Every team has now played at least three games this year and some takes are starting to crystallise.
Some are obvious, like Melbourne clearly having been hampered by Simon Goodwin’s regressive footy or Essendon being the worst team with a bullet.
Some aren’t. They’re the ones that I want to focus on here.
They’re the takes that run contrary to obvious, widely held opinions in the footy landscape. They are the seedy underbelly of footy opinion that might well be true.
That’s where Louis CK comes in. When he’s not being weird with women, Ralph Cifaretto style, Louis CK is one of the great comics of all time.
My favourite bit of his is his five minutes on how to suck a bag of dicks, but that doesn’t really work for footy discourse. Therefore, my second favourite bit of his is Of course! But maybe.
In the bit, he applies the thinking to a peanut allergy. Of course, if a kid has a peanut allergy then nobody should have peanut butter sandwiches. BUT MAYBE if touching a nut will kill you then you deserve to die.
It’s the seedy underbelly of a widely held and properly understood opinion. Let’s get into it.
Of Course…Jeremy Cameron is Geelong’s best forward. But Maybe…Ollie Dempsey is a better forward
As I watched the Geelong v Adelaide game on Friday night, time and again I saw Ollie Dempsey sneak forward and make a nuisance of himself in the goal square both in the air and on the ground.
It’s been true throughout his career. It is so common to see Geelong get a deep entry into the goal square only for Dempsey to be the one to get on the end of it either with a screamer or some sort of ridiculous ground level thing.
Even though Jezza won the Coleman last year, Dempsey might just be a better forward. At this point, Cameron being named at centre half forward is a makeup award for greatness in the past. It’s Leo winning the Oscar for The Revenant.
Dempsey is currently averaging both more contested marks and more forward 50 ground ball gets than Cameron while averaging one fewer possession inside forward 50.
Cameron is clearly elite at other things. His running power is still elite and so is his penetrative kicking. He’s also clearly a brilliant goal kicker himself, but Dempsey’s green light to slide forward and his ability to compete both aerially and on the ground at this point in his career makes him a better goal square option than Cameron.
Of Course…Darcy Cameron is one of Collingwood’s five best players. But Maybe…He should be dropped if he can’t play centre half back.
Darcy Cameron is a good player. He’s not a great ruckman.
Among the 25 rucks who attend at least 30 ruck contests a game this season, including those that have played just one game, Cameron is 22nd at hit-outs to advantage.
At centre bounces he can’t jump. That’s a big problem for Collingwood who has nothing in the way of inside midfielders but, especially when Beau McCreery is in there, has a bit of outside speed.
If they had a ruckman who could hit the ball long and get separation from stoppage, that might really help.
But that isn’t to say Cameron is useless. Remember big boy Ben McEvoy?
Alastair Clarkson, in his more insane days post dynasty at Hawthorn tried him at centre half back to varying degrees of success. Given Darcy Moore never plays and is injured again, you could do worse than giving Cameron a go back there.
His best skill is taking defensive marks on kicks down the line and Moore never plays on anyone anyway. If Howe or someone else can do more work getting to contests, Cameron can be a definitive impediment to opposing attacks.
Of Course…Damien Hardwick is the architect of the Richmond style of play. But Maybe…West Coast is the most Richmond-coded team in the AFL.
Andrew McQualter was a Richmond assistant under Hardwick and was the guy who took over from Dimma when he left the Tigers citing burnout, only to be un-burnt-out like a month later.
Amazing what Thailand can do.
Anyway, watching the Eagles has me feeling a bit déjà vu.
That’s Richmond.
It’s definitely more Richmond than Collingwood under Craig McRae, GWS under Adam Kingsley, but even more than Gold Coast under Hardwick. Hardwick’s Suns, for instance, are second in total disposals this year where his Tigers were never outside of the bottom six for disposals between 2017 and 2020. They were also never outside of the top two for metres per disposal while his Suns are fifth.
West Coast, on the other hand, are 16th in disposals but third in metres per disposal.
Clearly West Coast doesn’t have enough good players to really compete, but you can see what McQualter is building in terms of game style. That’s more than can be said for a few other rebuilding outfits, say the Tigers.