‘Showed a lot of cracks’: The competition in season 2024 is closer than you think

This week on the Real Footy podcast, Cats premiership star Mathew Stokes joins Michael Gleeson and Jake Niall to discuss how even the competition is this season.

That was clear in the last game of the round, when the Eagles upset Melbourne – and without taking anything away from West Coast, it made clear how much the Demons rely on Max Gawn and Christian Petracca, exposing some cracks in the Melbourne team.

“The league isn’t as far apart as what we think it is,” Stokes said. “If you can turn up with a willingness to all buy in and have 23 players who buy into that message of … going after the senior players [of the opposition], you can actually expose some teams.”

It’s well worth remarking though on the Swans, who have been impressive this season. Though the competition has been relatively even, it is Sydney who have been the clear standout performers so far.

The panel also discussed rising West Coast star Harley Reid, who was brilliant in the Eagles’ win over Melbourne on Sunday. The Eagles’ fortunes are on the rise this season, and it is impossible to separate Reid from that discussion. He is drawing comparisons to some greats of the game, including Chris Judd, Gary Ablett jnr and Tim Watson. But not to be forgotten is forward Jake Waterman, who is currently joint leader of the Coleman Medal and whose marking as well as goal-kicking has been impressive.

Stokes, a Larrakia man from Darwin, also gave his view on the AFL bringing a 20th team to the Northern Territory.

“We deserve it, the Territory,” he said, adding the caveat that it would take a lead-in time of 10-15 years if it were to be introduced properly.

“I genuinely feel across the board that the talent isn’t there for this industry. We need to do something better within the states to make sure that the talent’s coming through. We need to pay our assistant coaches a little bit more to be able to teach our players how to play the right way and the fundamentals of AFL football.”

He said consideration should be given to the conditions and the time of year games were played in the Northern Territory, including potentially splitting games between Darwin and Alice Springs, so as not to negatively impact the look of the game.

Niall, Stokes and Gleeson also took a look at the Saints’ struggles. A lack of star power in the middle is causing headaches and Stokes says they’re still paying overs for players that they’ve picked up to paper over cracks in their list. And they have overlooked some good players now at other clubs when they’ve had high draft picks in previous years. Will the Saints have to continue to pay overs in order to match bigger clubs when they target game-changing players? Or do they target more local, peninsula-based players instead?

Plus, the key to beating the Cats, what Richmond need from their senior players, the trust issues that the Bulldogs give tipsters and are the Bombers a legitimate top-four team?

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