martin, Jeremy McGovern, Nathan Fyfe and Brodie Grundy. Maybe Jackson's’ in a rut – it can happen – but he hasn’t kicked a goal in five weeks and, against the Dockers on Saturday, didn’t have a hit out to advantage.
5. Please, AFL give us some guidance
The dissent rule is in disarray because some umpires pay it and some don’t. The “arms out is 50m” has plainly been adjusted, not that we’d know, because the AFL hasn’t told anyone. We’re guessing but, when Caleb Graham, the 21-year-old defender from Gold Coast, not once, but twice extended his arms in protest and was not penalised, we can assume that aspect of the dissent rule is officially dead. Seriously, if we’re not paying that one, then it’s done. What about when the Richmond players descended on the umpire – ran at the umpire – on Friday night amid the post-siren calamity? Wasn’t that dissent? By the letter of the law – which we don’t exactly know what that means – wasn’t it a free kick to Sydney for dissent?
6. What do you say about West Coast?
More pressing is what the West Coast is saying about the West Coast. At this stage, Adam Simpson says he’s in for the rebuild and the Eagles say he is the man for the job. The rest of us look on, at first empathetic about the injuries and Covid and now in shock about how pathetic the team’s performance is. West Coast is so bad, it’s like the footy world has Eagles fatigue. Former coach Terry Wallace asked on social media at the weekend: “What is going on with the West Coast Eagles? North Melbourne have been under so much pressure yet the Eagles home ground efforts have been embarrassing. I’ve given away media, but I don’t understand how the media is accepting of the Eagles efforts.”
LIKES
1. What’s he worth?
That’s always the question. But the better question is: What does De Goey do for Collingwood? That’s easy: He’s Mr Impact. On Sunday against the old enemy, he had a game-high 11 score involvements in a low-scoring game. That’s Jordan De Goey in a nutshell. There’s four players in the past two years who have averaged 20-plus disposals and a goal per game. The other three are Dustin Martin, Marcus Bontempelli and Christian Petracca. People shake their heads when it’s said he’s worth $800,000 a year, but he’s worth every cent of that. He’s going nowhere despite being out of contract at the end of the season because, if the Pies allow De Goey to leave after low-balling him, they will spend the next 10 years trying to draft someone exactly like him. Coach Craig Macrae knows that. True, De Goey owes Collingwood, but, at the same time, Collingwood owes De Goey a healthy contract. About $4.5 million over five years is in the ballpark.
2. Kenny on the prowl
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley wasn’t happy at three-quarter time after Essendon dominated every aspect of the game during the third quarter, including the scoreboard. They kicked 4.3 to 1.4 in the wet to make it a game. Hinkley’s senior core responded in the final quarter, keeping the top eight in near distance. Travis Boak and Ollie Wines combined for 23 disposals and nine contested possessions in the final term and they were helped in the midfield by Willem Drew and Karl Amon, restricting the Bombers to six inside 50s. It wasn’t a scoring splurge by any measure. Port had 41 inside 50s and kicked 9.12, which included a goalless final quarter. Port goes to the bye at 5-6 a game outside of the top eight. It’s a fair recovery from 0-5, but suspect they won’t play September. From what we’ve seen — three of their wins came against Essendon, North Melbourne and West Coast — they’re not good enough.
3. Slam Dunkley
This Bulldogs utility – a description used in a bygone era – doesn’t get the accolades he deserves. Put it this way, when Nathan Fyfe returns and delivers Dunkley’s numbers – 26 disposals, 11 contested possessions, seven score involvements and six tackles – the shrilling AFL media would immediately put Fyfe’s head back on the AFL’s equivalent of Mount Rushmore. Only two players in the competition average Dunkley’s numbers. One, of course, is Dunkley. The other is Adelaide’s Rory Laird, another criminally underrated player. Dunkley is a weapon. He plays mid/forward, he can play key forward, he wins the ball in the middle, can do a run-with role and has rucked. Best of all, he’s bloody tough. Little wonder the Bombers wanted him. He’s out of contact at the end of the season and the Bombers, and other clubs will have a dip again. An All Australian fancy, perhaps on the bench, Dunkley, in the past six weeks has recorded 143, 116, 118, 78, 136 and 143 ranking points and kicked 10 goals. That’s a huge change, because he didn’t kick a goal in his first five games.
4. The next captain of Hawthorn
The Hawks are rollercoasting to the extreme, beating Brisbane one week in Tassie and then being demolished by the Suns in the NT the next. Their one constant success is James Sicily. There would be few players who have returned after a season-and-a-half lay-off because of injury and produced the football Sicily has. He is a rare key defender. He can win the ball in the air, can rebound, is unbelievably agile and adept at ground level, and can defend one-on-one. Hawks coach Sam Mitchell was in the green room at Fox Footy a week ago Monday and someone asked the question: Who would you take, Jacob Weitering or Steven May? Mitchell chirped in with something like: “What about Sis?” He’s right. Sicily, Weitering and May are mid-season All-Australian locks. Tom Stewart is in, and it would be a bold call to go past Jack Sinclair and Sam Docherty for the other two spots.
5. Don’t forget Charlie and Sam, Stuart Dew says
Who, you might say? If you follow the entire competition and not just your own team, or even if you catch a quarter or so of the Suns occasionally, you should know about Charlie Ballard. At the end of Round 11, Ballard is the No. 1 intercept mark in the AFL. That means he takes more marks from opposition kicks than any other player. He is another underrated gem. As for Sam Collins, he should send an email to Luke Beveridge, thanking him for sending the analysts to the video footage to find out what or who disrupted Aaron Naughton’s game in Ballarat two weeks ago. What the footage showed was a brilliant defensive effort from Collins and not anything untoward as Beveridge hinted at. In Ballard, 22, and Collins, 27, the Suns have their key defensive pillars sorted for the next five years.
6. Don’t forget Dougal Howard, Ratts says
St Kilda’s Dougal Howard is the No. 1 spoiler ahead of Sam Taylor (Giants), Jacob Weitering (Carlton), Tom McCartin (Sydney) and Ryan Gardner (Bulldogs). Howard is also in the underrated category. He took Nick Larkey at Marvel Stadium on Saturday and kept him to two touches for the game. That’s extraordinary. Larkey has a competitive character, but he was outnumbered a lot of the time and the ball delivery wasn’t great. Howard was a standout and Brad Hill and Jack Sinclair combined for 65 disposals, 1430m gained and 13 inside 50s across halfback. That’s two weeks in row Hill and Sinclair have won too much of the ball and you have to wonder why the Roos didn’t put more time into them. The Roos could say they did put time into them and that would make it worse.
7. The mosquito fleet is alive and well
We rave about the small forwards at Brisbane, Melbourne and now Geelong with Tyson Stengle but some newbies are hitting the scoreboard elsewhere. At the Dockers, it’s Lachie Schultz, Michael Frederick and Michael Walters (and the suspended Sam Switkowski). That group kicked seven of Fremantle’s 14 goals. The Suns are also putting together a small-ball package. They have Joel Jeffrey, Izak Rankine, Malcolm Rosas Jnr and Ben Ainsworth. They combined for seven goals against the Hawks on Saturday night. Of that group, do yourself a favour and watch Jeffrey play. He is a lightning bolt and already one of the most exciting players in the game.
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Originally published as The Tackle: Mark Robinson’s likes and dislikes from Round 11 of the 2022 AFL season
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