The Buck Stops Here.
Nathan Buckley has gone through his five biggest takeaways from the weekend of footy.
He has touched on the Collingwood-Carlton thriller, Fremantle, Gold Coast and the race for the eight.
Magpies-Blues MCG thriller
“I just loved it – Sunday afternoon, 3:20, a little bit in the day, a little at night, it was just a great feel. 80,000 people, two big Victorian clubs, I thought it was awesome.
“It’s just about the event. We’ve come out of a situation where we haven’t been able to go to the footy and we’ve forgotten about that real quick, but you get reminded about the best parts of it.
“I thought that was awesome for the game, awesome for the code. I loved it.”
Dockers end Demons unbeaten streak
“There are certain games and certain times that come around in a season or in an evolution of a team that gives you a chance to reinforce your improvement or to take the next step and present yourself as bona fides.
“Winning on the MCG for Fremantle on the weekend was one of those.
“Two losses in really inclement conditions over the last couple of weeks. No (Nat) Fyfe and they think Fyfe is going to be the saviour, everyone keeps talking about that, but he hasn’t been in there.
“But with the group that have set their season alight, they were able to get over a side that hadn’t been beaten yet for the year.”
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Can Top End games give Suns an advantage?
“Every team is looking for a competitive advantage somewhere.
“They’ve played the first of two games up in the Top End – can the Gold Coast make this a competitive advantage in the middle of the year when they’ve got sides coming up from winter into a more humid, warmer environment and put two or three wins away in the middle of the season?
“That win against Hawthorn was full of merit.
“Gold Coast play North Melbourne up there next week. They’ve got every chance to position themselves at the bottom edges of the eight once we get through the bye rounds.”
Have Blues reached a tipping point?
“Every club has a tipping point in regards to availability of players and injury.
“Whether it’s Carlton’s injury list losing (Jacob) Weitering during the game after (Harry) McKay, (Marc) Pittonet, (Zac) Williams were not available. Whether it’s Melbourne who haven’t got (Ed) Langdon, (Steven) May gets injured, (Christian) Petracca’s a little bit crook.
“Everyone can be vulnerable if you don’t have your best players available. You have to fall back onto system.
“You mentioned that Carlton fans aren’t jumping up and down as much this morning, and I reckon there’s a really good reason for it, because they saw a side that had a lot of players out – maybe four or five of their best 22 that didn’t play the game and their bookends – their best key defender and their best key forward, but yet played with system, played with passion and still gave themselves a chance to come back and win the game.
“That’s great to see, but there is a tipping point, there’s only so long you can do that, because to win games and for a system to stack up, you still need to do the basics well.
“They did enough of that, Carlton, and it actually all goes really well for what we’re going to see in the second part of the year.”
Top eight spots up for grabs entering bye rounds
“We’ve got a really even comp. We’re going into the bye rounds.
“When we get to Round 14, I’d suspect that there will still be a lot of sides that are outside the eight that are still a chance to be inside the eight.
“Gold Coast could get there, Port Adelaide are still thereabouts, Richmond is now outside of the eight. I just reckon the competition is in good shape.
“Between fifth and 12th, we won’t know who the final eight sides are going to be until well into the season.”