With the changing landscape of the ruck rules in 2017 due the no third-man up rule, the questionable importance of the specialist tap ruckman has been a hot topic again. But perhaps they are being under-valued, and their place in the game is safer than we realise.
The dawn of a new decade promised new horizons for the Australian game – but some things stayed the same. Melbourne and Collingwood continued to sit above the rest of the football world, as titanic, arrogant and seemingly indomitable as Gog and Magog in the Royal Arcade.
Inspired by the Bulldogs, the handball is back in vogue. However, it was Geelong and Adelaide 8 years ago who were the original trendsetters.
So who are the real flat track bullies? And why can’t West Coast win in Melbourne?
St Kilda is on track to make finals for the first time since 2011. And this weekend they come up against a resurgent Sydney at Etihad Stadium, with potentially a place in the top 4 beckoning. But the home ground advantage for the Saints may not be an advantage at all against the Swans this week.
The great Geelong and Essendon teams have always been synonymous with exciting attacking football. And if there is one game between the two teams that has symbolised this philosophy to attacking football, it would be the Ablett-Salmon shootout of 1993.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the infamous 1987 preliminary final between Hawthorn and Melbourne, a drought-breaking year for the Demons as they played finals for the first time since 1964, their last premiership year. In 2017, the Demons are targeting the end of another finals drought, having not played in a finals series since 2006. But what has been holding the Demons back from returning to finals?
… Johannisen, he’s a lively player, he can run, here he goes, caressing ball to Bontempelli, Bontempelli no-one between he and the goal, paddles it up, gets back onto his left foot, to hit the front, to hit the front, the dogs are in front by a point, Bontempelli has brought them to their feet.
The ANZAC Day Clash has become an iconic event in Australian Sport. The inaugural Essendon versus Collingwood ANZAC Day Clash in 1995 is the foundation from which it has built this elevated status. That first match certainly drew upon the sense of occasion that ANZAC Day provided and the enormous crowd of 94,823 certainly played its part. However, the success of the match and what the ANZAC Day Clash has gone on to become is due to the teams involved delivering us one of the all time classic matches.
What they don’t have, I think, is the quality of some of our players; they don’t have the psychological drive we have. We’ve beaten Geelong when it matters. Jeff Kennett, 2009.
Port Adelaide are like Collingwood – you love ‘em or you hate ‘em. Either way, you respect them. They’ve got the premiership success. You can’t deny what they’ve achieved. So you want to beat them. The rivalry, it’s totally genuine. Mark Ricciuto.
… 13 seconds, oh it’s on, chase, chase for your life as hard as you can, the flashpoint 5 seconds out, they’ll hang on the Dogs, they are going to hang on, mark this day down Western Bulldogs fans, Saturday May the 2nd 2015.
Welcome to the 2017 AFL premiership season – Carlton versus Richmond. Although this season opening fixture often fails to live up to expectation (even Darryl Braithwaite failed to turn up with actual horses last year for the pre-match entertainment), the importance of the fixture for both teams is more than the four points on offer, in fact, it can be season defining.
