Early Tackle: Sam Landsberger’s likes and dislikes from round 6
The prolonged search for a new CEO isn’t the only issue at AFL HQ. Some insiders say power groups have emerged among league heavyweights, annoying some commissioners.
Round 6 of the AFL season is here.
There’s been some big wins over finalists from last season and some contentious incidents that will be debated across the weekend.
Sam Landsberger breaks down the likes and dislikes from round 6 so far.
LIKES
TWINS UNITED?
All the talk in recruiting circles in recent weeks is that Harry and Ben McKay will be teammates in 2024. Given Harry is contracted at Carlton until 2030 and Ben is out of contract at North Melbourne, you would presume that is hinting at the Blues poaching full-back Ben. It’s interesting for a couple of reasons. When the McKay boys were drafted in 2015 the belief was they wanted to go to different clubs. There’s also a query the Blues might be building a midfield out of sync with other clubs, where they have loaded up on combative onballers, perhaps in the mould of coach Michael Voss, when others are prioritizing speed and run. That’s not to say it’s right or wrong, but pursuing a full-back obviously wouldn’t address that should they feel it’s a problem. That makes Sunday’s battle at Marvel Stadium interesting, because if there’s one thing St Kilda can do this year it is run.
IS BONT BEST BULLDOG EVER?
Marcus Bontempelli will celebrate the greatest opening 200 games of a career his club has seen next week. Bontempelli’s leadership to drag the Bulldogs from 0-2 to 3-3 should make him the clubhouse leader to be All-Australian captain and it wouldn’t surprise if he’s polled 10 Brownlow Medal votes in that four-game stretch. This is Bont’s past month: 66 contested possessions 39 clearances, 35 tackles and four goals. He is the No.1 player in the game right now and he might’ve already exceeded so many club legends from the past 30 years, such as Chris Grant, Scott West and Brad Johnson. The question worth asking is whether he will also eclipse EJ Whitten, the biggest figure in club history. Bontempelli is on track to equal Mr Football’s five best-and-fairests this year and at 27 he might play another 150 games. It’s worth noting that in 2016 Bontempelli did not poll a Norm Smith Medal vote – but if you watch the replay there’s a strong argument to say he was the best player that day. Every single one of his possessions hit the target under the ferocious pressure of a grand final. Bontempelli also had one hand on the medal in the 2021 decider when he threw his arms out in celebration after booting the Bulldogs 19 points clear during the third quarter, before Melbourne’s avalanche of goals sank his side. The Brownlow bridesmaid in 2021, if Bontempelli can take home Charlie and skipper the Dogs to another flag before his time is up there’s little doubt he will be the greatest Dog of all time. Coach Luke Beveridge, who always seems to find the perfect words, called Bont a “diamond”. Fully fit this year, Bont is sparkling again.
IS THE MIDFIELD BETTER WITHOUT BAILEY SMITH?
Bailey Smith’s calf injury has forced Adam Treloar and Jack Macrae to spend more time in the centre and the midfield has seemingly struck a better balance. Early in the season Macrae was pushed to half-forward – in rounds 2-3 he attended eight and nine centre bounces – but on Friday night he was at 16 and won a career-high 14 clearances, which equalled Tom Liberatore’s club record. Treloar attended a season-high 27 centre bounces on Friday night and has had 35 disposals in each of the two games Smith has missed. The Dogs got 10 goals from their midfielders alone, matching Fremantle’s tally, while Smith will likely replace Liberatore (concussion) next week. The defence has clicked, too, with Jason Johannisen’s forward experiment ending and his ball use and bounce off halfback returning to his 2016 vintage, averaging 24 disposals in the past three weeks. As JJ’s partner Logan Shine told Roaming Brian: “He didn’t win a Norm Smith playing forward, did he?”
COUPLE’S COURAGE
Jeremy Finlayson’s wife Kellie has Stage 4 bowel cancer and bravely told the Herald Sun on Saturday: “Do I have five years? Less? More? How soon is Jeremy was going to be a single parent. If I were to pass, I would hope that he would find someone to help him raise our child eventually. But I was just thinking about Jeremy trying to be a mum and a dad with his career being the sole income for our family. And the anxiety around not knowing how Sophia was going to be brought up knowing her dad would’ve been ruined to a degree as well”. Last week he and Kellie popped into GWS training at Norwood, the club he spent seven years at, for an emotional hello. Football doesn’t seem so important, but two weeks ago Finlayson was the hero with the last goal for Port Adelaide against Sydney at the SCG and on Saturday Finlayson was targeted inside 50m six times for a return of four marks and kicked 5.2. Extraordinary courage by the couple.
TOMAHAWK WINDS BACK CLOCK
You couldn’t help but feel sorry for Tom Hawkins a month ago. The 34-year-old looked like a 44-year-old when he hobbled through the opening few games after missing pre-season with a foot injury. The champion goalkicker relied on his residual fitness to wade through and it was hard to watch. So you couldn’t help but feel happy for Hawkins on Saturday night when he slotted 5.0 – as did Jeremy Cameron – against Sydney’s skinny defence. Hawkins marked two-on-one against Callum Mills and Will Gould as his team played like the Geelong Globetrotters. Zach Tuohy sold candy to kick a goal, Mark Blicavs rolled into the ruck and rolled out of stoppages with ball in hand while Gary Rohan and Bradley Close chased and tackled with venom. The aerial dominance was telling. The Cats gave up 33 marks inside 50m in their first two losses but took 22-5 on Saturday night. Twelve days before this clash they woke up on the bottom of the ladder at 0-3, and trailed Hawthorn at halftime of Easter Monday. Since that moment they have kicked 56.30 (366) to 19.21 (135), split the ledger at 3-3 and boosted their percentage from 83 to 137.7, which is the second-best percentage in the AFL.
DISLIKES
TICK OFF FREMANTLE
Dogs boss Ameet Bains said pre-game: “Whilst it’s only one game, the difference between 3-3 and 2-4 is huge”. He was right, and it was arguably even bigger for Fremantle because in the next five weeks the Dockers play Brisbane Lions (Gabba), Sydney (SCG), Geelong (Perth) and Melbourne (MCG). Whereas the Dogs have beaten three of last year’s finalists and now have games against Hawthorn, GWS, Carlton, Adelaide and Gold Coast. They’ve trained at Braybrook in Melbourne and spent the week in Leederville in Perth but having added 1.5 full-time coaches (Brendon Lade and part-time Stefan Martin) they are now rolling. One rival assistant coach suspected at Gather Round that after Fremantle ground out that win against Gold Coast it would be the Dockers that got going because they simply had so many good players. But much like Twitter’s blue ticks, they now look gone overnight.
THE GHOST OF MATTHEW PAVLICH
Matthew Pavlich won Fremantle’s goalkicking eight times and kicked more than 60 goals in six seasons. But in the past decade the Dockers have traded in Cameron McCarthy, Rory Lobb and Jesse Hogan only to trade out Lobb and Hogan and send swingman Griffin Logue to North Melbourne last year. They don’t want to shift Brennan Cox out of defence, but with Matt Taberner out for months they desperately lack a key forward. It’s the No.1 list problem for coach Justin Longmuir.
LAUGHABLE LOBB ANTICS
In last year’s elimination final Luke Beveridge stood on the boundary screaming at his players for engaging in a wrestle when the ball was in play as Fremantle surged forward. On Friday night the Dockers tangled with Rory Lobb before the bounce and then when Jamarra Ugle-Hagan’s set-shot sprayed wide they were again tussling with Lobb and out of position, helping Adam Treloar snap a goal. What were they thinking? Coach Justin Longmuir swatted away talk that Lobb was a distraction because he said that would be giving his players an out. Sadly, he was right. Fremantle, or ‘Freezemantle’ with ball in hand, such is the lack of speed they play with, even had the crowd frustrated. They went slow and long and got trapped in their back half. Friday night was a territory domination rarely seen as the frenetic Dogs laid 20 tackles in their forward 50 and scored 92 points from forward-half chains, up from their season average of 38. Longmuir said in the fourth quarter the Dockers pulled a forward back from the stoppage to even up numbers to try and win the game, and the Dogs kicked four goals from stoppages in the last quarter and won contested ball by 19. The Dockers have lost contested ball in every quarter and they are yet to win a first quarter. So back to Lobb … if you haven’t won a first quarter this season, shouldn’t that be your focus at the first bounce, rather than pushing and shoving a bloke who spent four so-so years at your club?
AFL COMMISSION CLIQUE
In February the Herald Sun published footy’s power list, ranking 1-40 the most influential people in the game. Collingwood president Jeff Browne was No.1 and issued a warning to the AFL: “It’s time now to revisit the power sharing arrangement that was struck in 1985 between the AFL commission and the clubs, because the clubs are certainly in a position to make a very positive contribution to the direction and oversight of the game. So there will be a change – and there should be a change, and it’ll be good for the game.” Clubs had lost faith in the AFL Commission over the failure to fill the two vacant places on the commission or to anoint Gillon McLachlan’s successor. Two months on and nothing has changed. The ring-a-round of club powerbrokers at the time also revealed power cliques had emerged in the commission. One club suggested Richard Goyder, his closest confidante Paul Bassat, Robin Bishop and Andrew Newbold were in one power group, which annoyed other commissioners. The lack of confidence in the game’s leadership at club level remains deeply worrying.
EAGLES INJURY CRISIS
Suspect this will be premiership star and West Coast captain Luke Shuey’s last AFL season – and hopefully the 2018 Norm Smith Medallist makes it through. Footage of Shuey punching the interchange bench when he tweaked his hamstring in round 3 was compounded on Saturday when he returned, only to be substituted out with a sore ankle. Shuey turns 33 in June and has missed 25 games through injury in the past three years. Asked whether West Coast might struggle to name a healthy 26-man squad next week coach Adam Simpson said: “That’s probably real”. Midfielder Jai Culley played forward through necessity and kicked four goals while Reuben Ginbey – the local player the Eagles traded back in last year’s draft hoping to still get because they feared the likes of Harry Sheezel were flight risks – looks a beauty. They are the positives. But it’s disappointing for the AFL to have the Eagles effectively rendered easy-beats through a sheer talent drain.
EXPLOITING DANGEROUS TACKLES
Match Review Officer Michael Christian has a monumental decision to make on Sunday. Will he suspend Callan Ward for a dangerous tackle on Lachie Neale? Or did Neale purposefully collapse to ensure he won a free kick as his head hit the turf? Taylor Adams tweeted: “Blow the whistle earlier” in one umpiring change that would help tackles to end before they become dangerous. Players are smart at adapting. In the opening minutes of Friday night Marcus Bontempelli appeared to soften a tackle to ensure he wouldn’t be in trouble. So the question is whether Neale adapted as well to exploit the rule. If so, the AFL has a problem on its hands. It’s happened before … remember the trend of players driving into tackles head-first to draw free kicks? Don’t necessarily agree, but reckon after wiping out Will Day, Gary Rohan, Taylor Adams and Zach Merrett in the past two weeks that Christian will suspend Ward and … the Giants will challenge at the tribunal. Port Adelaide’s Tom Jonas is likely to cop a week, too, for bumping Jai Culley, which would leave the Power without its captain and Todd Marshall (concussion) for Friday night’s match against St Kilda.
PATHETIC SWANS
Don’t worry about the injuries. That was embarrassing from Sydney – and, outside of the 2014 and 2022 grand finals – that’s just not something that’s ever said about this team. You have to go back to round 10 in 1998 for a heavier defeat, when Steven Sziller and Jason Heatley combined for 10 goals in St Kilda’s 101-point win at the SCG. Last year’s 81-point grand final margin swelled to 93 points against a Swans team that still had plenty of star power in the line-up. The Swans have dropped three of their past four games and been smacked by premiership heavyweights Melbourne (50 points) and now the Cats. They managed three behinds in the second half, which was its lowest-scoring second half since South Melbourne managed the same amount against Melbourne at Waverley Park in 1971. The inside 50m count was close (54-40) but the Swans barely even touched the Sherrin when it went in their end. History says eventual premiers don’t suffer losses like this, let alone multiple ones inside a month.
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