AFL Football Round 6 - Anzac Weekend Review
Well we started on Friday with the traditional Essendon vs Collingwood Anzac day clash and the Bombers were simpy not good enough for a Collingwood side that certainly came ready to play. Not even an inspirational before the game speech by James Hird could lift the Bombers in this one. Simply put the Bombers played unaccountable footy and as skipper Matthew Lloyd and coach Matthew Knights pointed out they were not prepared to put their head over the footy and win the ball.
Paul Medhurst is enjoying the change of scenery at Collingwood and in Anthony Rocca’s absence was the spearhead in the forward line. Medhurst is playing the best football of his career I reckon an he deservedly took home the Anzac Day Medal for best a field. He ended the Day with 6 goals as the Pies went on to win by 73 points, the biggest margin by Collingwood in an Anzac Day clash. Travis Cloke was equally as impressive with 14 grabs and 4 goals. The Bombers were that unaccountable it was not funny and the mistakes they made in their quest of quick movement of the football was their downfall. Still missing a host of stars the Bombers are is desperate need of their return as to are they in need of Matthe Lloyd getting a kick and maybe even putting one through the big sticks.
Geelong and Fremantle were the other two teams to do battle on Anzac Day and Geelong did their best to lose the game. Garry Ablett was smashed from all angles as the Dockers tried their best to put the superstar off his game. As a result Josh Carr was reported for kneeing Ablett in the leg. The Cats were 25 points down at 3 1/4 time and only needed to play 20 minutes of football to win the game. With 33 seconds left on the clock Matthew Pavlich had a chance to win the game but his kick failed to get through the big sticks. Aaron Sandilands had a whopping 42 hitouts for the Dockers and also gathered 24 possessions and easily played his best game of his career. This is something that he should be doing more of! He is that much taller than any other ruckmen in the competition. He should win the ruck contests most weeks.
Old stager Peter Bell was in fine touch with 31 touches and Matthew Pavlich finished the game with 5 goals. For the Cats Joel Corey continued his outstanding start to the year with 35 touches and Joel Selwood ran extremely hard all night and had 26 touches and 3 goals. There will be a lot made of the tactics that were undertaken by the Dockers to negate Gary Ablett in this game and the issue of tagging gun players will be the talking point as will the 9 seconds that were lost during the dying moments of the game.
The Adelaide vs Carlton game will be remembered for Razor Ray Chamberlain (the umpire) awarding a free kick on the goal line straight after a goal had been kicked by the Adelaide Crows because Jarrad Waite punched the ball into the crowd. Razor Ray needed his week of fame I think, a shocking decision. The VFL beckons Raymond.
Tyson Edwards was outstanding for the Crows, doing what he pleased in the middle and Carlton had no answer for The Bird Man Brett Burton who did it all in the air and on the ground and finished with 4 goals. The Crows did a brilliant job of negating the Carlton superstars in Chris Judd and Brendan Fevola who could only manage 1 goal and was double and triple teamed. The Blues youngster made some critical skill errors at pivotal stages of the game and showed that they will take some time to develop. Carlton fans should stick with them though as there is a ton of potential in this team. Stevens and Carazzo battled hard in the midfield but were out gunned by the Crows army of mid fielders and Cameron Cloke worked hard in the ruck. But The Crows were simply to big, strong and experienced for the their younger opponents.
