The Tackle: Jon Ralph’s likes and dislikes from Round 22 of the 2021 AFL season
With Colin Carter’s report handed down, the time has come to get serious about footy in Tasmania. Here’s what Jon Ralph wants the AFL to say to give the Apple Isle reason for optimism.
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Is it time for the AFL to read the tea leaves and forget about the MCG as a Grand Final venue?
With little chance of crowds, Jon Ralph has earmarked the ground the AFL should switch the signature match to — and they should do it now.
The race to the 2021 Toyota AFL Finals Series is on and every match matters. Watch Live & Ad-Break Free on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-days free >
Has the scrapping of the pre-finals bye killed the Cats? There might only be one man who can save them. And how about the Blues’ handling of David Teague?
A pair of hyper-talented forwards-cum-gun-midfielders get their plaudits and those Dees are primed to own top spot when the final siren sounds at the end of the season.
All that and more below in Ralphy’s likes and dislikes from the penultimate round of 2021:
DISLIKES
1 Final straw for MCG crowds
Put down your glasses, this year’s Grand Final (and probably preliminary finals) will be at Perth Stadium.
Do the sums yourself based on what you know about Victoria’s approach to the pandemic.
In the best-case scenario, Victoria is set for a three-week lockdown that might end the day before the first final.
The state health department would then ban crowds for the next fortnight, just as it did last time the state came out of lockdown – which takes us to preliminary final weekend.
In your wildest dreams, could you imagine the MCG being allowed to have 60,000 fans at preliminary finals?
So let’s get our head around the first two weeks of finals being played across Australia before four teams fly to Perth for the preliminary finals.
The winners of those games spend a second week in quarantine ahead of a bye then are released for grand final week in Perth.
The AFL makes $20m from those two weeks as the game is played in front of an electric, capacity crowd, and the MCG is compensated for the loss of another grand final but we’re spared a flat decider played in front of, perhaps, 20,000 fans.
You know it makes sense.
2. Tomahawk’s MRO surprise
Tom Hawkins dodged suspension for his dumping tackle on St Kilda’s Darragh Joyce, which was a surprise, given precedent, but the right decision.
What else could Hawkins do except tackle an opponent, with no hint of a driving or dumping motion?
But when the MRO invariably does overhaul elements of the judiciary next year it needs to ensure it is harder to actually take MRO cases to the tribunal.
When a player doesn’t risk an extra week’s suspension or even an extra loading every single lineball call heads to the tribunal.
The MRO is far from perfect given the impossible task of lining up incidents against each other, but it’s even harder when it is undermined by decisions regularly flipped by the tribunal.
3 Bye bye, finals bye
The AFL will scrap the post Round 23 bye in coming days, which is good business given the world is closing in on the league.
But as much as clubs are agile and flexible, surely the league could have made a decision weeks, rather than days, before Round 23 itself?
Sydney basically had to guess that the bye wasn’t coming so rested Lance Franklin against North Melbourne, thankfully able to get over the line despite his absence.
Chris Scott cut up rough given the Cats injuries are so poorly timed so he wants the pre-finals bye as a buffer.
Nothing is sensible in this crazy old season, but if the league had told clubs this week rather than next week it would have lessened the controversy over a flexible fixture.
4 Jez hanging in there, Cats
Can Jeremy Cameron become Geelong’s Tom Lynch, the superstar acquisition it rides all the way to a premiership, just as the Tigers did with Lynch?
Defender Tom Stewart has no hope of returning this year after Lisfranc surgery, which puts pressure on Mark Blicavs to remain in defence and for ruckman Rhys Stanley to redefine his reputation as footy’s most inconsistent player.
Geelong may be the biggest loser from the likely scrapping of the pre-finals bye given uncertainty over Mitch Duncan’s knee injury, although small forward Gryan Miers could return to action as soon as this week.
Cameron has been a lethal weapon with 32.10 from only 11 games. He returned on Saturday with such an assured performance that you’d think he could tear finals apart if his hamstring holds up.
5 Efforts coming to Naught
The AstroNaught has been grounded at the worst possible time for the Bulldogs.
In their second-straight loss, the Dogs were brutalised in the ruck and had too many passengers against a team-first Hawthorn, but Aaron Naughton has also hit a wall.
Since round 11 he has only 12 goals from 10 games – an average boosted by a tally of four against West Coast – kicking one goal or fewer in eight of those contests.
In September he will be double and triple-teamed by rivals aware they can’t afford to let him off the chain.
Coach Luke Beveridge said we would have to wait and see how the club structured its forward line without Josh Bruce, but on Saturday Cody Weightman, Naughton and Tim English were targeted five times each with little success.
Mitch Hannan was recalled but had no impact; he has eight goals from 12 games.
6 Don’t blame the messenger
Carlton’s coaching crisis has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
His manager, Liam Pickering, lashed the media on Saturday for what he said was a campaign against David Teague, ignoring that when president-elect Luke Sayers launched his external review of the footy department, he lit the fuse for months of instability.
When you bring in three people to review your club, the result can only be a whispering campaign: staffers passing the blame to protect their own jobs, outsiders seeking gossip and intel from board members, players invited to critique their coaches’ performances.
It leads to a torrent of leaks, a club under siege, and a psychologically unstable workplace – and to beltings such as Saturday’s against Port Adelaide.
And it leads almost inevitably to what many believe was the main purpose of this review – to find enough evidence to justify sacking Teague.
7 How do you like them apples?
Here is what Tasmania needs to hear from the AFL, from Gill McLachlan, at some stage next year.
“If you can fund a new 25,000-seat stadium at Macquarie Point in Hobart, and if you can underwrite up to $15m a season for the first decade of the Tasmanian Devils, you’ll get a team from 2026 onwards.”
Every senior AFL figure from McLachlan to commission chairman Richard Goyder to former commissioner Colin Carter has stated the Apple Isle should get a team.
A relocation won’t happen; that would amount to political self-sabotage for the president who proposed it.
The joint venture idea is a joke that would see a club vanish within a decade.
The supposed “pressure” on North Melbourne to move is laughable.
The AFL must set a deadline for itself to work out how to structure a club with talent, financial and coaching models so the commission can approve a Tassie team then set about convincing the clubs.
How about December 1 this year for all clubs to rule out relocation, March 1 next year for the commission to agree to the rules of a 19th licence, and October 1 next year for the clubs to approve it?
8 Boys will be boys
In the same ABC conversation during which Goyder pledged to improve the approach to racism, he didn’t seem as interested in talking about the AFL’s track record on integrity matters.
Asked by the AFL’s coaching record-holder Mick Malthouse if he had read journalist Mick Warner’s book The Boys’ Club, he replied: “I have had a lot of it replayed to me. I think I have got a pretty good feel for those issues and where they are at, and where they are not true … It’s not a book I respect.”
No journo has broken more stories than Warner on integrity – on tanking, the Essendon affair, the West Coast drugs scandal, the Talia saga, Collingwood’s Do Better report and the episodes that led to two AFL senior staff being moved on after having affairs with colleagues, to name just a handful.
Goyder doesn’t have to agree with all of the book’s findings, but to so arrogantly dismiss them suggests the league hasn’t learnt a lot.
9 Bachar still packs a punch
Richmond’s dynasty is probably done, and what a glorious four-year stretch it was.
Now comes the tough part for Damien Hardwick – nudging premiership heroes such as Bachar Houli into retirement so there doesn’t come a time when Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt and Shane Edwards all have to retire in the same season.
I would keep Houli, who in 12 games this year has averaged 94 ranking points, 22.9 possessions and 77.4 per cent efficiency, peeling off 24 touches and 555m gained in his last game before an ankle injury.
But if Richmond is thinking of pensioning him off to play Sydney Stack, Daniel Rioli, Nick Vlastuin, Jayden Short and Rhyan Mansell as the defensive smalls, it should think again.
He would slot in perfectly at a rebuilding club like North Melbourne or Gold Coast as a role model and steadying presence, a contender like St Kilda or a team in the window like Brisbane.
LIKES
1 Finals alive with possibility
The home-and-away season, with all the extraordinary sacrifices made by its participants, will get the grandstand finish it deserves.
Port Adelaide and Brisbane are surging into contention for home finals and it is impossible to write off Sydney or even Greater Western Sydney as contenders.
Many did write off the Lions, Swans and Giants over the past six weeks.
But right now – after a lashing of humble pie for the commentariat – we have seven premiership chances.
And while it is usually a challenge to win four finals starting from outside the top four, Brisbane and GWS are massing their troops rather than hitting walls. Sydney was, too – at least until Josh Kennedy did his hamstring and Nick Blakey his ankle.
It will be a super finals series.
2 Dees are happy campers
Greg Stafford’s farm should be the hottest Airbnb site in Australia for sporting clubs given Melbourne’s transformation after its tough-love camp there over summer.
They’re on top, Luke Jackson is the 2021 Rising Star favourite, Bayley Fritsch surely All-Australian after 46 goals, and players like third-gamer Jake Bowey are slotting in with poise.
Fans should also applaud chief executive Gary Pert’s position on hosting finals at the MCG with or without crowds.
Who gives a stuff about doing the right thing, acquiescing to the AFL’s plans or playing in front of 12,000 neutral fans somewhere else?
If playing at the ’G gives the Demons a 1 per cent advantage over a neutral venue, the Demons should go to the mattresses to achieve it.
3 No more a second Stringer
On the day Jake Stringer was traded to Essendon, his manager Robbie D’Orazio told the Herald Sun: “He wants to be a midfielder, he thinks he has the capabilities to be the next Dusty (Martin). It is a big call but he thinks he can do it.”
Stringer ain’t there yet, but after a five-goal performance, this one against Gold Coast, he is exhibiting the full range of his powers.
Dusty doesn’t just beat up bottom-six opponents at GMHBA Stadium, he wins finals off his own boot.
So, Jake, knock off the Pies this week, get some luck with results elsewhere, and the platform is there for a Dusty-style finals series.
4 Early deal is de go
Collingwood’s smacking at the hands of Brisbane should not disguise the spectacular transformation of Jordan De Goey into a bona fide midfield star.
Since round 11 he has peeled off 10 weeks of exceptional football – and had prosecutors scrap the indecent assault charges that hung over his head for more than a year.
So Jordy, when you get up to accept your Copeland Trophy (he might not win, but he will be on the podium), could you do so as a recently recontracted Magpie?
De Goey is a free agent at the end of 2022 and took until the July to sign both of his previous contract extensions, both times on excellent coin of $700,000 to $800,000.
Instead of enduring a year of nonsense being linked to clubs you don’t want to join, why not just sign the $4m, five-year deal (with an incentive or two) and save everyone the stress?
5 Burg with the lot
Shaun Burgoyne will not get the farewell crowd he deserves next week, but one thing should sustain him in the next few decades.
The 38-year-old Hawk will go out if not at the top of his game then not far past it.
Case in point against the Dogs on Saturday: a 100 per cent kicking efficiency in a 15-possession game that had all the usual Burgoyne traits as he calmly stepped through traffic to set up attacks.
Carlton’s Eddie Betts is considered likely to join Burgoyne in retirement, so the AFL will farewell two of the greatest Indigenous players the game has seen.
Pity they will leave after a week when it became clear far more needs to be done in the area of racial respect.
6 Plenty of fight left in cocky
Chris Scott was such a fan of Nakia Cockatoo he threw him into the 2017 preliminary final cold – he’d played only one game since round 13 that year.
Yet an injury history that restricted him to only two more AFL games (rounds 2-3, 2018) until round 19 this year had Cockatoo thoroughly spooked.
Every niggle or sore spot saw him ease off his training, fearing he had again torn a muscle or ripped a tendon.
Don’t look now, but the restorative powers of Brisbane have done it again, Cockatoo playing eight VFL and four AFL games (one as the unused sub) this year.
You just know he is going to turn a final with a big chase-down tackle or freakish goal.
7 Good reason to be Saad
Some grumbling injury issues mean his year has been solid rather than outstanding, but don’t ever knock Adam Saad’s passion.
Saad was inconsolable on the bench late in Carlton’s loss.
He had been collected on the jaw by Zac Butters with an open-handed swing.
Saad picked himself up, made a beeline for Butters and threw him to the ground before conceding a goal for retaliation and being dragged to the bench, where he sat shattered by the chain of events.
He felt unfairly dealt with, even if the MRO later declined to suspend Butters for his open-handed swipe.
8 Port fortifying its position
Carlton spent two million bucks on Saad, Zac Williams and Lachie Fogarty and has little to show for its investment.
Port Adelaide, by contrast, preyed on its rivals and could win the flag as a result.
List boss Jason Cripps and footy boss Chris Davies identified Sydney’s salary-cap issues to secure Aliir Aliir and allowing Adelaide to do the sweet-talking before jumping in on Orazio Fantasia.
Aliir has had 18 intercept marks in two weeks and could win a Norm Smith Medal in Brian Lake style, and Fantasia could also be a finals trump.
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