AFL Round 3 - North Melbourne vs Hawthorn and West Coast vs Fremantle
The Gimmick of Rivalry Round Continues on Saturday afternoon when the North Melbourne Football Club tackle the Hawthorn Football Club. Both teams had good wins in Round 2 with the Hawks probably the most impressive of the to in their win over the Fremantle Dockers at Subiaco Oval. The Hawks will be without Stuart Dew who looks set to miss a month with a hamstring. While the Kangaroos had good win over the battling Tigers. Corey Jones was in brilliant touch booting 7 goals. The Kangaroos small forwards were dominant as they kicked 16 of their 20 goals. That is an area that the Hawk defense will need to cover well. At the other end of the ground the Hawks forward line is extremely potent with Franklin, Roughead and Boyle leading the charge and with the inclusion of Cyril Rioli, well it is looking very very dangerous. The Kangaroo defenders will have their work cut out for them. They are really going to need some support further up the ground from the midfield so the delivery into the forward 50 is done under pressure. The midfield will see some great battles with Mitchell, Hodge, Sewell etc up against Harvey, Harris, Simpson and co. This is a real pivotal battle and will go a long way to determine who wins this battle. North Melbourne pride themselves on winning the stoppages and the Hawks have got the best in the business Sam Mitchell there so it will be a great tussle.
Will the dreaded trip back from Perth play any part for the Hawks recovery this week? North Melbourne have the ability to wear sides down and will use that to their advantage. The Hawks are traveling along nicely though and should get over the line I reckon but it will be a close encounter.
West Coast vs Fremantle in the Derby
Well I think Chris Tarrant has escaped the chop and will play and this MUST be his last opportunity o get a kick before he finds 
himself in the WAFL. The Eagles got absolutely SMASHED last week by the Crows and you can be sure that they will not put up that performace again this week. It is always a willing contest these games and will bring out the best in all the players. Both sides would be fairly disappointed with their starts to the year and will be out to show their supporters they have what it takes to play finals footy. Matt Priddis has been in superb touch with 29 touches in both games so far and is a player along with Daniel Kerr that the Docker will need to sit on.
The Ruck duel promises to be a good one with Sandilands up against Cox. Now there is no way that Sandilands will be able to keep up with Dean Cox around the ground so you can bet that someone else may run with him after the center bounce. The Dockers need big improvements from a lot of players including Michael Johnson, David Mundy and Brett Peake and obviously Chris Tarrant. As they just can’t rely on their superstar Matthew Pavlich in this one, because he sill receive a lot of attention this week.
The Eagles were shocked at their performance last week and it will be interesting to see if it has a lasting effect or can they bounce back straight away? I reckon the Dockers will be fuming that they haven’t got a win on the board yet and will come out breathing fire and get over the top of the Eagles in this one.
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Should be two good games.
The Hawks game hopefully will be high scoring as both teams like to kick big scores but Hawks should have the edge with more goal kicking options.
The Eagles are filthy and i expect them to come out firing and get a good early start. Freo really have a culture problem and they do not drop their players who continually under perform (Hedland, McManus, Tarrent etc). This game will either be a close game with West Coast just winning or Freo handing out another hiding. BUT im tipping a close hard game.