Early Tackle: Scott Gullan names his likes and dislikes from round 11 of the AFL season
It’s the return Essendon fans have been waiting for — and Jordan Ridley didn’t disappoint. Read Scott Gullan’s round 11 likes and dislikes in the Early Tackle.
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Sydney and Chad Warner sent a message on Thursday night, there was another draw involving Collingwood and more free kick controversy – it’s been a big round 11 so far.
Scott Gullan names his likes and dislikes in this week’s Early Tackle.
DISLIKES
TOSS-GATE
Forget about whether umpire Matthew Nicholls was right or wrong to award the controversial free-kick against Collingwood youngster Lachie Sullivan for not getting the ball back to him.
He obviously wasn’t inventing the rule even if many players and officials (ie Pies coach Craig McRae) weren’t aware of it, so by the letter of the law he was right to give Docker Sean Darcy a free-kick and resultant goal.
The real question which the game should look at is whether a momentarily brain fade which Sullivan had should be penalised so strongly.
There needs to be a distinction between blatant time wasting and an unfortunate slip of the mind. This relies on umpires to have a better feel for the game.
Nicholls had been frustrated earlier in the night by the Pies tactics of being slow to get up out of packs, lying on the ball and then leaving it on the ground (which is legal) rather than giving it quickly back to the umpire.
Pies veteran Steele Sidebottom was leading the way with that little trick but should that mean Sullivan’s act deserved such a harsh penalty?
Given how quickly Nick Daicos flicked the ball onto Nicholls, the time wasted was a fraction of a second. There was no intent to slow anything down which Nicholls should have understood and let the momentary brain fade pass for the good of the game.
Do you think if he’d let it pass there would have been an avalanche of outrage from Dockers fans? No, they would have most likely not even noticed it.
REMEMBER ME
Who am I?
I’m a former best and fairest winner, I haven’t played 100 games yet, I’m an intercept marking dynamo who for the past three years has been the general of the Essendon defence and I’ve been MIA for the past four months.
Jordan Ridley said hello to the football world again on Dreamtime at the G.
It’s a pretty exciting world for Bombers fans who have been giddy with excitement about their team’s resurgence to second on the ladder and it has all happened without one of their most important pieces.
Ridley returned for his first game of the season against Richmond after being sidelined with successive quad injuries since the pre-season.
It has very much been a case of out of sight out of mind for the 2020 Crichton Medallist but that all changed in a hurry on Saturday night.
At half-time Ridley was one of the best players on the ground with 17 touches and a handful of intercept marks. Fellow half-back Mason Redman was next with 16 possessions.
During the second half the statisticians were on record watch with Ridley up to eight intercept marks. And then in a frantic final minute as the Tigers continued to charge, who was it who repelled it on the last line?
Yep, the No.14. Ridley finished with an equal team-high 31 possessions, 12 marks and a goal — which was only second of his career.
DEJA VU DOCKER
Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir was happy to fire some bullets at his critics this week, claiming they had never coached so their criticism about his team’s game style was uneducated.
What is looking more and more like an uneducated decision by the Dockers is their blind faith that Sean Darcy and Luke Jackson can operate successfully in the same team.
Did anyone at Fremantle notice the Max Gawn-Brodie Grundy experiment at Melbourne and how it went last year?
No matter how many times Longmuir tells himself that Jackson isn’t a ruckman, it’s actually not true.
Jackson certainly isn’t a key forward, he certainly isn’t a wingman, he is an athletic follower who thrives on being the main man in the ruck for large portions of the game.
Darcy is an old-school big bodied scrapping ruckman who, surprise surprise, thrives on playing large portions of the game on the ball. He’s also not a forward despite kicking three goals in the last two weeks.
Jackson hasn’t kicked a goal for a month and has just eight from 11 games this year. His four worst possession games for the season are the four games in which Darcy has also played.
Just 11 touches and 11 hit-outs against Collingwood in the biggest game of the season for the Dockers isn’t value for money given the millions the Dockers paid to lure him back home to the west.
Jackson signed a seven-year deal through to 2029 worth around $900,000 per season. In December, Darcy signed a six-year contract extension through to 2030 which would most likely have been in the $700,000-$800,000 per season territory.
So that means up to $1.6 million of the Dockers salary cap for the next five years is taken up on two ruckmen who on the evidence so far don’t play well together.
Did we mention Gawn and Grundy?
LESSON 1
The Gold Coast Suns midfield pair of Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson have been spruiked as the next generation of superstars.
They’ve provided plenty of evidence to justify that but if they needed any reminding about where they really sit in the picking order, Carlton captain Patrick Cripps and his sidekick Sam Walsh gave them a sizeable reality check.
The young guns were sat by on their heels by an old-fashioned mauling in the guts by the Blues big guns.
This was Brownlow Medal Cripps with 31 possessions, six tackles, 13 clearances and one goal while Walsh was back after a quiet game last week with 32 touches, four tackles and three clearances.
As a result the Blues dominated the midfield with +23 contested possessions, +12 clearances and +6 centre clearances.
Rowell had his worst game of the season with 15 touches and just two clearances although he didn’t stop trying with 15 tackles while Anderson had his second lowest statistical day with 21 possessions and just three clearances.
LESSON 2
Delivering when it matters is what separates superstar forwards from the wanna-bes.
Ben King and Jack Lukosius are nice players with big futures but they have yet to nail down the X-factor of understanding the moments in big games and delivering.
King, who is neck and neck with Carlton gun Charlie Curnow for the Coleman Medal, once again looked like he could kick a bag but an inability to convert hurt him again.
Twice in the third quarter as the Suns surged King missed relatively easy set shots with Lukosius also missing a couple he would normally convert.
For a young team on the road, these are deflating moments.
On the flip side while the Gold Coast pair were fluffing their lines, Curnow decided to impose himself on the contest after having his colours lowered in the first half.
He kicked four goals in the second half, including a couple of clinical long-range set shots when his side needed him to deliver.
BROKEN HOME
Geelong has a serious issue about its once impenetrable home ground of GMHBA Stadium.
For the best part of the past 20 years opposition teams have feared going down the Princes Hwy with the ground’s unusual dimensions playing into the hands of the locals.
A loss by the Cats at Kardinia Park was a rarity but as the GWS Giants have shown, that is no longer the case. Saturday night’s heroics was their fourth consecutive victory at the venue.
It was Geelong’s fourth loss in its past seven games at home and they’re now 2-2 at GMHBA this year.
LIKES
CULTURE KING
Sometimes it’s the small acts which provide the best insight.
When the siren sounded on Friday night to signal a draw, young Docker Jeremy Sharp threw his mouthguard to the ground in disgust.
Thirty seconds earlier he’d had a chance to win the game but his rushed shot for goal went the wrong side of the post with the point levelling the scores.
So Sharp, who’d had a great night on the wing with 26 possessions, was devastated when the game ended in a draw.
Teammate Jordan Clark saw the mouthguard throw and went and got it for him while defender Luke Ryan made a beeline for the former Gold Coast Sun.
Ryan tapped Sharp on the head, stared into his eyes and reassured him that he wasn’t to blame. His message was clear, keep your chin up and we’re here for you.
It was great leadership and says a bit about the culture of the Dockers who are starting to get a lot of things right in their quest to become a topline side.
GOOD QUESTIONS
The topic of media asking questions has been in the spotlight after only one journo – Newswire guru Ed Bourke – turned up to Luke Beveridge’s press conference on Thursday night.
Channel 7 didn’t manage to have anyone at the presser despite it being a key part of their post-match production but boundary rider Abbey Holmes is certainly flying the flag on the questions front for the host broadcaster.
Holmes was outstanding on Friday night, starting with an emotional interview with Dockers captain Alex Pearce who referenced his former teammate Cam McCarthy – who died tragically earlier this month – after he’d kicked a crucial goal with two minutes remaining.
She then got to Collingwood captain Darcy Moore (on the ground) and veteran Scott Pendlebury (in rooms), asking all the right questions to get an excellent insight into the chaos of the final moments of the draw.
SELFIE TIME
Leek Aleer is a part of the new generation who like to do things differently and not even being the hero of a stunning victory can change their ways.
The youth of today move to a different beat as the Giants defender showed as he soaked up the adulation of fans after his match-saving heroics at GMHBA Stadium.
While his teammates were inside the rooms waiting to sing the theme song, Aleer was still in the race happily taking selfies.
Eventually after a couple of minutes a Giants official came and found the defender, urging him to come inside to join his joyous teammates.
This carefree attitude was on display in the final two minutes when the Giants were desperately clinging to a four-point lead. Rather than go for the easy option of a big defensive punch, Aleer jumped high and took a spectacular chest mark which ended Geelong’s hopes of winning.
The 20-year-old had only come into the team because of an injury to Jack Buckley and was playing just his seventh career game.
“It’s one of those moments I will remember forever,” Aleer said. “I just saw it, went after it and I’m glad I took it.”
BIG MAC
Carlton’s Zac Williams summed it up best when commenting on the performance of Gold Coast Suns centre half-back Mac Andrew after the game.
“Mac Andrew in that first half was the best player in the competition,” Williams declared.
The 20-year-old excitement machine was having the time of his life playing on Curnow and giving the Blues superstar a bath with his high-leaping and brilliant marking.
At the main break he had four intercept marks and was single-handedly keeping the Suns in the game.
While Curnow got busy in the second half, Andrew was still a standout in a losing side with 16 disposals and 10 marks.
FREE WILLY
Three weeks ago the sight of Zac Williams getting monstered repeatedly by Jamie Elliott was a lasting impression from the Blues loss to Collingwood.
That night he’d been isolated one-on-one against the Pies key forward, gave away a couple of bad free-kicks and generally had a night to forget.
To Carlton coach Michael Voss’ credit, he has decided to re-invent Williams as a dangerous forward with the former GWS Giant clearly enjoying the freedom against the Suns.
With Jack Martin again missing through injury, the Blues desperately needed someone to stand up as a point of difference in the forward half to support Curnow and Harry McKay.
Williams put his hand up for the role on a potentially more permanent basis by kicking a career-high four goals.
TIMELY CELEBRATION
Hats off to Gold Coast’s Lloyd Johnston who produced the perfect way to celebrate Sir Doug Nicholls Round.
Johnston, who was playing just his fifth game, got Marvel Stadium on its feet after he slotting a set shot from 40m late in the first quarter
The Northern Territory product celebrated his second career goal with a brilliantly executed backflip to ensure he would be on the weekend’s highlights reel.
JHF CUP
There was no shying away from facing his old team by Jason Horne-Francis.
The former No.1 pick by the Kangaroos was one of Port Adelaide’s best in their easy victory in Hobart, collecting a game-high 10 clearances, 24 disposals and 441m gained.
And he had plenty to say to his former teammates after kicking a goal just before half-time with a push and shove between the two sides.
His main critic at Arden St, Cam Zurhaar, wasn’t a part of that and again he was quiet for the Roos, kicking just one goal from 15 touches.
The Roos have more to worry about than getting into ex-teammates given the 59-point loss meant the Roos have not only lost all of their 11 games but conceded 100 points or more in every game.
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