At this point in the season, I have about as much confidence in the bombers as the Liberal Party seems to have in Joe Hockey, and after Richmond’s smashing of the pies last week, I wondered if a blowout was on the cards. So while I was wondering whether Essendon resistance would disappear quicker than Operation Fortitude, I wasn’t totally convinced that it would happen at all. Richmond may be a bit too good to be true (a bit like Damien Mantach) as last week’s scoreline flattered them and disguised the fact that their midfield was unable to really control the game.
It was pretty wet before the game and conditions for the opening bounce looked awful, with the resulting football about as attractive as a hipster beard/ man bun combination. Both teams were finding it hard to get the ball out of defence easily with clearances coming back more often than an ageing rocker without enough superannuation.
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Richmond made a dream start to this game. They scored their first goal quickly, ripping the ball out their defensive 50, running and handballing through the centre of the ground before a kick inside 50 allowed Vickery to mark ahead of his player, before handballing over the top for Lloyd to run into an open goal. They quickly goaled again when Maric won a free in the ruck and kicked long, where Riewoldt’s quick handpass released Lambert to kick a goal on the run from the pocket.
The Collingwood defence was leaking like federal cabinet and it was starting to look ominous soon after, when Hunt chopped off another clearing kick and kicked to the goal square where Lloyd marked in the pack and goaled again. Collingwood weren’t as bad as the scoreline suggested though. They were finding players in space when they got their hands on the ball and were able to pick their way through the Richmond midfield to kick inside 50 on several occasions, without finding a forward in space. Richmond on the other hand played with ambitious flair, taking on tacklers and running hard through the centre. Occasionally the running broke down with an overzealous handball, which caught the rest of the midfield out of position and allowed the pies to counterattack, but the Richmond defence were excellent at stifling any scoring opportunities. Their forwards were looking looking exceptionally dangerous and were making no mistakes with their kicking to targets or goals. I was leaning towards the giants pre-game, based on only reports that Essendon’s form line was flat-lining quicker than respect for Nick Krgios. However this was without having seen either team actually play (still that is more than enough knowledge of a situation for Tony Abbott to try to tell qualified scientists about renewable energy and climate change, so maybe I was giving myself a hard time).
GWS won the first clearance and kicked straight inside 50, where Patton marked one-handed under pressure from Gwilt. I always like seeing a young player coming back from a bad injury and playing well so this was a promising start. My first instinct was that this seemed a fairly good mismatch in size for GWS to exploit. Patton missed his set shot, but GWS were kicking for goal again soon after when Rory Lobb was too tall for anyone else in the pack and held a strong mark. With the sort of run up you might attribute to Josh Kennedy, Lobb kicked wide to again let the bombers off, but they fell down again coming out of defence when Hayes took a good mark and was awarded a soft 50 to bring him just within range. He combined Lobb’s stutter run with a Shoaib Akhtar-length run up, but somehow still had the energy to kick accurately at the end of it. A bit like Forest Gump’s chocolate box (not a euphemism), you never knew what you were going to get from this game leading into it. Since John Barker took over at Carlton, the blues have shown quite a bit of fight in some games, but also capitulated quicker than Iraqi soldiers in others. But reading the blues is easy compared to knowing what to expect from North Melbourne who are as hard to understand as the Mercury website’s decision to publish ‘news stories’ about what is happening on The Bachelor. So with the stage set for anything, I sat down with interest to see what would happen.
There was a conference of players around the toss of the coin, as Carlton had two indigenous players joining Murphy, as a gesture of respect to Adam Goodes. I have written my opinion on the Goodes controversy here, so won’t comment further other than to say the support for Goodes has been encouraging by the playing group, even if some of the gestures seemed a little tokenistic. Andrew Swallow had come out on the ground with his head already bandaged, due to a pre-existing cut, denying himself the chance to walk up to a camera and say, “Do you wanna know how I got these scars?” Come on Andrew, football is part of the entertainment industry, after all. There is not much left to be said about the tragic death of Phil Walsh so instead of repeating the thoughts and words of others I will get straight into the match.
The game itself started pretty scrappy, which set the tone for much of the night. Collingwood had marks not paid at both ends of the ground in the opening minutes but it only cost them a shot at goal to Cloke, which in the context of this game wasn’t much. After a prolonged period of attacking pressure from the Pies, Hawthorn almost kicked the first goal of the game when the much-maligned Schoenmakers fought hard to win the ball in the middle of the ground. In little time the ball went from Hill to Puopolo to Gunston who marked inside 50 but missed his shot for goal. Eyeing second spot on the ladder, you would think West Coast would be coming into this game pretty confident, but like many tipsters, I had my doubts about them. They still seem considerably less comfortable away from home (unlike Joe Hockey) and they were coming up against a Tiger team in good form.
A lot of the media focus during the week had been on the Tigers’ forward line which, in their last game, had ripped through the Dockers' defence like a Liberal government gutting public education. How the depleted Eagles defence would hold up and whether or not Jeremey McGovern would even play were important subplots leading into the game. Well there was certainly plenty of hype around this game. Journalists (and channel 7 in particular) were eager to tell us how much they were looking forward to the Grand Final rematch. But hang on, the Grand Final was an embarrassing thrashing that appeared to highlight a massive gulf between the two sides and most people (except for Hawthorn supporters, most of whom are still classed as people) stopped watching after half time.
What’s so exciting about a rematch of that game really? I personally struggle with the notion that the Swans’ players would be extra motivated to play better this time. Seriously, for professional athletes, the chance to win a premiership wasn’t enough for them to try hard last year? Hmmm. You could argue Hawthorn perhaps had less motivation, but anyone coached by the very impressive Competitive Clarkson (who seems to be unfairly targeted and picked on by fans, junior football umpires, interchange stewards and the walls of coaching boxes) knows they always turn up to play. It looked like a beautiful day for football with a few interesting sub plots. Steve Johnson was an odd sight in the fluoro substitute’s vest. Being the day after ANZAC Day, no doubt many an observer (and maybe Steve Motlop) would have been nursing a hangover. The other consequence of the ANZAC Day was that everyone in the AFL was trying to make as many tenuous connections between AFL footy and the Australian Defence Force.
Jack Ziebel was yet again coming back from a concussion and fittingly he was in to lay a strong tackle at the opening bounce. The roos were the first to get the ball forward, but there early thrusts were well dealt with by a Geelong defence that won more important contests than Flloyd Mayweather in the first quarter. |
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