The Tackle: Jon Ralph’s likes and dislikes from Round 21
Damien Hardwick picked a fight with media heavyweights over Tom Lynch, but he knows as well as anyone the big forward is struggling. See Ralphy’s Likes and dislikes.
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From massive upsets to match review controversy and unlikely heroes, Round 21 has had it all.
But Carlton coach David Teague might remember it as the weekend he lost the Blues coaching job.
Jon Ralph lists his likes and dislikes from a massive round of footy.
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DISLIKES
1. Put yourself in the position of the Carlton board
The question they will be asking themselves is: are they wasting a six-year rebuild – the first full bottom-to-top build in the history of the club?
The Blues entered the season with their CEO publicly declaring a premiership was not out of reach, as unlikely as that might have sounded.
Their side has talent by the bucketful – the best kid in the land (Sam Walsh); the likely Coleman medallist (Harry McKay); Charlie Curnow on the comeback trail; two of the best handful of defenders (Liam Jones and Jacob Weitering) and a raging bull in Patrick Cripps.
Yet for all the late-season wins, they have never really been in the finals hunt.
Would you just go again as a show of faith in David Teague, or install a proven Ross Lyon/Alastair Clarkson/Don Pyke replacement?
It’s a no-brainer.
It won’t give the board any joy, but they are tasked with winning the club’s next premiership.
Teague has postponed that decision with four wins in the past seven games, but he should not be the Blues coach in Round 1 next year.
2. Not easy being Greene
Toby Greene should be suspended for elbowing Patrick Dangerfield in the head, just as Lance Franklin should have been outed for his elbow to the head of Luke Ryan.
But the bigger problem for the AFL is that the MRO and tribunal are very rarely on the same page.
No matter what you think of match review officer Michael Christian, you can’t fault his consistency – his rulings crack down on head-high contact and off-the-ball hits like the Franklin elbow.
Then the tribunal often throws the cases out, which totally undermine his authority and the message that the AFL protects the head.
If the tribunal threw out Bayley Fritsch’s suspension and Franklin’s suspension, it is impossible to think it won’t do the same for Greene.
Brad Scott’s first task – if he is the new football boss – is instilling a level of consistency with the judiciary.
3. Bevo needs to spin the magnets
Paul Roos was right — Jamarra Ugle Hagan’s last VFL game before his debut was poor enough that even rival recruiters wondered about his lack of defensive intent and lethargic nature.
Luke Beveridge picked Ugle-Hagan on a body of work — and the same faith that kept him in the side after a quiet debut — and while he was vindicated, Roos is surely allowed to call it as he sees it.
If only those kinds of spats were relevant any more for Beveridge, who has likely lost Josh Bruce for the year with an ACL tear two weeks out from finals.
Now he needs to recast a forward line with Aaron Naughton and five-gamer Ugle Hagan, who isn’t ready but might need to be.
Beveridge would be aware Stef Martin’s groin issue (2-3 weeks away at a minimum) means he would need to play ruckman Jordan Sweet (just 9.9 per cent hitout-to-advantage rate in five 2021 games) if he wants to throw Tim English forward.
But in 2016 he won a Grand Final using Zaine Cordy as one of his key targets.
All is not lost. It never is with Beveridge.
4. Finals with empty stands
The sobering reality of Melbourne’s continuing Covid numbers is that the AFL is on track to play first-week finals in Victoria in front of very few or no crowds.
The league has ruled out playing the entire finals series in a single state like Western Australia, but is also intent on retaining finals integrity, which means if the Cats and Dogs host home finals they will be at Victorian venues.
It means Geelong, which had hoped to play in front of 80,000 fans on qualifying final day, might get 20,000 at best in a final that is as few as 26 days away.
The league could eventually move the last few weeks of finals to an interstate venue, but don’t count on any crowds in week one of Melbourne finals.
5. Tom Lynch
Damien Hardwick is speaking gibberish, and he knows it.
He whacked Jon Brown for accusing Tom Lynch of lacking impact when Brown and Dimma and all of us know Lynch is struggling.
Against the Roos he had six touches (a season low), didn’t hit the scoreboard, had a single mark and had his third game with 43 or fewer SuperCoach points.
In short, he stunk it up – even though he has still contributed this year.
Hardwick might have got his frustration off his chest by chipping Browny, but all it does is make On The Couch must-watch viewing on Monday and heightens the attention on Lynch.
6. Players quiet on Tex
AFLPA boss Paul Marsh’s regular conversations with – and support for – a distraught Taylor Walker in recent days were a factor in his tepid statement over a racial slur of the worst possible kind.
He won’t back away from supporting Taylor while at the same time condemning his actions.
But the wronged party Robbie Young would have felt less supported than the players regularly racially abused on social media.
As one senior PR figure in the industry said, nearly all of those crafted statements are written by a staffer then ticked off by the person whose name is on the bottom.
The indictment on the AFL players?
It was left to AFLW star Daisy Pearce to come out with the strongest criticism of Walker on Saturday, with only a few male players standing up to take issue with a racial slur at the strongest end of the scale.
Former AFL community engagement manager Jason Mifsud was one of many to believe the AFLPA response was second-rate.
The excuses for Walker’s actions are non-existent.
7. Selwood dodges a bullet
Remember the jumper punch and the tummy tap and the dirty little rabbit punch behind play?
We almost never see them any more because the AFL mostly suspends those actions and players take weeks, not years, to change behaviour.
Joel Selwood should have copped a week for totally ignoring the ball as he bumped Sam Taylor, with the precedent Sam Wicks’s one-match ban for a head-high hit on Hawthorn’s Will Day.
There are last-minute collisions that involve freakish acts that no one could have anticipated, but Selwood’s hit was exactly the kind of predictable, out-of-line incident we want to take out of the game.
Chrisso has been good this year, but he missed a chance to set an example given his own precedent in suspending Wicks.
8. AFLW clubs playing catch-up
The standard of AFLW is a very long second priority to what the game needs to look like by 2025.
It’s why the AFL Commission, after last week’s discussions, simply must make the decision to bring in the final four AFL teams into the women’s competition – Essendon, Hawthorn, Sydney and Port Adelaide.
By then they will already be six seasons behind the AFLW’s establishment clubs, so any other decision would be unbelievably shortsighted by the AFL Commission.
Spare a thought for the part-time players and part-time staff ahead of the upcoming season with hubs and lockdowns and fixture chaos ahead.
It is already shaping up as a nightmare for players.
The sooner they are professionals with professional wages the better, and 18 clubs helps that journey.
The announcement will come as soon as Monday.
9. Kicking for goal
Carlton’s Zac Fisher has all the makings of a star small forward.
He is elite for disposals and forward-50 ground ball gets, but for all of his work this year he has kicked just 3.8 for the season.
It is totally confounding for a player of his talent.
How can Jack Lukosius be the best kick in the comp but have managed 3.11 for the season?
At Geelong, Max Holmes has 1.7, Shaun Higgins 4.12 and Luke Dahlhaus 6.12.
None of them are as bad as Nat Fyfe’s 6.21, but it could still cost the Cats a final.
LIKES
1. Two-metre Peter
Should it surprise anyone in this magical mystery tour of a season that Peter Wright transformed himself into a red-headed Paul Salmon to slot seven straight goals to keep Essendon’s finals hopes alive.
Gold Coast reject Wright was so unwanted last year the Suns are paying nearly half his wage and gave the former No.8 draft pick away for a future fourth-round pick.
Fair enough given he couldn’t even get a kick in the informal practice matches in 2020.
Don’t dare tell Luke Beveridge his backline is undermanned, but Wright marked with such authority and kicked with such purity he might have beaten most defences.
And so we draw closer to a spectacular Sunday of Round 23 when the AFL hopes to set up a cliffhanger of a fixture with the Dogs and Port playing on Friday night for a potential home final and a side having to win in the Sunday twilight slot to make September.
Like the remarkable final round of 1987 or Melbourne desperately awaiting the result of the West Coast-Adelaide clash in 2017, the hope is the final game of 198 home-and-away clashes will decide the fate of the finals contenders.
2. Is North Melbourne the best wooden spooner this century?
The Kangaroos will enter 2022 with elite key talls – Ben McKay, Cam Zurhaar and Nick Larkey – as well as a couple of boom kids in Jacob Edwards and Charlie Comben.
And then consider the elite mids strutting their stuff – Luke Davies-Uniacke (38 possessions v Richmond), Jy Simpkin (34 touches) and Tarryn Thomas, plus the upside in Will Phillips, Tom Powell and Jaidyn Stephenson.
Unless something extraordinary occurs with the Roos, two games and 12 percentage points behind Hawthorn, they will secure SANFL star Jason Horne to add even more hardness and polish.
3. Don’t feel sorry for Sam Mitchell
Everyone will worry again whether the Hawks have made the right decision after Alastair Clarkson’s latest brilliant victory.
But Mitchell will know the greatest problem in football is overrating your list and he will be desperate to bring in a massive influx of talent to win Hawthorn’s next premiership.
Tom Mitchell, Chad Wingard and Jaeger O’Meara have all struck form at the perfect time for the Hawks to back them in for 2022 or fatten them up for trade for maximum return.
And Lachie Bramble, Tyler Brockman, Jack Scrimshaw, Jacob Koschitzke and Dylan Moore all reinforced against the Pies they could be part of the next Hawthorn premiership side alongside injured pair Will Day and Denver Grainger-Barras.
4. Kicking for goal
There is only one way to get rid of a nickname like Missy Higgins.
It isn’t complaining about the nickname sub-editors are paid to come up with, it isn’t crying poor about the media.
For Jack Higgins, it is kicking goals and it was exactly what he did with 4.0 against Sydney, including a brilliant pair of scene-setting snaps in the first half.
You get what you deserve, and while we are on that, Jack Steele deserves a starting position in the All-Australian team alongside Marcus Bontempelli, Christian Petracca and Touk Miller.
How do they fit in Sam Walsh, Jackson Macrae, Ollie Wines and Zach Merrett?
5. Betts knows best
Betts should feel free to play on with Carlton.
He might only play a dozen games, he might even get dropped to the VFL.
No player would have a bigger influence on a club’s culture. No one less likely to rock the boat if he wasn’t picked as Josh Honey and Matt Owies eventually go past him.
Let’s face it, the Blues don’t have 40 great players on their list to push him out.
The issue will be if David Teague is sacked and whether a new coach would want his future as a weekly talking point.
But why should we push champions into retirement?
6. Leon Cameron
If Cameron isn’t universally acclaimed as the coach of the year, it will only be because John Longmire has pipped him to the post.
Longmire’s Swans have jumped from five wins to 13 so far, while the Giants started 0-3 after a player exodus and are in finals contention despite having 18 players on the current injury list.
Throw in Simon Goodwin at Melbourne if you want, but what these teams have done – losing players minutes before games through tier 2 exposure sites; flying interstate at the drop of the hat and still knocking up backs-to-the-walls wins – has been nothing short of astonishing.
Leon isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and he doesn’t have the airs and graces of Chris Scott, but he’s still a damned good coach.
7. Jacob Townsend
In 10 completed seasons across four teams, Townsend has never played more than 12 AFL games in a season.
But clubs keep giving him chances for two reasons.
He has never once taken a backward step, and he is a beautiful shot at goal.
He finally cracked a Gold Coast debut – his 61st game after stints at GWS, Richmond and Essendon – and kicked a goal after pushing aside Jack Silvagni in the ruck.
Then he dragged down No.1 overall pick Jacob Weitering to kick another.
A player who kicked 16.2 in five games in his premiership season of 2017 will live with no regrets about his AFL career.
8. Touk Miller
Miller used to butcher the Sherrin. There is no way around it.
After another scintillating performance full of hard-ball gets, capped off by precision kicks to leading targets, your eyes tell you what the stats confirm: he is an elite kick.
He has gone from 54 per cent kicking efficiency in his first season to 65.5 per cent this year.
Brent Stanton comes to mind as another dodgy kick who ended his career kicking darts.
It’s another reminder. Take control of your career. Don’t listen to the “phys-edders” limiting your time on the track.
Do whatever you need to turn your weaknesses into strengths, because Miller will soon sign a hefty new deal and win All-Australian selection as a result.
9. Unexpected heroes
When GWS battle-planned for its Friday night clash against short-priced favourites Geelong, it literally didn’t have another key forward to turn on with Jesse Hogan the most recent injury.
Someone threw up Irish defender Callum Brown, a former Gaelic football star who in this year’s VFL matches and his Giants career hadn’t played a single minute as a forward.
He didn’t have a single forward-50 groundball get or score assist or forward-50 tackle, although in Round 11 he had wandered down for his first goal.
By game’s end Brown had kicked 2.0 from six kicks, double the haul of 650-goal AFL legend Tom Hawkins.
How good is footy.
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