AFL Football Round 7 - That’s a Wrap! - Part 2
To a game that caused the most controversy of the round it was St Kilda who came away with the 4 points over a gallant Richmond Football Club who may have been robbed! The AFL has confirmed a time-keeping error cost Richmond 11 seconds of play during the dying sages of the game. Time-keepers failed to stop the clock late in the fourth quarter after a signal from umpire when Kelvin Moore hit the post in the dying minutes of the game. The Tigers losing the game by 4 points and it cam down to the last kick of the game when Jack Reiwoldt failed to make the distance.
The Tigers dominated play for most of the game and deserved to win the game and it was only their poor skills in the first half that kept The Saints in the game. Stephen Milne was back to his brilliant best, bagging seven goals in a match-winning performance and probably earning himself some Brownlow votes. Again the tall timber for the Saints failed to fire and Nick Reiwoldt left the ground with a medial ligament injury and may miss up to 2 months. It was a hard fought win for the Saints and their supporters and coaching staff would be taking a big sigh of relief after their less than impressive start to the season. Once again Matthew Richardson was the star for the Tigers kicking 5 goals and getting plenty of it and Nathan Brown also hit some form. Disappointing for the Tiger and their supporters but they must keep the faith as they are starting to show some very good signs don’t you think Wounded Tiger?
In a game that I was expecting to be much closer the Adelaide Crows defeated the Kangaroos by 33 points at AAMI Stadium. Adelaide probably should have set the game up in the first Q but were let down by some shocking kicking for goal and went in at quarter time 1.8 to 2.2. Brett Burton and Jason Porplyzia were great up forward for the Crows with 4 and 3 goals respectively and Goodwin chipping in with 3 as well. But the defense of the Crows was the reason they won the game, lacking Ben Rutten it was Graham Johncock and Nathan Bassett who provided plenty of run and created most of the scoring opportunities. When the Kangaroos midfield players like Daniel Wells, Shannon Grant and Brent Harvey started to get some of the pill the Kangaroos looked half a chance but they just didn’t get enough of it and there were not to many more blokes that helped out. Simpson worked hard as always Harding, Pratt and Drew Petrie were also good contributers. Back to the drawing board for the Kangaroos now in readiness or Round 8 after the break.
With late withdrawals to Jonathon Brown and Simon Black, you would have expected the Lions to be belted by the Cats at Skilled Stadium but they were very good and only went down by 27 points. Geelong also had a late withdrawal in Gary Ablett but such is their depth they were able to cover him quite easily. Jed Adcock, Tim Notting and Jared Brennan were fantastic for the Lions, but as was the case in a few games this weekend, poor kicking at goal cost the Lions what could have been a handy lead during the second quarter. In the absence of Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, young Joel Selwood and Paul Chapman were the ones responsible for winning the pill out of the middle. One could only think what may have been if the Lions had Brown, Black and Johnstone, the Lions actually made The Cats look a bit slow at times and moved the footy pretty well in patches but it was just that, in patches and were not good enough to get over the line.
Well Port Adelaide flexed their muscles at The Dome and ran away easy winners by 64 points in another disappointing game for Bomber fans. Daniel Motlop kicked 7 goals and earned himself a call up for the Victoria vs Dream Team game. The Power showed again that they are a front running side and considering they were a long way up it was hard to find a bad player. They come up against The Hawks after the break and that will tell everyone where they are at as a football team in 2008. David Rodan, Domenic Cassisi, Travis Boak and Shaun Burgoyne dominated the clearances. There are some worrying signs for The Bombers and although they are missing their best 3 players in Scott Lucas, Dustin Fletcher and Mark McVeigh the Bombers are hand balling far to much and are coming unstuck for often than not. Houli and Monfries got the ball a lot but hand balled more than they kicked and Matthew Lloyd at least got 5 goals from not many opportunities. The Bombers need to do some thinking about their game plan I reckon as I don’t think it is sustainable with the cattle that is on the field at the moment.
Big weekend this week with the AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match which will see Victoria take on The Dream Team. SUBSCRIBE to the AFL Football Blog’s RSS Feed to stay up to date with all the ins and outs and latest news on the game
No question that the Tiges had some fantastic signs. The biggest one being our hardness at the ball: players who previously have probably been written off as soft (Tambling, Deledio, even Chris Hyde at times) were putting their bodies on the line for balls they would have left well alone last year. In particular, Brett Deledio running back with the flight of the ball to cop a nasty clash of heads late in the last quarter was a scene that I never thought I’d have seen.
By about lunchtime you should be able to see my whole thoughts over at thewoundedtiger.com