Essendon debutant Irving Mosquito is all smiles as he kicks his first goal in AFL football. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
If any of the AFL’s current top five teams reach this year’s grand final, it is unlikely they will look back on these past few days as some sort of launching pad towards the season decider.
But make no mistake, wins by Port Adelaide, Brisbane, Geelong, West Coast and Richmond in Sir Doug Nicholls Round are the type of results that flag assaults rely on.
Premiership teams don’t dominate every week at the best of times, let alone when they’re dealing with unprecedented hurdles being thrown at them (and the competition as a whole) by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brisbane’s premiership “threepeat” side famously never finished on top of the ladder and even Essendon’s 2000 outfit – which produced the most dominant season in VFL/AFL history – dropped one game and survived a few close calls.
The point is that not a whole lot matters about the way a flag hopeful racks up wins at this stage of the season – and that those wins won’t always be easy to come by, even if results look like they should be foregone conclusions on paper.
One member of that juggernaut Lions side coached by Leigh Matthews, Chris Scott, summed it up well after his Cats ground their way past last-placed Adelaide on Sunday.
“The most important thing is the win. We don’t take them for granted and we’ve spoken about that over a long period of time,” Scott said. “It’s a tough school this one that we’re in. It’s difficult to sustain high performance for a long period of time.
“As soon as you get ahead of yourself and assume things in the game, you’re going to get bitten pretty quickly.”
Geelong took until the final few minutes to break the shackles and post a 9.11 (65) to 5.7 (37) victory that many thought pre-match would be as easy as they come. Two late Mitch Duncan goals as winless Adelaide chased the game flattered the Cats’ scoreline.
Port Adelaide was in a similarly tight spot against severely undermanned Hawthorn until Zak Butters popped up with a match-winning goal in the final two minutes of a 9.14 (68) to 9.4 (58) win.
The game had hung in the balance until Scott Lycett’s deft ruck tap to Butters saw him slice through a stoppage close to goal.
Richmond was the hot favourite against struggling Essendon and had Dustin Martin firing in a Dreamtime match laced with controversy.
The reigning premiers benefitted from two fiercely-debated umpiring calls – in incidents that later resulted in Dylan Grimes and Nick Vlastuin both being fined for staging – and scraped home 10.13 (73) to 10.1 (61)
The Cats, Power and Tigers all banked wins, but were seriously tested by opponents that most tipsters would have considered vastly inferior as they submitted their weekly selections.
“Everyone in the competition, they’re human,” Scott continued. “In the back of their mind, I suspect, there’s a little voice in the back of their head hoping it’s going to be a little bit easier. The real pros squash that voice pretty quickly.”
Brisbane was yet again haunted by its own inaccuracy, kicking 6.14 at the Gabba, but did enough to squeeze past top-four contender St Kilda by two points on Sunday.
Later, West Coast kicked the first five goals at Optus Stadium before entering cruise mode in a 12-point win over a Greater Western Sydney side that has lost its groove in recent weeks.
The Western Bulldogs replaced similarly unpredictable Melbourne in the top eight after a 28-point win on Saturday, with Mitch Wallis’ four-goal haul the highlight.
Few would pick Carlton or Fremantle to gatecrash the top eight from here, but both kept slim hopes alive with respective wins over Gold Coast and Sydney.
The Dockers’ new defensive structure under Justin Longmuir reaped dividends again as they held the Swans to their lowest score – 2.7 (19) – since they moved from South Melbourne to the Harbour City almost four decades ago.
Essendon debutant Irving Mosquito lit up Sir Doug Nicholls Round in Darwin, which hosted the Dreamtime match for the first time, capping a wonderful celebration of Indigenous contributions to Australian Rules football.
But there was an ugly fallout when Grimes and Vlastuin were victims of vile social media abuse after being accused of taking dives.
And Fremantle’s Michael Frederick, who has South Sudanese heritage, was the latest AFL player subjected to racist abuse from keyboard cowards online.
It just needs to stop. Sadly, it seems there is no end in sight.
