AFL Early Tackle: Scott Gullan’s highlights and lowlights from round 20
Geelong’s premiership defence is finished. They look slow, tired and are now banged up, writes SCOTT GULLAN. See all Scott’s likes and dislikes in this week’s Early Tackle.
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Carlton is in the box seat to secure a finals berth, while Geelong’s premiership defence is hanging by a thread.
Round 20 looms as moving round in the race for the top eight, with GWS another team to stake its claim by extending its winning streak in Ballarat.
Scott Gullan names his highlights and lowlights from the round in the Early Tackle.
LIKES
GREENE MACHINE
Toby Greene is the best player in the AFL.
He will never win an award that says that but there is not a player who has influenced the results of games single-handedly more over the past couple of years than the Giants captain.
Whether it is a moment, a 10-minute patch, a quarter or a half, Greene’s ability to carry his side to victory has no peer in the game.
In Ballarat against the Bulldogs, he decided the third quarter was Toby-time. In those 30 minutes he had seven disposals and kicked four goals, dragging his team back from a 29-point deficit.
It was extraordinary to watch. Any time the ball was in his area you couldn’t help but be on the edge of your seat.
Naturally it was Greene who came up with the go-ahead goal in the last quarter thanks to a brilliant Jake Riccardi tap.
His matchwinning five goals from 19 touches takes him to 49 goals for the season which is a career best. And don’t forget he’s only 182cm.
The best player in the league debate ebbs and flows throughout the year. Jeremy Cameron and Clayton Oliver were probably in it at the start of the year but they’re now gone.
Christian Petracca has put himself in the mix alongwith Marcus Bontempelli who has probably been the most consistent of that group.
Obviously Nick Daicos has been the standout all year and will win the Brownlow Medal but does he have more impact on the results of games than Greene?
Hmmmmmm..
COULD KINSGLEY BE COACH OF YEAR?
Adam Kingsley, take a bow.
He’s quickly surging into coach of the year equation after his side’s seventh win of the season against the Western Bulldogs which thrust them into fifth position on the ladder.
But what he has created is this team is a win anywhere mantra which no other team in history has ever done.
The Giants win in Ballarat over the Dogs meant they have now won at nine different venues this year which is an AFL record. They have also won games in six different states.
They are the ultimate road warriors led by a man who has gone from losing his mind in the coaches’ box and strangling the life out of a stress ball on match day to this commanding, calm influencer on the bench.
BONT THE BRIDESMAID
Marcus Bontempelli is going to finish second in the Brownlow Medal.
The Nick Daicos-Bontempelli quinella is the best bet of the year and at quarter-time on Saturday there might have even been a sense that the Dogs captain might even make a run at Daicos’ big lead in the award.
In the opening quarter against the Giants he had 13 possessions and along with half-back flanker Bailey Dale, who had 12 kicks, they were carrying the Dogs to a significant advantage on a windy afternoon in Ballarat.
What Bontempelli does is set the tone for his team and there aren’t many better sights in the game than him in full flight.
To the Giants credit they put more work into him after quarter-time with his former teammate Callan Ward shadowing him.
By the last quarter Bontempelli was exhausted and didn’t have one last heroic act in him.
He finished with 27 possessions and would be in the mix for a minor Brownlow vote with Toby Greene clearly taking the three and you could raffle a few others for the rest.
With the Bulldogs finals spot hanging in the balance, look for Bontempelli to be superhuman in the coming weeks so get on the Brownlow quinella now.
PEARCE SILENCES CRITICS
Alex Pearce has been feeling the heat more than anyone during Fremantle’s slump.
When you’re captain there is naturally more pressure on you but there is an added layer when you’re a key defender.
It is obviously harder to impact games when you’re on the last line and there have been matches this season where Pearce has only touched the ball a handful of times.
Not on Saturday.
Pearce was enormous in the Dockers second win over Geelong at GMHBA Stadium in as many years. He took on Tom Hawkins (two goals) before taking Jeremy Cameron (1.5 goals) late in the game, beating them both in critical moments.
A great one-on-one mark against Cameron in the dying minutes saved the game for his team. He finished with 16 disposals and eight marks in what was a great captain’s game.
DID ONE INJURY COST DEW HIS JOB?
Would Stuart Dew have been sacked if Touk Miller hadn’t injured his knee?
It’s a question worth contemplating for a moment — we’re sure Dew has over a few beers in recent times - given the profound influence Miller has over the Suns.
They have a completely different edge to them when Miller - who missed 10 games with a knee injury - is there, just ask Chris Fagan and the Brisbane Lions.
At the opening bounce of the Q-clash Miller went straight to Brownlow Medallist Lachie Neale and made his intentions known. He then went on to dominate the Lions gun, keeping him to just 17 touches while having 29 disposals himself.
But there was a lot more to Miller’s game than just that particular job, he led the aggression of the Suns who made a statement that they were sick of being pushed around by the LIons.
It was some sort of captain’s game - he won his fourth Marcus Ashcroft Medal - and one which will leave Dew wondering what might have been.
DISLIKES
IS THIS THE END OF BUDDY?
This was always going to be a danger.
Buddy Franklin’s body hanging in there until the very end was a big ask and sadly we’re now faced with the scenario that we may never see one of the game’s greatest forwards again.
This game against Essendon was billed as potentially the last time he’d play in Melbourne given the Swans final four games are in Sydney and Adelaide.
There had been debate throughout the week about Buddy potentially going on after seemingly getting a spring back in his step over the past month of improved form.
But early in the second quarter at Marvel Stadium, that flicker of hope was extinguished when Buddy’s calf pinged.
He had just handballed the ball off and went to sprint to get it back when he suddenly slowed and then calmly exited the ground, straight to the back row with the sub’s vest on.
Now the discussion will shift to a potential farewell game in Round 24 at the SCG against Melbourne.
There could be a curveball there given the Swans might be still in the finals race so then it becomes a bit awkward about whether Buddy should get a game.
In his absence Sydney looked pretty good with Joel Amartey stepping up against the Bombers with four first-half goals.
CATS ARE OFFICIALLY COOKED
It’s now official. Geelong’s premiership defence is cooked.
They look slow, tired and are now banged up.
And they’re doing things which are so un-Geelong like losing to lesser ranked teams at home.
The GWS Giants loss back in Round 11 at GMHBA Stadium was put down as an aberration but to let an undermanned Dockers, who have been out of sorts all year, come into town and win for the second year in a row is embarrassing.
That desire to push to every contest, to battle and scrap for every ball just isn’t at the same level as last year.
They can’t move the ball in waves anymore. Last week against the Lions they were strangled for three quarters while on Saturday they were again stitched up around the contest by the Dockers.
Despite dominating the hit-outs mainly through Rhys Stanley 54-23, the Cats were beaten 37-28 in clearances, 10-8 centre clearances and 27-30 stoppages.
Is that a fair indication of effort? It can be a legitimate gauge.
Leg speed has always been an issue with the Cats and Fremantle won this game through their legs which often means the spotlight goes onto the older Geelong players.
Captain Patrick Dangerfield was certainly well below his best with just 16 disposals while Norm Smith Medallist Issac Smith had 19 possessions and Zach Tuohy 18, both with limited impact.
The zing which Tyson Stengle brought last year isn’t there while Jeremy Cameron (1.5 goals) is a long way off the form he showed in the first half of the season.
And now with Tom Hawkins and Mark Blicavs injured, the task for the reigning premiers to even make the eight is significantly harder with games against the top two teams, Port Adelaide and Collingwood, in the next fortnight.
On the evidence of Saturday afternoon, the white flag might have already gone up for 2023.
CATS LOSE MR IRREPLACEABLE
Patrick Dangerfield, Jeremy Cameron, Tom Stewart, Tom Hawkins. They would be at the top of most people’s selections for the players Geelong could ill afford to lose.
Most likely not Chris Scott’s though.
The man who he relies on more than any is Mark Blicavs which was why the Cats coach understandably looked concerned when the No. 46 slowly limped off with what looked like a serious hamstring injury.
It didn’t have the look of a two-to-three week job, this had six to eight written all over it and given there are six weeks until finals, Blicavs’ health has suddenly become the biggest issue in the Cats premiership defence.
Not far behind it is making sure they make September given what they served up against Fremantle with the seven-point loss seeing them fall to ninth on the ladder.
What Blicavs brings is versatility which Scott loves. He can play full-back, centre half-back, wing, ruck and pinch hit forward if required. Without him the pressure valve on No. 1 ruckman Rhys Stanley goes up a notch and history shows that hasn’t always been a great scenario for the coach.
THE JONES FACTOR
Liam Jones, come on down.
The Western Bulldogs have not been the same since the key defender broke his forearm back in Round 14 against North Melbourne.
He is reportedly close to returning and Luke Beveridge desperately needs him given two of his replacements both ended up injured on the bench in the second half of the loss to the Giants.
Alex Keith and Josh Bruce aren’t in the same league as Jones but they at least offered big bodies which the Dogs don’t have many of.
Ed Richards missing against the Giants because of illness cost Beveridge an option for Toby Greene who single-handedly took the game away from his team.
The Dogs finals chances are hanging by a thread with games against Richmond (MCG next Friday night), Hawthorn (in Tasmania), West Coast (Marvel Stadium) and Geelong (GMHBA Stadium) in the run home.
They need Jones and Richards in their back half next week to get their season pointing back in the right direction before it’s too late.
THE CRAZY $1M BET
Some people clearly have too much money.
Take the TAB customer who two weeks ago decided that Collingwood at $1.40 against Carlton was the bet of the year.
So they clearly cleaned all their coins out from behind the couch, emptied out the sock drawer and managed to pull together a lazy $1 million to put on the Pies.
The punter was staring at a $400,000 profit and would have been excused for cracking the champagne early given the injuries which hit the Blues in the lead-up with prime mover Sam Walsh and the reliable Jack Silvagni out.
Can you imagine what it was like for him watching Friday night’s game?
Even at three-quarter time he would have been thinking no issue as the Pies always come late in the final quarter. Not this time.
The $1 million bet was the biggest ever on an AFL game the TAB has taken. Crazy stuff.
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