To be very honest, I expected Port Adelaide to be comfortable winners, circa ten goals, when they met North Melbourne at home (Adelaide Oval R7). Unexpected was Port literally hanging on to a very shaky single digit win over a very competitive North.
Port were angry after a slow start to the season, and were out to flex some muscles. Zak Butters has proven to be the key to the Port puzzle, and suddenly all the machinery looks and sounds a lot better; such is the nature of AFL teams. Showing my age here, but it’s just like Fonzie knows where to thump the duke box; get it right and the music starts.
For North, following some rewrites to the song sheet by Maestro Clarkson, everyone is singing earnestly and doing their bit, but, they still sound pretty average. It makes no sense to continue with a losing formula and to that end North dropped defenders Corr and Logue whilst Zac Fisher went out with a hammy; that’s a combined experience of 370+ games out for this game. In came Archer, Hardeman and Dawson; a combined experience of less than 50 games. It would be easy to be critical of this if North were winning every week. But they are not, so opportunities are rightly spread throughout the list.
Hats off to Luke Parker for whom this fixture was his 300th. By my reckoning, he’s just the 106th player to ever reach this number. His has been a long career littered with best and fairests, AFLPA most courageous player awards, and All Australian blazer in 2016, and of course the 2012 premiership. This record speaks for itself regards the calibre of player Luke Parker is. Well done to him.
Having sat through the ritual mutilation of the INXS classic “Never Tear Us Apart’ the fun commenced under fine and partly cloudy skies in Adelaide. Yes, perfect conditions for footy amplified by the excellent appearance of the playing deck. (I note the Hilux has yet to resurface).
The first quarter opened with an Ollie Wines clearing kick from the centre hitting Mitch Georgiades on the chest (yes, laces out) at about 35m out and dead in front; he promptly kicked it through the middle. 54 seconds of the game had elapsed. Clarkson reaches for the tablets.
The Port on display in the first quarter was the very slick and very fast version; winners everywhere. Horne-Francis, Butters, Rozee were the (usual) stand outs as Port piled on seven goals. North kicked two, both from free kicks. One paid against Horne-Francis for holding the ball, for which he’d think himself unlucky (Powell subsequently goaled). The second from a 50m awarded to Curtis. It might have realistically been seven goals to zip, so North were fortunate to have got away with those two goals. Norths predicament was not helped by Larkey missing an easy (by his standards) mark and a shot at goal.
But North sent the slick/fast version of Port from the stadium at quarter time.
The New North came at Port angry and competitive in the second, and from then on it was hard not to be drawn into the spectacle of this game. It was a very entertaining. The AFL must be rapt.
A couple of minutes into the second quarter, the ball was in dispute near the North 50m arc. Amongst the gaggle of players around the ball was 300 game veteran/recruit Darling who was tracking the ball, getting in the way of opposition, and being an obstacle. Through persistence more than anything else, he gained possession. As he was being tackled he got a handpass to 300 game veteran/recruit Parker who hand passed to young gun Wardlaw who passed to McKercher that resulted in a goal. Later in the quarter, Darling having contested a mark in the goal square, got a handpass off to Parker who goaled. Pretty sure those mini-passages of play are exact examples of why Darling and Parker were recruited. It’s probably an example too of how very close North have been to being much more competitive; just needing those couple of extra touches.
An example of the not so slick version of Port in the second quarter was the run-down tackle of Josh Sinn by Paul Curtis, resulting in Sinn being subbed out of the game. Sinn hit the ground heavily and is likely concussed. The subliminal message to Port was we (North) will chase you; a ratcheting up of the pressure. Some minutes later, Wines was reluctant to return the ball following a holding the ball decision against him; no doubt he was totally convinced the umpire was about to change his mind. Anyway, the umpire awarded a 50m penalty (to Xerri) against him, and Wines displayed the identical expression to Buzz Lightyear when it dawned he was not a really space ranger. Xerri goaled, of course. A second North goal from a dumb 50m given by Port (Byrne-Jones) would follow later in the quarter. These are symptoms of a team under pressure, and the North pressure was immense.
Port started to make mistakes. There were niggles and scraps. Footy at its finest. I am fairly confident that before the game started the football gods declared “let there be clangers”, and behold, there were clangers of the OMG variety for both teams and unfortunately some of the umpiring. I found humorous and bound for a highlight reel, a Georgiades attempted snap (2nd quarter) at goal from very close range that went toward the heavens and the centre square. Powell-Pepper failing to negotiate the man on the mark some moments later from the top of the goal square free kick was comical.
At the main break, North had kicked five for the quarter to Port’s two, and were only 12 points in arrears. Where had the first-quarter version of the Power gone? Could they be found in time for the second half?
Strange how over the half time break, be it at the ground or on the sofa, reality kicks in and despite the excitement of that very good second quarter from both teams, my initial expectation (a ten-goal win to Port) had not really changed. We’ve seen this scenario so many times before; a noble showing in a couple of quarters by North, only to get spanked. Port do have those spanking abilities, rest assured.
The third quarter was an arm wrestle, with no goals scored for about the first ten minutes of play. Port had amped up the pressure on North and errors and indecision crept into the game. Davies-Uniacke is an example, getting caught in the defensive 50 taking far too long to deliberate where and how to dispose of the ball, resulting in a goal to Finlayson (who replaced Sinn). The battle continued for another ten minutes before the next goal came as a resault of an excellent snap for Port from Richards (his second for the day). So it was s a long, arduous battle. Port had kicked the only two goals, and it was deep in the third quarter. My earlier intuition felt about right; Port will kick away.
That’s not what happened, though. The New North returned fire with the next three goals (Curtis for his third, Zurhaar, Davies-Uniacke) reducing the margin to just six points. Port had a free kick overturned following some off the ball interaction involving Horne-Francis and this was compounded by a 50m penalty giving Davies-Uniacke an easy goal from the goal line.
An epic North fight back!
Port responded with a late goal to end the quarter 13 points up.
Game On!
Fatalism told me that the fourth would be finally where Port would take control and kick away, reinforced by a magnificent Georgiades goal from the boundary shortly after the start. Yet North came again, with goals to Zurhaar and then Darling (from another dumb 50m penalty, this time courtesy of Aliir) leaving the score line at just seven points. About this time, I did feel my ten-goal prediction may have missed the mark by a fair bit, and an upset may have been brewing.
This brings me to the umpiring clanger mentioned earlier.
A long kick into the Port forward line was marked by Lord and he subsequently goaled. In the same passage of play, Willie Rioli very obviously blocked North defender Charlie Comben from contesting the mark. It appeared pretty much the textbook definition of blocking since Rioli did not have eyes on the ball, only Comben. Always frustrating when the wrong decision results in a goal at the pointy end of a game.
Brayden Maynard would have been having flashbacks, sitting on the couch, at home.
The ultimate difference between the sides was the final nine minutes of the first quarter, where Port put on four unanswered goals. The fact North went on to out-score Port in the last three quarters, adding 72 points to Port’s 52, proved to be just not enough to undo the damage done in the first quarter.
For Port Adelaide I liked the games of Jason Horne-Francis, Zak Butters, Connor Rozee and Sam Powell-Pepper, but in truth they had many winners on the day. Some good signs from Ollie Lord as well.
Tristan Xerri continues his great year, as does Harry Sheezel , Jy Simpkin, and Luke Parker. Paul Curtis must be an early squad member for the All Australian I’d think. He keeps kicking goals, but it will be interesting to see whether the MRO deems his tackle on Josh Sinn is worthy of a rest.
