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4 hours ago
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Few AFL coaches go the full Krakatoa quite like Adam Kingsley. The Giants uploaded footage of him going off his rocker at the main break of the Sydney derby last year, a game where they’d been largely uncompetitive in the opening half. Sunday’s first half against Brisbane didn’t warrant that kind of outburst. They’d been playing well against the reigning premiers, a team that always seems to bring out the best in them. But they need a follow up documentary on what was said at half-time, or what changed. They unleashed the kind of artillery barrage we rarely see in the modern game, and the kind we never see against the team that has won the past two premierships.
Their semi-final clash in 2024 was one of the more remarkable games of the modern era. This one didn’t have any of the wild swings, just half an hour of one-way, downhill, all-out attack, like one of those country footy games where a bunch of former AFL players feast on a team of 45-year-old farmers. With very little resistance, they strolled into goal in the first 20 seconds. They then unleashed the kind of football we saw from the Giants in 2016 and 2017 – long, sweeping waves emanating from half back. It resembled a flawless training session.
Their 14-goal onslaught was the highest ever third quarter score in a VFL/AFL game. And it was the most goals that have ever been put on a reigning premier in a single quarter. It ended 26.10 (166) to 13.10 (88) at Engie Stadium.
Bear in mind that this Giants team has barely been able to get going this year. From the moment Tom Green wrecked his knee and Sam Taylor severely injured his hamstring in the AFL Origin game 24 hours later, they have been patching holes and muddling along. They only just fell in against Essendon a fortnight ago. And they lost to the Eagles last week. In the face of performances like that, Kingsley’s comms strategy seems to have been to present as affable a face as possible. “Oh yeah, we’re just a bit off, we’ll be fine,” he says in that soft, not entirely convincing tone. But I’m not convinced he’s been so accommodating when the cameras have been off.
This isn’t the first time Brisbane have found themselves on the skids and where the footy world starts writing them off. They are peerless in their ability to extricate themselves from such slumps. And let’s face it, an early Sunday afternoon at the Sydney Showground isn’t exactly the kind of environment where they excel. But the 14 to zip third term aside, there have been signs all is not well. In previous years, even when they were dropping games at this time of year, they’d be defensively locked in against the best sides. They miss the unobtrusive defending of Brandon Starcevich and Callum Ah Chee. And they’ve desperately missed Dayne Zorko this past fortnight. He’s the key to so much of what they do well. Without him they lose that energy, that boldness, that organisation. Emotionally and structurally, they looked bereft without him yesterday.
Elsewhere, through all the turmoil and drudgery of the last few years, Alastair Clarkson has always maintained his unflinching optimism. “Be patient, it will turn” the North Melbourne coach says nearly every week. He says it after annihilations and after honourable losses. And he said a variation of that at half-time on the weekend, despite his team being 38 points down to a Gold Coast side whose marquee players were back to their rampaging best. “The game’s on a knife’s edge,” he told Fox Footy’s Ben Dixon.
He had grounds for optimism. This North side can really test the friendship. They have holes. They have brain fades. They have half hours that beggar belief, and their professional status. Geelong put 14 on them in just over half an hour a few weeks ago. And their second quarter against Adelaide last week was about as listless and disorganised as you see a league team in this era.
But they have a core group of players, especially their younger brigade, who are capable of astonishing football when they’re fully dialled in. They have George Wardlaw, a wrecking machine who’s the sort of player Clarkson can frame a positive future around and who strikes terror in all around him, teammates included. He has Harry Sheezel, who by the time he’d turned 21 had already won two best and fairests, captained the team, racked up the equal most possessions in a game and been the subject of a Kane Cornes firestorm. And he has Finn O’Sullivan, who has a remarkable ability to spin in and out of trouble and traffic.
All three played key roles in North’s comeback on the weekend. Wardlaw in particular collected 13 of his 19 touches in the final term. But Clarkson also made some canny moves, sending Colby McKercher to an attacking half back role and putting an end to the Cam Zurhaar-as-a-defender experiment. Zurhaar played like a man who’d done his tour of tour in defence, and who never wanted to speak of it again. He was back in his lane, and relished the opportunity to sink the Suns at the death. They almost completely cocked it up though, when two players tried to take the advantage after Zurhaar had been clobbered. They’d had the wrong end of the whistle all afternoon. It would have been the most North Melbourne loss ever. But the umpire was lenient, and the Roos had their win, 17.9 (111) to 16.9 (105).
The Suns played some excellent football but the way they trudged to the three-quarter-time break didn’t auger well. Their defenders were dragging their heels in the final term and they were perilously low on allowable rotations. When games like this were in the balance at Richmond, Damien Hardwick would scream to his runner “raise the fight”. He spent the last few minutes of this game screaming. But his players had no more fight to raise.
