Round 12 of the 2023 AFL season has played out and Nathan Buckley has put together his five takeaways in The Buck Stops Here.
The best two teams, Gold Coast, Geelong, North Melbourne’s energy and the hysteria surrounding Jordan De Goey were on Buckley’s mind after Round 12 on SEN Breakfast.
Read his thoughts below:
Collingwood and Port are clearly the form teams in the comp
“Collingwood, Port Adelaide on the weekend, the clear form teams in the comp they went about their business, they toyed with their opposition, and they got the wins.
“That was really powerful footy by Port Adelaide, they flexed their muscle early against Hawthorn.
“No Dixon, no Boak, no Jonas and then a couple of others, Georgiades who's out for the year, everyone misses players at different times, but to be able to pull it together the way Port have and to put their wins together has been awesome.
“Then Collingwood, on the other side of the country, they withstood a challenge and West Coast played with real heart and real spirit, but then Collingwood just extend it at the end in a very similar way, flex their muscle when needed. No Sidebottom, no McStay, no Elliott.
“In the end, there's dealing with the change of personnel and De Goey will go out of Collingwood side, and I think that it just is another chance for Collingwood to prove that it has a system that can get the job done without key personnel in different ways.
“I thought that was a standout, they were two teams that were expected to win those games, but they did it in style and did it with some real power.”
The Suns have taken a step, now they need to make the most of their Darwin connection
“Number two is the Suns, they've taken a step on the weekend.
“Stuart Dew, their coach is under pressure, we spoke about this game last week around the Crows and it was definitely a validation of what they're building at the moment.
“They were nearly six goals down halfway through the second.
“To say that you need to work in your starts is an understatement if that is a consistent thing for them.
“The Crows were playing good football, but what it showed for me once again is that the Suns need to play as many games in Darwin as they can.
“They've won their last four after losing their first two in 2018 and 2019 where they lost to Hawthorn and Carlton.
“This year it (playing in Darwin) has been significant.
“Lukosius has kicked 10 goals up there in the two games, Rowell has just loved the conditions, Humphrey has loved the conditions.
“They played with a go-forward mentality, messy football, which when you're playing in that sort of humidity is exactly the way you need to go about it.
“They should try and get and third and a fourth game up there during the year because it would definitely be an advantage against any opposition.”
Geelong are the sleeper, but are injuries too big of a concern?
“Geelong are the sleeper in the second half of the year.
“To be the reigning premier and to be sitting where they are at the moment, they are the sleeper going into the second half.
“The only query is their injuries, but we know that if anyone's able to time their run and pull it all together, it's the Cats and it's Chris Scott.
“Cam Guthrie's out with surgery on his toe, Dangerfield, Ratugolea and Duncan have hamstrings.
“That is the question, ‘Are the hamstrings an underlying issue around their preparation physically for the year?’.
“Then you got Menegola with a knee, Holmes with a knee who's reported to come back, Stanley with an eye socket, which is a contact injury.
“But these are the questions, is it something fundamental and underlying that is going to recur or are they one-offs that they can come back and manage and get them back up and running when the whips are cracking?
“That's the question because as Chris Scott just mentioned, they've got young Mullin, Zach Guthrie who's done a fantastic job and really has been consistent for the last couple of years, Ollie Henry who's come in and is settling himself into the side, Knevitt who had some big moments and Tanner Bruhn.
“They’ve still got a raft of young players there that they're getting a look at before their time.
“Some of them aren't ready, but they're the most ready out of their next batch.
“If you find one or two out of that and then you add it to Stewart, Hawkins, Cameron and Dangerfield if he gets back, there's plenty of talent in that side.”
North Melbourne’s energy has bounced under Brett Ratten
“The fourth one is North Melbourne's energy.
“My question is, Alastair Clarkson, he’s a great coach, a four-time premiership coach.
“No one would suggest that he hasn't got the ability to get the job done with any group of players at any time.
“But you remove him from the equation in North and Brett Ratten comes in with a fresh voice of a very offensive coach.
“A positive coach changes the way they go about it, but it's more about the negative energy that is removed from North and how much impact that actually has.
“How good have they been in the last three weeks? No wins, but it’s just a sign of what they're capable of going forward.
“The energy was my major focus as a positive, the second part of it is the negative energy that's left.
“My supposition here is that when there are off-field issues, when there is speculation in the media about anything, whether it's off-field or on-field, it impacts the environment of the football club, it impacts the way the locker room perceives the people that are being speculated on that stand in front of them day in day out to try and teach them about football and how to be better people.
“When there's a character assassination or indeed a legitimate question about their character that's taking place at that moment, it's almost impossible to do your job and to have a positive impact on the group of people.
“It (Clarkson stepping away) has been a positive for North Melbourne's performance, Clarkson made a decision that he clearly needed to make which was to step away.
“I don't know exactly how this plays out, all I know is that North Melbourne have been seemingly freed up in the last three weeks and that may have happened anyway, it might be just the young guys coming of age.
“There’s plenty of variables that you can't measure from the outside, but my gut is that there was a heaviness in the environment at stages through the first half of the year that is gone.”
The hysteria surrounding the De Goey bump has gone too far
“The fifth one is, what I would deem is Jordan De Goey hysteria.
“He definitely deserves to be up at Tribunal and he'll get the weeks that he deserves, for mine it’s a three, but I think the reaction post this incident has been over the top.
“I thought it was a football action, it was an instinctive football action.
“It's one that's not accepted in the game, now, there were no raised elbows, there was no real jumping off the ground.
“You (Kane Cornes) made a comment on Sunday about how you thought that it was a weak act, I don't agree with you at all.
“There was obviously stuff that you tried to wrap in about his off-field, that is not fair.
“You're judging that every player needs to have a certain level of professionalism and an understanding of what it takes to be an AFL footballer.
“You compared him to Bontempelli, and if you compare him to some of the players that have an equal, at least an equal or in the same class of talent, that's only one part of performance.
“There are different upbringings, there are different ways of seeing the world, there are different motivations that come to play to pull the final package together, but all of that is separate to what happened on the field with Jordy De Goey.
“That was a knee-jerk, instant blink of an eye outcome that I don't think before that he was thinking, he's going to iron the kid out.
“I'm thinking he's going to go in and tackle him.
“He (Hewett) held onto the ball for a long time, I think that there's been a responsibility for players to look after themselves in the football field that players have been absolved of.
“The duty of care needs has gone to the opposition player, an opposition player needs to take care of your duty of care.
“But the individual needs to look after himself, after he handballed, he was probably half a second from protecting himself.
“I think he’ll get three weeks and he'll deserve his three weeks.
“I'm not absolving him from any of that, but the hysteria that surrounded (is too much) and, what are West Coast tweeting about Jordy? It's none of their business and Dom Sheed saying like ‘I've now just seen the vision, maybe we should have stood up for him’.
“None of the players stood up because it wasn't seen anything outside of a football act at the time, otherwise they would have remonstrated.”
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