The Tackle: Jay Clark’s likes and dislikes from Round 1
Once the clock is set, tensions rise. And after flying the white flag against the Pies on Saturday night, a ‘mutiny’ is looming at Port. See the rest of Jay Clark’s likes and dislikes in The Tackle.
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Round 1 is back, and all 18 clubs are on the park. New Chief Football Writer Jay Clark marks his first weekend in the new top job looking over his likes and dislikes from Round 1.
DISLIKES
1. PORT ADELAIDE
Succession plans can be footy’s ticking time bombs.
And once the clock is set, tensions rise.
On Saturday night, Port Adelaide’s playing group waved a white flag in a kind of belting we have never seen before under Ken Hinkley.
And you could plainly see by the edginess of the senior coach on the interchange bench that it was a putrid performance.
Quite simply, fans won’t tolerate that sort of uncompetitive effort on repeat over the next six to eight weeks, and sections of the ruthless fan base have turned on Hinkley before.
The boos at Adelaide Oval were hard to forget.
So while the succession plan dictates the keys will be passed on from Hinkley to Josh Carr at the end of the season, everyone knows that could happen much earlier if Port spiral again on field.
So the Port playing group will have to send a message with their actions, rather than any fluffy words this week.
If there isn’t conviction in their actions against Richmond on Saturday at Adelaide Oval, there could be mutiny.
Warren Tredrea, who has been unconvinced on Hinkley before, has a seat on the Power board.
But do we really expect Port to be much good this year anyway, especially without Zak Butters, Esava Ratugolea, Todd Marshall and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher early on?
The loss to Collingwood was well below acceptable standard.
Now it is over to the Power players to make their stand, and they have delivered in this position before as recently in the semi-final against Hawthorn after copping a hiding from Geelong in the first final.
The wolves were at the door then and they returned again only three games later.
Clubs have made slow starts and recovered, as recently as last season when Hawthorn, who were 0-5 to begin with, and Brisbane who won the flag.
But the problem at Port is the clock has been set, and the ticking has already begun.
2. McCARTIN’S FORWARD SWITCH
The Tom McCartin move might be put in the same bin as Harry Petty’s.
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin took all year to come to grips with the reality that Petty’s move from back to attack didn’t work throughout 2024.
Goodwin persisted with it all season, without any real success.
And now Swans’ coach Dean Cox will be biting his fingernails on the same predicament on McCartin, as Fox Footy analyst David King called from the moment this move came into public view.
The gun defender has been swung forward to start this season and struggled to have any impact, kicking two goals in the club’s two losses.
And now the Swans are staring at the prospect of a third-straight loss in an early-season crunch class against Fremantle in the west this weekend.
The Swans have been training all summer with McCartin forward but the reality is they have conceded 96 points (against Hawthorn) and 86 (against Brisbane) on their home deck across the first fortnight.
A disappointing night for the Swans gets worse.
— Lachlan McKirdy (@LMcKirdy7) March 15, 2025
Lewis Melican came from the ground late in the game, which is why Tom McCartin was swung back.
Official line from the Swans is groin soreness. Will require some scans/testing. Could be a massive blow.#AFLSwansLions@superfooty
And that is the SCG, where scoring is traditionally more difficult.
This will test Cox, how he prioritises offence and defence, and his faith in his own beliefs in the first five minutes of his coaching career.
Joel Hamling was brought into the defence for the clash against Brisbane to help release Nick Blakey in Cox’s first structural tweak this season.
He is one of the game’s most damaging half backs even if his aggressive kicks sometimes have too much on them.
But if Cox has already revisited one tactical manoeuvre, it might be time for another.
3. ROOS’ SHAKY DEFENCE
There might be a lesson in the GWS Giants’ evolution for North Melbourne.
When the Giants had the most talented midfield in the game thick with high draft picks, balance became an issue.
A team of superstar midfielders who are all high-end offensive players can get caught out the other way.
At GWS, coach Adam Kingsley took over and reset the culture to create the top pressure team and maybe the most desperate outfit in the competition.
In two years it has been an extraordinary turnaround.
At North Melbourne the challenge looks similar as Alastair Clarkson tries to get the Roos to pop in the same way Hawthorn rose up in his third year in charge.
But they won’t win anything without a complete commitment to the defensive aspects of the game from a crop of talented young players including superstar playmaker Harry Sheezel.
He was caught out at times against Western Bulldogs on Saturday night, and he wasn’t the only one.
Having top-end talent is one thing, but successful midfields have to be all-round units.
Expect new recruit and Sydney great Luke Parker will also play a significant role in this awakening for North Melbourne as part of the maturation as a football side.
And the next few months are crucial as Luke Davies-Uniacke makes a decision on his future, even with Roos’ officials still very confident he will re-sign.
The Kangas were smelling blood against a depleted Western Bulldogs on Saturday night and had a crack in their third-quarter charge.
What a player Nick Larkey is booting five goals and only one behind, Paul Curtis has a Steve Johnson-style trick bag and the resilient Charlie Comben continues to grow helping shut-out superstar in the making Sam Darcy.
But the Roos need to rise up and tick past six to eight wins this year otherwise Clarkson will become a big story.
He has helped stabilise a club which was in all sorts two years ago but the tide has to turn somewhat this season.
On the scoreboard, and also in the defensive actions of its highly talented midfield group.
4. FUMBLING BOMBERS
Sydney premiership coach Paul Roos used to count fumbles as a genuine footy stat.
The coaching mastermind had a view the fumble differential could have a big bearing on the result and continually preached the importance of the clean pick-up and assured ball-handling under pressure.
So you can imagine him having kittens late in Hawthorn’s win over Essendon when Bombers’ full back Ben McKay unfortunately bobbled the ball at centre half back trailing by 18 points with eight minutes left.
McKay has had a very interrupted pre-season and he is paid to do the bulk of his work in the aerial battle rather than below his knees.
But in the moment he fumbled a ground ball under closing pressure was the time Hawthorn sealed the game as Cam McKenzie rushed at McKay, Jack Ginnivan got involved and Dylan Moore snapped beauty on his right boot to finish it.
Moore’s ascension to become one of the game’s most impressive players in the forward half is remarkable for a man who was one game away from being cut from the list during the pandemic.
But where he capitalised, the Bombers blew some chances the other night, including McKay’s handling error, late.
It continues the defensive headaches which have haunted Essendon for a decade, and now they will be missing Jordan Ridley who is out with concussion.
Zach Reid can become a player but he looks 50 games away if his body holds up.
Broadly, execution was the difference in a game where Essendon had 10 more inside 50s and, amazingly, 19 more clearances, but couldn’t capitalise effectively like Hawthorn did.
5. FREE AGENCY ISSUE
Oscar Allen might have the hardest free agency choice the game has seen on his hands.
The West Coast key forward is weighing up the chance to stay in the west at the rebuilding Eagles or to fill his boots at two clubs who could be top-four bound for years, the Hawks and Lions.
And if you could pick a midfield brigade to put the ball on your chest 100 times a season who would you choose?
The two brilliant Ashcroft brothers, Will and Levi, or the Samurai Hawks?
West Coast hasn’t shown all of its cards yet but there is a real risk the club could be blown out of the water if it draws a line and doesn’t budge on an offer worth more than five years
Yes he’s been injury-plagued, but an eight-year deal worth more than $3 million extra to join a rival club would be harder to knock back than one of your Nanna’s scones.
But the Eagles will surely stump up more considering they backed up the truck to keep Jake Waterman from joining Melbourne last year.
The AFL may worry about the free agency trend because it simply has not worked like headquarters planned.
Instead of gun players taking big offers to join struggling clubs to help fast-track their rebuilds like the league would have hoped, the opposite has happened.
The big free agency stars have gone to top clubs.
And you can bet your bottom dollar Allen, who grew up in Perth, will be trying to suss out what Harley Reid is thinking before any commitments are made.
LIKES
1. HAWKS’ UNMISSABLE DEJA VU
When Alastair Clarkson took the club to the 2008 premiership with baby Buddy and Co. they had players with surgical kicking skills and in particular some switchblade left-footers.
Grant Birchall would hit Stuart Dew who would pinpoint Cyril Rioli.
Fast forward to 2025 and under coach Sam Mitchell, the man who was one of the smartest ball users of his time, and the Hawks again look like the sharpest kicking team in it.
And that precision allows them to use every inch of the ground to find the space and loose men where other teams can sometimes just go long down the line.
There were a heap to choose from in the win on Friday night, but Josh Ward’s bullet from the back flank to a running Jarman Impey which set up a Mabior Chol goal, or the James Sicily set play blinder to Impey, or the beautiful Chol pass to Dylan Moore were all brilliant examples of the exquisite skills.
And now the bookies like they got it right in the pre-season.
The Hawks look like the team to beat again only a decade after their last flag.
Rivals are going to have to defend every inch of the turf to stop the Hawks in 2025.
And when rivals do kick it long to a contest in Hawthorn’s back line either Tom Barrass, Josh Battle or James Sicily punch the ball into row eight.
This year, they’re hunting a key forward, or explosive midfielder, and expect Mitchell to be flying all over the country again with another aggressive recruiting portfolio.
2. DARCY JONES’ MAGIC
It might be the handball of the year already.
Thirty seconds before GWS hero Lachie Keeffe kicked the goal of his life to break Melbourne’s hearts, Darcy Jones pulled out a no-look handball like he was Magic Johnson.
Under fierce pressure on the back flank with two minutes left, the little man in the helmet fired off a left-handed 20m bullet over his right shoulder which landed perfectly for Finn Callaghan.
KEEFFE PUTS THE GIANTS IN FRONT WITH A MINUTE TO GO 😱😱
— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) March 16, 2025
📺Watch #AFLDeesGiants on ch.504 or on @kayosportshttps://t.co/4aQ9Kao7NW
âœï¸ BLOG https://t.co/toFkfxX8CG
🔢 MATCH CENTRE https://t.co/pkjRRwotKEpic.twitter.com/O6Dh4glp0q
The miracle handpass ignited the Giants on the final-minute charge up the middle which found Keeffe who has been on bargain-basement contracts for his entire 15-year career.
The Giants have focused heavily on the terrier small forwards at the draft in recent years and it was the Jones handpass which helped set up the match-winning set shot.
Clubs without these gun smalls are chasing the pack.
It was a difficult result for Melbourne which otherwise took a big step forward after a summer of healing and game plan refinement.
3. SOMETHING TO CROW ABOUT
The hype train needs to depart Fremantle and arrive at Adelaide.
The Crows have flown well under the radar this pre-season but have emerged early as the club which could jump from outside the top eight into the top-four.
On Sunday Adelaide demolished St Kilda who we all think could be bottom four this year.
But the midfield has gone from pedestrian to dynamic with the sizzle of Izak Rankine, development of Josh Rachelle, power of Jake Soligo and excellence of Jordan Dawson.
And in attack Riley Thilthorpe, Darcy Fogarty and Taylor Walker is a three-headed monster.
There has been barely a murmur about the Crows potential in the lead-up compared to Fremantle, a club which stood accused on Sunday of drinking its own bath water over summer.
Clearly, the attitude was off against one of the best teams in it, but the reality hit hard post-match that Fremantle would have been beaten by 100 points had it not been for the kid Murphy Reid’s incredible four-goal third-term.
The Dockers have played finals once in the past 10 years and the excuses have run out.
4. MORE BUZZ COMING AT TIGERLAND
Richmond fans have enjoyed some intoxicating highs in recent years.
And the buzz down Swan St after the Tigers’ extraordinary come-from-behind win over Carlton on Thursday night would have continued when they watched the Bulldogs knock off North Melbourne on Saturday night.
Why? Not only have Sam Lalor posters already gone up on bedrooms everywhere in the eastern suburbs, Richmond has North Melbourne’s top pick in this year’s draft in its pocket.
So Richmond will not only hit this year’s draft with its own top pick, it has the Kangaroos’ first selection as well.
It will go down as one of the gutsiest trades of all time, the Kangaroos pulled the trigger on a deal to send their future first-round pick (from this year’s draft) for pick 27 (Matt Whitlock) last year and a future second-round pick (from Richmond).
If this year goes poorly for North Melbourne and they finish in the bottom couple, it means Richmond will hit the jackpot on an extra top-three talent.
So the Richmond crew will be barracking hard against the Kangaroos this year hoping the bottom-of-the-table misery continues for Alastair Clarkson’s men in 2025.
The Roos are ecstatic with Whitlock, but this is one of the most bold list management calls the club has made.
5. LION’S DEPTH
Will Ashcroft would have rolled his eyes.
In a pre-season match last month the gun young midfielder copped some sledging from some opponents about how he should never have won last year’s Norm Smith Medal.
It should have Lachie Neale’s name on it, his rivals barked, not Ashcroft’s.
Considering those who directed the barbs hadn’t enjoyed much success of their own in recent times, it is an interesting decision to pull out Steve Waugh’s mental disintegration tactics on one of the competition’s best young players.
He had blitzed a grand final off the back of a knee reco.
His younger brother, Levi, looks a jet too, after gathering 25 disposals, four clearances and 495 meters gained in his first outing in the win over Sydney Swans on Saturday.
St Kilda chairman Andrew Bassat would have been rocking back and forth in the corner of his lounge room watching on the telly saying ‘I told you so’.
Bassat’s strong criticism of the AFL’s academy, father-son and points system led to a considerable shake-up on the basis the Lions, for example, have a state zone to funnel more guaranteed talent into the team.
The reigning premier added one of the best two players available to top-up the midfield and young Levi shone like a sparkly new coin in the sunshine, stepping into an accomplished midfield brigade like he was born to do it.
Neale had one of his quietest days as a Lion, gathering only 10 touches under a hard tag. But Chris Fagan will love the midfield spread at his disposal in his back-to-back flag quest
Neale finished second in Norm Smith Medal voting last year but it seems a bit rich to have a crack at Will for the medal win last year considering where he had come from.
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