The Tackle: Jay Clark’s likes and dislikes from round 3 of the AFL

Hawthorn’s perfect start to 2025 continued in round 3, all thanks to footy’s ‘USB adapter’ Nick Watson. Jay Clark writes in The Tackle, Watson is Sam Mitchell’s newest ace up his sleeve.

Round 3 of the AFL season has come and gone, what’s making headlines this weekend?

For starters, where are Melbourne really heading, and how did it get here?

JAY CLARK gives his likes and dislikes from the weekend of footy.

DISLIKES

1. MELBOURNE’S FALL FROM GRACE

It is the most surprising swing in football.

Melbourne’s midfield stars have gone from wrecking balls to moth balls in a few weeks.

Somehow, this Melbourne engine room which was the most powerful force in the game in its 2021 premiership campaign are suddenly one of the worst-performed onball operations this season.

They have been annihilated by North Melbourne and Gold Coast in consecutive weeks in Melbourne which undermines all the talk over the summer about being a connected and rejuvenated football club.

In reality, the midfield looks completely broken, after declaring over summer the club had brought in a second midfield coach to help get the club’s one wood humming again.

The Dees took their second hammering of the season against the Suns. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

But three weeks into the season, Melbourne’s tee shot is so far off the fairway they’ve lost sight of the ball in the waist-high weeds.

First-year brute Harvey Langford was the standout for the Demons in the clinches as Gold Coast superstar Matt Rowell underlined his standing as one of the top players in the game.

Geelong and Collingwood is keen on Rowell, but he will stay north based on the flag the Suns’ planted at the MCG.

Rowell bullied the Dees on Saturday, and the half back drive from new recruits Daniel Rioli and John Noble had Richmond’s premiership fingerprints all over it.

But here is the big question for Goodwin ahead of the blowtorch which is coming.

How much does the football club need to move on from, or at least move around the key midfield cogs which took the club to the premiership?

From a personnel perspective, this club has heavily resisted change in recent years.

The Demons have dug in on Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver’s futures amid unrest last year and are talking tough on Kysaiah Pickett’s contract situation.

But if these sort of performances continue, the shake-up on the cards will be significant after a straight sets exit 2022-23 and missing finals altogether last year.

And the nosedive has continued for the 0-3 Demons who currently rank last in the competition for generating first possession to clearance and third last for overall clearance differential, according to Champion Data.

They were belted by 16 clearances by the Suns on Saturday, their fifth-worst return in the last five years.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that the men who took the club to its 2021 flag in Max Gawn, 33, Steven May, 33, Jake Lever, 29, Christian Petracca, 29, and Clayton Oliver, 27, may not be the ones who drive the next flag push.

The uplift needs to come from the next wave led by Trent Rivers, Tom Sparrow, Jacob Van Rooyen, Kade Chandler, Caleb Windsor, Judd McVee, Langford, Matthew Jefferson, Koltyn Tholstrup, and Xavier Lindsay, among others.

The under-24 talent at Melbourne is top-line, and that is soon where Goodwin’s focus will soon be shifted.

Van Rooyen is the forward line’s great hope but he has struggled to have any impact and has suffered from not having a senior key forward to buddy up with.

They would love West Coast’s Oscar Allen, but he has better free agency options at hand, it seems, as Hawthorn and Brisbane ramp up their chase.

Watching on is incoming president Steven Smith, one of the most respected men in the game, who will be unafraid to draw a clean slate when he comes in at season’s end.

Goodwin was adamant midfield method was the problem, not personnel in the 58-point loss to Gold Coast.

That means it will be a busy week for the club’s two new midfield coaches, Nathan Jones and Sam Radford, ahead of one of the toughest tasks in the game, trying to topple Geelong in Geelong off consecutive losses.

But the reality is the midfield mix will have to continue to change, and this is where the body language experts will have the binoculars locked on to the stars who weighed up their futures last year, Petracca and Oliver.

Are they still happy in red and blue?

They have committed to a “new way” at Melbourne this year, and so far it isn’t working.

2. HARD TIME FOR HARRY

The expectations are enormous based on his brilliant first two seasons.

But North Melbourne gun youngster Harry Sheezel has had a soft start to the year.

Coach Alastair Clarkson would love the fact the load is more shared in the engine room after landing Swans’ veteran Luke Parker.

But the third-year superstar was down on Sunday in the head-to-head battle with superstar Crow Izak Rankine in the midfield and was moved to a back flank in the last term.

Rankine looks like of the best players in the league and will command a tag to shut down his polished influence.

Rankine’s sublime kick down the throat of Riley Thilthorpe from the outside of his right boot on the run late in the fourth term underlined the Crow’s current level of confidence.

Now the fifth favourite to win the Brownlow Medal, Rankine will meet his former teammates at Gold Coast on Saturday.

Harry Sheezel was nearly unsighted for the Roos on Sunday. Picture: Michael Klein

3. KING CALL

The vision was heartwarming.

Essendon’s Nate Caddy was so clearly keen and grateful for Nick Riewoldt’s advice and guidance on his forward craft during a broadcast interview on Friday night.

It started with Caddy saying he would send Riewoldt a message and then within a minute the pair were off to the side talking about marking contests.

Would it be enough for Saints’ spearhead Max King to reach out and try something similar?

The pair haven’t come together in recent times but surely a conversation or two with one of the game’s greatest forwards would be beneficial.

"I'll send you a message, I want to ask you a few things."

Love seeing this from Nate Caddy 😤#AFLDonsPowerpic.twitter.com/tq95AzK05Y

— 7AFL (@7AFL) March 27, 2025

4. THE LONG ROAD AHEAD

Liam Baker must have loved West Coast as a youngster.

The man who had Fremantle and the Eagles chasing him all year last season made the most interesting call of the exchange period, opting for West Coast over Fremantle for pick 14.

There was a relationship with coach Andrew McQualter from their time at Richmond.

But as Fremantle brushed aside the local rivals in the derby on Sunday night taking more risks than usual with the ball in hand up the middle, it was clear which side was a lot closer to a flag. The Dockers.

Liam Baker is facing a long road ahead at the Eagles. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images.

Derbies are always danger games but Andrew Brayshaw, Caleb Serong and Luke Jackson took control of this from the middle.

At West Coast, the futures of Harley Reid and Oscar Allen remain murky with Allen, who is being sought by Hawthorn and Brisbane among others, gathering only one possession until the last change.

It was a bath.

Reid took a hanger forward in the third term but was otherwise quiet again, too, playing onball for the majority of the match.

LIKES

1. FOOTY’S USB CONNECTOR

It might have been the most unlikely contested mark of the season.

Late in the second term Hawthorn’s Nick Watson gave away 25cm to his opponent, Giant Harry Himmelberg, as the pair stood under a swirly high ball on Saturday night.

Really, it was a contest Watson had no right to win in Launceston.

But instead of calling him ‘The Wizard’, perhaps he should be footy’s ‘USB adapter’, the best little connector in the game.

As Hawthorn made its charge, Watson outbodied the foot-taller Himmelberg and cradled the mark over the back like he was Wayne Carey.

Nick Watson outmarks Harry Himmelberg

At the time, Watson was playing as the deepest forward because he is a dual threat on the ground with his speed, spring and his brilliant aerial ability.

He is on track to become one of the best small forwards in the game by season’s end because he isn’t limited to the crumbs.

And that is the kind of positional versatility that is the ace up Sam Mitchell’s sleeve as Watson produced the best game of his career to power the 4-0 Hawks to a gritty comeback win over the Giants.

2. LIBBA LEADS THE WAY

Tom Liberatore has put the Western Bulldogs on his back.

For all the talk on about his fun-loving-ways and media-shy views in the past, there may not have been a more significant individual contributor on and off the field than the man with the Simpsons tattoos so far this season.

Without Marcus Bontempelli and Adam Treloar for a club under immense pressure this year, Liberatore was enormous again leading the Bulldogs to an upset win over Carlton on Friday night alongside a green onball bunch.

Ed Richards has been an onballer for less than one year, Joel Freijah has just stepped in as a star on the rise and Ryley Sanders is in his second season.

But after 28 and nine clearances and 34 and nine clearances in the first two games, Liberatore was all heart once again racking up another 30 and 5 against the Blues, and dual Brownlow Medalist Patrick Cripps.

The veteran has been outstanding yet again. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

And the little two second hug in the rooms between coach Luke Beveridge and his clearance winner said everything about the respect and admiration between the pair.

They love him, internally, Libba, and his influence around the group in recent weeks in Bontempelli’s absence cannot be understated.

But, outside the kennel, he might be the most under-appreciated great in the game. Sam Darcy might have attracted all the headlines in recent weeks but the hard nut has been the heartbeat.

For all the six and eight year deals getting around to some of the game’s young stars, Liberatore continues to deliver on one-year jobs, and maybe that’s how it has to be given his concussion history.

In any case, unsurprisingly, in some of the most toughest circumstances this year, the favourite son has once again been all-in.

3. CLEVER DRAFT CALLS SET TO PAY DIVIDENDS

Essendon was hammered for making the biggest blunder of last year’s draft.

Mick Ablett came off the long run when he said he was “staggered” the Bombers traded pick nine last year for Melbourne’s first-round pick in this year’s draft.

The Bombers pulled the trigger because it would have lost pick nine anyway on an earlier bid it thought would come on star youngster Isaac Kako.

But three rounds in to the new season that same pick Essendon has from Melbourne is currently number three.

The Bombers banked on Melbourne missing finals and, as things stand, the move looks a good one if the Demons’ struggles continue.

Hawthorn is smiling like a Cheshire cat for the same reason after nabbing Carlton’s future first and second-round picks in the pick 14 trade which secured the Hawks Tom Barrass.

The Eagles had the choice of pocketing either Hawthorn or Carlton’s first round pick and opted for Hawthorn’s selection in the belief it would be a better pick than the Blues’.

But with the Blues sitting third-last, and Hawthorn undefeated across four games, the Eagles would love to have that decision back.