On Saturday with the game poised, Geelong’s Ollie Henry took a mark on the goal line. There was a video review about whether he had marked inside the field of play, and after it was examined at length, it was decided he had.
What was not debated, but should have been, was the fact that before this there was a hefty shove in Lewis Young’s back. There is a reason it was not debated, and it wasn’t just because the video score review doesn’t (and shouldn’t) extend to reviewing those things. It was not in debate because there seemingly is never a debate about the fact players continue to feel free to shove opponents under the ball at will.
Carlton captain Patrick Cripps has a word with the umpire on Saturday afternoon.Credit: AFL Photos
Since the AFL – rightly – removed the hands in the back rule, umpires have taken the view that nearly everything now is permissible. Commentators use silly euphemisms like “worked him under the ball” when a player times the shove of an opponent just as he leaps, and hence goes flying forward. “That’s just good body work.” Well, it is if you accept getting away with a push in the back is good body work.
But the commentators of this play were left aghast at what Henry got away with. Goal-kicking great Jason Dunstall was surprised and bemused, David King perplexed.
“It’s an extraordinary push out,” Dunstall observed on Fox.
The generous view of the Henry moment was he might have pushed Young in the side, even though Young went cannoning forwards.
It was a missed free kick. And yes free kicks are missed by umpires, that’s accepted, and it might just be put down as an error. But the concern is the AFL won’t consider this and incidents like it an error because otherwise it is doubtful they would continue happening so frequently.
The Henry mark was one instance, but it happened again on Sunday when Swan Hayden McLean shoved Hawthorn’s Jack Scrimshaw under the ball. There are examples in every game.
The AFL first introduced the hands in the back rule because a push seemed devilishly hard to police. Then it abandoned that mandatory rule because the lack of leeway in interpretation made the cure worse than the cancer. Now we are back with players being freely pushed out. The AFL needs to push back, not push in the back.
In a game where the Blues were also penalised for a dubious stand 50 that resulted in a late goal, when the umpire told Harry McKay to stand but Patrick Cripps did instead, because McKay was injured and wandered away, the Blues had a right to feel they didn’t get the rub.
Buddy good player, that Jeremy Cameron
On the weekend Sydney played Hawthorn and feted Buddy Franklin, a great of both clubs, the man who is his closest approximation kicked his 600th goal.
Franklin had his premiership success at Hawthorn but rounded his career, and achieved a more rounded level of recognition and success, by going to Sydney.
Jeremy Cameron won no flags and enjoyed no comparable cut-through to Franklin’s when he was at Greater Western Sydney, but has arrived at Geelong and elevated himself into a modern great.
Cameron won a best and fairest, was twice All-Australian and a Coleman medallist at the Giants. With 427 goals in 171 appearances, he was an exceptional player in a very good GWS side that regularly made finals.
Irresistible: Geelong goalkicker Jeremy Cameron.Credit: AFL Photos
Yet he has been even better at the Cats in his late 20s, and now early 30s. He’s won one flag, another All-Australian blazer, might win another premiership this year and has booted 196 goals in 66 games.
He will play his 250th later this year and with his rangy Michael Tuck-esque build looks capable of playing deep into his 30s and pressing beyond 300 to 350 games. He could retire with more than 800 goals.
If he hasn’t been a more important and influential recruit even than Brownlow medallist Paddy Dangerfield, he is his equal. If modern Brownlows could be won by anyone other than a midfielder, Cameron would be a favourite.
Geelong handed over effectively the draft capital they netted from losing Tim Kelly in order to secure Cameron at the end of 2020, but were still able to nab Max Holmes at pick 20. Yes, it was a COVID-affected draft, but more than one recruiter should be embarrassed by letting Holmes get that far.
Within two years of that draft the Cats had returned and picked the eyes out of it, trading again to secure Tanner Bruhn, whom the Giants had taken at pick 11, and Ollie Henry, Collingwood’s pick 17.
No, those clubs didn’t want to lose those players, but that is not the point. Geelong got them. The net effect is that as well as securing Cameron, the Cats still brought in three first-round selections.
Those younger players are starting to have the impact you expect now in their fourth seasons, yet Cameron, probably the game’s best forward right now (even bearing in mind the fact he has been spending time on a wing this year) is the prime reason they are undefeated, and a year after missing the eight look once more a premiership fancy.
Harry McKay was terrific on Saturday with his contested marking, while Charlie Curnow is the most muscularly athletic and exciting forward to watch. Yet neither plays like Cameron.
Missing in action: Marcus Bontempelli (second from right) was stuck on the pine in the last term.Credit: Getty Images
Time killer
Marcus Bontempelli sat on the bench for seven minutes in the last quarter as the Bulldogs’ hopes of beating Fremantle evaporated before his eyes. That’s one of the competition’s best players out of action for a quarter of the final term when the game was in the balance.
Welcome return: Carlton’s Marc Pittonet.Credit: AFL Photos
Doubtless there were difficulties about finding a replacement in the proximity, but as far as avoidable errors go, this felt like it was right there.
Fremantle would always be expected to rally at home again after the previous weekend’s humiliating derby loss, but this still should have been a game the Bulldogs won. It would well be a game they reflect on later in the year and wonder, ‘What if?’
What’s French for comeback?
Marc Pittonet was outstanding in his return for the Blues. His impact in the ruck was critical in the domination out of the middle, in the first quarter in particular. For impact, Jarrod Witts’ performance for the Suns against West Coast was similarly influential.
For the Blues it meant they controlled the ball out of the middle and around the ground at stoppages. Pittonet had 11 of his own clearances and fed off another eight to Cripps.
Of course, you can look at the clearance numbers and wonder how influential they really are when the Cats won the game. The centre-clearance control should have translated into far more impact on the scoreboard, but Carlton stuffed it in front of goal. Two goals, seven behinds in the first term hurt.
Casting ahead to Friday night it makes for a tasty match-up against the reigning premiers, who were belted around the ball and in clearances by the Bombers on Anzac Day, yet managed a draw. Remember, Carlton beat Collingwood when they last played, in round 20 last year. Cripps had seven clearances and 20 touches that night.
Collingwood go into the game with Tom Mitchell, their best clearance player, coming off a shocker, needing to be subbed out. He should be rested this week.
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