AFL Early Tackle: Scott Gullan’s likes and dislikes from round 15
Every footy fan knows the famous Archer name, but on Saturday night Jackson did an incredible imitation of his father Glenn on his way to a career-best game. See more likes and dislikes here.
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Carlton has confirmed itself as one of Sydney’s greatest premiership threats, but the fortunes of finals contenders Port Adelaide and Geelong nosedived in round 15.
The Cats have put their top-eight aspirations in danger after a 10-goal loss to Carlton left them 8-6 only months after being 7-0.
It’s the last of the bye rounds for 2024 and an important round for a host of finals contenders.
Scott Gullan names his likes and dislikes in this week’s Early Tackle.
DISLIKES
DEE-STRUGGLE
The lack of a pre-season for Clayton Oliver is coming back to haunt him on a weekly basis now.
After losing his way last year, he earned a lot of credits back by getting himself sorted in time for the start of the season.
But what that camouflaged was a total lack of a proper pre-season which has found Oliver out as the grind of the season kicks in.
WIth Christian Petracca gone for the season, the pressure is squarely on his partner in crime to stand up but instead he’s floundering.
Clubs are sitting on Oliver and comfortably nullifying him and then even generating their own offence off him given his lack of defensive efforts.
Will Phillips is joining the growing list of players who are saving their careers almost by becoming taggers and he made Oliver’s night a misery from the start.
At half-time the three-time All-Australian had just five touches compared to Powell’s eight. He finished with 14 which is just the second time in the last eight years he’s been kept to so few possessions.
While Melbourne managed to find a way to just hang on to beat the bottom side, it wasn’t pretty and they came away with more negatives than positives with the form and fitness of Clayton Oliver at the top of the list.
WHERE’S KOCHY?
One of the more intriguing things in Adelaide this week will be whether Port Adelaide president David Koch can bite his tongue.
The sack Ken Hinkley brigade will be in fine voice after one of the worst losses of his coaching career against the Lions.
Port’s season is on a knife edge right now and the last thing Hinkley will need is his president to engage in any discussions about his future.
Koch gave the coach a two-year extension last year so he has to be a man of his word and let the football department dig their way out of what is quickly becoming a deep hole.
Hinkley doesn’t have to look too far to find out what went wrong against the Lions. It started in the middle of the ground and his stats sheet will tell him that Willem Drew only touched the ball 16 times, Ollie Wines 17 and Jason Horne-Francis 21.
Zak Butters had a tough afternoon, fighting with half of the Lions team but still managed 35 possessions while captain Connor Rozee had 28 disposals although they both went missing in patches while Brisbane put the game to bed in the second quarter.
Wines is the most intriguing case. The 2021 Brownlow Medallist is nowhere near that player now and maybe Port might look to trade him out for the right price at the end of the year.
BT VIEW
Brian Taylor is big enough and bad enough to fight his own battles.
And we’re not saying he doesn’t have his faults in the commentary box but the latest on-line blow-up over his commentary around the Patrick Dangerfield-Sam Walsh tackle is ridiculous.
Taylor’s opinion was that Dangerfield tried to hold Walsh up with the Carlton midfielder contributing to the fact his head hit the ground.
He agreed it was a dangerous tackle but rightly pointed out that there may have been other circumstances involved. Hawthorn great Luke Hodge, who was sitting next to him in the commentary box, agreed.
But social media went berserk, turning on Channel Seven’s main man with the creation of a petition to have him removed.
There wasn’t bias in his remarks, he wasn’t pushing an agenda, just explaining the way he saw a controversial incident. There are many things to hang BT for, this wasn’t one of them.
IT’S TIME TO CALL IT
Sadly the sight of Tom Hawkins limping off the ground and then kicking his mouthguard away is set to be the image associated with the end of this great Geelong era.
Finally, it seems this amazing team has hit a fork in the road which even the genius of Chris Scott won’t be able to navigate.
The reason is he’s losing his pillars.
This isn’t the first time the last rites have been given to the Cats over the past decade. There were plenty who thought it was over in 2015 when they slipped to 10th and there was a whiff about them in 2018 and again in 2021 when they were blown off the park by Melbourne in the preliminary final.
But they adjusted and won a brilliant premiership in 2022.
During those times when the critics were looming, Scott always had Tom Hawkins (and later Jeremy Cameron) in the forward line, Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield in the middle and a well-organised defence run by All-Australian Tom Stewart.
Right now Hawkins’ future is in grave doubt, Cameron is spluttering, Selwood is gone, Dangerfield is 34 and injury-prone and Stewart is struggling for the first time in his career with taggers.
The pillars have been replaced by gaping holes which seemingly by the week are getting larger.
Most likely by the end of the round Geelong will be out of the eight. They’ve won just one game from their past seven matches with the past two losses against the two premierships favourites exposing just how far the Cats have fallen off the pace.
Scott was in a feisty mood after Friday night’s 63-point flogging by Carlton, saying there was no rebuild happening and almost blaming the draw for the Cats woes because they’d run into a block of top teams.
He called the season a marathon and that every side will have their ebbs and flows. The problem for him is the Cats have had their good run, winning the opening seven games, and now that everyone is up and running they’ve crashed back to earth with one almighty thud.
And what’s on the horizon – Essendon, Hawthorn, Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs – doesn’t help the confidence. They could easily drop all of them.
Scott did concede his side had some “serious issues” and this is what he should have written on his office white board:
– No ruckman
The party trick of Sam De Koning (who did need a spark as he was badly out-of-form) going up against his brother horribly backfired. Rhys Stanley’s papers have been stamped, Toby Conway is a kid with promise but needs time. Surely the Cats find a couple of first-round picks and dangle them in front of Fremantle for Sean Darcy in October.
– No clearances
When the Cats defence was a well-oiled machine, losing the clearances wasn’t such a big deal. It is now. They get smashed every week and Carlton had a field day against them (50-39). Jhye Clark (he isn’t the next Joel Selwood), Tom Atkins and Jack Bowes are honest battlers, Max Holmes is a star who has had to go in there but with Tanner Bruhn and Cam Guthrie injured plus Dangerfield’s issues, it has a B-grade look about it.
– No defensive bounce
The competition waking up to the idea of tagging Stewart has rattled the Cats. Jack Henry is a shadow of the player from a couple of years ago, as is De Koning, Jake Kolodjashnij is serviceable while Mitch Duncan is struggling with Father Time and Zach Guthrie isn’t at the level of last year. They’ve given up 37 goals over the past two matches.
– Foggy forward line
Jeremy Cameron hasn’t been the same player since his concussion issue in Round 9. The same thing happened last year when Gary Rohan cleaned him up by mistake midway through the year. He had kicked just four goals from his past three games leading into Friday night where he led the Cats with three goals. Ollie Henry hasn’t kicked a goal in his past three games while the combination of Gryan Miers, Brad Close and Tyson Stengle has lost some of its spark.
– Pillars
Disappearing.
LIKES
FAMILY TIES
Mark this game down as the night the son of a legend became his own man.
Jackson Archer did an incredible imitation of his father, Roos great Glenn, in what was clearly his best game as a Kangaroo.
Playing just his 14th game, the 21-year-old completely blanketed Melbourne’s No.1 goalkicker Bailey Fritsch, reducing him to a bystander.
Fritsch didn’t impact the scoreboard and had just six disposals while Archer had eight but his impact was a lot more than his touches.
The family’s trademark courage and desperation was there in bucket loads and in many ways the youngster represents the new hard edge the Kangaroos are starting to show.
Archer, George Wardlaw, Harry Sheezel, Luke Davies-Unacke, Tristan Xerri, Curtis Taylor and Charlie Comben are just some of the young names who don’t take a backward step.
The melee at half-time and continued niggle throughout showed Alistair Clarkson’s team were no longer going to be pushed around which in itself is a significant breakthrough.
CREAM RISING
Less than 24 hours after Carlton made a statement about its premiership credentials, their biggest threat decided to do the same.
Sydney clearly saw what the Blues had done to Geelong and reacted accordingly, notching up their 10th straight win by dominated cross-town rival the GWS Giants.
The pair have now clearly put a buffer on the rest of the competition.
A couple of months ago Geelong and the Giants were flying and considered serious premiership contenders but with the business end of the season looming, the gap is opening up and those two have fallen away.
Port Adelaide’s hopes have also taken a hit which really only leaves reigning premier Collingwood as the most likely challenger to the top two.
Essendon is floating around there but would need to go up a couple of levels to move into the contender categories while the wildcards might be a resurgent Brisbane and a healthy Western Bulldogs.
The Swans continue to answer every challenge. Taking on the Giants in wet conditions on their home deck comes with an element of danger which seemed the case in the opening quarter.
Then Sydney hit the go button and kicked 10 goals in a row. The final margin of 27 points didn’t do justice to their domination.
There are so many different ways the Swans can get you. Last week Joel Amartey was the man, kicking nine goals against Adelaide. This week he only had one possession in the first half and ended with one behind for the afternoon.
Instead Sydney went into share mode with four players kicking two goals each.
And if opposition clubs were trying to figure out which of the midfield Fab Three to shut down, it’s back to the drawing board again.
The Giants sent Toby Bedford (18 possessions) to Chad Warner (20 touches and one goal) with some success which meant Errol Gulden got a free run which he turned into a best-on-ground 41 disposals and one goal.
LOOK OUT
Hats off to Chris Fagan.
Brisbane aren’t just going to play finals this year, they’re going to hit September with an almighty wave of momentum.
This might be a big call given we’re still in June but the way they torched Port Adelaide confirmed to the rest of the competition that last year’s grand finalists are officially B.I.T (Back In Town).
It’s a long way from Anzac Day when the Lions looked gone for all money when the GWS Giants, who were the flavour of the month at the time, tore them apart by nine goals.
The spotlight was then turned on Fagan with question marks about whether his message was getting stale and maybe he was too old now for the gig.
Fagan’s 63rd birthday is on Sunday but had a spring in his step of a 33-year-old when he left Adelaide Oval about the confidence and system his charges are currently playing with.
After 15 rounds Brisbane has seven wins and one draw to be just outside the eight. In the next three weeks they play Melbourne and Adelaide at the Gabba and then West Coast at Optus Stadium.
The key game for them will be Round 19 against Sydney at the Gabba which even though the Swans are flying, the Lions will most likely start favourites in that.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Lions don’t lose a game for the rest of the year with Collingwood at the MCG in Round 23 the biggest test.
At worst they probably drop two games which will still get them into the eight and on current evidence, they will be the team no-one wants to face in September.
NEW BLOOD
The issue with the Lions being perennial bridesmaids in recent years was nothing really changed.
Each year it was the same players offering up pretty much the same stuff in September which ultimately wasn’t enough.
Circumstances forced their hand early in the season and opportunities were given to fresh faces like Kai Lohmann, Logan Morris and Bruce Reville.
Lohmann has shown he has tricks at half-forward kicking 17 goals from 14 games including a weekly attempt for mark-of-the-year.
Morris famously made his debut as a late inclusion after eating McDonalds but has quickly found a niche as the Lions third mobile tall alongside Joe Daniher and Eric Hipwood, kicking 13 goals in seven games.
As for the man called Bruce, he’s shown there is more to him than his outstanding name, playing consistent football on the wing - he kicked two goals from 17 touches against Port - since he came into the side back in Round 8.
LOCK IT IN
The All-Australian selectors can throw up the odd anomaly.
Remember when Matthew Pavlich was named at fullback and then the next year on a half-forward flank. And there have been many others.
The most stunning issue with the Team Of The Year in recent times has been the absence of Carlton defender Jacob Weitering.
Last year he won the Blues best and fairest in what was a preliminary final season for the club yet once again there was no All-Australian jumper.
Four times in a row Weitering has been nominated but has had to play second fiddle to the likes of Callum Wilkie, Darcy Moore, James Sicily, Steven May, Sam Taylor, Jake Lever, Alir Alir and Harris Andrews.
That’s not right and watching Weitering again take Tom Hawkins apart and control the Blues defence further adds to the confusion of why he is yet to be deemed worthy for one of the highest honours in the game.
And he’s a sneaky one to at least make the initial extended squad, another Carlton defender in Mitch McGovern.
Talk to rival clubs about how they prepare to play the Blues and they will all tell you that McGovern causes them a lot of concern.
His intercept marking, good kicking and ability to play on bigs and smalls makes him an important package in Michael Voss’ set-up.
Originally published as AFL Early Tackle: Scott Gullan’s likes and dislikes from round 15
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