The Tackle: Jay Clark’s likes and dislikes from round 2 of the AFL season
North Melbourne fans have been waiting and waiting for a new era to arrive. On Sunday, six years of patience finally paid off as the Roos put Melbourne to the sword.
AFL
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Round 2 of the AFL season is in the books, and Essendon’s Saturday afternoon disaster at the MCG looks set to steal the headlines of the footy world coming out of this weekend.
Jay Clark gives his likes and dislikes from the latest round of footy.
DISLIKES
1. THE DARK CLOUDS OVER ESSENDON
Zach Merrett would be a worried man.
When Essendon great Dyson Heppell retired at the end of last season he made an emotional farewell from football without a single finals win.
And 231 games into Merrett’s own career – as harsh as it sounds – the superstar must fear whether he will also face the same fate.
Merrett, 29, was outstanding on Saturday in a loss which would shake the Bombers’ faithful to the core over their horrendous defensive lapses which have haunted the club since Mark Thompson bemoaned them in press conferences back in 2014.
But on Sunday morning after a coffee and crumpet, Merrett would have had his head in his hands, again, because his side is the biggest one-man band in football.
Or so it looked on Saturday when he had 36 touches and four goals in a team which conceded 161 points to Adelaide.
The awful reality for coach Brad Scott is that Swiss cheese has less holes than the red and black defensive operation and it has been the same story for a decade.
And high-priced recruit Ben McKay has either lost all confidence, is the wrong fit for the system, or he has been woefully let down by the lack of pressure up the field.
Probably, it is a combination of all three.
The Bombers have only five days to pick things up against Port Adelaide and Fox Footy analyst David King put Dylan Shiel’s fumbling and lack of accountability on notice on Saturday night after one of the worst Essendon pressure performances in recent memory.
The Champion Data pressure rating of 159 is equivalent to the level of combativeness you face in an empty library with the quiet classical music.
It’s as soft as melted butter.
Scott looked flabbergasted by some of the efforts in the box.
The Bombers will say they saw the asteroid hurtling towards it three years ago when the club reset the list.
The Bombers parted with first and second-round picks to land Jake Stringer, Devon Smith, Adam Saad and Dylan Shiel in 2017-18 and only Shiel remains.
But will he even play Port in five days’ time? Lewis Hayes, 20, is waiting in the wings after 16 marks and 27 touches as a general in defence in the VFL.
The club has already said its list has major fault lines.
Chief executive Craig Vozzo said at the annual general meeting over summer “without being critical at all of the (2017-2020 list) strategy, it hasn’t got to where we wanted to be as a football club”.
“And the double whammy of player loss (Joe Daniher, Conor McKenna, Saad and Orazio Fantasia) further creates a real perfect storm.”
And the dark clouds descended on the MCG on Saturday.
But it’s the list that is the issue, not the program, say the Bombers’ top brass.
That is why the club has cut half the list in the past couple of years and extended Brad Scott’s contract to 2027 to help buy some time and stability, knowing the road in 2025 will be bumpy.
They got younger over the off-season, deliberately. Jake Stringer wasn’t playing in Essendon’s next premiership. Either is Jayden Laverde or Shiel.
And how many of the youngsters who have played less than 50 games will become A-Graders other than Isaac Kako and Nate Caddy? That is what will trouble re-signed Scott.
Sam Durham (72 games) and Nic Martin (69) are big ticks, but there are plenty of question marks.
Nik Cox might not make it, Zach Reid has managed only 10 games because of injury and is still miles away and Archie Perkins has been shifted to a forward flank.
So what must Merrett think? He will turn 30 this year, and on Saturday’s evidence the Bombers will be nowhere near winning a final this season.
Not if defence wins flags, as they say.
So this week will be another week where Essendon will have to respond to the blowtorch its deplorable performance deserved.
Scott will have to plug the defensive holes, and Merrett will confront the reality his brilliant individual career is slipping by without the team success he and Heppell desperately craved.
And Heppell didn’t even get a proper farewell game in Melbourne for his efforts, something his teammates were unhappy about late last year.
Merrett has said in recent years he wanted to be one of the best defensive midfielders in the game.
But at Essendon, he will wonder whether he is on his own.
2. THE DEMONS
The stress test has arrived early for Melbourne.
The club which has spent all summer feeling all warm and fuzzy about each other has hit an early pothole after a punishing loss to North Melbourne left the Demons red-faced.
And now any remaining cracks in the relationships they have been trying to heal all summer will be exposed.
Any weaknesses in players’ commitment levels, such as Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver, will be found out as the Demons prepare to face-off against a hungry Gold Coast outfit looking to make the same sort of statement as North Melbourne.
Rivals, who smell blood against the Dees, are trying to slingshot past Melbourne, and Simon Goodwin’s faith in the new way and new game plan will be thoroughly examined.
Last year Goodwin said after two bad losses he blinked and was wrong to change things back to the old way which was more reliable and safe.
But in 2025 Goodwin has promised to stick with the new system, even though they got hammered by a club which has won only 13 games in the last four-and-a-bit years.
Melbourne miss Steven May and Jake Lever was on one leg, but a continued poor start to this season could pull the curtain on this era at Melbourne which includes the 2021 premiership.
3. GO-HOME HARLEY?
West Coast will be in a tight spot with Harley Reid.
On one hand the club is desperate to shield him from public attention and cuddle him into re-signing.
But what happens when the number one pick needs some tough love on the ill-discipline and distraction which has crept into his game?
The time for the talk is now after giving away seven free kicks and flipping the bird to a bloke in the stands who called him a big sook and handed him some tissues.
Reid will cop a suspended fine like others have in the past for the obscene gesture.
But the story is really his focus which wavers, and it is a conversation which has to be had with first-year coach Andrew McQualter, who says he is a relationship guy.
So the big question is whether he is happy in the west amid a change of coach and regular beltings in his first season.
Clubs seem convinced he is headed home to Victoria after a turbulent start to the year, and no one would want all the constant front page attention he receives in Perth.
Now he has resorted to flipping his middle finger.
Perhaps we are beginning to see the toll it has all taken.
4. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
Massimo D’Ambrosio is one of the biggest mysteries in the game.
Not his talent, or ability to play at the top level. That part is clear.
But rather how on earth did Essendon let him go?
The Hawthorn jet on Thursday night produced the best kick of the season so far with a precise bullet from the back flank off two steps.
Will Day swallowed it whole and took off like the Samurai Hawks do.
D’Ambrosio is elite by foot and is a key cog in a team which looks like it could go all the way.
Yet D’Ambrosio could only manage eight games in each of the 2022-23 seasons at Essendon, before playing 24 at Hawthorn last year. That’s the mystery bit.
Essendon wanted to bolster its development program as part of its 2022 review but here is a player whose career has taken off elsewhere.
And considering the Bombers nabbed for virtually nothing in the mid-season draft, which was a great call at pick three, it surely would not have cost the club much to keep him at Tullamarine.
He either didn’t love the environment, or saw a brighter future at Waverley.
And in return? Peanuts. The club received pick 61 and a future fourth-rounder for him.
5. TIME FOR ANOTHER AFL MEMO
The league has led a crackdown on dangerous tackling with results they would be happy with.
It appears there has been less slinging and slamming in tackles in a short period so far this season.
Which is why the league needs to hit the button on another email putting players on notice about dangerous tunnelling tactics.
Mason Redman took out Riley Thilthorpe’s legs, flipping him like a pancake on Saturday, and Bulldog Bailey Williams barrelled underneath champion Magpie Scott Pendlebury on Friday night.
Are they deliberate acts? Time for a temperature check.
LIKES
1. NORTH MELBOURNE
Tristan Xerri ripped the baton out of Max Gawn’s hands on Sunday.
After six of the worst years in the club’s history and several false dawns, North Melbourne emerged from the darkness to show it had finally arrived under coach Alastair Clarkson, thumping Melbourne at Marvel Stadium.
It was a watershed win, and the kind of performance that would make free agent Luke Davies-Uniacke feel good about re-signing at the club after leading a demolition job in the middle, winning the clearances 42-30.
Melbourne was once considered the most potent and powerful engine room in the game.
But on Sunday, there was an unmissable changing of the guard.
The Kangaroos were the ones ripping the footy out of tight spaces and burning away from their men in red and blue, and that is without George Wardlaw who remains sidelined with a serious hamstring injury.
We’ve lauded Petracca’s power, but Davies-Uniacke was the unstoppable one under the roof, zigzagging through congestion.
He is one of the most watchable players in the competition.
Charlie Comben played the best quarter of his life halting Melbourne in the aerial battle in the third term, Finn O’Sullivan showed why North Melbourne took him ahead of Carlton’s Jagga Smith, and Xerri lit the fire with his brute force, aggression and team ethic up against the best big man in the game.
But maybe that is what we call Xerri now – the AFL’s new number one big man – after dominating Gawn in the ruck.
Luke Parker showed all the smarts, leadership, toughness and discipline North wanted him for, Jack Darling looked like a system forward who can create space for Nick Larkey and Caleb Daniel racked up 778 metres gained.
They have targeted Collingwood Brayden Maynard with an enormous offer to come to Arden St, and perhaps it is not only the money turning his head after this victory.
It has been a long wait, but this was the win which signalled the new era has finally begun at North Melbourne.
2. REBUILD ON THE RUN
It was Jonathan Brown-level courage for a second-gamer.
After the Nasiah Wanganeen goal-saving toe-poke on Saturday night, St Kilda’s young Irishman Liam O’Connell pulled out a mark that saved the game for the Saints.
With four minutes remaining, Tyson Stengle snapped a high ball which dropped at the top of the Cats’ goal square.
And in between Tom Atkins and Jhye Clark, O’Connell took the kind of gutsy grab at a clutch moment which will endear him to Ross Lyon forever.
It had to be the best tactical win under Ross Lyon as coach, knocking off the premiership heavyweight after a 10-goal thumping in round one with a list which continues to get talked down.
If the Saints are going to jag free agents like Carlton’s Tom De Koning with the blockbuster $17 million offer, the Saints have to win games in the first half of the season.
GWS Leek Aleer is also a good chance to become a Saint.
But these targets have to see a successful future, not just the bank balance.
Jack Macrae is back to being a ball magnet in an important onball role, Isaac Keeler showed glimpses of his brilliant athleticism, Marcus Windhager had one of his best games beating Max Holmes, Anthony Caminiti had 13 marks in the back half, and Jack Higgins starred with four goals.
And Max King is about two weeks away.
Stewart’s injury changed the game but the Saints keep finding a way to win games on the run as they rebuild.
3. CONNOR O’SULLIVAN
Geelong is about to get a good look at Connor O’Sullivan, who was part of the most fascinating move of the 2023 draft.
Tom Stewart’s absence is a huge blow to the Cats after hurting his PCL, smashing his right knee into the turf on Saturday night.
O’Sullivan is the second-year defender who, at 198cm, took some nice marks dropping back in the loss to the Saints in only his third game.
Geelong see him as a Stewart type, and certainly someone who will be able to intercept and rebound over time in a similar manner to the injured superstar.
But his career progression alongside Essendon’s Nate Caddy will be interesting to track.
Originally, Geelong had pick 10 and Essendon pick 11 in the 2023 draft.
But at the last minute the Bombers called the Cats with a proposal to swap places, and give Geelong pick 31 (Shaun Mannagh) as a sweetener to do the deal.
Essendon needed Nate Caddy to become the club’s next spearhead, and Geelong was content to take O’Sullivan as it wanted to bolster the backline.
So the two clubs did the deal to swap first-round picks which saw Essendon claim Caddy for the goal kicker the Bombers required and the Cats take O’Sullivan one pick later.
We will just have to wait until Round 14 to see the direct match-up.
More Coverage
Originally published as The Tackle: Jay Clark’s likes and dislikes from round 2 of the AFL season
Exclusive DPP stats: Big moves which will shake up SuperCoach
Chad Warner and Zach Merrett as forwards in SuperCoach? It might happen in three weeks. See where more than 30 key SuperCoach names sit after round 2 on our DPP watchlist.
‘Got them rattled’: NRL’s vicious AFL swipe
Rugby league boss Peter V’landys has hit back at AFL CEO Andrew Dillon, sensationally accusing the rival code of copying them.