Early Tackle: Scott Gullan’s early likes and dislikes from round 21
Does the AFL have a new Corey Enright? Kyle Langford delivered for the Bombers when they needed him against West Coast, and it wasn’t the first time for the quiet achiever.
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Round 21 might turn out to be the most crucial weekend in the race for a finals spot.
Western Bulldogs took a big step toward September by dismantling Richmond, while Essendon is alive after holding off a West Coast boilover thanks to Kyle Langford.
Adelaide also kept pressure on the top eight with its victory over Gold Coast, all but ending the Suns’ hopes of a maiden finals berth.
And it won’t get much bigger than Hawthorn stunning Collingwood, not that the result had much impact on the finals race.
See Scott Gullan’s full likes and dislikes.
LIKES
THE MAN WHO SAVED BROWNLOW NIGHT
The AFL and Channel 7 might have to send Finn Maginness a thankyou pack because the Hawthorn tagger may have helped save this year’s Brownlow Medal.
Maginness’ job on hot favourite Nick Daicos has potentially at least kept interest in the result which most had thought was a foregone conclusion given the extraordinary season by the second-year Magpie.
Daicos will be a deserved winner and most likely has an unassailable lead but another non-voting performance gives the chasing pack – and TV executives who would prefer some tension on the night – a glimmer of hope.
It was good timing by Maginness given it came less than 24 hours after Daicos’ main challenger, Western Bulldogs skipper Marcus Bontempelli, collected another three votes against Richmond.
Bontempelli has closed the gap in recent weeks and in the Herald Sun Footballer of the Year he has got within one vote of Daicos and Melbourne star Christian Petracca who lead on 26.
Petracca’s move forward has most likely cost him a chance of charging at Daicos in the Brownlow even though he’s still been a key contributor for the Demons.
To Maginness’ credit he has turned himself into the new Cameron Ling and was brilliant at limiting Daicos to just three possessions at half-time.
His teammate Taylor Adams was asked about the Daicos situation as he walked off at the main break: “He’s going to have another 12 or 15 years of this so he has to get used to it.”
Pies coach Craig McRae reacted at half-time and sent his young star to the goalsquare for immediate results.
He led out and marked before being crunched. Then instead of taking the shot from 40m he attempted to pass it off to his brother Josh although that backfired.
A couple of minutes later after a Dan McStay goal, a squirmish broke out as the Collingwood players went at Maginness with the end result a free-kick to Daicos for high-contact in the melee.
He converted the simple goal from 10m out and then saluted the Magpie army with gusto.
Unfortunately early in the last quarter Daicos’ night got worse with a sore knee putting him out of the game.
IS IT FRIDAY NIGHT YET?
The AFL draw has come up trumps next week.
Reigning premier Geelong against flag favourite Collingwood on Friday night at the MCG has so many potential storylines.
The narrative for the match-up has changed several times over recent weeks with the results on Saturday adding more intrigue.
What is guaranteed is that we’ll find out exactly where both teams are regarding the bigger picture.
Geelong kept its finals aspirations alive with a gutsy but terribly hard-fought win over an undermanned Port Adelaide which clouds the result.
The positive was the defending champs kicked four of the last five goals of the night to get the victory with skipper Patrick Dangerfield enormous in the final quarter.
All of the Cats’ experienced brigade had big moments with Tom Stewart making some crucial defensive acts, Mitch Duncan a big goal from 50m and Jeremy Cameron standing up when it mattered.
Collingwood’s shock loss to Hawthorn suddenly has them under the microscope so who better to validate their premiership credentials against but the team who currently holds the cup.
Dangerfield is well aware of how big the stakes are next week: “It’s been a tantalising season. Collingwood has been the benchmark, let’s pack it out in front of 90,000 I reckon.”
THE BOMBER FOR THE MOMENT
Sometimes it all just comes down to moments.
Darcy Parish had 33 possessions against the West Coast Eagles, which is no big deal for a ball magnet like him against the worst team in the competition.
But to the Eagles’ credit, they didn’t play like the 18th-ranked team on Saturday and with less than 90 seconds remaining they were on the verge of one of the biggest upsets of the season.
Essendon was suddenly staring at the end of their season after allowing the Eagles to kick the last four goals of the final quarter to take a five-point lead.
It all came down to the next clearance. There were bodies everywhere with Tim Kelly, who had been the Eagles best, set to get his hands on the ball again.
But Parish saw what was about to happen and instead pushed Kelly in the side, forcing him back into the contest and past the ball.
A quick handball from Parish to Jayden Laverde got the important clearance with the Bombers defender kicking it long to centre half-forward where Jye Menzie roved the pack, then handballed over the top to Kyle Langford in the goalsquare for the game-winner.
That quick-thinking and smarts by Parish saved Essendon and that’s why he needs to be signing a contract to stay in the red and black sooner rather than later.
LANGFORD NOW AFL’S UNSUNG HERO
Maybe we have a new Corey Enright.
We’re not talking about finding another exceptional half-back flanker who will go on to be a Hall of Famer, but instead a contender for the title as the most underrated player in football.
Essendon’s Kyle Langford could be the man.
His season has been off the charts but in many ways he’s still not seen as the Bombers main forward, in fact he probably comes in at No.3 behind Peter Wright and Jake Stringer, when fit.
Without Langford Essendon loses to the bottom team.
He kicked 5.3 against the Eagles including the matchwinner in the final minute to take his season tally to 45 goals.
This is from a player who cut his teeth for most of his first 100 games as a defender with new coach Brad Scott even starting the year pencilling him in as a key member of the back six.
The beauty of Langford is he’s an excellent set-shot kick for goal and at 191cm has the mobility to play big and small.
His combination with Wright gives the Bombers a threatening two-pronged set-up which all of the best teams have and one which you can build a forward structure around.
JAMARRA DOUBTERS SILENCED
Midway through Jamarra Ugle-Hagan’s first season there were calls for the Bulldogs to trade the No. 1 draft pick.
Rumours of discontent were circling while rivals were starting to circle for the player who had been labelled the “next Buddy Franklin”.
There was even a suggestion the Dogs should off-load Ugle-Hagan in a swap with Hawthorn for young defender Denver Grainger-Barras, who was the No. 6 pick in the same draft, because they needed tall backs.
But Luke Beveridge didn’t flinch. He knew Ugle-Hagan wasn’t ready for AFL level yet and despite all the noise he stuck to his guns.
Maybe it was the memory of what happened to another No. 1 pick Jack Watts when he was unleashed before he was ready and some believe he never fully recovered.
The Bulldogs coach gave Ugle-Hagan his first game in Round 17 of the 2021 season and he went on to play out the season.
Last year there was still some tough love from the coach and the critics were still murmuring about Ugle-Hagan’s No.1 draft status after 18 goals from 17 games.
There’s only crickets now.
The patience shown by Beveridge has paid off in spades with Ugle-Hagan showing why there were Buddy comparisons. While it is ridiculous to say he will get anywhere near the recently retired champion, the kid is going to be a special player.
After his equal career-high bag of five goals against Richmond – he kicked four goals in the opening quarter – Ugle-Hagan’s tally for the season is now 31 goals 33 behinds.
There is a big bag coming real soon and given the temperament he’s shown, don’t be surprised if he does it on the September stage, just like another lanky left-footer did for Hawthorn 16 years ago.
DOGGED DEFENSIVE SWITCH
It’s the no plodders rule which the Western Bulldogs may have stumbled across by mistake.
Circumstances saw the Dogs go in with an undersized defence against Richmond and the results were stunning.
The rebound and leg speed of the backline had a lot to do with the nine-goal opening quarter blitz which had a lot of Collingwood about it.
Craig McRae’s team are the benchmark and they adhere to the no plodders rule with a flexible and nimble back six.
Darcy Moore takes the best forward while Nathan Murphy and Jeremey Howe, who are both medium-sized, take any other talls the opposition throws at them, usually giving away plenty of centimetres.
Then they have Isaac Quaynor, Brayden Maynard and John Noble to handle the rest and provide the all important dash.
The Bulldogs lost lumbering trio Alex Keath, Ryan Gardner and Josh Bruce through injury from the loss to the GWS Giants so Beveridge had to get funky with his magnets.
Liam Jones coming back was clearly the saviour of the situation but the Dogs coach then went with young rookie James O’Donnell as the second tall defender.
The rest were all mediums led by Ed Richards, Taylor Duryea, Bailey Dale and Laitham Vandermeer who all have pace and great skill with ball in hand.
Will the coach hold his nerve with it for the run to the finals?
He has a soft spot for Gardner who is a good defender but has no offensive bone in his body so depending on match-ups he may get another gig but Friday night showed he can no longer play Keath and Gardner in the same side.
DISLIKES
HOW WILL TIGERS FAREWELL TWO GREATS?
Saying goodbye is never easy and with three rounds to go there will be a number of veterans casting their eye on the fixture.
What Richmond does with two legends of the club in Trent Cotchin and Jack Riewoldt over the next month will be interesting.
Now that the Tigers’ finals chances are gone after Friday night’s flogging by the Western Bulldogs, how they exit these champions will come into focus.
Of the pair Cotchin would seem to be the most advanced in his mind that his time is up. Riewoldt seems still undecided and dreaming about a time with Tom Lynch returns and he doesn’t have to play on the opposition’s best key defender each week.
Next week the Tigers play St Kilda at Marvel Stadium, so you can rule that out, but round 23 is on a Saturday afternoon against North Melbourne at the MCG.
Given Richmond plays Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval in the final round, you’d think it would be all chips in for an MCG celebration against the Roos.
That fixture is going to make for some interesting conversations at Punt Rd over the next few days.
THE POWER FINALLY GOES OFF
It was such a shame that Port Adelaide ran out of soldiers to help Zak Butters and Connor Rozee.
The two young guns gave Geelong a merry dance for much of the night, collecting possessions at will and bursting away from stoppages with ease.
In many ways the pair illustrated what the Cats don’t have but they simply ran out of a supporting cast to pull off what would have been an incredible win.
The odds were heavily against Port even before the bounce with illness spreading through the ranks meaning they went in with six changes.
Two of those were the infamous concussion victims, Alir Alir and Lachie Jones, while key forward Charlie Dixon hurt his foot at training and Kane Farrell was crook.
Then just before the game Jeremy Finlayson and Miles Bergman were also ruled out with illness.
But wait, there’s more.
Ten minutes into the game defender Trent McKenzie went down with a knee injury which he tried to get right on the sidelines before being subbed out at quarter-time.
So the fact Port got within two goals was heroic and in keeping with the Brownlow Medal theme of the day with Nick Daicos’ injury, Butters, who is one of the favourites, will definitely get votes.
He collected a game-high 30 possessions, which also included eight marks and six tackles, while Rozee was next with 27 disposals.
WHERE DID THIS RULE TWEAK COME FROM?
When did bumping a player who is in the action of kicking the ball become a free kick?
Was it one of those memos that slipped through to the keeper with the umpiring department just deciding to change the interpretation without telling the football world.
If the bump on the kicker isn’t late, or isn’t high, what is wrong with it?
There were a number of examples in the Essendon-West Coast game where free kicks were paid downfield for bumps on players as they kicked the ball.
None of them were too late or too high, yet according to the umpire it’s now illegal.
A bump is a form of pressure so what are the players supposed to do if they know they’re not in a position to tackle but can still impact an opponent’s disposal. Do we want them to pull up and stop if the player is about to start their kicking motion?
Rant over.
PHILLIPS SHOCKER NOT A RUCK ROUND HIGHLIGHT
There are more than enough themed rounds, so when Fox Footy tried to liven things up this week with Ruck Round there were many whose eyes rolled.
Celebrating the role of great ruckmen over the years was a fun exercise and there have been plenty of legendary big men who have made their mark.
But unfortunately the big fellas also have a tendency to provide some of the best bloopers.
Essendon’s Andrew Phillips didn’t do his cohort any favours when he marked 15m out from goal at a crucial stage of the final quarter against the Eagles.
The Bombers were under siege and needed some breathing space with only six minutes remaining.
Unfortunately, the big man wasn’t up to the task with his set shot going closer to out on the full than through the goals in what wasn’t a great advertisement for Ruck Round.
COLLIWOBBLES?
It’s not panic stations when you’re two games clear on top of the ladder.
And it is only August but the idea that the all-conquering Magpies needed a loss just to calm the juggernaut is now out the window.
Collingwood’s air of invincibility is gone.
They’ve now lost two games in a row, the first to an undermanned Carlton and then they were given a lesson by the third worst team in the competition according to the ladder.
And if you go back three weeks to the get-out-of-jail two-point win against Port Adelaide, there are legitimate questions to be asked.
Hawthorn have shown in patches their ranking doesn’t tell the story of how well they are travelling in terms of building a seriously good side.
Sam Mitchell came up with a plan to dominate the Pies around the middle of the ground with a combination of intense pressure and running at them with leg speed.
Leading the way was the Hawks next superstar Will Day who has a lot of Scott Pendlebury about the way he goes about it while Jai Newcombe, James Worpel and Conor Nash were able assistants.
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