It was a wobbly weekend for some like Essendon, Carlton, Collingwood and Freo, while others continued their march to September glory.
So, to the good, the bad and the ugly for Round 18.
The Hawks, well they they were very GOOD, as good as any this round. The come-from-behind victory with a very young team was a credit to the coach and the players.
Luke Parker was a standout individual albeit as a sub, but it’s a bonus to have such a good leader back for the run to the finals for the Swans.
The Bulldogs against the odds of victory was one of the wins of the season and a big, big, tick for their coach. Given the outs of Treloar and Liam Jones, it was a win to savour and hopefully sets up a finals charge … a standout performance from Ugle-Hagan, but we’re hungry for more.
So too the Demons who were long odds, but without doubt, it was their best win of their year as they transformed themselves from the premiership team of 2021 before our eyes. Hats off to Simon Goodwin who knew far more it seems than many of the critics who questioned his judgment on the ruck.
Well done to Chris Scott also who subtly gave us his insight and his view into ruckmen and more specifically to the hitouts from ruckmen. Geelong lost the hitouts 22 to 64, a bit like the Demons, yet won the clearance number 42 to 35.
Has anything been more overrated than raw hitout stats? Yet it gets talked about like it’s a mysterious art form. It’s not. Many of the hitouts to advantage in fact, are accidents.
The work around the ground and getting their own clearances is far more important from ruckmen than the actual hitout.
But the good ones like Madden, Gawn and Naitanui are like pieces of gold.
Very good was Cameron Ling’s commentary calling out how ridiculously tough prior opportunity is at present as he challenged his co-commentator and co-premier captain at Geelong Joel Selwood for what’s become a total mess as a result of the mid-year rule change, effectively ushering in no prior opportunity.
Lingy was totally on the money for mine – if you can’t protect yourself when you’re getting tackled immediately, what can you do? I look forward to an explanation on what Tigers star Nick Vlastuin and players in his position are supposed to do. Nick Daicos was nailed in a similar incident on Friday night with absolutely no chance to get rid of it.
Simmo’s send-off over in the west was well done by all and Brisbane’s rebuild in season and their fight back from a disastrous start has been one of the performances of the year to date.
So, we head to the BAD and the UGLY.
Well, the criticism of the Bombers after one loss is bizarre.
Yes, they lost their game. But the commentary is over the top that, ‘You can’t trust them, same old Essendon, they need Goldstein … not this, not that’.
Yes, they may have got it wrong on the night and they were flat, but it’s one bad night in shocking conditions that they didn’t handle.
Well, I think they’ve come a long way the Bombers and deserve a mulligan like everybody else has been given rather than the emotional dummy spits when they happen to lose a game.
Freo’s lack of maturity and creativity when the game was up for grabs was bad and bordering on ugly.
If they forego a top-four spot, it was a big chance lost to even grab a top-two spot given that Carlton floundered.
Speaking of the Blues, their defence was really poor and has been for the majority of the last couple of months.
Not tagging Lachie Neale was a bad and the suggestion from Adem Yze that we declare in-season the intention to move clubs at the end of the year, or the year after, is unnecessary and a total distraction and in my view, a bad.
Players whinging about fines, that’s an ugly, stop whacking blokes and you won’t be fined or go back to suspensions – put your hand up and argue that the suspensions should return, but you’d lose a hell of a lot more cash.
Charlie Cameron’s form is a bit of a problem, and Port Adelaide’s split personality disorder syndrome could get pretty ugly.
A final ugly … and this one is really ugly … three weeks for Charlie Cameron and three weeks for Toby Bedford.
In the words of the great John McEnroe, you cannot be serious.