Greetings Tipsters
From first to last, that was a hell of a round of football, leaving us with
an extraordinarily compressed top six and reducing (this week, anyway) the
contenders outide the eight to just two. One of those contenders, Essendon,
had the extreme good fortune to play St Kilda. After a meritorious win over
Brisbane, the "Zero Tolerance to Mediocrity" Saints have folded like wet
tissues, as if a victory over last season's premier is good enough for them
and, hey, why not forfeit the rest of the season and start the end of
season trip two months early?
On the evidence of Friday night, they might as well. This was hardly a game
between two teams level on six wins, fighting for a spot in the finals -
more like a contest between one team for whom near enough is more than good
enough and a team for whom it's never enough. With seven wins, the Bombers
remain in the hunt and look likely to scrap it out with Hawthorn and North,
all three teams facing a challenge or two in the next few weeks.
It's that time of the year when a team needs a few champions to stand up and
make their presence felt. This may bite a hardworking team like the Roos,
cos their champions are, for the most part, a bit past it. This late in the
season, when players are feeling the aches and the exhaustion, the days are
colder, grounds heavier, is the time for potential Brownlow medallists poll
a few votes.
Collingwood are making their presence felt, and their better players are
beginning to live up to their reputations. Their demolition of fellow
finals aspirants, the Kangaroos, should have clubs queueing up to hit the
warmth of Arnhem Land for a kick-to-kick with the Aboriginal kids next June.
The 4&20s next four matches are all eminently winnable (possibly excepting
All-New Competitive Fremantle at the MCG next week) and if they find
themselves 12-6 they should be sitting fourth or fifth.
That oughta shake things up a bit. Brisbane failed to play up to
expectations again, West Coast were outplayed for most of the match and
Port, well, they must have been thinking of the finals. Before yesterday,
Port's percentage was over 40 points better than Geelong's, they'd won ten
matches to the Cats' three, they even snatched the lead with two minutes to
go. Now they're just one game ahead of hometown rivals, the Crows and can
feel the breath of five Interstaters hot on the back of their collective
neck.
It's odd that West Coast are the top scoring team without the benefit of a
true key forward - or maybe not. Subiaco is made for hard-running
midfielders and one of them was the Eagles' top scorer yesterday. It raises
the question of whether the Eagles could beat, say, either of last year's
Grand Finalists on the MCG in September. Sydney managed to contain them for
most of the game but they were still able to score very quickly when they
got loose. The Eagles have a crucial reliance upon Gardiner to win the ball
for them, and he didn't play yesterday.
Sydney and Fremantle are both performing beyond expectations and while
everyone expects them to fall over eventually, they just refuse to do so.
The Crows keep grinding away. They have a focus, a mindset, a sense of
steady deliberation as they creep doggedly (so to speak) toward September.
At this point, you'd have to grant them a better chance of making it to that
last day in September than you would Port.
Meantime, down the poverty end of the ladder. Richmond have as much chance
of making the finals as do St Kilda. They need to win six of their last
eight and given that they seem more intent on not losing than they do on
winning, it's looking like a big ask. The bottom four have nothing but
pride in the jumper to play for. It's doubtful if the Dogs even have that
left these days. Carlton, Geelong and Melbourne can at least take pride in
being competitive and pinching the occasional game, but the Dogs look on
track to take the best booby prize of the lot - the first two picks in the
next national draft. And they'd be a fair chance to make a much better fist
of it than St Kilda, too.
Cheers Tipsters