While both sides sit at the bottom portion of the ladder and came into the match still technically in the running for the spoon, it’s been a while since this match-up was anything other than the decider for pick one in the draft. True, that may be mostly due to Richmond’s woeful 2024, but both sides have been very watchable recently, and this game was no exception.
In every game, there are always the haters making claims of the merits of putting this match on TV as opposed to re-runs of Kingswood Country or rolling out Kerry Anne Kennerly to tell us about her latest weight loss exercise thingo, but I gotta ask them; what do you actually want?
High flying marks? Tick. Long goals? Yep. Long runs, quick scoring, heavy hits, and a bit of argy-bargey? All in this one. Add in the chance to see some kids who seem destined to become stars of the comp one day and a cliffhanger finish and you’ve got a great way to spend a couple of hours on a weekend.
That is, unless you happen to be a North supporter who happens to have to watch the heartbreaker of a game, and then put their thoughts down into an article.
Such is the way of a Shinboner.
Both teams learned a lot, but it’ll be West Coast who look back at the match as a win, while North see it as the one that got away. Again.
The Lead-up
As the two teams that have shared the bottom two spots in the last two years, each will be the other’s measuring stick on how successful their rebuild is going. While North have heavily attacked the draft and now sport the youngest and least experienced side in the league, West Coast sit a few spots above them in that ranking, having kept a few of their premiership players in to act as on-field leaders as they develop their young talent.
A win for North would have meant vindication for their approach, while a win for the Eagles gives them a bit of a boost as they look for a new coach to lead them out of their recent slump before Tasmania comes in and compromises the draft (even more than it already is).
Recent match-ups actually favoured North, winning four out of the last five outings, with an average margin between the two sides being just over seven points, though the largest margin was round 2 in 2022 when North won by 15.
A win for either side would likely remove them from likely spoon contention, but that’s not seen as the double-sided sword that it has been in past years. While North may ask themselves whether beating Gold Coast in 2023 was worth missing out on Harley Reid, this year has multiple top-level talents without a single standout. It could very well be that the top five picks are ones that each involved club would have made regardless of order.
So that’s to say that tanking isn’t as attractive as it might have been this time last year, even at a subconscious level. Both teams were expected to give it all they had.
Ins and Outs
North supporters would have been disappointed to hear that Wardlaw was put on ice for 2024 with concussion concerns. While this might mean giving up the chance at the Rising Star award should Dempsey find himself struggling to see the season out (unlikely given his current form) North are obviously looking at his style of play and taking the safer option of keeping him sidelined until fully recovered, and possibly an early start on preseason conditioning.
Dylan Stephens took the week off due to an ankle concern, while Jayden Stephens heads back to the twos where his form has been good enough to earn him a run at the AFL level, but not enough to really stay there.
Veteran Liam Sheils came back into the side as Clarkson’s favourite blank scrabble tile, capable of fitting in just about anywhere even if it doesn’t add much to the score, while Miller Bergman gets a recall to try and add to his injury-plagued time at North.
For the Eagles, Barrass was unable to recover from concussion symptoms and hamstring tightness to play, while Harry Edwards’ head knock in the game against Gold Coast meant he had to enter concussion protocols, possibly ending his 2024 campaign, to be replaced by veteran Andrew Gaff in the sub role.
As expected from these two teams in recent years, their injury list limits their options, but they’re both showing that they have depth in coverage to a level far above what they had in 2022-23.
The start
Both sides started the game just feeling each other out in the blustery conditions in Hobart. West Coast pushed forward immediately, but an interception by Charlie Comben blunted their attack, which kind of sums up most of the first quarter. West Coast pushed forward quickly, North worked very hard to stop the attack, then slowly built up their own counter.
It meant that North held possession for long periods, but moved the ball slowly enough that West Coast were able to flood back.
The dam broke when West Coast managed to get the ball out of the pack that North were desperately trying to shut down, finding Trew in enough space to snap over his left shoulder and kick a major.
The next goal came shortly after when West Coast moved the ball quickly from defence to a long kick to the square, where North focused on Harley Reid contesting the mark while Jack Darling stayed deep to collect the ball that went over the pack, into his arms and for an easy toe-poke goal.
It was looking like a bad day to be in blue and white, but North showed that they can move the ball quickly when needed, with McKercher starting off a play from half back that moved rapidly through the wing to set up Larkey. Larkey was out of position, but managed to bring the ball to ground, allowing Hansen Jr to strike the ball into the back of the net between the posts for North’s first, much-needed goal.
North’s next goal came from a Teakle free kick after taking ruck duties and being tackled before he was able to collect the ground ball. It almost shouldn’t have been because Harry Sheezel played on and slotted a long snap from around 40 metres out, but the umpire in charge deemed it no advantage before Sheezel managed to put the ball to his boot. It was a fair call, and Teakle converted anyway, but there is always something about a disallowed goal that is just a little deflating.
The rest of the quarter had the ball spending a lot of time on the wing as both teams worked hard in the congestion, though it seemed that West Coast had the better structure to do something with it once it came out. In one such surge, a push forward found Jack Williams with a strong mark to give the Eagles a seven-point margin, before Eddie Ford managed to work some magic on the boundary, twisting and turning around four defenders to snap while being tackled and kicking his first for the day.
The quarter ended with Pink kicking one after the siren to give North the lead, but the warning signs were there plain to see. North was improvising well, while West Coast’s structure and discipline were held together by experienced on-field leadership rather than youthful enthusiasm to chase a kick.
I won’t go too much into the middle of the game, except to say that North’s possession game slowly gave them a lead, while their trademark third-quarter fadeout put West Coast right back into the match.
The finish
So… you’re almost three goals up in a game where you’ve led most of the day, you’ve got a dominant ruckman, and the clock has just ticked over 30 minutes for the quarter. What do you do?
Well, if you’re the West Coast Eagles in this scenario, you fully embrace the “win it or bin it” attitude and push the run-and-gun style of footy that can score quickly, but risks getting caught on the rebound and requires your players to sprint back at breakneck speed if they turn the ball over.
While if you’re North, you just kinda… let them do that.
With West Coast coming strong, they were trailing North 14.13 to 12.12 (13 points) with two minutes to go. Three scoring shots with 127 seconds on the clock. No small feat.
First, we saw Liam Ryan burn off Colby McKercher on the wing to spot up Allen about 20 metres out on a 45-degree angle. Taking a Captain’s kick Allen used as little time as possible while still making sure the ball hit his target, reducing the margin to seven points.
North tried to lock it down as Xerri tapped the ball to his feet from the bounce, and attempted to again with the ball up, but Williams managed to make contact with the ball, pushing it forward. LDU couldn’t quite collect as both sides were working at a frantic pace that put haste over effectiveness as bodies smashed into each other with reckless abandon (most of them either due to the work of, or having contact with Jackson Archer in another match where he seemed to play like someone with 100 games more experience, and 20kgs more mass).
Embracing the chaos ball forward movement, West Coast managed to find a way to kick long into attack in a way that Xerri should have been able to pick off easily with a sliding chest mark, only for Jack Darling to be the man that makes his own moment as he leapt across to effect the spoil, dribbling the ball into the waiting hands of Jamie Cripps to thread the ball through and bring the margin back to a single point.
With under a minute remaining and the game on the line, North just couldn’t find a way to get the clearing kick they needed as West Coast shut down their midfield and rebounded with desperation as Gaff took a mark from a long bomb to the forward 50.
As time ticked down, he had to either take his shot from beyond 50 for the match or look for a better option. He thumped the ball long, but as North repelled on the line, West Coast’s Oscar Allen managed to collect and snap to give his side a five-point margin.
North shifted into an all-out attack and looked like they might have had a chance as a holding-the-ball decision and a long kick from LDU put them into attack, but as Nick Larkey gathered the ball and looked to wheel around, the siren sounded to give West Coast the win in a heartbreaker for the Roos.
Ruck battle
I know plenty of people have their preferred ruckman in the league, but few players get to have a game as impactful as Tristian Xerri had in this one.
His 33 hitouts from 85 ruck contests is decent, though only having five to advantage is a little low (though both being better than Bailey Williams’ 29 and 4 respectively) but for a big man to add 13 clearances, 12 tackles, 30 disposals (23 contested), 6 marks (4 contested) 9 score involvements and a disposal efficiency of 80%? That’s unheard of.
Xerri won the ruck battle easily, hands down. He was just better than Williams in any way you care to look at it. The only question coming from this match-up is whether it’s enough to get him into the All-Australian squad (which I think the answer should be yes, without question) and whether he gets in the final 22 (a much harder job if they only name one ruckman).
Xerri will likely get a vote or two in the Brownlow for this one, and it’s well deserved, while Williams will study the tapes to see if it might be worth bulking up a little in the off-season.
The second string rucks were Jack Williams for West Coast and Brynn Teakle for the Roos.
While Jack attended two more ruck contests than Brynn, Teakle had a lot more impact in terms of hitouts, disposals, clearances and metres gained. He also managed to sneak forward for two goals to Jack’s one, so it’s hard to make a case for anything with Teakle taking the belt here.
Harley Reid
The only sports personality with more column inches than Harley Reid this week is probably Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn, though for Harley the coverage is far more positive. That’d probably still be true even if he was the one competing in the breakdancing event at the Olympics in her stead. I like Kath and Kim as much as the next person, but I didn’t really expect to tune in to Paris 2024 to see Jane Turner’s alter-ego doing the sprinkler in John Howard’s old walking trackie. Maybe Reid could have added some actual hops to the routine rather than just the ‘surprised kangaroo’ move that we saw.
Regardless, the more times I type Harley Reid into this article, the more likely I am to get a job at The West Australian, so I may as well keep my options open.
I think this is a game where Reid threatened a lot, but didn’t quite deliver on what he was capable of. Make no mistake, he had an impact, especially with Will Phillips sticking to him like a barnacle at times, and he showed that he wasn’t above being the bully when knocking over Duursma (or standing up to them when Zurhaar came in to remonstrate).
His highlight was obviously the screamer her took just before halftime when a kick from a teammate set him up to posterise Aiden Corr on the wing. He used pure leaping ability to put a shin on Corr’s shoulder and then elevated himself up to take a strong, chest-high grab that will no doubt find pride of place on the walls of many kids in the Eagle’s households (or phone wallpaper backgrounds in those families that think blu-tac spoils the finish of Dulux’s interior paints).
North’s youth
McKercher, Archer and Sheezel all had an enormous influence on this contest. Sheezel looked to be playing hurt after taking a hit to the ankle early on, but ran it out anyway, racking up 31 touches and two goals.
McKercher likewise was very involved, especially early on, getting fifteen touches in the first quarter alone before West Coast decided to pay him some attention. Even after that, he ended up with a game-high 37 touches at 89% efficiency.
Jackson Archer was always going to be welcome at Arden st, but he seems to have sorted out his early injury concerns to become a tenacious defender who hunts the ball like some sort of carnivorous beast and doesn’t care if he has to run through players to get it.
Zane Duursma didn’t get much of a run here, but no doubt he’ll feature in the last few matches. I personally don’t know why he’d be played as a sub at all, but then again, no one asked me.
Leadership
To my eyes, the biggest difference between the two teams was the on-field leadership. When the game was there to be won, players like Allen, Gaff, Yeo, and Cripps stood up for their side. Their Captain led the way and his teammates followed dutifully behind.
In contrast, Simpkin tried hard, but struggled to find a role between earning his own ball or being the playmaker, regularly getting caught in two minds as he was undecided whether to take the game on or look for a teammate. Luke McDonald likewise struggled as part of an under-siege defence in the dying moments of the game. Playing as a mid-sized defender is difficult, but that’s the job he had, and in this match he was left wanting. When the team needed him to hold down his own match-up while also floating in to help out the rest of the back six, he couldn’t do either effectively when it mattered most. It may seem harsh to take a shot at him when he has been part of the defence that has been absolutely swamped in recent years, but he’s not alone back there any more. Comben, Archer and Corr are making a name for themselves as quality defenders. All they need is a backline general to organise the troops and they’ll be much more difficult to score against. Based on 2024, I’m not sure McDonald is that person.
Is it time for North to pull the trigger on someone else to get the Captain’s role? Harry Sheezel is the obvious choice, but he’s still a bit too young for the job. LDU is an option, but he seems to prefer taking on the senior enlisted man role where he enforces the leadership group’s will rather than making the decisions.
For my money, I’d back Nick Larkey to lead the side, while Logue runs the back six. McDonald is still an asset to the defence, but it looked like he had issues integrating himself into last year’s backline with McKay. If that continues, well, maybe the problem wasn’t solved when McKay left for the Bombers.
Other bits
- Paul Curtis’ three-goal effort will go a long way to sealing any concerns about signing him up to a contract until 2028. He made the most of his chances, as you’d want from a mid-sized forward. It was especially valuable compared to Zurhaar also in that role kicking 0.2.
- Zane Trew is yet to cement himself in the side but played a vital role in the Eagle’s win. Along with his early goal, he kept up the pressure around the ground as he shut down multiple attempts to bust out of packs from his North opposition. There were a few boundary throw-ins where he seemed to be tasked with stopping McKercher from getting the ball, and he did that very well. Using Trew rather than Gaff, Kelly or Yeo meant that West Coast had their playmakers free to work through when they managed to get a hand to the ball in the contest. His stats may not look awesome, but his focus on his role was excellent.
- LDU had a decent game but struggled to make an impact when it mattered the most. While he worked like a farmer’s bull all day, he just couldn’t find the space he needed at critical times. As one of the only remaining key players yet to commit to North beyond 2025, it’ll be interesting to see what sort of headlines he attracts if he goes into next season without re-signing with the Roos. Plenty of clubs will be (unofficially) making enquiries this off-season if North don’t lock him in soon.
- Gaff’s mark was a game-winning move as a sub, but it still seems weird to have a retiring player in that role. I kind of hope he starts on the field in the last couple of rounds, rather than coming in once a player is out of action, or the game is half over.
- Does Eddie Ford really have a caricature of himself on his mouthguard? He is a different sort of lad. He seems like someone you’d love to have on your team, but hate to be around if he gets bored and needs to amuse himself. I would bet he knows at least six different ways to light a bag full of dogshit on fire on a neighbour’s doorstep.
- This win gives West Coast a two-match winning streak. Will it be enough to see Jarrad Schofield get the full-time role next year? It’s hard to say when the only other headlines seem to be people ruling themselves out of the running, though whether anyone actually approached Nathan Buckley or Dean Cox directly is not quite clear. Ken Hinkley’s name was thrown around at times, but with Port currently in second spot, they’d be crazy to make waves there.
Next up
The final two games for these sides in 2024 will be hard matches where they’ll enter into them as deserved underdogs, but an upset can’t be completely ruled out.
West Coast will host Carlton at Optus stadium before they travel to Geelong to take on the Cats to finish their season.
Carlton has shown that on their day where their mids, backs and Curnow are all firing, they can beat anyone. On another day, they look horrendous. No other team is as mercurial when supporters can go from making Grand Final plans to microwaving their membership within a single quarter of football, and back again before the final siren.
Still, Carlton is well aware that it’s either beat West Coast by a lot or they’ll have to rely on the dreaded ‘mathematically possible’ formula that requires other games to go their way for a chance to finish in the top 8. The smart money might be on the Blues, but West Coast will ensure that they are in the match long enough to give the Carlton faithful heart palpitations, and possibly even steal it if they can keep their composure.
As for Geelong in Geelong… I just can’t see it happening. Even if Geelong lock in a top spot, they’re peaking at the right time and have a decade of finals experience in some players. They’ll be their usual ruthless selves and tuning up for a finals campaign where they’ll once again set their eyes on a flag. West Coast will work hard, but they’re not quite able to go toe-to-toe with Geelong at home.
So with those results, I see the Eagles finishing 2024 in 16th, two spots up from 2023.
North will play the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium. The Bulldogs have been heartbreakers for North in the past few seasons, both with some huge wins and trouncing them in their only marquee slot of Good Friday. I don’t see this changing in round 23 as North put more and more players on ice for the year, while the Dogs need to win to remain in the top 8 above fast-finishing teams like Hawthorn, Collingwood and Essendon. I think the Dogs win this one handily.
In their final game of 2024, North play Hawthorn in Launceston. Depending on results from the rest of the weekend, Hawthorn could need percentage to lock in a top 8 spot and feature in finals, so they’ll be looking to put North to the sword from the opening bounce, while there would be several players in blue and white playing without a firm understanding of whether they’ll be in the AFL in a month’s time.
In a straight-up game, North line up against Hawthorn moderately well. The addition of the master and apprentice coaching story as well as the different approaches to rebuilding and what may very well be Shiel’s last AFL game give the match a bit of interest, but there is a reason why one team is focused on finals and the other is already looking at 2025, so it’ll be the Hawks here I imagine.
That leaves North in 17th, likely finishing with a similar percentage and the same number of wins since last year. Yet North have a lot more of the pieces they need with lots of young players in place.
Both teams will be looking for success in the draft as the yardstick for 2024, so it’ll be interesting to see who they pick, especially with a variety of players available at the top end, from big-bodies mids to KPPs and small mids/forwards. Getting it right is vital for both squads.
