A tracksuited Darcy Moore heads off the ground after injuring a hamstring for Collingwood last week. Photo: AFL MEDIA.
1. West Coast will host Essendon in a final in Perth for the first time next week – a fixture that has been 23 years in the making. Well, sort of.
You see, by all reasonable argument, Mick Malthouse’s higher-ranked Eagles should have had home ground advantage for their semi-final showdown with Kevin Sheedy’s Bombers in 1996.
But a nonsensical agreement between the MCC and AFL – then seemingly stuck in the VFL era – meant that one final each week had to be played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The Eagles were robbed of a home fixture and Sheedy took full advantage, circling the wagons and drawing a predominantly red-and-black clad crowd of more than 85,000 fans.
Come bouncedown, the local Victorians were baying for proverbial West Australian blood, and they got it in spades.
Steven Alessio (five goals) and Che Cockatoo-Collins (four) cashed in as James Hird ran riot with 31 disposal and four goals, including one that Alessio let bounce through from 60m in the final term.
West Perth product Darren Bewick, one of the Bombers’ premier goal sneaks at the time, had 37 touches, but remarkably didn’t kick a major.
Essendon fans waved their jackets and scarves in unison as the Bombers advanced to a preliminary final, only to be knocked out of the premiership race a week later by Tony Lockett’s famous after-the-siren kick at the SCG.
West Coast got stitched up again in 1999, when it had to travel to Melbourne to take on Carlton for a semi-final. Twice in four seasons, the Eagles had been the higher-ranked team and won in week one of the finals, only to be forced to travel to Melbourne to take on a lower-ranked team that had lost in week one.
Brisbane copped the same treatment in 2004, when it “hosted” a preliminary final against Geelong at the MCG. The Lions won through, but lost the grand final to Port Adelaide.
Thankfully, the AFL doesn’t have such archaic rules anymore … except, perhaps, that recently-inked agreement relating to the last Saturday in September. The merits of that one will be debated in most corners of the country until at least 2057.
2. The pre-finals bye week is one when state league matches, in some ways, take on greater importance than at any other stage throughout the season.
As second-tier competitions head straight into their respective finals series, some AFL clubs have a slight advantage over others in their preparations for September.
Geelong, Richmond, West Coast, Greater Western Sydney, Western Bulldogs and Essendon all have clubs featuring in VFL, WAFL or NEAFL finals this weekend. Collingwood’s VFL side missed out on the top eight, while NEAFL minor premier Brisbane has a bye through to week two of its finals series.
The Lions, incidentally, won all 18 home-and-away matches in the lower grade, boasting a massive percentage of 224.3 and finishing five wins clear of second-placed Southport. They are primed to become the first NEAFL side in the competition’s short history to win the premiership unbeaten.
But we digress. The six AFL clubs that do have second-tier matches this weekend have a range of decisions to make about which players they use at that level in preparation for week one of the finals.
At Geelong, for example, Jordan Clark (elbow) and Tom Atkins (hand) have been cleared to play VFL this week on return from injury. Whether or not the duo will actually take part in the Cats’ elimination final clash with Port Melbourne will be at the club’s discretion.
But Richmond captain Trent Cotchin is ineligible, having made his comeback from a hamstring issue at senior level in round 23.
Toby Nankervis could play in the Tigers’ qualifying final against Essendon after two weeks on the sidelines with soreness, having made his comeback from a long-term adductor issue prior to that.
Rival ruckman Nic Naitanui is the biggest name of all vying to return from injury during the finals. The “Flying Fijian” is eligible to play when West Coast’s new reserves side makes its WAFL finals debut in an elimination final against West Perth.
However, there is no way Naitanui would return from seven weeks on the sidelines with a syndesmosis issue via the WAFL on Sunday and then be fit to back up four days later.
The 29-year-old has managed only 18 matches in the last three years – including three in 2019 – after suffering two ACL ruptures. Yet it seems he would still be capable of short bursts of brilliance that could turn a final the Eagles’ way if he managed to get himself fit.
3. Speaking of injuries … Collingwood fans are used to seeing a forlorn Darcy Moore sitting on the bench, just as they’re used to hanging on daily reports from eagle-eyed track watchers about the amount of work he’s doing at the Holden Centre.
And along with Naitanui, the Magpie defender heads the list of key players aiming to return in September to boost their respective clubs’ premiership chances.
Aside from Moore, whom Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley said on Thursday morning would play in Collingwood’s qualifying final against Geelong, the Pies have a whole bunch of players currently presented as unknown quantities on the official injury list.
Jaidyn Stephenson will return from his betting suspension while Jordan De Goey (hamstring), Steele Sidebottom (ruptured testicle – ouch) and James Aish (shoulder) should all be fit.
But Brayden Sier (calf), Matt Scharenberg (concussion) and Josh Thomas (knee) are touch-and-go at this point. And you can probably rule a line through Isaac Quaynor (foot) and Ben Reid (hamstring) for 2019.
Recently re-signed superstar Stephen Coniglio is at long odds to return for the Giants’ elimination final against the Bulldogs after a quick trip to Melbourne to see a specialist about his knee injury.
Teammates Toby Greene (calf) and Jacob Hopper (hamstring) are expected to return, while retiring veteran Brett Deledio (calf) could even be in the mix. However, Nick Haynes’ fractured larynx will likely keep him sidelined.
Bulldogs star Tom Liberatore is only an outside chance to play again this season after missing three weeks with a knee injury. But Caleb Daniel and Tory Dickson could return from hamstring injuries against the Giants.
Essendon’s team sheet faces another huge turnover as it looks to bring back four players who were left out last week.
Orazio Fantasia (hip), Dyson Heppell (foot), Cale Hooker (illness) and Jake Stringer (hamstring) are all ready to go, however, Michael Hurley’s shoulder injury is still a major concern. Hurley will need surgery post-season, but coach John Worsfold said the key defender’s selection against West Coast would “come down to the wire”.
Dion Prestia and Tom Lynch have played every game for Richmond this season and it looks set to stay that way despite the midfielder battling some achilles soreness this week.
Brisbane is the only side with better availability than Geelong, with Allen Christensen (hamstring) facing a fitness test. The Cats are waiting on Atkins and Clark, as mentioned earlier, and Jake Kolodjashnij (hip) is a test.
4. Brace yourself for the silliest “Silly Season” on record.
A combination of increasingly fluid player movement, player managers working angles and journos clamouring to be first with any snippet of news – be it real, exaggerated or sourced from an unreliable, err, source – means we’re now getting more trade-related news than ever before.
A tracker produced by SEN this week listed dozens of players linked with off-season moves to other clubs. There were almost 60 on the list, and a few others had slipped through the cracks. There are almost certainly many more players who have weighed up moves without hitting the headlines.
The trade period is still weeks away, but it’s already doing our heads in. Yet we can’t look away. It’s real “train crash” sort of stuff.
There’s a good reason that editors put a high price on trade news: their websites see more traffic from these sorts of stories than any other regular topic during the 12-month footy news cycle.
While we’re on the subject of “silly” in football, we feel obliged to raise the fact Tim Kelly’s second season at Geelong was referred to in one media report this week as his “sophomore season”.
There must have been more than a few footy fans googling the word “sophomore” after reading it, just to check.
One Twitter wag (@Tuzi05) offered a comical response: “A great sophomore season for his franchise and let’s hope they get the W on the road in the playoffs.” But why the unnecessary Americanisation?
At some stage in September, just for a laugh, maybe we’ll take it down a different, soccer-ish path and mention that Dustin Martin “scored a brace” to help fire Richmond to victory.
Let’s see how that goes down.
5. This football caper has more swings and roundabouts than a lifetime of carnivals. Just ask Luke Beveridge and the Western Bulldogs.
The energetic and entertaining Dogs are charging into the finals on a hot run of form, having won seven wins of their last nine matches. The thrashing of Adelaide in round 23 was the fourth time in five weeks they had kicked a triple-figure score.
Only Richmond, on a nine-match winning streak, and Brisbane, which has won nine of its last 10, have any claims to stronger form lines.
The Lions will welcome this week’s bye as a chance to regroup after suffering defeat at the hands of the Tigers in round 23. But if the Bulldogs had their way, they’d be playing their elimination final this weekend to keep the momentum going.
But it was a much different story three years ago, however, when Beveridge and co. milked the bye for all it was worth before embarking on one of the all-time great finals campaigns.
The Dogs limped into the 2016 finals series after losing to lowly Fremantle at Subiaco Oval in round 23 and turned over almost a quarter of their team before travelling back to Perth to take on warm favourite West Coast in week one.
Jake Stringer, Tom Liberatore, Easton Wood, Jordan Roughead and Jackson Macrae all returned from injuries and played key roles in engineering the Dogs’ first ever interstate finals triumph.
Three magical weeks later, the quintet, which would not have played against the Eagles without the week off beforehand, were all part of the Dogs’ premiership team that broke a 62-year drought with a famous grand final win over Sydney.
