The Tackle: Jon Ralph’s likes and dislikes from Preliminary Finals week 2021
Plenty has been said about the raw talent of Port Adelaide young gun Connor Rozee. But is he falling down the 2018 ‘super draft’ pecking order? Likes and dislikes
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One moment changed the trajectory of Max Gawn’s career.
The man who tipped the star ruckman in reveals the real story behind the superstar Demon’s ciggie-gate and how it put him on the path to a grand final.
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Big Max dominates Jon Ralph’s likes this week, after his monster preliminary final performance, but a pair of disappearing stars from Geelong and Port Adelaide get the blowtorch — and he hasn’t missed the coaches.
Read all his likes and dislikes in The Tackle below
LIKES
1. Kyle Cheney is no dobber
He might have been the bloke who saw Max Gawn smoking a cigarette on the way to training, but his conscience is clear.
On Saturday week Melbourne captain Gawn will lead his team into battle seeking to break a 57-year drought.
He will do so as the AFL’s dominant ruckman, its most beloved figure, a star at the very peak of his game coming off a career-high five goals.
From the ruck.
And yet for all the clean-cut captains Melbourne has turned out Gawn is, as Dougy Hawkins said yesterday, “a weird cat”.
Central to his incredible story is the day the penny dropped when he realised taking the mickey – smoking darts on the way to training, goofing off – was the fast track to a wasted career.
So we had to track down the real story, which meant finding former Melbourne and Crows defender Kyle Cheney in Adelaide yesterday, who couldn’t stop laughing at our request.
“So here is the story I was driving along the Monash Freeway and I was 19 or whatever at the time,” Cheney said.
“I saw Max (smoking in his car) and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I can’t remember who I told, but I got to the club and it was a bit like: “You will never guess what I have just seen!”. That was the end of it for me, and it got blown up. The leadership got hold of him and my name has forever been entrenched with the Max Gawn story.
“We were on the Monash Freeway, heading out to Casey Fields. And I can’t remember the details but it was bizarre viewing.
“The last time we caught up, it was at (Jake) Lever’s wedding and we had a photo and he put it on Twitter and we had a laugh about it.
“He is a unique beast, that’s for sure. No one could ever dislike him. And he’s the name and face of the AFL.”
2. We have never seen the likes of Max Gawn
The charisma, the dominant football feats (five All Australian jumpers in six years), the scallywag behaviour, the hint of larrikin despite captaining a blue-blood heartland club.
He is approaching Lenny Hayes status as a truly beloved AFL figure.
It’s not quite the modern-day version of Teddy Whitten, the original Mr Football.
But in an era when so many figures are so polarising – think Joel Selwood, or Trent Cotchin or Nathan Fyfe – he is one out of the box.
So we went to Dougie Hawkins to see if the Modern Day Mr Football tag applied.
“I don’t know about that. What I see of him on TV and watching him talk, he’s a different cat,” said Hawkins.I would probably get on with him like a house on fire. I am sure in the backyard with me and Stevie McPherson we would have a beer and a joke and a punt,” he said.
“But if you watched EJ walk into the rooms, the entire room would stop. He had this presence, this charisma, he was bigger than big. He would walk into a room and meet you for the first time and then meet 100 other people and come back and say, “How are you Doug”.
“There is only one Ted Whitten. With Maxy Gawn, I just look at him and like him. But he’s definitely a weird cat, a different cat.”
3. The Dees’ revolution
Eight years and eight months ago, the Melbourne football club was fined for trying to lose games of football.
The AFL didn’t call it that, of course.
“Acting in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the competition” was the official transgression from issues arising from the 2009 season.
It is a reminder to any club at rock bottom – yes, that’s you, Carlton.
If you hire good people, eschew shortcuts and dodgy deals and make a multitude of good decisions over and over in coaching, recruiting, trading, leadership and administration, you can change your fortunes from a club trying to lose to one playing off for a premiership.
4. Love Schache’s resilience
How many times even this season have pundits predicted Josh Schache’s career was over?
On May 1, after he had seven possessions against Richmond and was dropped until 19, the headline was “Did we just see the end of Josh Schache’s AFL career?”
After Peter Wright kicked four of his seven goals on him in Round 21, the same predictions spewed forth.
Can you imagine the trepidation as he opened his social media to view the mentions, the battering his self-esteem took through that time.
So credit to Luke Beveridge for a superb piece of coaching as opponent Aliir Aliir still had six intercept marks and 11 intercept possessions but no influence on the game.
But what about the resilience of Schache himself, who has not only solidified a Grand Final spot but saved his career given he was out of contract.
How about this from Dermott Brereton on Schache’s performance: “That is the game of his life, that is the game of his career.”
4. The decision Demon will never regret
Melbourne chief executive Peter Jackson met with one of the club’s former captains in his first years as he attempted to survey the wreckage of a broken club.
As he attempted to mend the fences of the player’s shoddy departure, the player eventually broke down in tears as the painful memories were unearthed.
Nathan Jones will not play in the 2021 Grand Final, but Melbourne will hold its head high that it treated him with the respect he deserved.
The Demons could so easily have jettisoned Jones after an injury-ravaged 2020 but kept him on and he got to 300 games on merit.
Since then he has played only twice, only as the unused medi-sub.
So he returns home to his wife Jerri having made a decision he can never regret – being at the birth of their twins after a spate of recent miscarriages.
And Melbourne will believe it showed due respect to a champion of its club.
5. Can Cook save Blues?
The AFL needs Brian Cook more than he needs a legacy project.
After a decade at West Coast and the club’s first two flags, and then 22 years at Geelong and a trio of flags, he doesn’t need to burnish his CV.
He will be well-paid in a Cats consultancy role, can slide into a handful of board roles and was eyeing some work with Barwon Health.
But senior figures within the AFL and Geelong now believe it is likely he will join Carlton.
Cooky, roll your sleeves up one more time.
Carlton desperately needs a new way of thinking and a man to challenge the old ways and old money and former view that the Blues will succeed just because they are Carlton.
The finances are fixed, the board has been rejuvenated, the list is brimming with potential.
And even if Ross Lyon and Alastair Clarkson are unavailable, go and find the next Mark Thompson.
6. ‘Beast mode’ On Trac for glory
Max Gawn had Friday’s magical moments but Christian Petracca set just as many up.
An unfulfilled talent until he made a remarkable physical transformation over the 2019-20 summer, he now roams the football field in beast mode.
Every disposal is about maximum damage instead of accumulation.
On Friday it was the burst from the centre square then 60m pass that set up Ben Brown’s first goal, the chiselled pass to Max Gawn that saw him wheel from 40m and kick that wonderful snapped goal.
It was a darting run and precise pass that few could hit for a Bailey Fritsch goal, then wriggling free of a Joel Selwood tackle to set up Gawn’s 55m bomb.
So who in the competition needs to follow Petracca’s lead and develop the tank to transform their game?
A few come to mind.
Richmond’s Riley Collier-Dawkins, Gold Coast’s Izak Rankine, St Kilda’s Jade Gresham, Carlton’s Paddy Dow and Sam Petreveski-Seton, Port Adelaide’s Connor Rozee.
Would love to see Collingwood’s Will Kelly get his first flawless summer to see what he is capable of.
DISLIKES
1. Cat shrank in big game — again
Gary Rohan was ordinary again on Friday night. He knows it, we know it, Chris Scott knows it.
Some of it might be mental and some of it is the nature of finals, where medium-sized lead-up forwards just don’t have the space and time to operate as the laces-out passes of home-and-away football become quick dump kicks forward.
The Cats’ last premiership captain Cameron Ling was particularly scathing on ABC Radio, saying the Cats cannot play him any more.
“His home-and-away form has become irrelevant,” Ling said.
“He just disappeared from the game.”
Ling spoke of his teammates losing “trust” in Rohan, saying “I don’t believe he can do the job in a final. You probably don’t play him any more.”
No one is better placed than Ling to talk about broken trust and a player’s capacity to perform on the big stage.
One solution comes to mind.
Leon Davis, a 2009 All Australian, was so quiet in the 2010 finals campaign that he was dropped for the 2010 Grand Final replay.
Mick Malthouse turned him into a half back who was All Australian in the very next season.
Rohan is a piercing kick, a strong intercept mark, has played half back before.
2. Chris Scott needs to change his game style
The outriders – the 2020 Grand Final, the 2019 preliminary final – are few and far between compared to the number of times the controlled, methodical game has come up short in finals.
But it is an insult to Scott to say he isn’t capable, or won’t change his style, or might jump ship to Carlton.
Geelong football boss Simon Lloyd told the Herald Sun last month the only delay in a new deal for Scott past 2022 is waiting for incoming CEO Steve Hocking to start his new role.
Hocking, Lloyd and president Craig Drummond are all huge fans of Scott.
He can make a tactical tweak, but the list management calls might be tougher.
How does he convince Jordan Clark to stay (and he needs his pace) when he only played 11 games this year, three as the unused sub?
Is he prepared to play Quinton Narkle early and often next year as an investment in the 2022 finals even if Scott would prefer Shaun Higgins or another more experienced mid?
He might need to make the hard call on Lachie Henderson and play Nathan Kreuger or Sam De Koning when they are not quite ready.
But amid the frenzy to sack coaches or push them into the arms of another, Geelong knows what it has in Scott and surely won’t let him go.
3. Bevo’s overkill
Few coaches in football have better honed the us-versus-them mantra than John Northey, who picked targets real and imaginary to whip his team into a frenzy.
Luke Beveridge learned well from “Swooper” in his formative years as a player at Melbourne, and this finals series has been masterful in performance psychology as well as tactical craft.
First it was sparring over the timing of the club’s Gabba semi-final against Brisbane – Bevo didn’t want his players locked in hotel rooms all day – and then it was the failure of SA Health to grant the Dogs a Thursday night session.
Then came the lash-out at criticism of Adam Treloar, which he described as poor, vindictive and distasteful.
For the record Jon Brown had said Treloar would be “horrified” at vision of his body language while others suggested he “spat the dummy”.
It was overkill from Beveridge, because he knows as well as Treloar that his body language had been ordinary at times in the Lions game.
Pressure is a privilege.
Adam Treloar is paid $900,000 a season to deliver in finals and as long as criticism isn’t unwarranted or deeply personal, it is what AFL players sign up to to play this great game.
He deserved it in the semi-final, just as should be lauded for delivering in his first year with an 18-touch second half in the elimination final and a mighty 13-score assist, nine-tackle semi.
4. You blew it again, Port
Thank goodness club benefactor Allan Scott isn’t alive to hand out his searing commentary on another missed Port Adelaide opportunity.
On October 30 last year Ken Hinkley said of the current list: “This team is going to go a long, long way and it’s going to win. More than once, it’s going to win”.
His team had the perfect preparation, almost no injuries, a formline of 10 wins in 11 matches, a home advantage, a foe who had travelled across Australia to take on the Power.
By the end of the first term, the Power had been obliterated.
They were brutalised in close in the first quarter – down 23 in contested possessions, down nine in clearances – as Ollie Wines (four possessions), Karl Amon (three), Willem Drew (three) and Xavier Duursma (three) failed to fire a shot.
The trend is your friend and it is apparent the Power midfield doesn’t stack up against the very best.
Consider 2021 losses to a red-hot West Coast (37 points), Brisbane (49 points), Western Bulldogs (19 points in Round 9), Geelong (21 points) and Melbourne (31 points).
Three times in four years the Power have had cutthroat home finals and lost – to West Coast (2017 elimination final), Richmond (2020 prelim) and now to the Dogs.
Add in a 2018 slump where the 11-4 Port lost six of the last seven to miss finals, and Hinkley’s talk adds up to hot air for a team that has underachieved just like those early 2000s sides of which trucking boss Scott was so critical.
5. Splashing the cash for Swan
Jordan Dawson might have just made himself another $300,000 over the life of his new contract.
The Sydney defender-wingman will be the subject of a pitched battle between the Power and Adelaide.
He is leaning towards the Power but Adelaide was likely to offer a more lucrative deal.
Now Dawson surely must be the No.1 priority for a Power side in the window and needing to add talent.
After playing as a pure half back from Rounds 1-15 he moved to wing 74 per cent of the time from Round 16 onwards, and the Power are well stocked with Karl Amon and Xavier Duursma in that position.
But with his glorious left foot he surely can be repurposed off half back again, and the Power will surely have to be open to giving up a first-rounder that is now pick 16.
6. Power failure on Dog disruptor
Ken Hinkley was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.
By the time Willem Drew came onto the ground to tag Tom Liberatore, his opponent had the game’s first two clearances, four total disposals, two score involvements and the Dogs were away.
Maybe he should have been in at the first bounce, but the tactic worked in the first final and in Round 23.
He always starts on the bench then comes on for Ollie Wines at the five or six-minute mark.
The bigger issue was his inability to clamp Libba across the entire game.
In Round 23 he kept him to his second-lowest disposal tally of the year and season-low score involvements.
Libba not only set the tone this weekend, his quick-fire left-foot pass to set up Adam Treloar’s running goal was sublime.
7. Connor Rozee is significantly overhyped
Against the Dogs he had to roam far and wide for 18 possessions and was far from the worst Power player.
But for all the poetry written about his X-factor moments, he has 30 goals in his last 37 games.
This year eight of his 21 goals in 21 games came in two weeks, even if he was carrying niggles for much of the year.
So his progression over summer must be into a player who can win serious midfield time and still have a scoreboard impact.
The order of super draft of 2018 will change by the week.
This week it’s Sam Walsh, Bailey Smith, Max King, Zac Butters, Ben King, Jack Lukosius, Tarryn Thomas, Xavier Duursma in the first eight spots.
Rozee is somewhere in the next few spots along with Nick Blakey, Isaac Quaynor and Justin McInerney.
Don’t look now, but a couple of Demons in the super draft in Tom Sparrow (pick 27) and James Jordon (pick 33) are roaring up the charts.
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Originally published as The Tackle: Jon Ralph’s likes and dislikes from Preliminary Finals week 2021
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