The Monday Knee Jerk Reaction: Round Twenty

Footy is a passion, not some cold hearted, spread sheet dominated rational exercise.

On a Monday, you want irrational reaction. You want emotion to trump reason.

What you really want is idiotic hysteria.

You've come to the right place.

Thursday

Hawthorn (85) v Carlton (61)

As Carlton lamented not being able to play Melbourne every week, Hawthorn took one entire quarter of football to defeat the Blues on Thursday night.

Hawthorn put on a show early, bringing a youthful enthusiasm to the contest.

The Blues players looked on. What was this enthusiasm thing?

These Hawthorn players seemed to be enjoying playing football. They even seemed to want to work hard, even when everything wasn’t going their way.

This was all too much for the Blues.

Their fans show up every week. They come to games even though they know a victory is unlikely, and then their team plays like they resent having to be there.

It’s enough to drive anyone mad.

You would think wanting to play footy was a key requirement to being an AFL player, but Carlton has more than a few who prove it’s not.

Even worse, this was Sam Docherty's final game, a man who has wanted to play footy to the tune of coming back from cancer twice and going through three knee reconstructions.

I mean, the inspiration is right there. It’s right there!

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Friday

Essendon (50) v Western Bulldogs (143)

The Bulldogs are flat track bullies, and Essendon provided one of the flattest of tracks on Friday night.

Once a professional football club, just a few decades ago, the Bombers now seem to be an organisation designed to inflict as much pain on their fans as is humanely possible.

When they are not torturing their fans, they’re injuring their players, and this weakened side battled like someone with an Arts degree trying to figure out Excel.

The Dogs couldn’t believe their luck. They stuffed the stat sheet with a frenzy rarely seen outside the Boxing Day sales.

Was this a good performance by the Dogs? I guess, but it’s a bit like saying, was it a good bowl of two-minute noodles? It wasn’t a difficult task.

Greater Western Sydney (102) v Sydney (58)

This may have been the most iconic Giants game ever.

It had the orange Tsunami running wild, Toby Greene elbowing someone, Toby Greene calling another opponent fat at halftime, a 79-point turnaround and Toby Greene suspended for a week.

Trailing by 35 points late in the second term the Giants looked completely cooked.

They didn’t even seem focused on the game.

In a completely in-character moment, Toby Greene dropped an elbow on the head of Issac Heeney.

Then, perhaps channelling Hulk Hogan after his passing, Greene cut a promo at half-time, saying Tom Papley “is looking overweight, let’s see how he goes [in the] second half.”

Greene had bigger problems at halftime, as a furious Adam Kingsley was waiting in the rooms, and he let loose.

I wasn’t there, but I believe it went along the lines of ‘I’m not disappointed, I’m angry.’

If you’ve ever wondered if Adam Kingsley yelling at you is terrifying, watch the second half of this game.

The Giants played like men scared to go back into the change rooms without a huge win.

They responded with 20 scoring shots to three in the second half as the Swans were obviously scared of Adam Kingsley too and stopped playing.

Extraordinary scenes, and an end to any chance the Swans will play finals, but given this result, they didn’t deserve to be there.

Saturday

Gold Coast (130) v Brisbane (64)

The Suns needed to respond after last week’s embarrassing performance, and they really overcompensated in this one.

Gold Coast had obviously thought ‘hey, instead of being smashed all over the ground, what if we did the smashing?’

The result was an absolute belting, as the Suns midfield made the Lions midfield look like North Melbourne’s.

All game, everyone was waiting for the Lions to lift, to show some fight but like my Uber on Friday night, it never came.

The Lions will be hoping that like the Suns the week before, this was just ‘one of those games’.

As for the Suns, this is their best season ever already. And yes, I’m aware that’s like saying this is the best episode of Celebrity Splash.

Fremantle (126) v West Coast (77)

I guess the best thing I can say is this could have been worse for the Eagles.

Often, a Derby will see both sides lift regardless of where they are on the ladder, but the Eagles are only on the ladder because the AFL ladder is the only one you can’t fall off.

It’s the safest ladder in the world.

This week we saw some real beltings, which makes you wonder if the AFL can support eighteen teams in terms of talent, let alone nineteen.

There certainly seems to be a top nine, then a fair drop off and there are a lot of players running around who really shouldn’t be playing at this level.

That said, fewer teams means less money, which is what we’re all interested right?

West Coast got lucky when the Dockers went on a run, booting eight consecutive behinds, but even Freo couldn’t stuff this up against the Eagles.

North Melbourne (49) v Geelong (150)

North fans never expect anything like a win, but they’d like to see a semblance of effort.

When your opponent’s captain can sit on the bench and eat a kebab during the fourth quarter, it may be time to question your team’s commitment.

Not since Bomber Thompson ate a sandwich in the coaches’ boxes, when thumping West Coast, have I seen such scenes.

Some people have said it was disrespectful of Dangerfield, but the Roos didn’t really earn the right for anyone to be taking them seriously on Saturday.

You need to earn the right for opponents not to grab a cheeky souvlaki.

Jeremy Cameron booted a career-best 11 goals and Bailey Smith had 43 disposals. They were both helped by North players going nowhere near them.

In fact, the North fans caused more grief for Smith than any North player.

For Kangaroos fans, you must wonder if things are ever going to turn around because this was completely uncompetitive.

Adelaide (133) v Port Adelaide (35)

Port Adelaide’s Miles Bergman summed up Port’s season by kicking the ball 60 meters the wrong way and into the waiting arms of Adelaide’s Darcy Fogarty.

It turned out that was still one of the highlights for Port, because it was a Power player at least hitting a target, even if it was the wrong one.

The Crows, on the other hand, were dominant all night; despite playing the majority of the game in a heavy downpour, they still put 133 points on the board.

It was a sad final Showdown for Ken Hinkley as the Power looked very much like a side that has turned its mind to next season.

As for the Crows, you can make a strong argument that they’re the best team in the competition at the moment.

They’re organised, they can score and defend, and they seem keen to play.

These are rare traits these days.

Sunday

Richmond (57) v Collingwood (93)

I mean, it’s not really fair. No one should be as good at football as Nick Daicos.

Because football is hard. Really hard. Just ask Melbourne.

But Daicos makes it look easy, like someone has created a player in a computer game and turned all the ratings up to 100.

On the weekend, he finished with 42 disposals and three goals, but the shocking thing was how simply he executed incredibly difficult things.

Sometimes he does something and you don’t even compute straight away how hard it was because he just does it. People get used to it.

It’s like when Paul McCartney walked in to the studio and just played ‘Hey Jude’ to the other Beatles.

“Here’s a little thing I’ve been working on,’ he said, and the Beatles reacted like it was not that big a deal.

Even his opponents seemed to be looking on, chuckling at the ridiculousness of it.

And the Tigers were not terrible yesterday, given where they are in their rebuild.

St Kilda (96) v Melbourne (90)

When Michelangelo finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling, everyone looked up and knew they were witnessing a masterpiece, perhaps one that would never be surpassed.

Such was the case when it came to watching Melbourne produce a display of incompetence so awe-inspiring, even Demons supporters, connoisseurs of the artform, instantly declared it a masterpiece.

St Kilda’s only regret is that they can’t play the Melbourne Football Club every week.

Down 46-points at three-quarter time, the Saints said, ‘So you're telling me there's a chance.”

If you’re a Saints supporter, this was the biggest legal high you’ve ever had in your life.

And nothing should be taken away from the Saints effort, they took it to Melbourne, but even they would admit, you need some help to come back from 46 points down in one quarter.

You can get caught up in the Dees mistakes in the final few minutes, the 6-6-6 mistake beiing the obvious one, but this was a whole team, entire quarter effort to lose this one.

Spending the off-season making sure everyone felt loved and nurtured has obviously come at the cost of skills and fitness, and Melbourne remains the worst decision-making team in the league.

Take, for example, when Clayton Oliver found himself in space in the final minutes running into goal only to kick the ball out of bounds on the full.

And to say he was in space is an understatement; there are outback cattle stations smaller than what he had around him.

On the other side, you had Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, who, in a Michael Jordan-like display, took over the game and told everyone to get out of his way and let him win this thing.

He even signalled his final play, and still the Dees seemed bewildered when he marked in the forward fifty.

Rarely do you see footballing genius so close to footballing incompetence, but it was all on display in the final quarter on Sunday.

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