AFL Football Round 6 - Anzac Weekend Review - Part 2
I don’t know what is happening down at St Kilda but they are a team that is at the crossroads in this 2008 AFL Football Season. In an incident that you would not want to see as a St Kilda fan, Max Hudgton absolutely went mental towards “The Goose” Matt McGuire for not making a good enough effort in a contest. It is an indication of where the Saints are at. The Saints were not good enough to get over the line and the way they are playing at the moment I think they are in danger of missing the final eight if they are not careful. The leaders of that club need to pull this side together quickly. The Saints gave away a number of stupid free kicks and their skill level was deplorable. Mind you the Power were not that crash hot in the skill department either.
Much to my delight, not, Warren Tredrea was back in some form pulling in some strong grabs and leading form the front. You can tell that he is the barometer of this Port Adelaide side. Kane Cornes was again outstanding for the Power and David Rodan is still proving to the Tiger match committee that they made a huge mistake in letting him go. Lenny Hayes was a shinning light for the Saints as he so often is, his work rate is second to none and it shows the quality of a player when you can perform like he does week in and week out no matter how the side is going. Maybe there is some truth to the article that Michael Voss wrote when he said that the Saints are a selfish team and unwilling to do the team things? The Power are on the way up now and have their backs up, sitting at 2-4 signs are starting to loom good for last years runners up.
Where to now for the Eagles?, Peter Sumich had suggested that if they were to lose this game then their focus would shift to 2009. It is Round 7 this week and already the Eagles have given up on Season 2008, list management can be expected now for the Eagles. If The Eagles were in trouble before the weekend they are in even bigger trouble now with Shannon Hurn, Adam Hunter and Dean Cox all with injuries and likely to miss a few games. While gun midfielder Daniel Kerr will be in hot water with a charging head butt behind play on Scott West, in what he described as accidental contact. Yeah Right! 10 goals was the margin and the Eagles season you could say is OVER.
The tagging issue will again be raised from this game with Kerr being manhandled for most of the game by opponent Matthew Boyd. There were times when Boyd was not even worrying about where the football was and was just negating Kerr’s run at the contest, not a good sight, me as an AFL Football supporter want to see these type of players given the chance to play their natural game and at times it is just not possible given these type of tactics. Jason Akermanis was in fine touch and his knack of being able to kick goals from all angles is amazing, he finished the game with 4 as did Robert Murphy who was the dominant forward on the ground. Again Cooney and Cross were brilliant for The Doggies and are forming quite a partnership on the middle as the Western Bulldogs were on top in the clearances from stoppages.
Ben McKinley continues to impress up forward for the Eagles and kicked 2 goals while Beau Waters was at his hard nosed best. Josh Kennedy probably played his best game of AFL Football and Chad Jones worked hard as well. It will be a long season now for the Eagles and their fans and it will be interesting to see how the club undertake the rest of season 2008.
In a game that was always going to be ugly for the Melbourne Football Club the Brisbane Lions demolished a hapless Demons outfit. Daniel Bradshaw climbed up the goal kicking leader board and is quickly becoming on the top forwards in the comp at the moment, he finished with 6 goals and brought his tally to 29 for the season, while Hooper pulled out some party tricks on his way to 4 goals. If Brisbane had kicked straight the margin would have been massive, they kicked 19 goals 23 behinds and missed a lot of easy shots on goal.
Again the Melbourne skill level was that of local football and they constantly turned the ball over by both hand and foot and enabled superstar Simon Black to rack up 36 touches. The Demons were lacking goal kicking power even with David Neitz in the team but with him out it is even more evident. It was left to Nathan Jones, playing predominately in the midfield to do the bulk of the scoring and led the goal kick for the Demons with 4. This guy is a fantastic player and one that gives 110% in every single game that he plays for Melbourne and the other players that run out along side him should take a look at the way he goes about it. Austin Wonaeamirri gave the Demon fans glimpses of some magic with 3 goals and looks like he may be a player of the future.
The Lions were far to good for the Demons and the long road ahead continues for them.
