Home and away chaos banished as four best teams land in AFL preliminary finals | Jonathan Horn
Week three of footy finals features past three premiers, as well as a club with all the momentum, belief and history on their side
Hawthorn ran through a banner on Friday night that read: “Their House. Our Terms.” And for the first half hour, it was entirely on Jai Newcombe’s terms. He destroyed Adelaide out of the middle, hitting the ball full chested, at top speed, and with lip-smacking relish.
Saturday night’s Q Clash was quickly on Brisbane’s terms too. We all know what that looks like. It means laser-beam kicks through the centre of the Gabba. It means waiting, probing, testing, teasing and then launching. It means a midfield that bats six, seven and eight deep. For their opponents, it means a night of chasing tails.
Every time the Lions have been challenged this year, and every time that it’s been tempting to write them off, they have responded. They beat Gold Coast at their own game, smashing them in close. But the key to Brisbane’s game is still the way they kick. Their propulsive, angle-changing kicks had the Suns constantly reorganising and gasping. There’s no better exponent of that than Dayne Zorko, surely one of the best and most audacious kicks of his generation. He’s the golfer who always chooses the right club. Long irons or short, he measures, weighs and brooks no doubt. He has shifty eyes on the footy field, eyes that are constantly darting and scheming for the riskiest kick and the biggest pay off.
With Lachie Neale injured, it was the leonine Will Ashcroft who separated the game in the second term. After last year’s grand final, flanked by a man 43 years his senior, he sat with his hat on backwards, as though winning a Norm Smith medal at the age of 20 was the most natural thing in the world. He was imperious in the semi-final but he had plenty of help – the impossible-to-tackle Cam Rayner and the impossible-not-to-be-tackled-by Josh Dunkley chief among them.
The Lions and Collingwood have a fierce rivalry and their twilight preliminary should be a beauty. But “fierce rivalry” doesn’t do justice to the history between Geelong and Hawthorn. The Hawks are the second team to make a preliminary final from eighth, and with all respect to the North Melbourne side of 2015, they’re far better equipped to make and win a grand final. Their last three games have been interstate, and they’ve been underdogs in all of them. Now they’ll go in as underdogs again in what will essentially be a home prelim, against a club they haven’t lost a cutthroat final to since the early 1960s.
As they bow out, it’s worth reflecting on the minor premiers, who for the second time in eight days were constantly rushed, too conservative, too fumbly and stumbly down back, and frankly not very good. Izak Rankine’s suspension ended up being one of the most costly a player has ever incurred. The entire club carried a boulder on its shoulder from the moment his slur came to light.
But they can’t blame their woes on his absence. Even if he’d been available, and even if he’d played very well, their limitations would have still been exposed – their plain midfield, their plodding rucks, their lumbering forwards. It’s all very well putting big scores on the second splinter of teams early in the year. But they started to splutter. They were poor against West Coast and North Melbourne and were probably fortunate to beat Collingwood. They deserved their two home finals and their repechage. But when it mattered, they couldn’t score, they couldn’t move the ball and they were probably the least impressive of the eight finalists.
There comes a point in every game, and especially in finals, where individuals have to seize their moments – to nail the set shot, to stick the tackle, to pull off the difficult pass – and in nearly every instance Adelaide missed that moment. For example, immediately after the main break, an abject shank from Reilly O’Brien ricocheted up the other end into the arms of Jack Gunston, who’s not the shanking type. What a wonderful footballer he is at 33. He does the common things uncommonly well. So many of his marks are uncontested but they’re always cleverly crafted. He reads the tempo of play farther afield, identifies space, times his leads perfectly and has a set shot routine that should be on the football curriculum.
His weekend was soured by a serious knee injury the following day to his good mate and fellow cross-generational player Luke Breust. As convoys of Hawthorn fans left Adelaide with hangovers and wizard hats, Breust was being helped off in his final ever game. Footy is never fair and it’s never predictable. But in the most lopsided, compromised and incomprehensible home and away fixture anyone could conjure up, we have still landed with the four best teams. It includes the past three premiers, as well as a club with all the momentum, all the belief and all the history on their side.