AFL Football Round 5 Review - Part 1
Well Round 5 of AFL Football kicked off on Friday Night with the Saints back on the winners table after defeating the Bombers. Can I just say that Robert Harvey is an absolute champion and for all those knockers that said he should have retired at the end of last year you need to get a copy of Friday Nights game and just sit back and watch. 29 touches for the game and not 1 in the first quarter.
Mind you to have Harvey and Max Hudgton as your two oldest players and two best players may be a bit of a worry for the Saints. In what was a correlation to The Saints season so far they were good then bad then good again all in the one game, but were good enough to get over the line. As mentioned Harvey and Hudgton were outstanding, they lead by 51 points at one stage and totally smashed the Bombers in the first half. Then The Bombers kicked 6 unanswered goals to claw their way back. The catalysts for the Bombers were Adam McPhee, who finally stood up. The Bombers play the style of play that means that they are never out of the contest and can score ver very quickly and they showed that throught th erun of Nathan Lovett Murray, Andrew Lovett, Bachar Houli, and Brent Stanton who again got better as the game went on. If you are a Bomber fan then again there is plenty to look forward to, not a bad performance considering the quality of the players missing. The Saints just had to many big guns and the forward line actualy looked a bit better with ut the G Train down there. Stephen Milne would have had the Saints fans seething at times with some stupid mistakes as only Milne can but Max Hudgton was simply brilliant in containing Matthew Lloyd.
In a game that I thought would have been closer than it was the Geelong Football Club beat the Sydney Swans by 42 points at Skilled Stadium and Gary Ablett was unstoppable. 35 touches and 3 goals would have no doubt earned him 3 Brownlow Votes. Young Kieran Jack would have been full of confidence coming off a great game against Daniel Kerr last week but must have been glad when the Final Siren sounded.
After the Cats jumped out of the blocks in the first quarter the Swans did what they do best and closed thae game down and turned it into an arm wrestle and clawed their way back into the contest and went in at half time only down by 7 points after trialling by 5 goals at quarter time. Steven Johnson and Matthew Stokes were in great touch in the forward half for the Cats kicking 4 goals each and Jimmy Bartel and Ring a Ding Ding here comes the Ling ran rings around the Swans midfield to win the game comfortably in the end. Paul Roos singled out Adam Goodes saying that his form was a “massive concern”. He was shut down by Ring a Ding Ding. Michael O’Loughlin was another Swan that needed to stand up in the absence of Big Bad Barry Hall and just couldn’t get near it. The Swans were not as bad as the score line indicates though, because it was not until the later part of the game that the margin blew out. The Swan were good for most of the day and there pressure on the Cats was the highlight. They were missing a couple of players and they would have taken a lot out of positives the game. Darren Jolly got the points in the Ruck while Craig Bolton and Leo Barry were also in good touch.
The Crows tackled the Dockers at AAMI Stadium in Round 5 and everyone was expecting a walk in the park for the Crows. The Dockers have been in all sorts at the start of this season and given the fact that the Crows were absolutely shocking in the skill department the Dockers were still unable to get over the line continuing their horrid start to the season. The dying minutes of the game brought BOO’s from the crowd as the Adelaide Crows went back to their old style of TEMPO football as they desperately tried to hand on to the lead., chipping sideway, backwards, forwards, it was UGLY football. It didn’t worry coach Neil Craig who said they can boo me as much as they like, we won the game!!! How is this for a stat Adelaide had Adelaide had 23 kicks and five handballs as it wasted time.
Andrew McLeod starred for the Crows and was easily the best for them while Ben Rutten was again ROCK Solid in defense. Nathan Bassett, Graham Johncock and the in-form Bernie Vince and Jason Porplyzia caused some headaches for Mark Harvey as the Adelaide midfield worked together to beat the Docker midfield. THe first halsf of the game was the NEW Adelaide Crows, playing fast attacking running footy before the Dockers battled hard to get back into the game. Rhys Palmer is showing that he will be a quality player with a fine last quarter and Roger Hayden was probably the best for the Dockers. Fremantle are now reeling at 1-5 and their season is certainly now in tatters. The Crows will want to put that one behind them and take the 4 point and quickly move on to next week.
Round 6 of AFL Football kicks off on Anzac Day on Friday, make sure you SIGN Up for the AFL Newsletter so you don’t miss any of the action.
