Crows, Bulldogs The Key Clash

The Age

Monday August 25, 2008

Rohan Connolly on Monday

Upsets unlikely in last week as the eight finally takes shape.

BRISBANE Lions, you had it and blew it. Carlton, you couldn't have done much more. Tigers? Yes, you're going to have put up with the "Ninthmond" taunt again, but surely there are far more positives than in your previous five finishes of ninth since the final eight was introduced.

But for those three, now at least, the dream is over. St Kilda played the spoiler role to perfection yesterday, shrugging off a tardy start to outscore Adelaide 12 goals to three after quarter-time and lock away the final eight. All that remains in next week's final round is the jockeying for positions within it.

And even that will be minimal. Unless Port Adelaide does the unthinkable and pulls off what would be the upset of the season against North Melbourne at the MCG on Saturday, the only question of note to be answered is who will be playing who in the two elimination finals a fortnight from now.

The key is Adelaide's AAMI Stadium clash with the Western Bulldogs, at the Crows' home base a genuine 50-50 bet despite their very ordinary performance against St Kilda yesterday, and the Doggies playing themselves back into some semblance of form against Essendon on Friday night.

A Bulldog victory and the other results going with the favourites means Collingwood playing Adelaide in one knockout final, St Kilda taking on Sydney in the other. It would also mean four finals in Melbourne for the first time since 1995, three at the MCG and almost certainly the Saints-Swans clash at Telstra Dome.

An Adelaide win next week and the other games going to plan would give the Crows a home final against St Kilda with Collingwood to play Sydney. Amazingly, so would it provide a virtual replay of round 21, Geelong's qualifying final clash with North Melbourne the third first-week final to reprise a meeting from the weekend just gone.

That's unless, of course, St Kilda can stitch up Essendon in the final home and away game of the season by 100-odd points more than Adelaide beats the Bulldogs.

Certainly plenty of motivation for the Saints to go out all guns blazing in their last finals warm-up. Not that they'd be trembling at the prospect of an AAMI Stadium final given yesterday's effort against the Crows and the memory of a qualifying final three years ago against an Adelaide line-up more credentialled than Neil Craig's side.

But a Telstra Dome clash with Sydney would be a far more inviting prospect. The Saints haven't lost to the Swans at the Dome since 2000, the year the ground opened. Sydney's shocker against Collingwood on Saturday night was its fifth loss in its past six appearances there, the Swans have lost six of their past eight games, and coach Paul Roos was talking end of an era, let alone a season, after a very disheartening loss.

St Kilda will have got plenty out of yesterday's win, the sort of grinding effort it will probably need to progress beyond the first week or two of September. But it will need plenty more panache as well, something Luke Ball's potential return next week would help restore.

North Melbourne will have taken a few valuable lessons away from Skilled Stadium yesterday afternoon as well, namely that any taking of the foot off the pedal against Geelong, however momentary, is fatal. Just 10 or so minutes of the second quarter and five unanswered goals was the difference.

That and an opposition midfield whose quality and consistency is surely as good as any in football history. Six Cats had 25 or more touches yesterday, Joel Corey and Jimmy Bartel 37 each.

Cameron Ling was supposed to be a "stopper" on Brownlow Medal fancy Brent Harvey. He did that well enough, and somehow managed to rack up 29 disposals and two goals in the process.

Gary Ablett picked up 27, so did Joel Selwood, Paul Chapman comes back in after a three-week layoff, calmly picks up 25 and kicks four goals. Etc, etc. Just another day in the office for this unbelievable football team.

North was far from ordinary, and has some consolation from the rise and rise of David Hale, absolutely superb with eight goals, plus the fact two important goalkickers in Matt Campbell and Nathan Thompson were late withdrawals.

In those circumstances, and under the sort of defensive heat the Cats can apply, 13 goals wasn't too bad an effort.

The Roos know they're going to have to improve substantially to push Geelong in a fortnight, perhaps further still should they make it to the grand final. But let's be honest. Increasingly, it looks like whoever meets the Cats on the last Saturday of the season will be the AFL's version of the Washington Generals.

Ailing Swans in need of fresh Bloods

SYDNEY coach Paul Roos has long held the philosophy, which he repeated again before and after Saturday night's clash with Collingwood, that the Swans simply cannot afford to "bottom out".

The northern market is fickle and unforgiving. Roos believes, and he's hardly alone, that even one poor return in the chase for longer-term success could be very costly in terms of support, membership and the corporate dollar.

Sydneysiders would be an ungrateful bunch if that were to prove the case. Another guaranteed spot in the eight this season makes it 11 finals series over the past 13 seasons for the Swans, delivering three grand final appearances and a first premiership in 72 years.

But the dismal 45-point loss to Collingwood underlined just how many steps Sydney might have taken backwards in the short term in order to have a chance of reaching the top again.

We said it last year after the Swans were blown away by the same opponent in an elimination final, and for a while this season, during a six-game winning streak, it looked as if we'd jumped far too soon. Sydney had nine wins and a draw after 13 rounds, having got to that stage largely without the suspended Barry Hall, and with a tweak here and there to the game style, and the contributions of youngsters such as Keiren Jack, Craig Bird and Jarred Moore appearing to have made a signficant difference.

It wasn't a mirage. But the six losses from eight outings since have shown that the adjustments were mere Band-aids rather than the major surgery this team needs. The Swans simply are too old, too slow, not nearly skilled enough, and without enough fresh blood in their current form to be anything but honest toilers in a competition in which the bar has been raised significantly.

Geelong is the obvious example, the Cats having more than matched Sydney's famed level of physical intensity while setting new standards of skill and quick ball movement. Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs have done it, too. And Collingwood made a big statement about where its opponent was at on Saturday, too intense for the Swans, but far too adept with the ball as well.

The Magpies did a real job on Sydney with exactly half a team aged 21 or younger; nine of the 22 had played 30 games or less. The contrast with the Swans could scarcely have been more stark. Seven players on the Swans' list will be 30 or older next season: Peter Everitt, Brett Kirk, Barry Hall, Leo Barry, Mick O'Loughlin, Jared Crouch and Ben Mathews. Another eight, Adam Goodes, Jude Bolton, Craig Bolton, Nic Fosdike, Nick Davis, Darren Jolly, Tadhg Kennelly and Ryan O'Keefe, will turn 28 or 29 next year. That's well over a dozen with perhaps no more than a couple of seasons left in them.

Mathews can no longer get a game, Barry, Everitt and Crouch are struggling, Hall has had a nightmare of a season, O'Loughlin and Goodes have had more injury problems. More alarmingly, the next tier doesn't appear capable of filling the breach.

Perhaps the only bright note out of the Collingwood game came in the shape of lively forward Patrick Veszpremi, one of a handful of Swans who didn't appear to have been worn down by seasons of toil.

Roos knows better than anyone that the Sydney list needs some serious pruning. Let's just hope the city his team represents has enough patience and vision to understand just how much.

THE FINALS FORMULA

GEELONG (rd 22 v West Coast, SS) 1st

HAWTHORN (v Carlton, TD)

IF IT WINS 2nd

IF IT LOSES 2nd if Dogs lose or 3rd if they win

WESTERN BULLDOGS (v Adelaide, AAMI)

IF IT WINS 2nd if Hawthorn loses or 3rd if the Hawks win

IF IT LOSES 3rd

NORTH MELBOURNE (v Port Adelaide, MCG)

IF IT WINS 4th

IF IT LOSES 4th if Adelaide, Collingwood, St Kilda and Sydney lose, down to 8th if they all win

COLLINGWOOD (v Fremantle, S)

IF IT WINS 4th if North loses, and Adelaide doesn't win by at least 50 points more than the Pies 5th or possibly 6th if North and Adelaide also win

IF IT LOSES 5th down to as low as 8th if Adelaide, St Kilda and Sydney win

ADELAIDE (v Bulldogs, AAMI)

IF IT WINS 4th if North Melbourne and Collingwood lose (or Collingwood wins by under 50 points less than Adelaide wins by) 5th, but more likely 6th if North and Collingwood also win

IF IT LOSES 5th-8th

ST KILDA (v Essendon, TD)

IF IT WINS 4th if North, Collingwood and Adelaide lose; 5th-7th otherwise

IF IT LOSES 7th if Sydney loses, 8th if the Swans win

SYDNEY (v Brisbane, SCG)

IF IT WINS 4th if North Melbourne, Adelaide, Collingwood and St Kilda all lose, otherwise 5th-8th IF IT LOSES 8th

LIKELY FINALS:

(If the Dogs beat Adelaide and the other favourites win this week)

Geelong v North Melbourne

Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs

Collingwood v Adelaide St Kilda v Sydney

(If Adelaide beats the Dogs and the other favourites win)

Geelong v North Melbourne

Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs

Collingwood v Sydney

Adelaide v St Kilda

© 2008 The Age

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