The bye rounds are upon us for 2025 – and with all but two teams having reached 11 games for the year, we’ve got a pretty good outline of where everyone sits in the pecking order.
We have four clear frontrunners, no matter what the ladder says – Collingwood and Gold Coast had emphatic wins over lesser opposition in North Melbourne and St Kilda, while both Brisbane and Geelong ratified their bona fides with statement triumphs, the Lions over a lacklustre Hawthorn and the Cats in a classic shootout over the Bulldogs.
It’s that pack below them that is starting to look rather jumbled: Essendon, despite all the critics, have a 6-4 record and are right in the finals mix, while GWS, Fremantle and Melbourne had excellent wins to push ahead of disappointing losers Carlton and Sydney on the ladder.
And the less said about Port Adelaide, the better.
From yet more Fox Footy cost-cutting, to another controversial suspension, there’s plenty to talk about out of Round 11, and plenty more that will remain at the top of the agenda for the week to come. Let’s begin.
1. Alex Pearce ban proves everything needs to change
I’ve already written enough about how the Match Review Officer metrics are fundamentally broken in the year of our Lord 2025.
They were broken when Paul Curtis was handed a three-week ban for a good tackle with an unfortunate end a month ago, and Alex Pearce receiving an identical suspension for his brutal collision with Darcy Byrne-Jones on Saturday night just reiterates that point.
So suffice to say that the gap between three weeks on the sidelines for Pearce and a mere fine for Jai Newcombe for his dangerous tackle on Jarrod Berry – an action far more dangerous and equally careless but with the good fortune of not resulting in a concussion – is utterly ludicrous, and once again call for the ‘footy accident’ clause to be inserted into every MRO grading, distinguishing incidents like Pearce’s where he did little if anything wrong from acts that should be stamped out of the game like Newcombe’s.
In Pearce’s case, though, there’s a more significant thing that needs to change: our attitude towards players running back with the flight of the ball as Byrne-Jones did.
There’s always a worry in the AFL about blaming the victim, but Byrne-Jones could not have put himself in a more vulnerable position than he did.
Yet the prevailing attitude in footy, both from fans and coaches, is that if he doesn’t put his body in harm’s way in that case, he gets pilloried for putting in a short step.
That needs to change, and it’s incumbent on all of us to do it. It can start with commentators abstaining from calling such acts ‘brave’, and instead deeming them ‘reckless’ or ‘stupid’.
The AFL can also help, with greater penalties for front-on contact in marking contests.
Make it illegal to contact someone front-on, even if you get to the ball first, and watch players instantly find other ways to contest the ball.
Alex Pearce had every right to contest the ball, and should have every right to brace for impact and protect himself.
It’s maddening – and actually makes the problem the AFL are trying to fix even worse – that our current rules mean he has a greater duty of care towards his opponent than his opponent seems to have towards himself.
2. The Blues’ biggest problem isn’t their bottom six
It’s a common catchcry among Carlton fans, and indeed in the wider footy world, that the Blues’ biggest issue is their shallow depth.
Yet in their latest concerning loss, this time by 28 points to a similarly struggling GWS, the so-called ‘bottom six’ performed well above their station.
On debut, Harry O’Farrell showed plenty to suggest he’s a player of the future, reading the play well in the air and showing strength in one-on-one contests. Cooper Lord was tremendous all day with his run and carry, and should have played his last game as the sub; Lachie Fogarty popped up with two goals and provided typical pressure in the forward half; Will White is unpolished but has a genuine crack at every contest.
No, the Blues on Saturday afternoon were let down by their biggest stars – and no amount of shuffling the deckchairs among the last six picked can fix that.
I’m not sure I’ve seen Jacob Weitering play a worse game: fumbly at ground level, poor by foot and without any of his usual impassability in the air, it was his mistake at a key stage of the last quarter, with the Blues nine points down and closing fast, that proved the killer blow.
At the final centre bounce of the third quarter, just after a Blues goal that looked set to give them the momentum at three quarter time, it was a Sam Walsh fumble that opened the door for the Giants to surge, and Patrick Cripps overrunning the contest that left space free for Xavier O’Halloran to burst through and drive the footy inside 50.
The Blues have for so long relied on their biggest guns that their decline in 2025 has naturally coincided with their struggles.
Charlie Curnow has 24 goals in ten games and six bags of three or more this year, but after looking set to rip the Giants apart in the first quarter and a half, had minimal influence for the rest of the game, with a bad fumble at a key stage in the last quarter thwarting a goal that looked all but certain.
Sam Walsh has not only not taken the next step from his outstanding first five seasons in the AFL, but has actively regressed over the last 12 months, and seems stuck in no-man’s land as neither an outside runner or inside bull. Patrick Cripps is nothing short of a warrior and has carried this team for nearly a decade, this year no exception, but there are things even he can’t do, and once the Giants worked out to hand Toby Bedford’s tag over to one of their key defenders whenever he pushed forward, the influence he looked set to have at quarter time waned.
If Weitering has a poor game, the defence around him disintegrates, as it did at Marvel Stadium as the Giants piled on 17 goals.
Compare all this with Toby Greene’s performance in his 250th game; putting himself on the ball with Finn Callaghan out injured, the captain was the dominant force on the ground, racking up key disposals, winning clearances and even pushing forward to kick three goals. It was one of the best individual games we’ll see all year.
If even one of the Blues’ bevy of superstars had matched that – and all are capable of it – then the Blues probably win that game.
It’s probably time to start expecting more of the top brass rather than continually blaming the lesser lights that could scarcely have done more.
Patrick Cripps looks dejected after a Carlton loss. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)
3. Pies’ late change shouldn’t have been allowed
If you think AFL umpiring is inconsistent, then AFL executive decisions are on a whole different level.
Time after time, the league makes calls on little more than vibes, with Collingwood’s slew of late changes before Saturday night’s clash with North Melbourne the prime example.
First – thoughts with Bobby Hill and his family, because anything to force the 2023 Norm Smith Medallist out of the team at the last minute, in Sir Doug Nicholls Round of all weekends, can’t be good.
There is no issue either with Scott Pendlebury being replaced at the last minute by Wil Parker – injuries and illness happen, and for all the consternation over Geelong’s history of making late changes, teams have the right to pick whoever they want right up until the point they have to submit their final sides an hour before the game.
Provided, of course, they are in the selected 26 on Thursday night.
Hill being replaced in the side by non-emergency Oleg Markov – before, incidentally, Pendlebury’s late change was officially announced – shouldn’t have been allowed by the AFL.
This isn’t a slippery-slope style argument where late changes could escalate into something more sinister; nor is it evidence of the league giving Collingwood preferential treatment.
It’s simply enforcing the laws of the game, laws are there for a reason.
The Magpies had three emergencies for Saturday night’s game – Parker, Harry DeMattia and Charlie West.
If one of the latter two isn’t required to be selected in the event of a late change like Hill’s, what is the point of having emergencies at all?
And why should we expect umpires to officiate, as I wrote last week, an increasingly vibes-based rulebook with any consistency, if the league that oversees them can’t even stick by their own laws?
4. Where are the Bulldogs?
No team in the AFL is harder to get a read on than the Western Bulldogs.
On the one hand, they’re playing fantastic, exhilarating, highly watchable footy, scoring at a rate we haven’t seen since at least 2018, and any team even slightly off their game has been smashed to smithereens, especially since Marcus Bontempelli’s return from injury.
And yet they reach their bye with a 6-5 record, sit seventh on the ladder, and have repeatedly shown to be just short of the absolute best teams in the league.
The Bulldogs have lost all four of their games against the current top four – yes, they ran all three extremely close, and yes, none of those games were at their Marvel Stadium fortress where they haven’t lost in nearly 12 months, but all those games have exposed the Dogs’ lingering defensive weakness.
The Cats put 20 goals on them in a shootout at GMHBA Stadium, while Gold Coast racked up a triple-figure score and had 31 scoring shots in Darwin. The Lions also scored heavily in Gather Round, kicking 14 goals after half time, while in their only non-top four loss of the year, to Fremantle in Perth, the Dockers kicked 15 goals, including six in a withering burst late in the second quarter that decided the match.
For all the Dogs’ offensive power, particularly from stoppages, it’s not a profile that typically has success in finals, where pressure and defence rule.
And yet, the Bulldogs are closing in on the end of their tough run. They have a spluttering Hawthorn immediately after their bye, and you’d expect Brisbane at the Gabba is the only game they’ll start as underdogs in on current form.
With Sam Darcy set to return to further bolster the forward line, it’s entirely possible they can dominate the back half of the season as the Cats did en route to their 2022 premiership. They’re only a game outside the top four as it stands, too, so they’ve far from left their run too late.
But even if they do indeed get on a run, those question marks about their quality compared to the current top four will remain. And for a team that has been nothing but boom or bust under Luke Beveridge in September, that’s a vulnerable position to be in heading into the last month of the year, whether they make the top four or have to face another elimination final.
5. What’s with the Reilly O’Brien hate?
If you’re not an Adelaide supporter, it might surprise you to learn just how much disdain Crows fans seem to hold for Reilly O’Brien.
So much so that, when news broke mid-week the Crows ruckman was unhappy with the initial contract offer handed to him, the prevailing opinion was to let him walk.
I’ll be honest – I don’t really get it.
Is O’Brien a world-beater, or among the game’s elite ruckmen? No – he’s not a Max Gawn, nor a Darcy Cameron, nor even a Rowan Marshall or Tim English.
But what he is is a solid citizen who competes every week, rarely if ever gets injured, and does everything, in my view, to at least AFL standard.
He doesn’t pluck marks out of the sky like Gawn, but he’s someone you can count on to bring the ball to ground more often than not, and occasionally he’ll pull down a big contested grab.
He doesn’t crunch souls and take lives like Toby Nankervis, but he does follow up strongly at ground level. And when it comes to tapwork, few rucks in the game get their hands to more balls.
Against West Coast, Crows fans should have taken note of what happens when an AFL standard ruckman comes up against someone below the level: O’Brien absolutely took Matt Flynn and Bailey Williams to the cleaners, both in the ruck and around the ground.
The Eagles have been crying out for someone to compete in that role since Nic Naitanui played his last game, and they’re set to sell the farm for a soon-to-be 30-year old Darcy Cameron in order to finally scratch that itch.
If I was building a team from scratch, I’d honestly deeply considering having O’Brien as my ruckman.
It fits the current trend that all you need is a competitor, ideally someone coming at a far cheaper price than your Tom De Konings or Tim Englishes or Gawns, and build the rest of the team around them.
So if Crows fans think letting O’Brien walk somewhere else won’t be something they regret in 12 months’ time, then they might just be in for a rude shock if indeed the club decide not to give him the deal he wants.
6. Fox Footy cost-cutting reaches embarrassing new low
In the first ever edition of Six Points back in Round 1, 2022, I bemoaned how the COVID-19 pandemic’s border restrictions had seemingly given Fox Footy the green light to forego sending commentators to the matches they cover even after those restrictions lifted.
More than three years on, and it’s become commonplace for Fox to commentate matches from their Melbourne studio, with a boundary rider their only presence at matches in Sydney, Adelaide, Tasmania, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, with Western Australia spared by having Adam Papalia, Will Schofield and Matthew Pavlich on hand to cover every game.
The practice reached an embarrassing new low on Sunday afternoon, with Seven’s Brian Taylor poking fun at Fox’s commentary box remaining deserted for a match at the MCG.
It’s one thing to penny-pinch and not send commentators interstate; but to not bother to cover, as Taylor put it, ‘the two-kilometre trek from South Melbourne’, is an actual farce.
One can only assume the network were only willing to live cover the St Kilda-Gold Coast game at Marvel Stadium that overlapped much of Melbourne’s clash with Sydney – but that’s nowhere close to an excuse.
It’s baffling to me that Fox are willing to splash out on their own commentary feed, graphics and half time coverage for every single match, rather than their old practice of simulcasting Seven’s coverage for all their matches, and yet can’t either can’t be bothered or can’t spare the expense to set them up at the ground.
It cheapens the product, makes things more difficult for their commentators – I don’t think Kelli Underwood in particular is doing any favours by having to call a large number of her games from a studio a long way from the action – and to be blunt, disrespects the fans who pay $40 a month for the privilege of watching matches we can’t access anywhere else.
Given the PR nightmare for the AFL that is the decision to allow all Saturday matches behind a paywall for the foreseeable future, it wouldn’t be amiss to the league to have a quiet word to the network that they can’t treat the paying public with this level of disdain.
They’re probably the only ones Fox would listen to, too.
Random thoughts
– I would have thought Callum Mills of all people would have learned by now that running into things with his shoulder isn’t a good idea.
– Is there a way of not sounding like a biased hater when I say that Bailey Smith was my eighth-best player on the ground on Thursday night?
– Callum Ah Chee an underrated brilliant story. Shunted forward out of desperation halfway through last year, four goals in a grand final, now a key part of the best team in it.
– With Port’s season in the toilet, there’s no reason now for Logan Evans not to play every week.
– Luke Jackson is so good as a solo ruck, but I could forgive Freo for bringing Sean Darcy back in for nothing more than to stop Kane Cornes being smug about it.
– Melbourne’s reaction to Clayton Oliver’s goal is the sort of absolutely naff, cringe overkill that really hits me where I live.
