The Tackle: Why big-head mentality is poison for Carlton
Demon Jacob Van Rooyen is playing like a young David ‘Ox’ Schwarz. The man himself doesn’t like the comparison but does like what he sees writes MARK ROBINSON.
AFL
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It’s been another drama-filled week in the AFL, with Carlton and Sydney given a stark reminder there are still hurdles on the way to September.
DISLIKES
1. BLOWN AWAY
Amid the run of five consecutive wins and propulsion into premiership favouritism, a Carlton club person declared the current Blues team had five Hall of Famers in waiting.
When asked who, he said: Cripps, Walsh, Weitering, Curnow and McKay.
Told that only six players were in the Hall of Fame from the dominant Carlton teams that won flags in 1979 and 1981-82 – they were Alex Jesaulenko, Bruce Doull, Geoff Southby, Mike Fitzpatrick, Ken Hunter and Wayne Johnston – the said Carlton person had a rethink.
The point of the story is this: Carlton’s team has achieved absolutely nothing compared to the three-timers of yesteryear and that any talk of who could one day be a Hall of Famer was getting ahead of yourself.
Blues coach Michael Voss would hate such talk.
On Saturday night, his players were given a stark lesson that a big-head mentality is poison.
The Blues led by 39 points late in the first quarter against the Giants and were 36 points down late in the third quarter.
In the end, the margin was 12 points. At quarter-time, the Blues probably thought they had this game in the bag. How quickly it changed. The Giants wanted the hard ball. They ran and shared the ball by hand and they dominated the scoreboard. And the Blues were helpless until their minds re-engaged in the final quarter. It was a mixed bag from their five “Hall of Famers”: Cripps was outstanding; Walsh was tagged; Weitering was hurt; Curnow didn’t touch it again; and McKay kicked five goals. Overall, it was a lesson to be learnt.
2. SWANS FALL AGAIN
The “unbeatables” have lost two games in a row, and will lose Brownlow Medal fancy Isaac Heeney after his flailing fist accidentally rearranged Jimmy Webster’s nose. He apologised, but that won’t get him off. A fist to the face has never been acceptable. That will be headlines for Heeney. The bigger picture is the Swans were beaten by a Saints team more desperate and more willing to put their bodies through the ball after halftime. Mostly always pressure and contest wins footy games and while Sydney still had moments of withering surge footy, it didn’t have enough of the game on its terms to break down St Kilda. Logan McDonald missed another set shot at goal to win the game, this time from 50m. So, if he didn’t sleep well last week, this week won’t be too much better. The poor bugger. In fact, the Swans kicked 3.11 after halftime, which included behinds to Joel Amartey and Ollie Florent and two complete misses by Tom Papley. Always the showman, Papley won’t sleep well either. The Swans might argue that poor goalkicking cost them the game, and they’re probably right. But the truth is, they cracked under the pressure.
3.IT IS REAL
Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick can swear all he likes, but that ain’t going to solve the problem of his Suns on the road.
The coach is angry because he has a problem he can’t fix. Not at the moment, anyhow. Surely the problem is the Suns are mentally comfortable playing in the humid and hot conditions of Darwin and southeast Queensland and mentally fragile on the drier, faster decks away from home.
You don’t have to be Einstein to work that out because the win-loss record is there for all to see.
There’s the mentality, but there’s also the practicality. The Suns should’ve won on Saturday. They won inside-50s 62-46, yet could only kick 12.11. Conversion has been an issue all year. Coming into the round, the Suns were ranked 16th for scores inside-50 and in the past six weeks they were ranked 18th. It’s hardly the profile of a team ready to play finals. The home-and-away form of key players is stark.
Until these numbers change, the Suns’ problem will remain.
4. DOGS CAN’T BE TRUSTED
Luke Beveridge’s buzz word of the week was “brave”, which is how he described his injured small forward Cody Weightman. It was a fair call, but it was a word that can’t be associated with the Bulldogs this week. The Bulldogs were punished by another untrustworthy team on Saturday: Port Adelaide. Punished as in annihilated. Port’s midfield blitzed the Bulldogs and the only fight we saw was not from the Dogs, but from Port coach Ken Hinkley and his prime mover Zak Butters. Butters didn’t like how he was being treated and Kenny was trying to tell him to chill. That Butters fired back at the coach in front of teammates and the camera was not a good look, and if Port lost the game, that would be a far bigger issue. Still, if Butters thought he had it tough, spare a thought for the Bulldogs mids who allowed him, Rozee and Wines to collect 99 disposals. There was nothing brave in their efforts of trying to curb that trio. Overall, the Bulldogs were non-threatening. Their point of difference is supposed to be their tall forwards, yet the Dogs only took seven marks inside 50. Ugle-Hagan took one mark and continued his laconic approach of flying one-handed, Sam Darcy took one mark and Aaron Naughton none before he was injured.
5. HAWKS OVERAWED
Josh Weddle was Geelong-ed. The young Hawk had a dirty day, as did his team, which had its hearts collectively broken by a Geelong team that flexed its muscle at home. Weddle is going to be a star, but he isn’t the first player to go to Geelong and find the environment testing. He had just seven touches against the Cats, the lowest output of his short career. He started on Jeremy Cameron and finished on Gary Rohan. He found Cameron a little too much to handle. Jezza had five shots at goal when Weddle was on him, and finished the game with 4.4. Weddle, just 20, will mark it down as a lesson learnt. Of interest is where coach Sam Mitchell will eventually play him. Weddle is quick, athletic and likes to take the game on, so maybe a wing position is his destiny.
LIKES
1. THE KID’S GROWING UP
Former Melbourne great David Schwarz doesn’t like the comparison between Jacob van Rooyen and himself. There’s the blondehair, the athleticism and the role of key forward, but Schwarz say van Royen is his own man – and is still learning. He watched on Sunday as van Rooyen booted a career-high four goals and had eight shots at goal. The Demons did the Eagles easily, and several players found form – Fritsch and Windsor among them – and the return of Jake Melksham (two goals) was pleasing. In his 34th game, van Rooyen played a superb all-round game. He took nine marks and had 10 score involvements, and Schwarz suspects his form will hold, with Melksham back in the team.
“We have to remember he is still only a baby and he hasn’t had a constant big forward around him, so he wears the brunt of opposition focus,’’ Schwarz said. “Melksham is a great leader and a smart forward and he will help him.’’ Van Rooyen has 51 goals from 34 games – Schwarz had 32 goals from his first 37 games – and Schwarz says van Rooyen won’t be at his peak for several seasons. “It takes players time to develop and to understand their bodies, to have second- and third efforts,’’ he said. “He will be a very good player. He needs to get more tricks than just sitting on heads. He’s got to learn to win the ball one-on-one. Jesse Hogan is a good comparison. It took him time, and Jacob is on his way. He would be better if he had another tall to help.”
2. THE OLD, THE NEW AND THE SHINING LIGHT
St Kilda’s Callum Wilkie was All Australian last year and hasn’t really been in calculation this year. Repeats of Sunday’s performance against Sydney and he will rocket into the conversation. He played on Joel Amartey, but at the death, he went to Isaac Heeney deep. That’s leadership 101: Take the most dangerous forward. Wilkie took 14 marks, including eight in the second half.
The new was Liam Henry. In his first year at St Kilda, Henry is one of those players who looks like he’s having a 30-plus possession game, when in fact he is quality over quantity. He had 14 touches and four score involvements in the second half. Maybe it’s the clean disposal that stands out, or his calm intelligence, or his ability to find space when others can’t. It’s probably all three. The kid is Mattaes Phillipou. He’s the one who had his manager whinge on social media that the coach was treating him appallingly. How dare the coach try to set standards, hey? There won’t be any whining after Sunday. Ross Lyon put him in the middle with Jack Steele, Jack Sinclair and Hunter Clark, and left him there and it was the kid who helped shape the Saints’ final-quarter surge. Phillipou had a game-high 12 touches, 348m gained, three clearances, five scoreinvolvements and kicked a goal. It was a near perfect Lyon game: Ball movement was quick, pressure in the second half was 207 and the tackle count overall was 63-41. And the Saints finally won a close one.
3. GIANT AMONG GIANTS
Only three players from the Giants’ first-ever team were on the field on Saturday night. They were Toby Greene, Stephen Coniglio and Callan Ward. That Ward is 34 years old and is flourishing on a wing might be the most wondrous story of those three. Jesse Hogan was the best Giant with five goals and six contested marks, while ruckman Kieren Briggs was so physically dominant that at one stage the Blues opted to ruck Patrick Cripps and not Tom De Koning, even though De Koning was at the stoppages. Yet, it was Ward who got special mention in the post-match. He had 14 touches in the second quarter alone and finished the game with 30 and two goals, capping a third consecutive week where he has kicked two goals from the wing. We say wondrous because Ward has been a head-down, bum-up midfielder across 306 games and is now being asked to be a hard-running and creative wingman. On Saturday, he beat up Blake Acres. “He’s a highly intelligent player … when he gets it, typically something good happens for us. He can get back and support the backs and gets forward to finish his work,’’ coach Adam Kingsley said. “He’s not the best runner in the team, but he just finds a way.” That’s what Ward’s done for all of his career – found a way.
4. LIFE’S GOOD
The last time they met, Gold Coast won by 78 points. The time before that, the Kangaroos won, but many people say they still lost because the win cost them Harley Reid. It’s time to end that narrative because the win actually gave the Kangaroos the opportunity to secure Colby McKercher. Reid is a rare talent, but so is McKercher. In his 10th game, he had 37 touches. His three previous games were 30, 30 and 32 touches. Not even Nick Daicos, playing the same role at halfback, was doing those numbers in his first 10 games.
"That was Boomer Harvey like." 💨
— AFL (@AFL) July 6, 2024
Colby McKercher's top speed is QUICK.#AFLNorthSunspic.twitter.com/dNBqjRXDOC
Colleague Sam Landsberger likened him to Essendon’s Zach Merrett. We’ll go further back and suggest McKercher has Wayne Schwass traits. Schwass was a champion – he won the Kangaroos B&F in 1994-95 when teammate Wayne Carey was the best player in the game – and had a sizzling left foot. So does McKercher. And like Schwass, he glides with speed across the ground. Reid might be a generational talent, but we’ll betcha anything that the Kangas wouldn’t swap their man for anything.
5. THE KID FROM COHUNA
The northern Victorian town is more well-known for dairy farming than it is for producing AFL footballers. Our records say there have been three. Chris Waterson was drafted in 1987 and played 13 games for Fitzroy. Flynn Appleby was a rookie for Collingwood in 2017 and played 11 games. And the third is Josh Treacy. The 21-year-old – along with Melbourne’s Jacob van Rooyen – are the emerging key forwards in the competition. On Saturday night, Treacy kicked five goals against Richmond and took his tally to 35.10 for the season; he’s now 11 behind Coleman Medal leader Charlie Curnow. Avid football watchers don’t need to be told about Treacy’s talents. To those who don’t watch Dockers’ games, Treacy is a special talent. He leads strongly, is brave, has strong hands and is a reliable kick. With 20-year-old Jye Amiss, who is less reliable with ball in hand – he’s kicked 23.21 for the season – the Dockers have two forwards who will be at the forefront when the Dockers threaten for the flag. In third spot on the ladder, that absolutely includes this year.
AND ANOTHER THING …
When text messages are leaked and they pot the senior coach, the response on the ground can be telltale. Do the players rally in times of division? Do they play for the coach? They are throwaway lines in professional football and maybe, just simply, the Eagles aren’t a very good football team. For whatever reason, West Coast wasn’t up for the fight on Sunday at the MCG. Certainly early in the game – the Demons kicked 7.3 to 1.3 in the first quarter and had 11.5 by the half, which was their highest-scoring first-half of the year.
The Demons moved the ball crazily well and all their forwards looked dangerous, but note that Melbourne’s best three players were kids – Trent Rivers, Jacob van Rooyen and Caleb Windsor. The Eagles had to be better. Maybe coach Adam Simpson could fire off some texts himself. Like, can you take a mark, Bailey Williams? Reuben Ginbey, can you please pick up Caleb Windsor? Come on, Jermaine Jones, it’s game 64, you’ve got to be better than nine disposals. Hey, Campbell Chesser, what’s going on in your head? Hey, Tom Barrass, any danger you could stop van Rooyen? The Eagles were more competitive after half-time, and actually slaughtered the Demons at stoppage and territory, but they fell down badlyon the outside.
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