Charlie Curnow (winner), Patrick Dangerfield (loser), Toby Greene (winner). What do all the results mean for the finals race?
Just when you thought … well, whatever, really. It was that sort of weekend, when barely any apparently safe assumption about where this AFL season was headed wasn’t being challenged.
The top three teams on the ladder all lost. As did six out of nine favourites. Fremantle got up at Geelong. The Giants in Ballarat. Gold Coast won against its Queensland rival for the first time in five years. And even the hapless West Coast managed a second victory for the season.
Was it all a massive shift in the tectonic plates underpinning the top eight and premiership race, or will it just turn out to be, in the context of the entire season, merely a tremor which comes and goes and from which we all move on very quickly?
What’s becoming clearer with four home and away rounds remaining is that each week now will feature at least a couple, if not several de facto finals. And that there’s still enormous scope for a dramatic shift in ladder positions.
To the first point, round 21 this week has no fewer than five of nine games in which contenders for the eight square off – Western Bulldogs (8th) v Richmond (11th), Adelaide (12th) v Gold Coast (14th), Geelong (9th) v Port Adelaide (2nd), GWS (6th) v Sydney (10th) and St Kilda (5th) v Carlton (7th).
And to the second point? Do your own version of the ladder predictor and you might see what I mean. Here’s a few examples from mine.
A new freer-scoring St Kilda was pretty impressive in accounting for Hawthorn on Sunday. The Saints are sitting in fifth spot on the ladder with at least a decent chance in every one of their remaining games against Carlton (at Marvel Stadium), Richmond (Marvel), Geelong (Marvel) and Brisbane (Gabba).
And where have I got them finishing? Tenth. Behind even Adelaide (whom I’ve got ninth). I couldn’t tip them against the currently red-hot Blues, nor Brisbane at the Gabba, and I’ve gone with Geelong against the Saints in what seemed a 50-50 bet.
And what of the Cats? That home loss to Fremantle on Saturday had season-ending written all over it, and not just by virtue of the defeat but as much the consequences of losing Mark Blicavs and Tom Hawkins to injury.
And yet even their absence doesn’t leave Geelong completely bereft, with a key position option the quality of Esava Ratugolea impressive for the Cats in the VFL on Sunday, and Hawkins not having had as much influence over the back half of the season as earlier, anyway.
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Geelong’s clash with Port Adelaide on Saturday night is at GMHBA Stadium, perhaps the only reason the Cats will start that game favourites. Yes, that huge home ground advantage wasn’t enough against Fremantle, but the Cats have lost successive home games just once over the past 17 years. That’s across 131 games.
Port is hardly flying now, either, with three losses on the trot. So how important is Saturday for the Power? I don’t think it’s overstating things to say it will determine whether Port can win the flag or not.
Why? Because whilst I have the Power winning their last three games against GWS (at home), Fremantle (away) and Richmond (home), even that wouldn’t be enough given a loss to the Cats and Melbourne continuing to win (and the Demons have a manageable draw) to save second position on the ladder, and thus the potential to host two home finals on the way to the grand final.
Despite its current slump, I still think Port is good enough to win one final away from home. But two? That might be a stretch. Same deal with Brisbane, which with the current top four surely now locked away, is the only other team besides the Pies, Demons and Power which could potentially win a flag in three finals.
My predicted final eight right now would theoretically lead to four Melbourne finals in week one. Could they all be played at the MCG? Maybe, perhaps that also leaves the door open for a more old-fashioned Melbourne finals double-header, with a Western Bulldogs-GWS elimination final at Marvel Stadium.
That would surely be what the Dogs would prefer, given that it is their home, but given they’d earned hosting rights, could the Giants legitimately be upset about it? Probably not.
Actually, for all the jockeying for this ladder position or that, St Kilda out for Geelong is the only change to the composition of my current predicted eight. The dynamics of the finals, however, would change entirely. As would the premiership market.
It’s an intriguing scenario. And another round like that just gone would throw all the pieces of the puzzle in their air yet again, too.
And just think, there’s a whole another month of this ahead of us before we even get to the real thing. Hey, who needs finals wildcards?
This article first appeared at ESPN.
