Ten Things I Learnt After Round Four

Gab’s back for Round Four. Here are the ten things he learnt from Gather Round.

 

 1. The Crows are the biggest disappointment of 2024 so far

After falling agonisingly short of finals action in 2023, in part courtesy of arguably the worst goal umpiring error this century, many saw enough signs last year to suggest the Adelaide Crows would be a contender to play finals. The club must’ve felt the same way in order to extend the contract of their coach in Matthew Nicks. Sadly for their fans, they’ve now lost their first four games and are failing to kick big scores, averaging a paltry 57 points per game. Taylor Walker has managed just three goals in his three games after his stellar effort in 2023 kicking 75 goals in second place on the Coleman ladder. Whatever the case, the likelihood of a finals berth is vanishing before their eyes, and a visit to Marvel to take on the undefeated Blues next week may result in more pain.

Melbourne spent the fortnight in Adelaide taking on both of the SA teams. To have left Adelaide with two wins is a mighty effort, and one that will launch their season. Make no mistake. The Demons are going to contend this season. Bayley Fritsch currently second in the Coleman race with 14 goals. Petracca and Gawn would likely have been among the votes. After what looked like a shaky start, this past fortnight has let the footy world know they’re still in the premiership window, and winning the two games on the road without key defender Steven May gets a big tick.

 

 2. The Roos played the Lions into form

I used to lament those years when my beloved Blues would be cellar dwellers. The most frustrating element was when they’d come up against a side that were struggling to find their best footy. You’d go into those games with optimism only to watch them capitulate with regularity and allow the struggling team to grow in confidence on the back of a big win and turn their seasons around. Well, the previously winless Lions blew North Melbourne off the park by 70 points. Joe Daniher booted five in a welcome return to form while the struggling Hipwood chimed in with three. The Lions will need to find their absolute best in order to beat the Demons and the Cats over the next two weeks.

It’s hard to stay positive about the Kangaroos. The 70 point loss saw their percentage tumble under 60% as the gap separating North Melbourne from the last placed Eagles narrowed this week. Based on the Eagles better effort this week one might suggest that a win against West Coast is no certainty. They’ve now lost the first four games by an average of 48 points. In comparison the Eagles have lost their four games by an average of 54 points. The Roos are selling the idea of the re-build, but it’s difficult to see what is actually being achieved so far.

 

3 – The Bombers won’t play finals yet again

There were some promising signs last year with Essendon winning eight of their first 13 games. At that stage they looked like making it into September, but their run home was very ordinary, particular their last couple of games. The Bombers had three goals on the board early in the game but only could manage another three for the remainder. This game was reminiscent of their final few rounds where they were humbled by massive margins and barely gave a yelp. Zach Merrett battled his heart out with 36 touches. Nic Martin backed up his huge effort last week with 30 touches. Gresham booted three goals and has been a handy pickup, but the airwaves after the game were crammed with angry fans bemoaning their mediocre list. They play the Bulldogs next week. They’ll need to find something.

Port Adelaide were relentless. Once they gained the ascendency during the second term they did what good sides do and showed no mercy. Connor Rozee was best on ground again and will have polled a number of Brownlow votes to this point. He booted three goals from his 36 touches and was ruthless. Forgotten man, Mitch Georgiadis made his first appearance of 2024 coming back from injury. He finished with a couple of goals and would be glad just to be out there.

Looking at their weeks to come they have the Dockers at home, Collingwood in Melbourne and the Saints at home. A minimum of two wins would hold them in good stead. I’m confident they’ll play finals.

 

 4. West Coast finally show some ticker

After a very lop-sided opening term, one could’ve easily turned off the game expecting the Eagles to go down by 100 points or more, but thankfully the Eagles players had other ideas. They played their best quarter so far for the year and actually lead the Swans by 5 points at the long break. Looking on, it still seemed unlikely for them to win. Sydney are just too professional finally winning by 26 points.

Hopefully this will continue into the coming weeks and West Coast can be competitive each week. They have the Tigers at home followed by the derby with Freo. The Eagles will have gained some self-belief from this game that should spill over into the coming weeks.

Sydney were considered the new benchmark of the comp after three rounds. They certainly looked the goods with strong wins over Melbourne, Collingwood and Essendon. Their loss to the Tigers was definitely one of those games where several players didn’t fire. At one stage it appeared as though they may have gone down in this game and that would have been a disaster. Their indifferent form of the past two weeks has perhaps taken the gloss off their strong strong start to the year.

Isaac Heeney is one Swan who has maintained his good form finishing with 30 touches and two goals. He will possibly get votes yet again in this game and is on track to poll big numbers for the Brownlow in his first five games. After a fortnight in which we have seen a slight drop-off in form, next week’s bye may be the opportunity for the Swans to reset and hopefully recapture the form they exhibited in their first three games for the year.

 

 5. Carlton have forgotten how to lose

I can already see Fremantle fans rolling their eyes at this heading. I imagine they want to talk about the ball they’ll say was “obviously” touched before Cottrell took that mark and kicked the goal that sunk the dagger into the hearts of Dockers players and supporters alike. In my living memory of watching a few decades of football, never once have I heard a ball brushing a player’s hair being described as obviously touched. And now they’re calling for umpiring decisions like this to be reviewed? If we do this we’ll have quarters going for an hour.

Sure, I will declare I’m a Carlton supporter, and very pleased things went our way, but I have to say that Jordan Clark had a brainfade that robbed his team of the chance to score with 40 seconds remaining. And another thing the Dockers should be talking about is how they let a game slip when they had a nine-point lead with around four minutes of playing time remaining. These are the questions that need to be asked.

What I can say with certainty is that Fremantle were probably the better side for a large part of the game. The defensive set up restricted Carlton to just five goals in three quarters while the midfield dominated the clearances finishing 17 ahead of the Blues. Unfortunately the Dockers never got more than 2 goals ahead at any stage which left the door ajar for the scenario that unfolded. Weitering down back was resolute and Charlie had a big say in the result with three goals after half time. Harry McKay had a day he’d rather forget reverting back to some old habits. For the Dockers, Brayshaw (38 touches) and Serong (26) were excellent.

 

 6. It’s criminal that a club like Geelong can recruit a player like Jeremy Cameron

I say this as an admirer of Geelong as a successful football club, and as an admirer of the fine player that Jeremy Cameron is. I also say well done to the Geelong Football Club for securing his services when he left the Giants. It just seems impossible for those struggling clubs to get off the bottom when clubs that have enjoyed success in recent times seem to have the ability to recruit stars from elsewhere to bolster their already impressive lists while the cellar-dwellers have to rebuild via the draft.

Cameron was very impressive against the Bulldogs on Saturday, his only blemish being him kicking 2.4 from his 27 touches in a best on ground performance. There’s a fair chance that Geelong don’t win this game without him. He’s still very much a star at 31 and looks to have a couple more years left in him.

Western Bulldogs can count themselves stiff for losing this, but it wasn’t until their last quarter burst that Geelong did not have the game under control. That said, the Bulldogs will believe in their ability to compete with the top teams after this, and my feeling is they will play finals this year. This was the game that I felt would give us an idea if they are in the better half of teams. Marcus Bontempelli may consider himself unlucky for missing out on last year’s ultimate individual award but he is doing all the right things to remedy that this year. 35 touches and a goal had plenty to do with how the Bulldogs almost pinched it. Treloar (37) and Liberatore (35) also had a big influence. If the Bulldogs can beat the Bombers and Saints over the next two weeks, and I believe they will, then we can safely say they’re a better version of themselves than last year. That team would lose one or both of those games.

 

 7. The Suns are still a second tier team

The season started brightly for the Suns when they leapt out to a big lead by half time against Richmond. We did see the Tigers reel some of that lead in after the break, but it was a solid win in any case. They also blew the Crows away early in Round 2 before they ended up stumbling across the line by six points after Adelaide had a late surge. Since then they’ve lost to the Bulldogs and GWS. Their two wins are against sides that have won just one game between them. The early indications suggest that the leap required to get them into the eight might still be beyond them.

Some say Ben King was the missing ingredient, but he’s out there now and doing well kicking three goals in this game opposed to Sam Taylor. The midfield trio of Anderson, Rowell and Flanders always get plenty of the ball, but even the great Damien Hardwick has his work cut out for him getting this group to find another gear.

The Giants go into most games with a very tall forward line. The scary part is you’ve got a group of players all above 190cms that can all move quickly. You’ve got Jesse Hogan looking like he’s going to have his best season. There’s Riccardi and Brown, and also the youngster Aaron Cadman (195cns) showing signs of being a gun. These four big men kicked ten goals between them. Add on Toby Greene’s lazy five and there’s your winning score right there.

On paper it looks top heavy with four talls up forward, but in reality you need to have a tall defence to combat what looks like being the most potent forward line this season. Only the Swans have scored more at this stage. With all that said, it’s worth pointing out that all four teams they’ve beaten currently reside outstide of the eight. Next week they face St Kilda at home and should win that. The following week against the Blues at Marvel maybe their first true test.

 

 8. Richmond’s injury list would beat some of the bottom teams.

During those four or so dream years at Richmond, one thing they were able to do was run out onto the ground with a team close to their best 22 for much of that period. Their injury list back then was always very small, whereas now it’s longer than ever. And with names like Grimes, Balta, Prestia, Hopper and Lynch, kuit’s not hard to see why they’ve only managed one win so far in 2024.

They looked good early in this game jumping out to a 21 point lead at quarter time before one of the worst quarters of football seen this year where neither side had added a goal until the 24 minute mark. In fact, that Jack Higgins goal at 24 minutes was the Saints’ first for the match which saved them from an embarrassing goalless half of football.

As has been the case on a few occasions already this year, the Tigers conceded a few goals in a row after half time and the Saints hit three-quarter time with an eight-point lead after slamming on six goals to two. The Tigers fought hard in the last but eventually went down by seven points, with all the damage done in that third quarter. Shai Bolton had a huge game booting four goals from 19 touches. Dusty’s return from injury suggests he’s not a spent force just yet finishing with 30 possessions. The Tigers head to Perth to face the Eagles next week. I’m sure West Coast will be buoyed by their much improved effort against the Swans, and with the Tigers injury woes, they may even fancy themselves.

St Kilda looked done, so it shows great character to have dug themselves out of the hole they were in. One goal in a half of football is not something that bodes well in order to make finals. Early indicators do suggest that St Kilda has gone slightly backwards this year. There is time to tweak a few things, but I’m not sold on them so far. Higgins seems to be the only one hitting the scoreboard regularly. I’m still waiting for Max King to have his breakout year. They can’t rely on Steele and Sinclair to do all the heavy lifting. They could easily lose their next two games against the Dogs and Port. This is when we’ll really get to know where they’re at.

 

 9. Leave Blake Hardwick up forward

At half time with Collingwood up by 38 points, it looked like any other Hawthorn game where the game was already decided. In a move that might get Sam Mitchell the label of genius, defender Blake Hardwick was moved forward and he banged on four second half goals. A lot of people would be unaware that the Hawk was a forward in his TAC Cup days. For whatever reason, he’s played in defence for most of his 151 games. He came into this game with just 8 goals to his name and he now has 12, and with Luke Breust out of the side and getting towards the end of his career, perhaps they’ve just found a replacement. Either way, it was a great effort, but sadly a valiant Hawks team fell agonisingly short by just five points. Jack Ginnivan also had a point to prove and he finished with a couple.

You have to now accept that the Pies will not only be unable to defend their premiership, but unless something dramatic takes place, they may well miss the finals altogether. I can only imagine what people would be saying if they dropped this game. Kicking five behinds only in the last quarter didn’t help. So many of their seasoned players are down on form and it’s now getting to the stage where it seems that’s just how it’s going to be this year. Collingwood have a knack of proving everyone wrong once you write them off, so I’ll reserve my judgement to some extent. Maybe they can use the bye round next week to have an Ed Curnow style retreat where you can get the players to fix their mindset and come out firing from now on. They’re going to need something.

 

 10. I still think anybody can beat anyone on the day

The results on the weekend do tell a story. In particular, the Hawks and the Eagles showed that it’s dangerous to take anybody lightly. North Melbourne were quite poor against the Lions, but it was only a fortnight ago where they got out to a 33 point lead against the Dockers before eventually fading.

We hear a lot about concerns with respect to the weaker teams and how it’s an advantage to play them twice, etc. You only have to recall last year at Marvel when the Eagles knocked the Bulldogs out of the finals race. They’ll deny this, but clearly the Bulldogs showed up that day thinking that merely taking the field was going to get the job done.

Looking at next week’s fixture, it’s obviously very difficult to see the Kangaroos beating the Cats at GMHBA Stadium. But then again, very few sides do win there. I could see Hawthorn taking it up to the Suns, and it wouldn’t be a complete shock to see the Eagles win against the Tigers as well. It is a little unfortunate that clubs go through tough times and remain a poorer team for long periods of time, but anybody is gettable.

We are still talking about players from all teams being good enough to be in the system. None of them are poor players. So when it clicks, anything is possible. With everything I’ve just said, I’ll go back to my point regarding clubs like Geelong who can go after big name players despite being very successful in recent times. Whenever I hear the AFL people talking about equalisation, how do the struggling clubs regain a competitive edge without the ability to bring in mths better players? The AFL has equalised the amount of money that is available for player payments. I understand free agency is what it says it is, but would it be possible for players wishing to get out of their given clubs to be given some sort of incentive to consider one of the lower clubs? It would have to be funded by the AFL however, and not included in the cap.

Before you say what a crazy idea that is, I’ll just throw the name Gary Ablett Jr out there.