Essendon have used 41 players so far this year. After the mid-season draft, they have 47 players on their list.
They lost three more to injury on the weekend, with Nic Martin now not only out for the rest of this year but for most of next year as well after doing his ACL in Saturday night’s equivalent of a Fidel Castro speech.
The walking wounded of Tullamarine: Will Setterfield and Nic Martin.Credit: Getty Images
Will Setterfield also hurt his foot, and his season is done too, but he will see a surgeon about the Lisfranc injury to see if they need to operate. Given Essendon’s season, you might as well assume they will need to use the scalpel. In fact, Setterfield should just head to the Epworth with his dressing gown and toothbrush now.
Ben Hobbs also came out of the game with a sore groin. Given Essendon’s run with injuries, he will probably be discovered to have osteitis pubis by the end of the week, or a groin ripped from the bone if he is not already in an iron lung.
Liam McMahon and Rhys Unwin will debut for the club by season’s end, making it at least 43 players they will have used this year out of the 47. And of that remainder, Nik Cox has missed all year with his concussion issues.
This is no excuse for the hideousness of Saturday night, but it is a part-explanation. The way Essendon refused to move the ball forwards, but rather sideways as the direction of first-choice, is another explanation.
Regardless, it was unsurprising to learn there will be a review and overhaul of the fitness and conditioning at the club at year’s end.
Jack Graham deserved his suspension, but it shows the AFL’s inconsistency
Jack Graham decided he couldn’t do nothing. After saying the wrong thing in using a homophobic slur in round 17, he felt he had to do the right thing, and dobbed himself in. He did it knowing he would get banned. He is not a hero for that, nor is he the victim, but he at the very least tried to be better.
This incident might have gone nowhere had Graham not reported what he said to the Eagles. The Giants were aware of the incident, but assumed the AFL was too because they also assumed the umpires heard it. They didn’t.
Liam Baker, Jack Graham, Harley Reid and Jamie Cripps after their recent loss to Collingwood.Credit: AFL Photos
The Giants were waiting for the AFL to act when the Eagles contacted them and said they had a problem.
Both clubs, like Graham, acknowledged they had to fess up and reported it. The AFL, once it knew about it, acted.
The AFL, sadly, had a relatively recent precedent to guide them in what to do next. Gold Coast’s Wil Powell used the same slur as Graham when he called someone a “f---ing f----t” last year and got a five-match ban. He got five games because only weeks earlier Jeremy Finlayson had said the same thing, got three matches and the AFL said enough is enough – the next person who says something like this gets a bigger suspension.
Gold Coast’s Wil Powell.Credit: Getty Images
In the end, Graham got a game’s discount on Powell’s suspension because he self-reported, was contrite and rang AFL CEO Andrew Dillon directly to apologise.
The Powell suspension had felt excessive at the time, given Finlayson’s three-match ban, notwithstanding the AFL warning about a tougher penalty. Powell was mortified by what he had said, especially given his two brothers are gay. He was apologetic and contrite.
In the context of similar on-field comments, Graham’s ban is not completely out of kilter.
But it does deliver a stark reminder of the inconsistencies of AFL suspensions.
Noah Balta, the Richmond defender, also received a four-match ban. His was for a drunken attack outside a pub that put a man in hospital and saw Balta plead guilty to criminal assault. His effective suspension was only increased by the magistrate’s curfew, not by the AFL’s ban.
This is where the AFL always ties itself in knots in trying to find parity between incidents.
The Graham punishment came a week after a fan was banned for five years from all AFL and AFLW games for his misplaced humour in a text to the anti-social behaviour hotline at the MCG. When the story broke, before the content of that text message threatening Michael Voss was made public, the gravity with which it was treated by the AFL and the club suggested a most heinous and vile comment. It wasn’t. It was clearly a joke gone wrong. But a five-year ban? No.
Adelaide man mountain Riley Thilthorpe.Credit: AFL Photos
Thilthorpe has been better than Darcy
Sam Darcy is a unique talent. He has had a great year and might end up being the best player in the AFL in coming seasons. But he has not had a better year than Riley Thilthorpe.
The stats might slightly favour Darcy, but the impact does not. Thilthorpe has become the player Adelaide hoped and expected him to be when they took him a year earlier in the draft than Darcy, and one pick behind the player the Bulldogs took in that 2020 draft, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan.
He is now 23, he has played 70 games, and he looks like a player – also a barrista, but mainly a player. He is owning games now.
He plays a similar role to Darcy as a key forward and second ruck. As a second ruck, he is extremely good for his tap work is strong and he covers the ground well. As far as forward-rucks go, Luke Jackson probably has an edge on him when rucking, but Thilthorpe as a forward is exceptional.
Darcy will be exceptional but has played about half the games (39) as Thilthorpe and is still building. Darcy is far from the finished product, and Thilthorpe not so far away. He marks the ball at such a high point that he is very difficult to defend. There was a moment in the game when the ball was kicked long to the Crows’ goal square and he was opposed to Darcy. He easily outmarked the Bulldogs tall in a moment of neat, if slightly unfair, comparison to Darcy, who found himself a little out of position.
Thilthorpe’s emergence from a very good to elite player this year has coincided with the Crows’ rise to the top eight, and possibly the top four. The Crows are now premiership contenders, not top-eight hopefuls. He has rendered Tex Walker a bit player as a third target in the forward line, which can make him a liability with his lack of mobility, but also still a danger with his punishing kick – all in the one game.
Whether Thilthorpe’s improvement is causal or a correlation with the Crows’ rise is academic, but the forward line the Crows have is the best in the AFL. They have a tight defence and a midfield that is strong, but very Jordan Dawson-reliant.
A Cat and Dog fight for the eight
The Bulldogs have a team on paper capable of winning the flag. They also have a team that, on the field, is incapable of beating the good teams and undeserving of even making the eight.
Presently, the Dogs are in ninth place and – with apologies to the Swans and the run they are on – are the only team capable of still making the eight, but they have a 1-7 record against top-eight sides. They should be better than that. Their best is superb, but against the best sides – who defend and rebound well – their fast, offensive game is not enough. Against the best teams, the soft underbelly of their bottom six players has hurt them.
Luke Beveridge and his men find themselves on the outside of the top eight looking in.Credit: AFL Photos
The Dogs need to make up a game on that cluster of five teams from fourth to eighth on the same amount of wins, but they face the Brisbane Lions and GWS in their run home and play Fremantle in the last round. That game could decide which of the two teams makes the finals.
Gold Coast’s win over Collingwood means they should – and this is said under caution – now play finals. Given they have Richmond, Carlton, Essendon and Port among their opponents to come, beating each of them would give them 15 wins and surely a finals berth. But... Gold Coast.
Geelong are in the top four but on the same wins as Fremantle. The Cats have the softest run home of the finals hopefuls. They don’t play another top-eight team for the remainder of the year. Three of their final six games are at Kardinia Park. They will also face Richmond, last year’s wooden spooners, who they will play for the second time this year.
The Cats, who have lost twice each to the Lions and GWS, should win all six games, which could have them pushing for a top-two spot – depending on how many games Brisbane and Collingwood drop. Whether the softer run home proves a good thing once finals roll around can only be judged in September. Besides, like all teams, they didn’t choose their draw, nor can they do anything about it.
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