AFL round 4 match review: Geelong v. North Melbourne at Geelong

The match started rather well for Geelong, with the home side bagging the first four goals, the quadruple book-ended by two from Mitch Clark, who is already looking like a Coleman Medal contender. But the ominous portents were already there: the breezy weather conditions and the hard-fought midfield battle would ensure that the match would be low-scoring, and Robin Nahas’s pouncing on a loose ball in the forward fifty to kick North’s only goal of the term showed that the Kangaroos were the better side at extracting the ball from the packs.

The other thing that went wrong for the Pivotonians was accuracy in front of goal: Tom Hawkins missed an easy one first up in the second stanza, and their inability to convert would haunt the Cats at the death. Ex-Carlton man Jarrad Waite was the key to a strong period for la albiceleste, as five goals ensured that they went to half-time four points up against an injury-ravaged Geelong side who sometimes looked as if they feared going in hard for the contested ball. When Ben Brown, the revelation of last season’s semi-final between these same clubs, torpedoed the first major of the second half, it was time to warm up the supersub, Steve Johnson.

The mid-section of the third quarter was characterised by more back-and-forth action in el centrocampo, scrappy but not as spectacular as when the likes of Port Adelaide, Sydney, and Fremantle do it, and a certain legend of the game in the commentary box was spot-on when he coolly remarked that neither of these sides look to be top-four material. It ended when Tom Hawkins marked and goaled in the forward line. There were misses at one end, rushed behinds at the other, but Johnson’s arrival was greeted with a visible lift by the home side, as Cameron Guthrie and George Horlin-Smith combined for a goal.

The Hothamites snatched two more behinds to lead by a goal at three-quarter time; both teams’ employment of a libero (or ‘loose man in defence’ as they say in Anglo-Saxon) making it difficult to break through the lines. Johnson kicked the first major of the final term, but Brown responded. Clark took a nice grab and goaled, but the dam broke from there on in, as North ran away with it, surviving a late-quarter flurry of biancoazzurri behinds to hang on by sixteen points.

Geelong 9.13.67 – North Melbourne 12.11.83

Goals: Clark 3, Johnson 2, Caddy, Duncan, Guthrie, Hawkins (Geel.); Nahas 3, Waite 3, Brown 2, Bastinac, Dumont, Goldstein, Petrie (N. M.)

Best: Bews, Rivers, Guthrie (Geel.); Cunnington, Waite, Tarrant (N. M.)

AFL round 3 match review: Geelong v. Gold Coast at Geelong

After two straight losses to start the season, things weren’t looking good at the Cattery. But Hawthorn and Fremantle are one thing, and a Gold Coast side who have so far posted losses to Melbourne and St. Kilda are another.

The home side began kicking towards the Gary Ablett Terrace end of the ground; the irony being the withdrawal of Ablett fils due to his recurring shoulder injury. Two opening goals to Josh Walker (in for Tom Hawkins) and Darcy Lang gave the false impression that Geelong were on top, and the Gold Coast’s Jarrod Garlett provided the highlight of the quarter when he arrested the Cats’ momentum by going on a four-bounce run for a goal. Steven Motlop responded by creating a seven-point play from a wayward Suns kick-in, but the visitors would kick the next three majors, aided by their domination of the centre clearances.

This had Chris Scott going bananas in the coach’s box, and matters weren’t helped by Jimmy Bartel getting himself injured. On came number ten draft pick and archetypal mercurial Territorian speedster Nakia Cockatoo (pronounced, I have only just discovered, Na-kigh-a and not Nar-key-a), shedding the bright green vest for the second week running. The Pivotonians got the next two, the first an end-to-end manoeuvre from the kick-in finished off by Jackson Thurlow, the second a snap from Walker who crumbed when the giallorossi defence had Mitch Clark well covered. But an Aaron Hall supergoal put the Suns up 41-33 at the break, after a rollicking first term in which solid Geelong defensive work prevented the Gold Coast from further cashing in on their control of the stoppages.

The centre clearance count was 10-1 in favour of the pineapple-munchers when Michael Rischitelli opened their account in the second term. I biancoazzurri were given a reprieve by the town’s notorious weather; thousands of pivotonians reached for their brollies in unison as the pace of the game was slowed and with it the visitors’ momentum. Clark got the next goal, and there was something of a dry period (if you’ll pardon the pun) until Walker snapped the one after that. Cockatoo had what the Argentinians call a ‘lyrical moment’, grabbing a bouncing ball with one hand, running down the wing, and kicking it inside fifty to no-one in particular; the margin was twelve points at half-time.

Like the Giants against Sydney the previous evening, les blancs et bleus marines piled on the goals after the sides returned to the hallowed turf. Walker and Steve Johnson kicked truly to level the scores, and Corey Enright pulled off a sensational smother to turn a certain Tom J. Lynch goal into a boundary throw-in at the far behind post. The man from Kimba combined with Harry Taylor, Tom Lonergan, and first-year backman Cory Gregson to soak up pressure and hold the scores at sixty apiece, before a flurry of goals to Josh Caddy, Joel Selwood, then Caddy again. Selwood had a blinder of a third quarter and Cameron Guthrie, who switched into a long-sleeved guernsey at the long break, put in a three-Brownlow-vote-worthy performance with a top-notch display of being everywhere the T. W. Sherrin happened to be and then some.

Gregson kicked his first league goal from the centre square to make it six in a row, but the seventeen-point lead the Cats took into lemon time didn’t seem a big enough buffer given their casualty list. With Bartel having opted for the très haute couture red vest look in the first quarter, and Mathew Stokes milling about the dugout on crutches, the sight of Lonergan being stretchered off after a collision with six seconds left on the clock had Scott and the home fans nervous. With nineteen fit players against twenty-one, the final term would be a test of the veracity of the various claims and counter-claims made over the last few seasons about interchanges, substitutions, rotations, etc.

Sam Day took an Andrew Strauss slips catch and opened the scoring for la roja y amarilla; Gregson responded straight away. By the mid-way point of the final term, the margin was down to four points after goals to Touk Miller and Brandon Matera (an ominous surname, given 1992 And 1994 And All That). A shot from Matt Shaw looked to be sailing through but forced James Kelly to resort to the hoops’ first rushed behind of the afternoon. After another forward thrust by the surging and pacy giallorossi, a turnover at the half-back line was moved upfield through Guthrie, Mitch Duncan, and Motlop, and the Territorian kicked his second of the match, putting the home side nine points up and proving that a beer or two in Colac never hurt anybody.

Geelong tried to kill the clock by forcing stoppages but could only keep it up for a minute and a half of regulation time before Claremontonian midfielder Jack Martin pulled the banana-benders’ deficit back to three points. There was one minute and twenty-five seconds to go, and we had the requisite clichéd tense finish. An all-too-rare Cats centre clearance ended up on the boot of Selwood and Cockatoo saved the day with an easy mark in or about the fifty-metre arc on a tight angle. A tired Suns outfit somehow left Mark Blicavs unmarked, providing the substitute with an opportunity to eat some more clock by chipping the pill to the Lithuanian Marvel, who, in a manner reminiscent of Ablett père or Brownless of old, lined up for a set shot and sent the pigskin soaring in the general direction of the pristine, azure waters of Corio Bay.

Geelong 16.9.105 – Gold Coast 13.18.96

Goals: Walker 4, Caddy 2, Gregson 2, Motlop 2, Blicavs, Clark, Johnson, Lang, Selwood, Thurlow (Geel.); Lynch 3, Martin 3, Matera 2, Day, Garlett, Hall, Miller, Rischitelli (G. C.)

Best: Selwood, Kelly, Enright (Geel.); Rischitelli, McKenzie, Lynch (G. C.)

AFL round 3 match review: Sydney v. Greater Western Sydney at Sydney

While the result of the seventh bi-annual Fibros v. Silvertails Sydney derby was never really in doubt, the Greater Western Sydney Giants showed the rest of the league how to take the game to the defending minor premiers. Let down by some inaccurate kicking which left them thirty-five points adrift at half-time despite equality between the teams in terms of the number of scoring shots, the visitors nevertheless departed the Sydney Cricket Ground with their heads held high.

The diminutive length of the grand old stadium forces teams to move the footy droit au but (as they say in Marseille), with the result that whomsoever dominates the centre corridor gets the bulk of scoring opportunities. Lance Franklin understands this, and his first goal, the Bloods’ second, was a sensational long-distance snap from inside the centre square. Isaac Heeney is also learning quickly, and picked goals like the pumpkins for which his hometown is famous – his brace either side of Franklin’s stunner propelled them to a fifteen-point lead after a first quarter played at a more measured tempo than the frenetic opening stanza witnessed last week at the Adelaide Oval.

Most of the scoring in the second quarter came via set shots, and it was here that the Cherry-pickers were punished for their propensity for, in the words of coach ‘Arks’ from the 2002 film Australian Rules, “finessin’” and “buggerisin’ ‘round the flanks”. The highlight-reel moment of the quarter belonged to Luke Parker, who crumbed a marking contest in the forward pocket, lost his footing (though he never really had it in the first place), dropped the Sherrin, and soccered it in mid-air. It rolled through and survived a tense score review. (There was also a bit of good old-fashioned argy-bargy with around five minutes of regulation time to go, but nowhere near as good as the show put on by Carlton’s Chris Yarran and Melbourne’s Bernie Vince in the two other games played the same day.)

The Giants came out firing in the third quarter. They kicked three goals – two to Cameron McCarthy and one snap from the flank to Ryan Griffen – and la albirroja responded with three behinds. Rhys Palmer goaled and the comeback was well and truly on, though matters were not helped by the limping off with an injury of the well-hair gelled Dylan Shiel. Then, as if regaining their proverbial mojo, the Swans slipped into gear. They got numbers back, they moved the ball well through the midfield, and Lewis Jetta pulled off a slick move on the wing to goal from outside fifty. After dominating the second half of the quarter, they went into lemon time thirty-nine points in front.

But la naranja mecánica weren’t done yet, and piled on some more early-quarter six-pointers to again threaten a repeat of their upset in the opening round of last season. Palmer let Tom Scully’s effort roll through, then was ably assisted by ex-Swan Shane Mumford for one of his own. Stephen Coniglio became their seventh goalscorer of the day, and Tomas Bugg prevented the frosty-haired prodigy from Maitland from getting his fifth major by slamming him into the behind post and into the deep red substitute’s vest. But they again couldn’t overpower the men in red and white, who right now are looking as if they can beat anyone in the league on whatever terms they care to offer.

Sydney 15.16.111 – Greater Western Sydney 12.18.90

Goals: Franklin 5, Heeney 4, Parker 2, Bird, Hannebery, Jack, Jetta, McGlynn (Syd.); Palmer 3, Cameron 2, Griffen 2, McCarthy 2, Coniglio, Scully, Whitfield (Gtr. West. Syd.)

Best: Hannebery, Franklin, Heeney (Syd.); Whitfield, Smith, Palmer (Gtr. West. Syd.)

AFL round 2 match review: Port Adelaide v. Sydney at Adelaide

The Farriss brothers of INXS might have revved up the home crowd with ‘Never Tear Us Apart’, but to the Port faithful the first quarter sounded more like a Joy Division song (Jetta / Jetta will tear us apart again). The aforementioned Lewis kicked two of the Swans’ first three and was the standout performer in a sensational quarter of footy.

The men from the Wheat State could never quite get back into the contest after the visitors took a two-goal lead into the first change. The second stanza saw the midfield open up somewhat, as both sides were able to string together chains of possessions. Paddy ‘There’s Only One Flo and One’ Ryder, Chad Wingard, and Justin Westhoff all goaled to even things up, but Dan Hannebery’s effort from fifty-two metres out while sporting a bandaged head (courtesy of Robbie Gray’s knee earlier in the quarter) summed up the night.

I biancorossi came out firing after half-time, with Kieren Jack, Jake Lloyd, and Hannebery scoring successive majors. Ryder broke up their run with a free kick and goal, but a Port turnover at centre half-back led to Jay Schulz missing a crucial set shot, and not for the first time in the match. Jarrad McVeigh kicked the final goal of the term, but the Power’s Matthew White (late of Punt Road) pulled off a brilliant play in the final two minutes which will be analysed further below.

The fourth quarter comprised more of the same. Adam Goodes had plenty of time to ponder pointless constitutional reforms from the bench, remaining in the bright green substitute’s vest until called upon to replace Gary Rohan. Lance Franklin, whose effort and impact weren’t fully reflected on the scoresheet, nabbed his third, pouncing on a tapped-down boundary throw-in with a mid-air soccered banana kick checkside (if that makes any sense).

For this blog, the most interesting individual passage of play ended with the downwards-counting clock (a Seppo-imported sacrilege!) showing 1’12” or some such figure remaining in the third quarter. Port substitute Matthew White was on the wing with no-one to whom he could kick or handball, and two Swans bearing down on him. He had enough speed to skirt the boundary line and run past one but needed to dispose of the ball lest he be tackled by the other. So he handballed past his opponent, ran around him, regathered the ball and only then was forced into touch. The result was a boundary throw-in, and the ingenious manoeuvre meant nothing in the great scheme of things. But White gained fifty metres, and perhaps showed us the possessionless style in which the football of the future might be played.

Not since Fremantle’s third quarter in their home preliminary final against Sydney in 2013 have we seen anything like the football played in the first quarter at the Adelaide Oval. Except that on this occasion, not one but two teams were playing it. Over a period of twenty-eight minutes and forty-seven seconds, the two teams combined for twenty-five inside fifties (14-11 in favour of los porteños) but only six scoring shots (the Blood-Stained Angels left the field up 3.1 to 1.1, and the first major was registered at sixteen minutes and forty-eight seconds). The defensive pressure was intense, both teams treating any movement of the ball into their backline as a personal affront, and quickly disposing of the intruder from whence it came.

The long-assumed divine right of players to cleanly mark and dispose of the T. W. Sherrin was consigned to the dustbin of history as dramatis personae as eminent as Gray, Wingard, Boak, Kennedy, Franklin, and Tippett were tackled, spoiled, and one-percented into the turf. The night before the match I watched a Spanish romantic comedy on SBS2 in which the character played by Norma Ruíz convinces a small-time actor to masquerade as her friend’s fiancé, telling him that this is all part of a new, avant-garde style called ‘ultra-theatre’. When asked “what does ultra-theatre seek?,” she utters the line “ultra-theatre seeks itself”, to which her pretentious hipster interlocutor replies “of course it does”.

This was ultra-football. It seeks spoiled mark attempts, congested corridors, low scores, and defensive pressure. But above all, it seeks itself. Of course it does.

Port Adelaide 6.8.44 – Sydney 14.8.92

Goals: Ryder 2, Monfries, Schulz, Westhoff, Wingard (P. A.); Franklin 3, Hannebery 2, Jetta 2, Towers 2, Jack, Lloyd, McVeigh, Rohan, Tippett (Syd.)

Best: Pittard, Carlile, Gray (P. A.); Kennedy, Jack, Smith (Syd.)

AFL round 1 match review: Sydney v. Essendon at Sydney

After being vindicated after their victimisation as part of the political elite’s War On Sport ASADA investigation, Essendon were at full strength against Sydney at le stade olympique (in its not-quite-oval configuration) for the opening match of the season in the Emerald City.

And what a match it was. The Bombers came out of the blocks hard, racking up four goals (including rippers from outside fifty from a Jobe Watson run and an Adam Cooney set shot) and conceding none on the way to a twenty-six-point quarter-time lead. Cooney began the second quarter with a soccer in mid-air, while the Swans had to wait until the halfway mark of the term before Craig Bird could nab their first major. Their poor ball-handling on the rain-soaked surface and their lack of discipline hurt them, and Isaac Heeney, the star recruit from Maitland, was doing little to justify the hype bestowed on him.

The Same Olds took a twenty-two-point buffer into the long break, and added to it when Dyson Heppell capitalised on yet another fifty-metre penalty. They appeared to be practicing a variant of Pagan’s Paddock (perhaps we should call it Hird’s Backyard), pushing their forwards up to the edge of midfield and letting their superior wet-weather skills do the trick when the ball was loose in their attacking fifty-metre arc. High tackles at each end led to the sides trading goals, and Essendon’s advantage mushroomed to forty-one points in third quarter.

At this point, Sydney looked gone for all money. Buddy Franklin had done little, Adam Goodes was substituted off, and the fourth quarter opened with a collision between Franklin and Luke Parker which resulted in the latter being stretchered off with blood oozing from various temporary facial apertures. But the stoppage in play and a slight change in the weather altered the terms of debate, and i rossoneri were forced to try and slow things down.

Three unanswered Swans goals into the term, Franklin made a superb tackle on a surging Essendon forward. Behinds to Kurt Tippett and Kieren ‘Son Of Gary’ Jack reduced the margin to twelve, and two consecutive turnovers of possession gifted opportunities to Bird and Jack, who each kicked truly to level the scores, Essendon having failed to score since late in the third quarter.

The scores might have been level, but a tired Essendon outfit looked unlikely to score again, and indeed didn’t, instead trying to grind out a 60-all draw. But two more downfield thrusts from la albirroja settled the issue, Franklin goaling with fewer than four minutes remaining, and the boy from Maitland (of all places!) sealing it with fewer than two remaining.

Sydney 10.12.72 – Essendon 9.6.60

Goals: Franklin 3, Bird 2, Tippett 2, Heeney, Jack, Laidler, (Syd.); Cooney 3, Colyer, Daniher, Goddard, Heppell, Melksham, Watson (Ess.)

Best: Parker, Jack, Kennedy (Syd.); Heppell, Melksham, Watson (Ess.)

NRL round 5 match review: Canterbury-Bankstown v. South Sydney at Sydney

The grand finalists met in a rematch at the Cathy Freeman-John Aloisi Memorial Stadium and the sequel was even better than the original.

Both teams went into the match with 3-1 records, and it was last season’s runners-up who opened the scoring in the fifth minute when a double knock-on led to a scrum, which led to Curtis Rona being put through in the corner. When Sam Perrett took advantage of some poor defending to score in the other corner nine minutes later, the Bulldogs were up 10-0 and it was looking like turning into a rout.

The weather, however, was to be a constant factor throughout the match, and the Berries’ next two line breaks failed due to fumbles and poor footwork caused in part by the precipitation. They looked as if they would go into the sheds with a comfortable lead when an Alex Johnston kick was saved by Brett Morris, followed by a Glenn Stewart line break being quashed through Tom Burgess’ knock-on. The sight of the trainer strapping Greg Inglis’ knee was another worry for i rossoverdi.

In the thirty-ninth minute, however, the complexion of the match changed. A Canterbury infringement at the play-the-ball gave Souths a scrum feed, and the resulting passage of play put Isaac Luke over, but not before Sam Kasiano’s knee collided with his head, ruling him out for the rest of the match. Adam Reynolds, as is his wont, made no mistake with the conversion or the penalty, and the eight-point try put them two points behind.

The second half, however, opened with little sign of a Rabbitohs comeback. Canterbury extended their lead in the twelfth minute of the period when Josh Morris’ chest and hands were on the right end of a kick, and Trent Hodkinson’s conversion put the score at 16-8. Souths responded soon after, front-rower David Tyrrell getting on the end of a deflected grubber kick and grounding underneath the posts.

In a brutal war of attrition at a rain-soaked Stade Olympique, that would turn out to be the final try. Both teams had bombs defused in the in-goal area, and a Canterbury play-the-ball infringement resulted in Souths being held up over the line and then blowing a kick. A South play-the-ball infringement well within goal-kicking range soon followed, but i biancoazzurri gambled and went for the try. When that failed, Souths ran the ball down the pitch, drawing a penalty from Canterbury’s Lancastrian prop James Graham. Reynolds’ kick tied the scores and one readied oneself for that David Gallop-induced abomination, golden point extra time.

The post-penalty kick-off, which looked to be sailing out of bounds, was inexplicably misfielded by two Rabbitohs players. The line drop-out was long, but not long enough to prevent Hodkinson from getting within field goal range and putting the Bulldogs ahead. When Reynolds tried the same from an impossible situation forty-five metres out, he was cleaned up by Graham, charging in to smother the kick. The fracas, if you will, that followed resulted in a report, a sin binning, some crowd trouble, and the awarding of a penalty to Souths. Bryson Goodwin did the honours for the injury-ravaged reigning premiers, and another chapter in this great rivalry was written.

Canterbury-Bankstown 17 – South Sydney 18

Tries: Rona 5’; Perrett 14’; J. Morris (C.-B.); Luke 39’; Tyrrell 59’ (S. Syd)

Conversions: Hodkinson 2/3 (C.-B.); Reynolds 2/2 (S. Syd)

Penalties: Reynolds 2/2; Goodwin 1/1 (S. Syd)

Field goals: Hodkinson (1/1)