Early Tackle: Scott Gullan’s likes and dislikes from AFL round 9
After his grand final cameo, the stage was set for Brandan Parfitt to take a leading role in a new-look Geelong midfield. But reality is a long way from the expectation. Read the Early Tackle.
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It has been another round of highs and for some clubs, crushing lows.
Scott Gullan examines all the key talking points of round 9, asking where to for Alastair Clarkson and North Melbourne, looking at the big worry for Lance Franklin and asking just how bad things might get for the AFL’s bottom-three clubs this year.
DISLIKES
WHERE IS NORTH GOING UNDER CLARKSON?
Is North Melbourne better under Alastair Clarkson?
It’s a question which many thought wouldn’t be relevant after the opening month of the new coach’s tenure.
Two wins – which was all the Roos had for the entire 2022 season – in the opening two weeks had everyone warm and fuzzy at Arden St.
Seven losses on the trot has changed the narrative with Saturday’s 70-point capitulation against Port Adelaide continuing a worrying trend for Clarkson.
The Roos aren’t hard to play against which was his No. 1 objective when he took over the job. The facts are they’re getting easier to play against by the week.
In the past five games the closest they’ve got is within five goals of St Kilda in Round 8 with an average losing margin of 61 points.
They weren’t helped by injuries against the Power and in the final quarter were down to one man on the bench after their best player Luke Davies-Uniacke limped off with a hamstring injury.
An eight goal to one second quarter finished this contest at Blundstone Arena and during this Port blitz the Roos looked like witches hats.
By halftime the Power had scored 9.5 goals from turnovers as North just kept giving it back to them with horrible skills and horrible decision-making.
Late in the second quarter Roos youngster Flynn Perez gathered the ball at centre half-back and without any pressure went for a 15 metre regulation short pass to a teammate on the outer side.
The ball barely got off the ground, dribbling into the hands of Port’s Ryan Burton who handballed to his teammate Riley Bonner for the easiest of goals.
It was embarrassing – the Roos had 62 clangers to 36 – and summed up where Clarkson’s team is at the moment.
TIME TO END THE JHF DEBATE FOR GOOD
Hopefully we can all move on from the booing debate now despite Jason Horne-Francis getting a few jeers in Tasmania.
The North fans who made the trek consistently let out a few boos whenever the youngster went near the ball.
That wasn’t much in the first half with Alastair Clarkson ensuring he was closely watched, sending his two big-bodied taggers Liam Shiels and Hugh Greenwood to the Port youngster at stoppages.
Horne-Francis moved forward in the second quarter and for a period played out of the goalsquare where he snared a clever snap goal.
He wasn’t in Port’s best but finished with a respectable 15 touches. Importantly, he has got the game which he would have been thinking about all year out of the way without incident.
CAN PARFITT SHOW HIS WORTH TO CATS?
What’s happened to Brandan Parfitt?
Friday night was all set up for him to stake his claim in the Geelong midfield, yet, if anything, his position in the team is now under more pressure.
Parfitt started as the substitute in the grand final with coach Chris Scott saying he was desperately unlucky with match-ups because in normal circumstances he was clearly in the Cats’ best 22.
He did get on in the last quarter and kicked a goal, which Scott said was one of his favourite moments of the premiership victory.
It was then expected he’d go away, have a big summer and with Joel Selwood retiring, step in and take the former skipper’s role in the midfield.
Instead, Parfitt was dropped after round 1, came back for a cameo in round 5 and then played his third game of the season in Friday night’s loss to Richmond.
With Patrick Dangerfield and Cam Guthrie missing from the Cats’ engine room, the expectation was that Parfitt would help fill the void.
Instead, he struggled again with another head-scratching performance of just 10 possessions and four tackles.
THE EASYBEATS ARE GETTING EASIER TO BEAT
Has the competition already got the worst bottom three in a decade?
The performances of North Melbourne, West Coast and Hawthorn have evoked memories of the 2012 season when the GWS Giants, Gold Coast Suns and Melbourne were non-competitive.
That was the Giants first season in the competition where they won two games and finished with a horrible percentage of 46.2. Fellow expansion team the Gold Coast Suns won just three games (percentage 60.8) with Melbourne four wins (67.50).
Already after nine rounds the percentage of the Eagles (60.5), Kangaroos (62.9) and Hawks is hovering around similar territory.
The Eagles have a long injury list but those senior players who are on the park are going through the motions. How long Adam Simpson sticks around will be a big discussion point in the coming weeks.
Alastair Clarkson’s glow on North has worn out and they are also veering into non-competitive areas while Hawthorn were again exposed early against Melbourne with the match over by quarter-time.
It is becoming a major problem, in particular for the TV networks, given the matches with these three teams involved are fast becoming non-events.
SWANS AREN’T DOING BUDDY JUSTICE
Sydney’s trainwreck start of the season is setting up an underwhelming farewell lap for Lance Franklin.
Playing as a key forward in this Swans side is not an easy task as they struggle with injuries and form but the days of thinking Buddy will fix it look over.
Against Fremantle Franklin had just four touches and didn’t bother the scoreboard.
Sadly his biggest moment came in the third quarter and it was the biggest brain fade of the day. After being awarded a mark five metres out, Franklin inexplicably decided to play-on and was tackled by two Dockers, turning the ball over.
The Swans aren’t going to play finals unless something dramatic happens which on the evidence of what they served up against the Dockers is highly unlikely.
They play North Melbourne and Carlton before the bye, after which they might get some soldiers back.
Poor old Buddy wasn’t getting great service against the Dockers with the visitors leading all the key stats: 61-44 inside 50s, 12-6 marks inside 50, 49-36 clearances and 20-9 centre clearances.
So what happens if we hit July and the Swans are out of business? Does Buddy go through the motions and finish the season or is a farewell game picked out with a proper goodbye that he deserves.
COLEMAN DUO MUST LIFT
Two goals seven behinds from Carlton’s three tall forwards isn’t going to win big games.
As the season starts to slip away, the emphasis on Charlie Curnow and Harry McKay to pull them out of the mire gets more intense.
While Curnow at least fired late against the Bulldogs for 2.3 goals, the form of McKay is the biggest concern.
The 2021 Coleman Medallist looked confused and unsure what to do when he had set shots from around the 50m arc.
After blowing a trademark around-the-corner set shot from 35m out early in the game, McKay seemed to drop his head with two behinds, a disappointing return in a season-defining game.
With Jack Silvagni also only contributing two behinds, it was left to the Blues small forwards to get them back in the game after Carlton had only managed one goal in the opening half.
Matthew Owies (three goals) and Corey Durdin (one goal) led the way but it’s not a blueprint for long-term success.
Carlton will likely be out of the eight after the end of the round and face Collingwood next week in a game where - yep you guessed it - they will put all their chickens in the Curnow-McKay basket again.
LIKES
THE RICHMOND OF OLD IS BACK
Sometimes it’s the words which tell the best story.
Dion Prestia isn’t one to mince his words – we liked how pre-game he thought Tom Stewart should have got more weeks for last year’s hit on him – so the eyebrows were raised when he gave his thoughts on whether Richmond’s defeat of last year’s premier Geelong was a legit turning point.
“It feels like we’re kind of rolling. It feels like … the premiership years, where we work out a few things and we start to get the Richmond game back going.”
An undermanned Cats team means it’s hard to go all chips in but there is an air of confidence returning to Punt Rd and the next two weeks will tell the story.
Essendon in the Dreamtime Game followed by another MCG hitout against Port Adelaide. Win those and the narrative will be changed in the second half of the year.
There was a lot of the Richmond of old on Friday night, plenty of run from a backline that stood tough while there were some brilliant cameos from three players who will shape the Tigers fortunes in 2023.
We are in the next phase of Dustin Martin’s career where it’s very much not a numbers game with him, more impact per disposal. Nineteen touches, four goals and three Brownlow votes is the template.
Shai Bolton was best-on-ground against the Eagles last week, this week he was crucial through the middle of the ground with 13 contested possessions and six clearances.
Former captain Trent Cotchin is in his last dance but he will play such an important role spiritually for this team. When he’s on – which he was against the Cats with three goals as a half-forward – the Tigers become the hunters which is exactly what Prestia was talking about.
BERGMAN’S VALUE RISING BY THE WEEK
Miles Bergman is costing Port Adelaide some serious cash as each week goes by.
The dashing halfback sent shivers down Power fans during the week when he revealed he was putting contract talks off until later in the season.
Every Victorian club has Bergman at the top of their wish lists and have done for some time. They were thinking they might get him on the cheap 12 months ago when he was still suffering from homesickness.
But the 21-year-old has clicked into gear and was again pivotal for Port when they opened up the game against North Melbourne in the second quarter.
His pace and beautiful kicking off halfback is what clubs dream about and he was one of the Power’s best with 21 touches.
FROM the moment he arrived at Kardinia Park, the hype train has been following Jhye Clark.
The No. 8 draft pick was immediately labelled the “next Joel Selwood” which is a tough cross to bear but the brief sample in his first game suggests the Cats know they have a good one.
Clark started as the sub but when Chris Scott decided to activate the teenager in the third quarter he put him straight into a centre bounce. That said a fair bit about what the coach thinks about the kid.
While six touches isn’t anything to get carried away with there is one statistic which tells a story. Clark had five tackles, the equal second most for the game – Tom Atkins had six – in just over a quarter.
Pretty boy to junkyard dog Bailey Smith take a bow.
Smith should be applauded for doing his best Tom Liberatore impersonation with the pair conspiring to deny Carlton an emotional comeback victory.
The Dogs star has made his name as a hard-running, skilful outside player with the great mullet. Last night he was forced to put on another costume.
With Adam Treloar out, Dogs coach Luke Beveridge sent Smith into the middle of the ground, specifically to play on Brownlow Medallist Patrick Cripps at stoppages.
He asked his young gun to get his hands dirty and the result was a stunning 30 possession, nine clearances game which also included a match-winning goal late in the game.
His combination with Liberatore was pivotal in the Dogs steadying late in the final term to chalk up their sixth consecutive victory.
Libba doesn’t need an invitation to get his hands dirty and he finished with 26 touches, nine tackles and 13 clearances.
SCHULTZ AN OLD SCHOOL SCRAPPER WE CAN ALL LOVE
Dermott Brereton loves him because he’s an old-school type of footballer.
Lachie Schultz isn’t particularly fast, he’s not flashy, he’s not a big mark, not a big kick and generally doesn’t have a lot of tricks going on.
But what he does have is a footballer’s brain, a tough head and a great attitude. Plus he wears old-fashioned black boots which appealed to the Hawthorn legend.
“He’s a footballer,” Brereton said on Fox Footy. “He’s banged up, strapped up but he got some balls about him.”
In his 76th game, Schultz was a big reason why the Dockers broke their SCG drought kicking an equal career-high four goals from 14 touches with six tackles.
ROWELL, GINBEY’S WILD TACKLE NUMBERS
If tackling shows a mindset then two youngsters on Friday night in Perth deserve some kudos.
With the first player, the stat won’t surprise given Matt Rowell in a short space of time has built his reputation about being one of the hardest in-and-under midfielders in the competition.
The Gold Coast gun was one of the best for the Suns in the rout of the Eagles, collecting 29 touches along with a stunning career-high 17 tackles.
On the other side, West Coast defender Reuben Ginbey continues to be a shining light in a horror show.
He showed a penchant for the hard stuff in his first game where he collected 12 tackles but he raised the bar against the Suns, notching up 16.
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