If there was one theme out of Friday’s AFL Community Series action, it was injury carnage. And that’s ‘carnage’ with a capital C.
Mitch McGovern limped off with an ankle injury in Carlton’s win over GWS; Mac Andrew lasted 15 seconds in Gold Coast’s clash with Sydney before being mothballed with a rib concern; Errol Gulden left the field in agony after getting his ankle wretchedly caught in a tackle; and the grandaddy of them all, news broke that Marcus Bontempelli’s calf strain is of the ‘miss six weeks’ variety and not the ‘she’ll be right’ sort that the Bulldogs social media team cheerfully suggested on Thursday.
But the show must go on, and from Giant issues nine days out from their season-opener, to yet more queries over the Suns, to a Swans position change that looks set to work a treat, there was plenty from the pair of matches to enhance our understanding of how every team will be going into Round 1. Or in these four teams’ cases, Opening Round.
Here’s what we learned from the Blues’ win over GWS and Sydney’s win over Gold Coast.
Injury carnage proves it’s time for a pre-season rethink
So here’s the thing: the AFL pre-season has actually become significantly shorter than it used to be as little as a decade ago.
12 years on from the end of the NAB Cup tournament, the pre-season has reduced from three scratch matches per team, down to two, and now to one officially televised match per side and a round of match simulation with the teams making up the rules as they go along.
And yet the injuries have persisted, or even grown in volume – and they stand out this year more than most, with the quality of the players succumbing reaching alarming levels.
It’s not good for the AFL – or for their respective supporter bases – to have players of the ilk of Bontempelli, Gulden, Butters and co. sidelined when the real stuff starts; particularly in the case of Bontempelli, a player tweaking a calf as badly as he did against Hawthorn, following on from a summer of injuries galore at the Whitten Oval, suggests trouble afoot.
My view, for what it’s worth, is this: players are now getting flogged over the off-season like never before on the training track, with frequent interstate and sometimes even overseas camps, brutal drills in sweltering conditions, and an enormous amount of running.
The most notable change of all, though, is how close these pre-season games are getting to the season commencing: Sydney have just seven days to prepare for their Opening Round date with Hawthorn after their pre-season encounter, giving Gulden precious little time to get over his ankle concern, no matter how minor.
If you go back to 2013, the final year of the NAB Cup, you’ll find teams playing scratch matches from mid-February, a full month out from the start of the real stuff. Every team played four games, with Richmond’s 12-day break between their last match and Round 1 the shortest.
That’s a significant amount of time for teams to get miles into the legs of their players, manage the minutes of anyone with a niggle, and essentially begin gearing up for the season proper, rather than, as I suspect is the case now, having to cram match preparation into a single match.
It certainly seems the case that teams are caring more about their pre-season encounters now, at least from a pressure and intensity perspective – Gold Coast’s pressure meter went up to 200 in the final quarter against the Swans, and both sides engaged in a series of spicy spot-fires – than back in the day where there were more matches to worry about.
I struggle to imagine either Mac Andrew or Taylor Adams going this hard at a ball if it wasn’t their last chance to impress before the start of the season, as an example.
With Opening Round and the addition of Gather Round giving the AFL an earlier start than ever before – remember the olden days when the season began in the last week of March rather than the first? – there’s a problem emerging ripe for the sort of injury drama we’re experiencing.
Players are given too few chances to prepare for the footy season starting, and they’re happening too close to the start of the real stuff to be able to adequately recover.
Whether playing more games in February, or simply pushing the existing ones back a week or two, something needs to give.
Mac Andrew suffered a rib injury in the opening seconds of Gold Coast’s practice match against Sydney. (Photo by Matt Roberts/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)
Swan’s shift forward a shrewd move
Considering their defence was blasted to smithereens by Brisbane in the grand final, the off-season move by Sydney to switch Tom McCartin into attack smacked of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
But having watched it play out all but twice in two pre-season fixtures, I’m a convert: indeed, I’m now worried about the Swans for a totally different reason.
It wasn’t just that McCartin bagged four goals against a Suns defence that couldn’t match him in the air and were even more outclassed following up at ground level; it was how natural he looked as a forward that stood out.
Having spent virtually his entire career in defence, he has taken to his new role like a duck to water, with his leading patterns, contested strength, sure set-shot kicking and speed at ground level making him a unique key forward prospect in a team that got quite dinosaurish among the talls when things weren’t going so well in 2024.
With Hayden McLean and Logan McDonald both missing from the grand final team – and McDonald at least to miss the early rounds – this might be another Swans move borne out of necessity that becomes a masterstroke, just like Isaac Heeney capitalising on a midfielder shortfall last pre-season to finally become the superstar on-baller he looked destined to become.
At the other end of the ground, the Swans seem capable of covering for their one-time number one key back: Joel Hamling, having not played a game in his first season at the club and spending most of his VFL minutes in attack, barely missed a beat as part of a Sydney defence that held firm against a torrent of inside 50s that were numerous if not often threatening.
For obvious, 2016-themed reasons, I’ll always have a soft spot for Hamling, and with nine marks to his name and just one goal to Ben King’s, he and Aaron Francis more than did their jobs as the key defensive pair, while former Saint Ben Paton also looked a shrewd off-season get as a nuggetty small defender.
A 46-63 inside 50 deficit normally wouldn’t translate into a Swans win, but with strength at both ends of the ground, the absence of their entire first-choice midfield was mitigated – once that returns, Sydney might just be a more complete team than they were in 2024.
How much to read into brilliant Blues?
Of the 12 teams to have thus far appeared in the AFL Community Series, Carlton have been the most impressive – and it’s daylight second.
A Giants team with several key players missing but still close enough to full strength was essentially blown off the canvas by the Blues’ pace on the ball, ferocity at the contest and clinical foot skills, with an even inside 50 count – 55-53 the Giants’ way – defying the hammering that ensued.
With no Charlie Curnow and Harry McKay on managed minutes, it was the second-stringers who did the damage on the scoreboard, with three goals from Brodie Kemp leading the way – but with 14 individual goalscorers, the load was well and truly spread, something you can’t often say about Carlton.
Equally impressive was that no Blue mustered more disposals than Nick Haynes’ 21 – who was excellent against his old team, by the way – with Patrick Cripps able to play a peripheral role and Tom De Koning’s minutes being managed amid a quite dominant rucking performance around the ground.
11 goals to two from turnover was the key stat: the Blues were devastating at quickly moving the ball into attack and catching Sam Taylor and Jack Buckley, one of the best key defensive pairs in the game, on the hop; on the flip side, the Giants were never able to get their running game going amid a smothering blanket of Carlton pressure, and a far stronger backline than what they finished last season with, with Haynes’ inclusion – and ten marks – a standout.
The question, then, is how much to make of it – because while a pre-season statement is an important cornerstone for the Blues after their poor ending to 2024, it won’t mean much if they start the real stuff slowly.
Round 1 against Richmond should be an easy kill if they’re serious – up next, though, is Hawthorn, the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood, all of whom defeated them in the back end of last season.
Right now, the Blues seem like they have what it takes to be a premiership contender. We just have to find out whether they’ll look as good when the opposition has four points at stake.
