We’ve got one more week to go until 16 of 18 teams will have played the same amount of games – but until then, we won’t quite know where everyone sits.
Gold Coast, albeit with their Opening Round game in hand, are somehow out of the eight, while Sydney are the latest team outside the top nine contenders to put their name forward for inclusion as a September contender.
I’m typing this on my phone at Marvel Stadium midway through the last quarter of the Bulldogs’ win over Richmond, so let’s not waste any time and get stuck right in!
1. It’s time for a tagger crackdown
Marcus Windhager crossed the line with his tagging tactics on Nick Daicos on Saturday night.
Based on the vision showed on Fox Footy after the game – from which we can safely assume there were dozens more cases of kneeing, pinching and whacking that the broadcasters didn’t pick up – Daicos should have received about ten more free kicks than the four he ended up with at Marvel Stadium, of which only two were directly against Windhager.
It’s a baffling oversight, considering how many of these little gut-punches and other skirmishes umpires usually pick up, and yet seemingly didn’t over and over again where Daicos and Windhager were concerned.
I think we can safely assume, too, that similar dark arts were at play in Windhager’s recent successful tagging jobs on Kysaiah Pickett and Marcus Bontempelli, too – if they weren’t, it seems surprising for him to have gone so clearly below the belt just for Daicos.
In any case, it’s time for a crackdown to ensure the cheap shots the Saints stopper repeatedly pulled on one of the game’s best players are properly punished when either he or someone else tries them again on someone else.
Tagging isn’t necessarily a blight on the game – quite the opposite, actually. Daicos versus Windhager was compelling viewing throughout a match in which the Saints took it right up to the premiership favourites, and it was fitting that the Magpie’s brilliant final-quarter goal, with Windhager hot on his heels the whole way through, proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
But as David King implored on Fox Footy on Saturday night, our game is inherently diminished when our best and brightest are, illegally, put off their game.
The biggest problem is that there’s not really anything Daicos can do about it – it’s not like the 1980s, when anyone who tagged Greg Williams could expect to be belted behind the ball when the umpire’s back was turned. He has no recourse to getting kneed in the hamstring by a bloke whose one objective is to stop him from influencing the game, and retaliating is far more likely to result in a free against him than for the instigator to be penalised in the first place, with the way the rules are adjudicated today.
If there’s one benefit to having four umpires on-field, it’s that there should be a capacity to closely monitor tight-checking taggers to ensure everything is above board.
And as for those who’d claim Daicos, as well as any number of star players over the years, are just protected species who get gifted an armchair ride by the umpires, I would respond that they are actually getting officiated more harshly than anyone else in the game, based on nothing more than the sheer volume of times they’re ‘pre-tackled’ before taking full possession at every stoppage.
I’ve spent a decade watching Bontempelli in particular be manhandled at every turn – there’s a reason he repeatedly leads the AFL in contested knock-ons, and it’s because one hand is uniformly being scragged without attracting the umpire’s whistle.
We want our game to be skilful, free-flowing, high-scoring and entertaining. It’s time we actively started preventing underhanded tactics against the rules of the sport to hinder the players who actually make all those things possible.
Nick Daicos is tackled by Marcus Windhager. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
2. The Swans are still very much alive
Much of the discussion following Sydney’s upset win over Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval shaped the Swans as a ladder-shaper in the run home – the kind of team no one with finals aspirations wants to go anywhere near.
I think that’s selling them short.
The Swans weren’t back to their best on Saturday afternoon – their finishing in front of goal especially was as abysmal at it has been all year – yet there were plenty of signs that this team isn’t just a dangerous opponent in the lead-in towards September, but actively in the finals race up to their eyeballs.
Errol Gulden was exceptionally rusty, but while his kicking wasn’t as lethal as we know it can be, his ability to spread from stoppages and allow the Swans an outlet option, as well as his incredible running power for handball receives, instantly made them more dynamic moving the ball forward.
Ahead of the footy, Joel Amartey, back from a horror run of injuries and suspensions, could and should have had his biggest bag since booting nine against Adelaide at the same venue last year, only to produce the worst case of the yips in a generation to finish with six straight behinds and two out on the full.
And of course, there was the most substantial inclusion against the Power, Tom Papley, whose 16-disposal, goalless game belied the influence he had on the contest, with his spead on the lead, elite hands and natural creativity whether inside 50 or further up the ground a poignant reminder that he is among the best small forwards in the game.
There’s a flow-on effect, too: it’s no surprise Will Hayward had his best game in a long time with Papley and Amartey back in the fray taking the spotlight off him, while in midfield, Justin McInerney was far more involved in the game in his typical outside role with Gulden there to be the link in the chain.
In defence over the last fortnight, Nick Blakey has been far more damaging with Callum Mills back as a cool head marshalling the troops, and with Harry Cunningham around to lock down the opposition’s most dangerous small.
Right now, the Swans are just two wins and percentage outside the eight, with nine full games to go.
It’s a virtually identical spot to where Hawthorn found themselves at the very same point 12 months ago, and we all know what they achieved for the rest of 2024.
Sydney are the reigning grand finalists for a reason. And with home matches in the next fortnight against finals hopefuls the Western Bulldogs and Fremantle, I’ve got an inkling they might just be about to prove just how big a contender they are for those precious spots at the back of the top eight.
3. GWS are back in business
Two weeks ago, GWS looked washed. No dare, stagnant ball movement, turnovers galore, and looking every inch like their semi final heartbreak last year was to be the death of them.
Two games and two tremendous comeback wins later over the two Queensland outfits, the Orange Tsunami is back and flowing again.
Their win over Gold Coast was, in many respects, even better than beating Brisbane at the Gabba. This came after being properly jumped by the Suns in a wild opening quarter, and without Lachie Whitfield for nearly the whole game.
Finn Callaghan’s return from injury has given the midfield some real extra dynamism, and it seems like the Giants are being even more aggressive from half-back for having lost that edge a month ago.
Full credit to Adam Kingsley and his team, who have reminded the footy world the Giants are in this flag race up to their eyeballs – and with their record against their fellow finals contenders, nobody is going to want to face them in September.
4. Ruthless Roos really do want it
You know what my favourite part of North Melbourne’s win over Carlton was?
Well, to be honest, it was Jack Darling’s chasedown tackle on Adam Cerra in the third quarter that led to the Roos going coast to coast for their best goal of the season.
But a close second is Alastair Clarkson looking ready to blow a gasket at full time, after North squandered the chance for a big win by going back into their shells in the final quarter, not scoring, and letting the Blues take a huge chunk off the margin with five goals, three of them late.
For all the platitudes Clarkson offered after the match about the Roos having to take every win that they can get at the moment, you can bet that internally, the message was very different – and considerably harsher.
Not for the first time, but more consistently than ever, North on Saturday looked a team made in Clarko’s image – they tackled ruthlessly, hit to hurt, and physically overwhelmed the Blues, to the extent that repeat spotfires pockmarked the match.
It’s as close as North Melbourne have come under the master coach’s reign to his champion Hawthorn team of old – they lack the skill and certainly the abundance of talent that team had, but if you can’t be them, you might as well try to emulate them.
There was a, dare I say it, Shinboner spirit to the Kangaroos that was conspicuously lacking as recently as two weeks ago, when they by rights should have been pumped by West Coast in Bunbury.
The next step is taking the ruthlessness they showed against the Blues and actively finish beaten teams off; then produce it on a weekly basis. Do that, and a next month against Hawthorn in Launceston, the Western Bulldogs, Melbourne and Sydney at the SCG begins to look like an opportunity for this club to make a REAL statement that the only way they’re going is up.
5. The Saints’ draft overhaul submission makes sense – just not the Academy bit
St Kilda’s submission to the AFL Commission calling for radical changes to the AFL draft system has, I think, been misreported.
The way it has been described suggests a crusade against the northern Academies in particular, lining up well with president Andrew Bassat’s repeated criticism of them in the last few years, as well as Ross Lyon’s recent ‘AFL nepo baby’ dig at Gold Coast.
But it’s broader than that – and it’s in the extra details where I think the stronger argument lies.
Brisbane, Gold Coast, GWS and Sydney will all argue, not without cause, that their Academies allow them to retain local players who would otherwise be lost to other codes, and avoid the risk of having their stars raided en masse by poaching clubs to the south.
Yes, the system by which these clubs can stockpile a swathe of weak picks in order to match bids in the top 10 is flawed; but it’s worth remembering that the main reason the Academies are on the nose is because the Lions, Giants and Swans have been good for quite a while now, and now the Suns are joining the party.
No one cared about Gold Coast’s Academy when they were near the bottom, after all.
The bit I was most interested to read is the Saints’ call for clubs to only get one player to match a bid for per draft, and the caveat that top-four clubs don’t get access at all to any father-son or Academy prospects in the top 10.
This would have been particularly painful for Brisbane in recent years, and would mean both Ashcroft brothers would now be playing elsewhere; but the Lions were strong before their arrival, and would surely have coped without them over the last few years.
It’s probably too late, though the Lions do have another Academy gun likely to go in the top 10 this year in the form of Daniel Annable, to do much about this, as a windfall of the kind Brisbane have had with their father-sons in recent years is unlikely to come around again anytime soon.
But that’s the key selling point out of the Saints’ submission: that the current system tips the scales too far in favour of teams that are already good, and needs refinement.
The draft was meant to give the worst-performing clubs access to the best new talent coming through – in the last five years, the system has worked against that key concept.
Good on St Kilda for actually making a formal suggestion rather than merely complaining in the press; I hope, at least, the AFL gives it due consideration, or footy in the future, especially once Tasmania come in, will start to look awfully lopsided.
6. It’s still dangerous to write the Blues off
As fun as it is to wallow in yet another disastrous weekend for Carlton, as amusing as the social media meltdowns of their fans are, as much sadistic pleasure as we take out of the now-regular shots of miserable supporters in the crowd – except for the crying kid. That was crossing the line, Fox Footy – there’s an important public service announcement I must make before it gets any further out of hand.
And it’s this: be very, very careful about writing off the Blues.
Oh, sure, they suck at the moment. They’ve had a wretched time of it in 2025 from the moment they let Richmond overturn a seven-goal deficit in the very first game of their season, and even their wins of late have left fans fed up with their apparent refusal to further sink the boots in after routinely dominant first quarters.
There’s no need to further analyse what went wrong at the MCG against North Melbourne – for that, you can just read all about it here – but it was every bit as dire as you’d expect a loss to a 16th-placed team with just three previous victories for the season, who they belted on Good Friday by near enough to 100 points, would be.
But here’s the thing about Carlton: they click at random times, and it’s impossible to predict.
In 2023, they limped towards their mid-season bye with a 4-1-8 record – worse than their current one, albeit from a far less easy draw – trailed Gold Coast by 10 points at quarter time of their next game … and went ballistic. They won five straight games by over 60 points, defeated four finalists and three top-four teams on the run home, and rode the wave all the way to kicking the first five goals of a preliminary final.
In all three of their years so far under Michael Voss, the Blues have put together exactly half of a good campaign – in 2022 and 2024, they started like a house on fire, flamed out spectacularly, and fell a result’s way on each side of the eight in either season.
Their best year has come with the team in a spot very similar to where they are now: bereft of confidence, with injuries beginning to bite, with supporters having all but lost hope.
I’m not saying it’s going to happen again – but I am saying a turnaround seemed just as unlikely in 2023 as it does right now.
And on the off chance history does repeat, I would urge everyone to rein in the sneering, and the mockery, just in case it comes back to bite us all in the backside.
Because there’s nothing Carlton fans would enjoy more.
Michael Voss looks despondent during Carlton’s loss to North Melbourne. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Random thoughts
– How many midfielders, right now, are ahead of Hugh McCluggage? I’ve got Bontempelli, Nick Daicos, Heeney, Butters, Jordan Dawson and Neale, with Merrett, Chad Warner, Brayshaw and Serong on the same level and Noah Anderson, Rowell, Cripps, Holmes and Petracca next on the list.
– I’m pretty sure Dayne Zorko was closer to my house than Shannon Neale when he was pinged for that 50m penalty on Friday night.
– Bailey Smith winning a Brownlow this year would make so many people so mad, I almost want it to happen.
– Isaac Keeler was unlucky to be subbed out for St Kilda on Saturday. I thought he was having a great game!
– THOUGHT
