AFL 2026, Round 18 Talking Points

Geelong’s season is on the slide - but could be over before another ball is bounced, according to a triple premiership great.

Plus the VFL sight making a mockery of claims Essendon has hit rock bottom, Gold Coast’s predicament and more as the big issues from Round 18 are analysed in Foxfooty.com.au’s Talking Points!

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‘DONE’: CATS’ SEASON OVER WITHOUT JEZ MIRACLE... DESPITE CHRIS’ CONFIDENCE

In isolation, none of Geelong’s losses have been terrible.

Losing to both Carlton and Adelaide by less than a kick was flukey. Losing to Fremantle by nine points was fine, though the margin flattered then.

Losing to Brisbane was mostly OK, though the start was horrific. And losing to GWS... well, they always lose to GWS. Plus they had all those injuries.

You can explain them all away, and Chris Scott has done just that.

“Sometimes you are in a situation where you think that we need to change a whole lot of things, because we are really not going well. I just don’t think it is the case now,” Scott said after his side’s fall-from-ahead loss to the Giants.

“And today was a good example, where we played well enough to win the game, and that has been a common thing over the last month or so.

“So there is still room for optimism, it is obviously frustrating in the short term. But I would be honest with you if I thought we had serious problems, but I am just not at that stage yet.”

There were similar thoughts after last week’s 22-point loss to Brisbane, after which Scott explained: “We still think we are going well enough to beat anyone, anywhere and we have had the chance to do that over the past five weeks.”

And there were similar thoughts after the nine-point loss to Fremantle a fortnight earlier, when Scott said: “Besides not getting the four points, we come away at least with our confidence in our game intact.”

It’s the coach’s job to be level-headed. Nothing he said was incorrect. And with quite a few easy games left on the fixture, the Cats will surely still make it to September; Scott knows that’s all that matters.

The reality is more stark. Geelong is 9th on the ladder - which would sound even worse, had the AFL not expanded the finals to 10 teams.

They’ve lost five of their past six games, and while they’ve all come against quality sides and all been relatively close, the Cats’ defence continues to look woeful for far too long within games.

The biggest problem, though, comes at the other end of the ground where Jeremy Cameron has already been out of sorts - and is now simply out.

A savage hit from Clayton Oliver broke the AC joint in the superstar forward’s left shoulder, with Cameron taken from the stadium in a wheelchair while using the pain-relieving green whistle, then spending the night in hospital.

It could require a 10-week stint on the sidelines, which would rule Cameron out until a theoretical deep finals run from the Cats. And he was already looking at post-season surgery on his right forearm, with the plate inserted after his break suffered in the Grand Final failing to fully heal it.

There’s a very realistic scenario where Cameron’s season is already over. And that means the Cats’ season is over, too, according to Richmond great Jack Riewoldt.

“If he doesn’t get up and going … they simply cannot win the premiership this year,” Riewoldt said on Fox Footy’s Saturday night coverage.

“If he gets back, they’re a chance, but if he doesn’t get back or he doesn’t get back to the Jeremy Cameron ahead of the ball that we all know and love - Geelong’s hopes of kicking a score are done, for mine.”

Top analyst David King, meanwhile, still holds some faith in the Cats’ system allowing them to rebound.

Last year’s Grand Finalists don’t leave Victoria again this home and away season, with crucial games against St Kilda, Melbourne and Collingwood coming before a more winnable final three weeks against Essendon, North Melbourne and Richmond.

“I’m still not prepared to put a line through Geelong. I don’t know why, maybe it’s just they’ve been such a well-run footy club for so long,” King said.

“They’re not gonna finish top four, which is gonna make it incredibly difficult to win it anyway. But if he say, misses a month of footy, their last three or four games are very winnable games. They play the bottom of the table in that period.

“If he can get back, get some touch, get some form, they’re a chance. I’m probably with you if he’s not in the line-up at all.”

‘IMAGINE HIS HEADSPACE’: FEARS FOR BOMBER’S FUTURE IN PUZZLING VFL OUTING

What are Essendon doing with their $5 million man Ben McKay?

The backman was sent back to the VFL in a bid to find form, after playing as a forward in recent weeks for the struggling Bombers.

But the shift to VFL to play against Brisbane didn’t help, finishing with just two handballs, two tackles and five hit-outs.

McKay spent much of the first half playing against Liam Jones - who was delisted by the Bulldogs after last season, and now plays state league games while also working as a Lions development coach and VFL assistant.

And against an opponent who is officially retired — although Jones still looks like he could play AFL tomorrow — McKay had just one handball to halftime.

That led 2018 Crows leading goal kicker Josh Jenkins to question what the club was trying to achieve.

“I do feel a lot for Ben McKay. Imagine his headspace at the moment,” he shared.

“The salary is talked about a lot, his place in the team, what does his future look like – he’s thinking about all these sorts of things; when am I ever going to get back into good form?

“I’d love to see him thrown in the ruck just to let him get after the footy and get five or six touches.

“We saw him go into the ruck at the very, very end of that second quarter. I wouldn’t mind seeing him start in the ruck in the third term – I’ve played a similar role where you just not getting opportunities.

“Now he’s down there (in attack) because he’s competing against (Darragh) Joyce and (Tom) Doedee and of course Jones. But sometimes you’ve got to help a player help the team.

“If you just leave him there (forward), you’re probably going to get three or four disposals out of him.”

Despite battling to get his hands on the ball, McKay was still used as a forward in the second half and finished with just two handballs to his name.

And that left Jenkins puzzled.

“I’d love to know the rationale behind McKay as a forward,” Jenkins said.

“Without harping on, I just don’t understand it. I can’t see it. He doesn’t move at all like a forward.

“Paid him big dollars to come across and hopefully be an intercepting defender – so just stick with that plan and process and hope that it works out.”

Agreeing the forward shift “smacks almost a move of desperation”, Jenkins wanted to see McKay go back to his more familiar defensive role.

“You watch him off ball, you watch him when he’s in a contest and it’s not that his heart’s not in it. It just doesn’t come naturally to him!” he lamented.

“He’s been on the back foot throughout the game.

“He’s only touched the ball twice. They’ve given him a couple of little tiny spurts in the ruck but at the moment it’s just not happening for him.

“I’d just be pulling the plug on the forward experiment.

“It’s just not going to happen.”

McKay has played 118 AFL games for a total of seven goals. His tally sits at 7.8 - and 6.7 of that has come this year.

He’d kicked one goal previously during his 71 games for North Melbourne.

‘HOW MUCH DO WE CARE?’: BRUTAL SUNS REALITY AS COACH’S DAMNING TAKE QUESTIONED

The Gold Coast Suns were riding high after three games this year - sitting top of the table as one of only two unbeaten teams and with a percentage of 191.

But almost four months later, coach Damien Hardwick is conceding their season is “effectively gone” after their horror loss to Adelaide on Saturday night that leaves them 14th - one win and hefty percentage outside of the wildcard finals spot.

“It becomes pretty much mathematically impossible doesn’t it, at this stage? Or close, there abouts,” Hardwick said about his side’s finals chances.

When told they sit one game outside the top 10, he replied: “Yeah maybe”.

“The way we’re playing, we don’t deserve to make it.

“Tonight is a hit … We couldn’t play any worse.

“Didn’t see it coming.”

AFL greats were quick to question what’s happening behind the scenes on the Gold Coast given the side’s dramatic fall from grace.

“This campaign is just sinking into a deeper and deeper mire by the minute,” dual premiership winner David King said.

“Where do you go from here?

“A 15-goaler for Damien Hardwick’s troops on the road. Wow.”

Herald Sun chief football writer Jay Clark described it as a “an extraordinarily poor year” for the Suns at a time they are fighting to hang to players like Ben King, Jed Walter and Bailey Humphrey.

Speaking on Fox Footy’s First Crack, Clark labelled the Suns “footy’s biggest bust”.

“After one finals win in 16 years, this was meant to the year,” Clark told First Crack. “This is a football club that has lacked absolutely nothing over the journey: Concessions, draft picks, the funding, fixtures, they went and got the triple premiership coach … and then they got Christian Petracca to top up this list.

“But have we seen the bottom fall out of a team like this before? It is a super side on paper – I know the game is not played ‘on paper’ … but this is a team that has been set up to succeed and set up to win.

“There are more questions marks over this football club that anyone else … But how much do we really care? How much scrutiny have the Suns faced over the journey? It has been quite extraordinary how far backwards this football club and team has gone in 2026.”

Clark pointed out the Suns had dropped from fourth for clearance differential last year to 18th this year - “an inexplicable decline”, according to Clark.

As it stands, Gold Coast’s worrying ladder position could further boost Hawthorn’s chances of luring King away from the club.

If the Suns finish low enough on the ladder, the top-level free agency compensation for Ben King’s exit could be as high as Pick 4 or 5.

That could be a better deal than whatever Hawthorn can offer - a late 2026 first-round pick, and a 2027 first-round pick corrupted by all the early Tasmanian draft picks.

Therefore if the Suns end up in the bottom four, they are more likely to let King walk via free agency, instead of forcing a trade.

Fox Footy’s experts agreed the “balance was off” in the Suns midfield after the arrival of Demons star Christian Petracca – but refused to lay blame solely on one player for their 2026 woes.

“They add Christian Petracca and you go how good is this midfield going to be?” triple premiership Tiger Jack Riewoldt said.

“You’ve got a Brownlow Medallist there, Matt Rowell, who has fallen off the face of the earth.

“Obviously the captain in (Noah) Anderson , you add Petracca in there, the balance just hasn’t worked for them.

“There’s something awry up there - I’m not sure what it is.”

“You don’t lose by that margin because of balance,” King added.

“There’s an emotional disconnect.

“There’s something not right. To me, it doesn’t look like a happy place.

“The buy-in is not there. The emotional connection with the group or whatever it is hasn’t been there this year.

“They are not the same footy team that we saw in 2025.

“And it just can’t be adding one player or losing two or three role players.

“It has to be deeper than that.”

Riewoldt went further stating the club “doesn’t look like a place where players want to turn up and play” – but the idea players weren’t up for the fight irked Hardwick when speaking post-match.

“We went away from a pretty good blueprint at the start… and then just got belted up around the ball,” he said.

“Contest wise, we got absolutely blown off the park. That’s the most disappointing thing.

“(But) up for the fight? Every player is up for the fight – end of the day you can have bad days, but you don’t question AFL players whether they are up for the fight.

“Tonight we were just terrible.”

For now, Hardwick says the responsibility to turn his side’s form around sits with him – but Riewoldt warns that “sugar hit” is wearing off.

“And it’s rubbed off pretty fast … He got them playing his system last year, or playing a system but that just hasn’t evolved,” he said.

“It’s my job to sit there and find out why and I’ve failed at that at the moment, so we’ve got to figure it out,” Hardwick said.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got six weeks - this year’s effectively gone. What we’ve got to do is forge our way forward about what we want ourselves to look like for next year.”

The Suns still have matches to come against the Western Bulldogs, Carlton, Melbourne, GWS, Brisbane and St Kilda – all clubs who sit above them on the ladder.

COSTLY CLARKO CALL ‘COULD GO PEAR-SHAPED’... BUT NORTH HAS TO DO IT

Painfully, one of the Kangaroos’ best performances of the season also came on the night their finals dream probably ended.

Friday night’s brave loss to Collingwood will likely mean North Melbourne misses the top 10, due to a very hard remaining draw, having sat an impressive 8-7 just two weeks ago.

A likely losing skid to end the season will put a sour taste in the mouths of Kangaroos fans but this season was inarguably still a major step forwards - just perhaps not as far forwards as everyone hoped.

Having finished in the bottom two in every season between 2020 and 2025, the Kangaroos have already tallied eight wins in 2026 - as many as they won between 2022-24 collectively - while raising their percentage to a competitive 91.4%. It will be their best season since at least 2019.

The next question is what it all means for coach Alastair Clarkson.

The rebuild under the four-time premiership mastermind hasn’t gone as quickly as hoped, with Clarkson about to complete the fourth year of his five-season contract.

It’s unusual for coaches to go into the final year of their contract without a deal, unless they’re on the brink of being sacked, given the insecurity it creates around them.

Yet Kangaroos president Sonja Hood was clear they won’t be rushing into extending Clarkson just yet.

“He’s got a contract,” she told SEN.

“I just think it’s a situation that gets talked up and turned into something that doesn’t need to be there.

“We entered into a five-year arrangement when we started this. The first year was eaten up by a crisis (Hawthorn investigation) we didn’t create, but we certainly had to navigate and wear the brunt of.

“Three and half a years in, I think he’s doing a terrific job. But we will all sit down when the time is right and have that conversation.

“But I’m not going to get rushed to it and neither is he.”

Meanwhile Kangaroos head of footy Todd Viney, who has worked closely with Clarkson before and during their stint at Arden Street, told the Herald Sun’s Jon Ralph he “fully expects” the coach to be extended.

“He’s coaching as well as he ever has, the energy is there. The strong relationship with the players is there, it will take care of itself,” Viney told Ralph.

“If you zoom in on the coaches box at moments of tension, the eye of the tiger is there.”

Speaking on Fox Footy’s coverage on Friday night, Ralph explained he expects the Kangaroos to pull the trigger before 2027.

“I think they will. I think they understand the dramas of that,” he said.

“It might cost them some money if things go pear shaped, like we’ve seen with Brad Scott and Michael Voss.

“I think they want to shore up his position of power. The first two years were effectively a write-off given those issues.

“They’ve got a young, exciting side that shows signs. All of those young sides have frustrating moments. But you bring him in to win the flag.

“And when you’re on the path, finally, you don’t cut him off at the knees.”

Dumping Clarkson would be a very bold move given his resume, with Geelong great Tom Hawkins backing an extension, at least for the short term.

“I think he is (their man). Certainly for the next 12 months he deserves the right to get that opportunity,” Hawkins said.

“I think we’ll keep continuing to see them develop.

“I liked the way they shifted the game from last week, they tried to win it late by playing a bit more attacking footy going deep to their forwards.

“You can see their willing to change the game within the game, which is a really important growth mechanism for a group.”

Brisbane champion Jonathan Brown added: “Just get that balance right, that’s the challenge with a younger group.

“Sometimes they can be too coachable and they go one way too far and then you’ve got try correct and they go too far back the other way.

“It’s just finding that sweet spot in the middle.”

The Kangaroos will need to keep improving their list to rise from mid-table mediocrity into contention.

And while the looming re-signings of Riley Hardeman and Zane Duursma, as reported by Ralph, aren’t game-changers they’re signs of a young group that’s seeing progress and believing in the journey.

“Hardeman and Duursma will both sign two-year deals. Does it matter? Yeah, because it’s retention. (Jy) Simpkin really wanted to get out last year,” Ralph said.

“It’s not the be all and end all, but they’re on the right track.

“If you gave them 8-8 leading into this game with a percentage of 91, there’s real progress there for me. Even though there’s some frustrating moments for North Melbourne.”

‘ONE DIMENSIONAL’ SWANS EXPOSED… AS THEIR TRADEMARK GOES MISSING

The second-placed Swans have problems.

Sydney travelled to Perth for a top of the table clash with Fremantle on Thursday night – with a win to put the Swans on equal points.

But despite starting the match with an elite pressure rating, the visitors dropped off to concede 100 points in a second half that now has alarm bells ringing.

“Some big questions to be asked of some Swans,” triple premiership Tiger Jack Riewoldt said.

“That second half, (Swans coach) Dean Cox would be looking at it going how did we give up 100 points?

“Their defence, unfortunately they couldn’t stop the scores coming from stoppage and also turnover.”

David King added: “100 points in a half of football is just a ridiculous number – and there’s no way in your wildest dreams you would have thought Fremantle one, could do that and to a side like the Sydney Swans – a side who defensively are pretty solid.”

Meanwhile Will Schofield suggested it “looked like first v 18th in the second half”.

The Eagles premiership player questioned what the Swans were getting from their “bottom five players” – as their forward set up came into focus without the likes of injured duo Logan McDonald and Joel Amartey.

“A number of players for Sydney, probably their bottom five players, just having no influence whatsoever on the game,” he said.

“It wasn’t a team performance by Sydney. Joel Hamling had donuts – he did not touch the ball.”

King added: “Isaac Heeney was quiet.

“That’s as quiet as I’ve seen him for 60 minutes of footy – just the three kicks in the second half.

“(But) I think Isaac is the least of Dean’s worries.

“Selection in the forward half – (Caiden) Cleary, does he do enough? (Tom) Hanily is still a young player. Hamling, what’s his function in this team?

“They’ve got some worries. They’ve got some concerns – but there’s time.”

AFL great Jason Dunstall warned that Sydney ended up being “one dimensional” with their reliance on five-goal hero Charlie Curnow to provide their score.

“You get five goals from him, you get a couple from (Tom) Papley – no one else really looked dangerous,” he said.

“Heeney didn’t have that role forward that he often has.

“They didn’t get the midfield goals that they are used to getting.

“It was a little bit one dimensional – I think that was the problem for Sydney.”

The 37-point defeat may have only been Sydney’s fourth loss for the year, but Leigh Montagna believes a worrying pattern is emerging.

In the second half, the Swans scored nothing from their half back – while the Dockers managed 43 points of their own.

“This has been on their radar for a couple of weeks – we heard Dean Cox talk about this two weeks ago,” Voss pointed out.

“It was a very pointed part of their review up to the bye of something they wanted to rectify … but the same problem’s emerged.

“And it’s something they are going to have to address – and address really, really quickly.”

“The numbers don’t lie – it’s been a concern for eight or nine weeks now,” Montagna added.

“They did a pretty god job against the Western Bulldogs who probably aren’t as damaging as they have been in the past offensively.

“But when they come up against teams that can score, they are getting sieved both with transition and their ability to defend off turnovers.

“Dean Cox has got some work to do.”

It’s a remarkable worry for the Swans, given their trademark style has been that run and gun from half back, sparked by the likes of Chad Warner and Nick Blakey.

“This isn’t eighth on the ladder trying to get into finals – this is second spot on the ladder right now and they weren’t there as the game went on, as the pressure went on,” Schofield lamented.

“The big moments, they weren’t able to stand up.”

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