The Tackle Round 1: North, Hawks impress, pitiful Blues ‘insult sport’
The Bulldogs wanted to make a statement after their elimination final mauling last year: No more timid Dogs. So what happened? The forwards didn’t get a sniff, but some much bigger names have to shoulder the blame. LIKES AND DISLIKES
Mark Robinson
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North’s gutsy win over St Kilda, Shaun Burgoyne’s low possession, high impact blinder against the Lions and the Swans’ transformation caught Herald Sun Chief Football Writer Mark Robinson’s eye in Round 1.
TACKLE TV: LEAVE A QUESTION FOR ROBBO BELOW AND HE’LL ANSWER THE BEST ON TODAY EPISODE OF KFC TACKLE TV
He wasn’t impressed by the Blues and Bulldogs and he wants to know where the Bombers’ joy was in their team song after the win over Freo?
See all Robbo’s likes and dislikes below.
LIKES
1 NORTH MELBOURNE
This team has ticker.
It was blown away by the Saints’ speed and freewheeling in the first half and trailed by five goals at the main break.
The Roos got up by two points on the back of greater defence — St Kilda had 14 inside-50s and kicked just one goal in the second half — and more daring use of the ball. The defensive efforts were plentiful, but none was more important than the double smother in the last 30 seconds.
Saints ruckman Paddy Ryder had a snapshot at goal and North’s Jamie Macmillan and Jared Polec threw themselves at the ball and stopped the goal that would’ve won St Kilda the game.
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2 SHAUN BURGOYNE
It’s Shaun the great.
At 37, he’s defying age and the normal rules of athletic mortality. He was brilliant yesterday as the Hawks dismantled Brisbane Lions.
He had only 10 touches but it was a Cyril-esque performance.
He kicked three goals, and when the Lions mounted a challenge in the third term he made the pivotal play with a clever inboard kick to Jonathon Patton that ended with a goal.
3 TAYLOR ADAMS
He lacks the silk of Scott Pendlebury or Steele Sidebottom, and the explosiveness of Jordan De Goey, but Adams has joined the elite at Collingwood.
As much as Pendlebury seemed to have the ball on a string on Friday night, Adams managed more disposals and had 12 clearances to Pendlebury’s three.
That’s not slighting the skipper, it’s emphasising the effort of Adams, whose main opponent on Friday night was Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli. Adams’ finals series of 2018 was the best football he’s played, but then he managed only 12 games last season because of injury.
4 CONNOR ROZEE
Port Adelaide chairman David Koch joined 3AW in the pre-match yesterday and was slightly annoyed the conversation was about the future of footy and not players such as Rozee.
When we see Rozee next, expect to see more of him in the midfield. That was a noticeable change against Gold Coast on Saturday.
He was at six centre bounces, which was third most for Port, and while that is a relatively low number, do note that only three goals were kicked after halftime.
Which is interesting, too. The critics of AFLW bemoan the low scoring, and this game produced 1.10 to 1.3 in the last two quarters.
Let’s hope the Americans weren’t watching that half on ESPN.
5 NEW-LOOK SWANS
Depending on how you like your football, the Swans have been ugly boring or ugly tough under coach John Longmire.
Mind you, they’ve been ugly successful. On Saturday against the Crows they were beautifully tough. There was speed of ball use, free-flowing and linked football, and the smallish forward line received some quick footy.
“They methodically with pace ran through the middle of the ground,’’ Fox Footy’s Dermott Brereton said.
Brereton, as we know, was in the ugly boring camp, but he was impressed.
Ollie Florent started in the centre square more times (22) than Luke Parker (21) and Josh Kennedy (19), while James Rowbottom (16) might become the minder for opposition guns.
6 ISAAC HEENEY
For the past three years, Heeney has started the season in my Top 50, but failed to finish each season there.
Can we confidently declare after Round 1 that trend will reverse? I think so. What a talent he is, and at 23 he appears to be ready for the forecasts of stardom that have been heaped on him externally.
A forward-mid last year, he averaged eight centre-bounce attendances. Against the Crows on Saturday it was zero attendances and four goals as the mid-sized key forward.
7 DYLAN SHIEL
The highest-ranked match of his career — 163 SuperCoach points — against Fremantle on Saturday. His previous high was 149 against Melbourne in Round 2, 2015.
The best aspect of his game was that his two main opponents were Michael Walters and Nat Fyfe.
OK, those two Dockers don’t really defend and when you go head-to-head like that, you have to be more damaging with the ball. Shiel did that. He had 35 touches, a game-high 13 contested possessions and nine clearances in effectively three quarters of football.
DISLIKES
1 IT’S THE BRISBANE DEMONS
All summer coach Chris Fagan has had to fend off questions about his Lions this year being the Melbourne of 2019.
One losing match doesn’t make a prophecy true, but there’s no doubt yesterday was disappointing for one of the competition’s premiership contenders, and now we won’t see them for 10 weeks at least.
Like the Dogs, they will have plenty of time to correct things.
2 WHAT WAS THAT, BULLDOGS?
Tweeted this on Thursday night: “All summer to process the Giants loss and how timid they were. Then this … who saw this coming from Bulldogs?’’
Two days later the shock has not subsided. This was a mauling and a slap in the face for the much-hyped Bulldogs midfield. Don’t blame the forwards because they didn’t get a sniff. Don’t blame the backline because they were under siege. Blame the midfield because it was humiliated.
The Bulldogs wanted to hunt the ball and the opposition this year and they wanted to make a statement. They didn’t do either.
3 TIM ENGLISH
The young fella went in with a plan to combat Brodie Grundy and it didn’t work.
There had to be a plan because Grundy has earned the three Brownlow Medal votes in his past two matches against the Bulldogs, and you can make that the past three now.
It is an education for the 22-year-old, so there’s no point chucking him in the bin.
But the fact is Grundy is his bogeyman. He’s too strong, too footy smart and too athletic and all English can do is take the lesson, move on, and be determined to do better next time.
4 SO, WHAT WAS THAT, CARLTON?
You’d have to think the game plan didn’t emphasise tackling on Thursday night, such were the numbers.
The Blues laid 23 tackles.
Yes, 20-bloody-three tackles.
The Tigers can be difficult to catch sometimes, but 23 is insulting to the sport and to Carlton fans. When coach David Teague is asked this week why the low number, he will have an explanation.
One suggestion by a former player was that Teague was trying to “stretch the ground’’, meaning less players were at the contest. It doesn’t really wash as an excuse.
Australian rules is a contact sport and the Blues simply played without the appropriate attitude.
5 WHAT WAS THAT FREMANTLE?
The pressure index in Grand Finals is as high as 2.20, such is the intensity to compete.
The Dockers’ pressure rating on Saturday was a paltry 1.51, their second-lowest amount of pressure applied in a match since this stat was first recorded in 2013.
Maybe being holed up in a hotel for 24 hours softened their competitive mindset, or maybe they were like Carlton and wanted play in dinner suits and not get them dirty, but they were timid.
Their pressure ranking by quarter was 1.48, 1.45, 1.36 and then 1.73. They laid 33 tackles and 15 of them were in the final quarter. The sport has changed because of the shortened quarters, but the fabric hasn’t. Essendon kicked the first four goals and the final margin was six points.
By the way, Collingwood ran at 2.39 on Friday night.
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6 ST KILDA
Played blitz football and had North Melbourne looking slow and when the game tightened, the blitz became a bust and that nasty habit of kicking behinds and not goals came back to haunt it.
While most other teams were able to make the most of their opportunities — not Port Adelaide, mind you — the Saints kicked 7.12, which included 1.5 after halftime.
Does it mean much now that the season is postponed? Absolutely. To be run down after being five goals ahead, in a shortened game, is very disappointing.
7 ESSENDON’S TEAM SONG
The beauty of the social distancing has been post-match singing of team songs, led by North Melbourne and Collingwood.
They sang and danced as if they were at the last rave party on the planet.
And the Bombers? Lot of swaying, no foot stomping, no arms thrust in the air, just run of the mill. At least they’ve got the time to work on an up-tempo version before we see them again.