Early Tackle: All the likes and dislikes from round 6 so far
When all expected them to get the job done against a rebuilding side, the Suns fluffed their lines. JOSH BARNES asks, did we give Damien Hardwick and his side too much credit?
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We’ve already seen three games in an extended round 6 of the AFL season.
The Pies proved they are contenders, the Roos were demolished and the Dons survived a scare.
Josh Barnes names his early likes and dislikes here.
LIKES
IN TOP NICK
Never underestimate how tough it is to play footy.
Last Sunday, Nick Vlastuin had his nose broken from a thuggish Patrick Voss round arm.
Most of us would take months off if our nose was splattered in the workplace, but instead Vlastuin was comfortably the best player on the ground at half-time against Gold Coast.
The Richmond defender has long flown under the radar and at the main break he had 11 intercepts, singlehandedly holding back the tide of constant second quarter Tiger turnovers.
At that point, he also led everyone in the field in disposals (21), kicks (18), marks (10), metres gained (425) and was going at a disposal efficiency of 90.5 per cent.
You cannot play a better half as a defender.
And Vlastuin still stood tall when it counted in the last term despite slowly running out of gas, quipping to Fox Footy post-match that he struggled late because he couldn’t get any air in that bung nose.
Vlastuin never won an All-Australian blazer in Richmond’s finals days and it seems unlikely he will get there now as his team battles.
But he has been a bedrock of the backline for a long, long time and Richmond fans will always cherish his full heartedness.
His ability to weather the storm then allowed the Tigers to cash in and boot eight out of nine goals leading into three quarter-time.
It was a great effort from Richmond, after a week of external heat of their own making.
Most people would still say Noah Balta shouldn’t have played on Saturday, but his final term proved why Adem Yze was so keen to pick him, as he stood firm at full-back.
Seth Campbell was again electric, and Maurice Rioli showed the tackle desperation needed to re-spark his career.
Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper matched Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson in the middle portion of the game.
Having been pegged to go winless by many through this season, a quarter of the way through, Richmond has as many wins on the board as North Melbourne, Melbourne and West Coast combined.
KOZZY’S AUDITION
As David King noted, if Kysaiah Pickett wants to play for Fremantle next year, he delivered the mother of all auditions.
It was the footy version of souping up your LinkedIn page just as you know an employer is searching you.
If Dees president Brad Green put the asking price on a Pickett trade at three first-rounders in the pre-season, it looked like it should have been up to half-a-dozen at half-time on Saturday.
Pickett was everything Melbourne has been missing – classy, speedy and full of attitude – as he piled up five goals, six inside-50s and 12 score involvements in his 24 ultra-damaging disposals.
When he gave a two-finger salute to Josh Draper as he ran into an open goal square in the third quarter, he already had the three votes sewed up.
If Pickett does want to leave the Dees this off-season, he would spark a massive bidding war – don’t forget he is still only 23 years old and he plays in footy’s most important position as a mid-forward.
Pickett’s early domination was only matched by two vital defensive efforts at the other end from Trent Rivers.
Rivers chased down Jye Amiss in the defensive goal square and stayed down on Shai Bolton when he tried to dance step him minutes later in a heads-up play.
This win was a small pressure release for the Dees, who play lowly Richmond and West Coast next.
And a shout out to the Demons fans who made the effort to get to the MCG.
A crowd of 25,202 isn’t great but it was a dud timeslot and the Dees fans were loud when it counted, drawing praise from Max Gawn post-match.
Melbourne has played three home games this year, against GWS, Gold Coast and Fremantle.
It’s a nightmare start to the season for the bean counters but the light may be coming at the end of the tunnel.
BRUTAL BLUES
As bad as North Melbourne was, Carlton was brilliant around the clinches on Friday.
How about these stats, from Champion Data guru Corey Mobilio.
Carlton’s +25 inside-50 count was its fourth-best effort in the last decade, its +11 in centre clearances its fifth best in that time and the 32 points scored from centre breaks the fourth-best return.
The 77 points the Blues piled up from stoppages was the third-best on record in club history and the 63 points generated from inside the forward 50 was the third best by any team in the deep Champion Data servers.
It was a midfield massacre, and against a North Melbourne team that fancies itself in the guts.
George Hewett is one of the form midfielders in the game and his 12 clearances was double the next best on the ground, while Adam Cerra is in the best touch of his career.
George Hewett snaps the Blues' third-straight ... but this was a cruel bounce for Charlie Comben! 🫣
— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) April 18, 2025
📺 Watch #AFLRoosBlues LIVE on ch. 504 or stream on Kayo: https://t.co/flleVgcK88
âœï¸ BLOG https://t.co/koj1QZpAKw
🔢 MATCH CENTRE https://t.co/akZ3DqB78ypic.twitter.com/aEKlXHAO5E
Patrick Cripps wasn’t even a major factor in the demolition.
It’s no wonder Zac Williams, Will White, Jesse Motlop, Corey Durdin and Cooper Lord all feasted with easy goals given the efficiency of the Blues out of the clinches.
Often, clearance domination like this is deemed unsustainable, but Carlton actually won the clearance count by more last week against West Coast and won the inside-50 count by more.
The Blues have still only beaten the Eagles and Roos in their last 15 games and it’s highly unlikely they will score from clearances at anywhere near the same rate going forward.
But the returns out of the middle will have the competition on alert.
With Geelong and Adelaide (away) in the next fortnight, we will soon know a lot more about Michael Voss’ team.
THE WRIGHT STUFF
The last time Peter Wright kicked six goals was 1077 days ago.
What followed was the high of a club best-and-fairest and the lows of a serious shoulder injury, a lengthy suspension last year that tipped his confidence off its axis and a stint in the VFL.
What a journey it has been for Two Metre Peter, who proved to be the driving force behind a thriller in the west for the Bombers.
When he jumps at the footy and nails that beautiful kicking style from outside 50, it’s hard to imagine him as anything but a feared spearhead but he has been up and down footy’s roller coaster.
Essendon will need him to stay up, with Sam Draper clearly distressed in the rooms after what looked like a serious Achilles injury.
Having lost Nick Bryan for the season a week before, the Bombers will likely head into Anzac Day with Wright and Todd Goldstein sent to face a red-hot Darcy Cameron.
Who knows where the next turn will go for Wright.
FLYING PIES
Rivals will be worried about Nick Daicos’ depositing Brownlow votes in untaggable form and they should be just as worried about Collingwood banking wins to start the year.
The Pies rate themselves as great travellers but hadn’t won in Brisbane since mid-Covid.
What the Pies really are, is great at the MCG.
Craig McRae has won his past seven games at the colosseum and Collingwood’s perennial easy run home has the Pies playing 11 of their 17 games to come this year at the ‘G.
If Collingwood is already 5-1, a top four spot is in hand if they hold firm in May, when facing Geelong, Fremantle (away), Adelaide (MCG), North Melbourne and Hawthorn.
Collingwood’s depth is its concern and injuries could derail this old side, so banking the early wins means a homebound spring sets the Pies up for a top four finish.
Who would want to try and stop Daicos and co at the MCG in September?
DISLIKES
SORRY SUNS
It was the kind of deflating effort Gold Coast usually serves up in July or August, not April.
When all expected them to get the job done against a rebuilding side, the Suns fluffed their lines.
They were run ragged in the third term but it was the second that was as alarming, when the Tigers turned the ball over constantly on the wings but the Suns just couldn’t punch them.
Good teams in modern footy must burn opponents on turnover.
They look like serious future players but it’s hard to see a genuine contender playing with two key forwards as young as Ethan Read and Jed Walter.
Those two and Ben King combined for just eight disposals and two marks – just not enough impact.
Bailey Humphrey promises plenty as a mid-forward but hasn’t delivered much so far, and had only seven disposals.
Mac Andrew is happy to lip off and start a push and shove but he had little impact on the actual contest.
Daniel Rioli had just 11 disposals against his old team, only once in his previous 80 matches has he had less.
And Damien Hardwick couldn’t work out a way around Nick Vlastuin, despite coaching him for exactly 200 games.
Gold Coast had more scoring shots and had 20 more inside-50s but the Suns blew it.
The final quarter comeback only highlighted how poor they were in the second and third terms.
The Suns have beaten West Coast, Melbourne, Adelaide and North Melbourne.
Perhaps we were giving them too much credit to start the season.
Wonder what Damien Hardwick thinks about Marvel Stadium now?
WHY DID NO ROOS STAND UP?
It was a pitiful and embarrassing effort from North Melbourne on Friday.
The numbers are what they are.
This club has won 16 of 113 games since the start of the 2020, Alastair Clarkson has won seven out of 42 as Roos coach and the last five losing margins on the club’s marquee day of Good Friday are (starting this year): 82, 56, 23, 68 and 128.
Some of the disposal numbers looked OK for North Melbourne’s midfield, but it was a horror show in there as Carlton just gobbled up clearances with as much ease as a kid swallowing up Easter eggs.
Harry Sheezel just couldn’t find room to use his best skill, kicking.
Fresh off his big contract, Luke Davies-Uniacke had about as much impact on Good Friday as red meat.
Jy Simpkin came into the guts too late.
Tom Powell didn’t do enough.
And the veterans the Roos needed to stand tall just didn’t.
Caleb Daniel couldn’t defend and his trademark kicking faded away under the heat.
Jack Darling was nowhere, younger recruit Jacob Konstanty had four disposals.
The frustration boiled over for North fans in the third quarter, with their ire directed at the umpires.
You can understand why they were wound so tightly after more than five years of being utterly uncompetitive.
After the Melbourne win in round 2, we all got sucked into thinking the Roos had turned a corner.
They haven’t and they are still learning some brutal lessons.
North Melbourne’s hold on the Good Friday game shouldn’t be questioned, but everybody inside Arden St will know they have to be much, much better in rare marquee matches.
And all other matches, too.
SATURDAY SNOOZE
Well, that was the most disappointing game of the season so far.
On paper, the Crows-Giants clash was only behind Brisbane-Collingwood and Geelong-Hawthorn for most mouthwatering.
Instead, it was the perfect time to nap off all those hot cross buns.
Both Adam Kingsley and Matthew Nicks were happy to allow loose men in defence, likely telling themselves they were doing a good job defensively.
Credit to Nicks, the Crows did answer some questions about their defensive credentials in keeping the Giants to four goals.
No credit for Kingsley.
Only four times in club history has GWS scored less than 34 total points, outside of Covid-shortened games.
There was some rain and some wind at Adelaide Oval, but not enough to explain that effort.
Any forward line would be significantly impacted by losing the best key target in the game, and without Jesse Hogan, the Giants were limp.
Aaron Cadman and Jake Stringer were called on to fill the breach and left Kingsley’s SOS on read.
Between them, the pair kicked 1.6.
The Giants have notched triple-figures in three of their other five games this year so it’s not a serious alarm yet, but it was a slack effort.
SHAI’S SLIP
With 6min23 on the clock, Shai Bolton turned his back on two forward in one-on-one contests and lined up a long shot from outside 50m.
The Dockers were down by six points at that point and momentum was dressed in purple, and Bolton telegraphed an effort to dance around Trent Rivers on the mark.
Rivers held his ground and forced Bolton to rush kick the ball out of bounds.
The Demons went end-to-end, kicked a goal and kicked 1.4 to nothing over the next four minutes to kill the game.
It’s not fair to blame Bolton for the loss – Fremantle stayed at the Como in South Yarra all week and still didn’t wake up fully until the final term.
But it was a moment he let slip for a team that is just not firing as it should.
It was a shame for Bolton, who almost answered the challenge from Kysaiah Pickett at the other end as the most damaging forward-mid on the ground.
Shai and Kozzy had 44 disposals, 22 score involvements, and eight goals between them.
A joy to watch, until Bolton’s late mistake.
MARK IT UP
The early season crackdown on marks travelling 15m jumped the shark when Dylan Shiel was denied a mark on Friday night for a ball that looked like it travelled 25m.
Eagles champ Jeremy McGovern told ABC post-match the players are “a little confused about what’s 15m and what’s not”.
McGovern not knowing what constitutes a mark is like Gout Gout not understanding how to pick up speed in the back half of a race.
The umpire clampdown was obvious during the Bomber win, with Brad Scott pushing his side to take up short kicks to build from defence.
Clearly, the umpires are stricter on kicks that travel sideways or backwards, and are more lenient on balls going forward for an attacking team.
No matter if you are being strict or not, if the ball travels 15m it should be paid a mark.
FIND A TAG
As Leigh Matthews put it in the Fox Footy post-match on Thursday, tagging can sometimes start more fires than the one it is putting out.
The legend said that removing one player from a system can interrupt everyone else and it’s “not that simple” to just stick one player on the opponent who is going bonkers.
It’s tempting fate to disagree with ‘Lethal’ Leigh, but there simply must be a way to apply the brakes.
Katy Perry could have seen all the way from her space voyage that Nick Daicos was the biggest threat to the Lions from the opening minutes of Thursday’s game but it took until the third term for Jarrod Berry to be moved onto him.
Berry’s physical attempt at a tag somewhat curbed the brilliant Pie, but not massively, as Collingwood ran away with the game.
Daicos may be a bad example, like Happy Gilmore learning to putt, the superstar has learned to shed the tag.
But teams surely must have more levers to pull when an opponent gets off the chain and coaches surely have a way of plugging the gaps that may be left when the tagger is yanked out of the defensive system.
CONTEST WOES
Much better effort from West Coast, responding from a record-low contested possession count last week to beat Essendon in that stat by two.
But clearances were again an issue, losing by 15.
Clearances aren’t everything, but Essendon’s field position wore the Eagles down after a fast start.
There is something there in Andrew McQualter’s forward-handball style, but West Coast can’t attack from the half-back line forever.
The clear positive was a career game from Elijah Hewett, who finally got to show the class that made him a first-round pick
His toughness and oomph is exactly what West Coast has been missing in the middle recently.
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