AFL 360 – Are Carlton a whisker or a mile away? Swans’ poor discipline continues! Are Hawthorn a true contender? & Dissecting Alex Pearce’s tackle – 26/05/25

Premantle takes it's captain's case to the tribunal. The coach was forceful in his defense postmatch.

Justin Longyure is with us tonight.

The pressure bules as the performances won't come for Carlton and Sydney.

What's at the core of their poor.

For and Giants superstar Toby Green turned in one of his best to mark game two point fifty.

Adam Kingsley is with us on Coaches Nights.

We've talked about his step into it, debrace all.

Of it in the room and reason it's unedifying for a senior coach to do that.

They're on the side of Courtia with the brain, take.

The man on. They played the best footy I've.

Ever seen at the start of the season, and In said president left the couple older said.

Of course they do. It is the stuff that legends are made of.

What is holding the ball?

I don't think I could answer it clearly right now that I could do something.

Wrong, you know, And I need to get on the board.

Sacks meet the fans, lover and with no fans, no through sixty.

Year old.

The angles off round eleven about to play out here on three sixty Gas I was thinking of you as I watching Melbourne last night in that last quarter in the fans' hearts going so well, you never want a quarter to end. But as it ticked into the fortieth.

Minutes of Home on going, we've been making the case for this for a long time, and a forty minute quarter, if you don't mind, ad is a farce and that is ridiculous. And there were thirteen goals kicked. I did some calculations that took us to twenty nine minutes or something, so a couple of stoppages here and there, you get off at thirty two thirty nine minutes. Jared, I don't want to start on a negative, but that's a joke.

That's just a joke. Much Our game is not a forty minute quarter of footage.

It was very odd.

The game finished about thirty minutes past six. That is bursting your time slot by a big damn straight. It is all right, here's all we've got lined up for you tonight. We'll go through the events of round eleven and our coach is just along and Adam Kingsley. Then we'll hand over on the couch Jack Revolt with Jordan Bucks and Brownie to cast the opinions tell you how it all unfolded.

Tomorrow nights two of.

The most decorated players in the game, Locke Neil and Toby Green. We've got a long list for Razor's Edge, and that's before we even confer together. And John Longmi Adam Simpson to make a smarter on Wednesday night, and as the King's Birthday clash comes into serning off duty.

I know it's going to join all right.

Every Monday Night starts with the casting of the GVPS, the votes for the most valuable players from the round in the estimation of just one man, Gary Lyne, and it is for the most sought after prize in footy, which we have taken out on the road, the Mustang GT Fastback, valued at ninety three thousand dollars. Iconic design, unreal performance, five of the eight engine responsibility.

Has not lost on me every time I look at this. When you and I went out and took around pre track, got it up to about forty three.

It's a magnificent vehicle.

And Jeremy Cameron gets another vote, so he's a vote closer to winning. He's kicked six and seven in the last two weeks big game. One of the best games of recent times, and this separates the good players from the great Jared and without Paddy Dangerfield again in this side, Bailey Smith doing his stuff, but someone had to finish it all off, and big jezz I just got it done again.

Another six have been beaten by Rory Love at their most recent meeting.

Do you think he took it personally?

I don't know if Jeremy's that sort. He doesn't. He's sort of that laconic.

Maybe he is deep down, but he's just he just gave Laura a nice one there, So well done to Jez. I love sing that too. Thankfully he's coming up tomorrow night.

Toby Green.

I love this Jared, because their side was a bit of a precarious position. He's the captain. Finn Callahan goes out, it's his milestone game. He says, listen, I'll go into the middle and sort it out. And he's had ten in the first quarter. He actually had eleven in the first quarter, kick two goals and just set it in motion. And then if there's any doubt in the end, he's had another eight in the last quarter and kicked another goal.

So this is what I love.

About players like Jeremy Cameron and Bailey Smith. On big occasions, you step up and you get the job done. And so there was well in the end, there was no other way for Toby to finish that game then be carried off as a winner.

Yep, perfect who got the three causey picking.

So it's a bit like Isaac Keeney last week. He had one of those games you just you know, you can't argue against.

And I did tell everyone at the start of the season.

And he had.

He just for a little pat on the back, he's going to be a top five or top ten praying in the comps.

So welcome aboard everyone. He is in rare form.

He had thirteen score involvements stared and the other beauty of it is he had six clearances and three of them in the center bounce. That's some sort of player when you can do that, you can kick five goals for and have center bounces and set everyone else up.

So because he's in rare nick So this is.

The reason why no traders change.

You don't trade away you're rare, rare, rare talent.

And he's got two years to go on a contract and hopefully thinking, well, I'm sure they'll get to work between now and then and I'll try and lock him away from about ten.

All right, five votes for Cozy Toby, Greens on the move and Patrick Dangerfield is still our leader the GVPS. All right, let's get to at the top of the agenda is Carlton, who again frustratingly find themselves at four and seven at the by. It's creating a familiar sense of despondency.

It's a Veray couple of retirement.

Yeah, it has Yeah.

Look, I mean I think this is the chance to regenerate.

It's also chance to.

Have a look at the way we're playing and dissected a bit.

Well, a lot of.

You condemned to read I'm saying that the Blue I mean we have.

A loud.

I think this list needs an absolute examination.

It needs a blow torch damning result.

I think for the Carton Footy Club, given Kim Callahan wasn't in that side, they're skinny through the middle of the ground. Really good win for the Giants against the odds and that might kicks out there season.

But the Blues are going to be a bit of a story coming up this season. Continues to cough and splutter around towards.

Handed a dream dra or an unbelievably soft drawl.

So that is where the expectation goes up. Carlton fans be pulling their hair out. What has happened to this football team?

You can play finals and make the over, but you can't win.

Flat with it?

Is that well, you've got to set to win the premiership.

They are If they think this is the premiership list, then roll on.

But I don't know if they do.

Drifting into September right now, as you can imagine it, probably the furthest thing from my mind is taking a break, getting a rest, coming back together, putting the problem on the table, solving it.

Together collectively as a group.

Resetting ourselves and bringing new energy and getting after it.

And that's what we'll do.

Thank you.

Michael Voss.

He diagnosed that it's time to dissects the way that the Blues are playing. No team confounds me more. They elude me, They confuse me. It feels like being yeah, right at the heart of it is where you started in March. Is there a flaw in the core of their being the live on Street butchers that undermines everything else that they're trying to achieve.

It was around one or two, very early in the season.

They are still the worst kicking team in the competition today.

So you start at that and you're still adeen.

Everything you're trying to achieve in between gets compromised, Jared. So they have made some improvements in the way they can get the footy from one end to the other. They are getting good looks inside fifty. What happens once they go inside fifty is the massive problem for this football club right now. These are the butcherings that we

So this is where Melbourne were eight weeks ago. The commonalities are striking.

It is it is so you go back and have a look at it.

And the first five matches, so from a Melbourne point of view, they could get the ball from one end of the other. But for scores prince side fifty they were at that stage.

My eyes are deceiving me. They were eighteen.

The last six matches they go d fifty to inside fifty the same amount.

They're fourth.

This is what coaches must be able to do otherwise the pressure comes, and we talked about Simon Good and coaching his way out of the play.

This is what we're talking about.

Okay, First, the first six games or five matches disaster.

Change the way you play, change your makeup. Don't forget these numbers. Here scores.

Prince side fifty four is with Harry Petty and Aidan Johnson, a young man who's trying to so they drop Van Ruyin. Change is good, Drop Van Ruin, drop Rich. You can't keep doing the same thing over and over. Change is good. So all of a sudden they go to number four with Aiden Johnson and Harry Petty. It's because the way they move the footy third fastest ball movement team over the last six weeks between Gold behind Gold Coast and Geelong.

So change something.

So Carlton, exactly where they were at the start.

I don't have to sit here at round one saying you're the worst kick and turn the competition. You're predictable going inside fifty, and now we sit here and go you're still the worst kicking team in the competition and you can't score when you go inside fifty. With Charlie Kurna and Harry Kai inside fifty. So this is where you can take over because I don't get two heated. But now they sit there at the by where Vossi says,

It's not doing it.

Maybe having Charlie and Harry inside forward fifty, he just says, we'll try and get everything else and then we get to that end, we'll kick it to Charlie and Harry. That's not working. That's not working. So maybe they look at Charlie up high. Maybe they look at him as a winger. Maybe that's how he's a bloke that can kick the footy inside forward fifty. But it's over to

So the challenge I find washing them is could they be better? Should they be better? Are they a whisker.

Away or are they a mile away?

The blunt, false trauma footy that they have massed is not the footy of today.

Contest and clearance, the inability.

To hit those kicks thwarts their efforts to be more than they want to be. So are they a team that can go on a run in the back part of the season.

No.

The body of work is now, if you measure it from Giants loss to Giants lost, there's twenty games, they're six and fourteen. If you refine that to the finals teams in those two years, they are one and eleven. That's the most damning and the average losing margin is twenty six points.

And so that's a proper body of work.

They can't turn that around like that.

No, So this is the necessity for change. They're not going to recap If they're looking to recapture something, I don't think they are. But if they were, they're not going to recapture it. That's a long time. So what are they going to evolve into? And this is the most difficult challenge within the season. But we have seen a team be able to do that over six weeks Chess.

And he needs to.

So the specter of Graham Writer is very real. Is he comes in as the chief executive, it's his job to set this club up for what comes next. He comes with that Inmpromata from the board and he gets his hands on it at the end of the season.

But he's doing all his work now.

They've got list of decisions to make which were well illuminated by j Clark and David King.

There is.

He went into Collinwood's a team that was stifled by Celary cap He found a way, was really nimble. He didn't pull the whole thing apart. He was nimble with it and got his change and he changed the coach. He wasn't afraid to do that where he.

Saw the need.

So I suspect in the back twelve matches of the season, Michael Voss is going to need to prove that he can change this profile because what is there now is not going to work.

No, because if we're here in so what was that round one to round eleven, If we're here at round twenty and they are still getting the bull inside forward fifty and eighteenth for converting, then he's under enormous pressure because he hasn't changed anything. And your point is well

But it's all on cart now do something.

The element that's what.

I watched them is everything is hard for them, and what the French Open.

Has just started.

Every now and then they just need to blow an opponent off the court. They get into these long five setters with everyone other than the wild cards of West Coast and North Melbourn, which you really have to push those aside and they'll be able to pad their numbers there again.

But that's not it. When they did turn in.

Twenty twenty three they went on a scoring spree, they look destitute, they struggled against Destina, and then they went on a scoring spread and it opened them up and invigorated. It returned them to their natural state. I've always thought they traded away too much of their offense, their excitement in search of a more dependable defense. They weren't going to win it just being popcorn. But I reckon they tip their balance out and they've never really been able to on that balance again.

Now would be a good time.

Yeah, and we're going to move on. I think Sam Walsh epitomizes all of that. Sam Walsh was a free spirited, hard running star of this competition who we thought, Wow, he's going to take them to the Promised Land. And now he looks to be a bit burdened to me, a bit way down and burdened.

And it's all a bit hard, as you say, so let.

Him be the catalyst for change. Free him and let him go and see what they can be.

So another team at four and seven is the Sydney Swans. They returned to the MCG yesterday for the first time since Grand Final Day and they were dismal. They have issues on every front as the season slips away.

Thing about the blood.

Blood needs to pump, and the thing that pumps.

Your blood is your heart.

And I feel like they've played with broken.

Hearts for most of the year.

The Demons broke their spirit today they broke their heart and I think in doing so, have broken in any hope of them playing finals this year.

I think.

Beaten badly. It's a fair four from grace for a team that were a darling to the competition last year.

Spirit comes off players planning the way that everyone wants everyone to play.

You know, your reward acts that your value, and we're not seeing enough of.

Those acts that we do value, so then you can't reward or celebrate those.

So we're going to get back to doing that. First, we're at round eleven.

The team that played in the Grand Final last year in their season's over that they will not be playing finals.

Recent history tells you that the heavily beaten runner up is it's a load to bear in the next season. I think Sydney thought the coaching change might prove invigorating and it hasn't done that.

It's a load to bear for a premier as well, Jared, We've seen that in recent times.

I've been on a backup.

So there's a really interesting situation here because because they've had such great success with the way they've had on their succession planning, we've all been i think pretty generous in the way that we've had. We've seen this unfold with Tors you know, making the decision and Dean Cox being the man that steps up. So our sessman has been I think generous, whereas you know, the handover Port Adelaide hasn't even been made yet, and we've been pretty

Tough question hasn't been asked.

Up too great, but it has to be now because this is a side who are paddling down twenty inside fifties on the week. This is a really bad loss, lost contested possession by twenty seven and lost uncontested by fifty nine. They go inside fifty they take seven marks. A week after Joela Mardy comes back into the side and gets suspended in the dying seconds and Justin mckinnoney does it. So you throw all that into the melting

That's sig unfair. They made the Grand Final.

The five superstars have a massive say in impact on what they do and the bottom line is a golden and Papily haven't been there. That's forty percent of you, of your big guns, and that's exposed a tail. It's exposed a pretty big tail. I reckon and who knows what the impact of that loss has had. But they aren't anywhere near where they were.

So their effort is conditional, which is something you wouldn't say about many Swan's teams. And Dean cox all Bar said yesterday that they threw the talent. Their discipline is poor as your point around a Marty is long absence, come back, needlessly suspended, McNerney needlessly suspended. Callum Mills has been missing forever, needlessly suspended.

He's got himself a week on his return.

So this goes to the overall scenario of where they are and they don't have the depth maybe not many teams do. They don't have the depth to cover the list of absentees, but it's the self inflicted ones that hurts you in a moment.

Yeah, this is the captain who, through misadventure, has missed a lot of footy in recent times and he would have sat in that coach. In fact, he sat in the coaches box last week and watched the Amadi brain fade in the last minute and a half in the Mcinernie and would have heard everything that was said. Coaches boxes don't spare anyone, Jared, let me tell you. So he would have been acutely aware. And then he comes

So that was poor.

It's a big challenge for Dean Cox to get a hold of that. I wanted to ask you about the Hawthorne side of things. They've got this set of games while we try to figure out are they are.

True contender or not.

They failed pretty significantly against the benchmark lines on Saturday.

Yea our bull use and skill you know, We regularly talk about, you know, being predictable to each other, and we didn't handle the occasion of today. We know playing against them, you're going to have to take your chances. We had a lot of chances to put some scoreboard pressure on and we missed opportunities going just the last

As I said, how did you come away?

I've got a couple of issues I reckon. So they got slaughtered in their front half. So like you go through every individual matchup and you're asking Jack Dunstan a lot. So in the first in the first thirty seconds, he came out on a hard lead and thought he was going to market because he's in good form, and all of a sudden, Jack Prayine just was right next to him, punched the ballay and he.

Thought, since he's got me for pace, he's got me for strength.

So he battled Joy a child didn't know what he's doing, like he's playing on Harris Andrews, whether or not he's been told to try and like Harris had just been given a whole ding by melksh In the week before, and whether Marbi was trying to play something other than that, but he just didn't go to the contest and Watson got slaughtered by Endsworth. So and then you've got Dylan Moore is off the ball. Jack Innovan's just going around.

Stage clubs if they are, they have to just say it. But he was all at sea and he was a big problem.

Barris was trying to cover his man, trying to cover Sicily's man. He wasn't playing hard defense when he's never ever been the hard lockdown man, but there are times when you have to be. And Archie just took him to the cleaner sturit and game in the balance a couple of times he just didn't go with him, just let him go and Archie ran unattended into a goal square.

So that's a bit of an issue. And then the other one he.

Sent abount and clearance just to the second week in a row. So Sam Mitch was a smart man. You'll go to work on it, but I don't know where the fix is from a forurd a half point of view, he needs Dilan Moore to get back to that Australia and then the rest of them, well, they've got to turn around. It's asking too much of Jack Gunston. He might have fighted his best shots for the year. Jack, and that's no way being critical because that's what happens at this time of the year.

He probably needs a break.

But Kelsha Dear maybe in the wings, but there's good questions about him and I might get answered Friday.

Night Pies, Dogs Crows, Well.

They might get answered in three weeks and I think they'll rally that and what it does that sharpens them up. I think, you know, as king he might have alluded to if they've started to get a bit full of themselves, then where they are right now, that all gets parked and Sam Mitchell would be the man that takes that out of them. And then they go to the MCG Friday Night against a team that if you are if you've got inflated opinions of where you're at. Then they'll

Tomorrow night at the tribunal, Fremantle's captain Alex Pearce is facing a three match suspension for his collision that left Darcy Burne Jones with concussion.

This is one of these dozen.

Cases across a year where the question is oddly posed is what else could Alex Pierce have done? The disqualifier here has been Pierce wasn't contesting the ball at the moment of impacts. The complication in this is the player coming back with the flight.

Of the ball.

So when Pierce takes off his measurements, his trajectory is his assessments and how they are complicated by Burne Jones, who closes from the other way. Port Adelai's player gets to the ball first. Pierce arrives that he doesn't, in my opinion, brace turn flex in any way. I actually think he tries to stay as limp as he can to minimize the inevitable collision, but on the measure of he wasn't contesting the ball in the moment of impact. That's why he has been suspended.

To this point. I find this one really difficult.

I've normally got a pretty black and white view to this, which is probably not popular because I'm very pro looking after the head.

But I think this is an arguable case.

Alex Peerce was flat out going for the mark, going through the intercept the player comes into his vision. I don't think he covered up, jumped off the ground, tried to hit him in the head.

I think he sort of left. I've slawd this down a hundred times.

One stage he sort of half went to shoulder, then threw his arms back open again as if to say no, I will mark this, and then at.

The point of impact. This is why it's so difficult.

So I can wear that that's a footy accident, right, I think that case could be made. But the bottom line is you've got to cancust play. And if you read the front page of The Australian over the weekend, you'll understand implicitly why the league will err.

On the side of caution. And that's not going to sit well with a lot.

Of the former players in the media. And I'll go to school on it because but this one I think is right in the margins.

Yes, so, And this is where Alex Pierce is intelligent and articulate. He will have to explain each step of the way, and he's one of the players who is likely to be able to do that. And then he's got to persuade a panel of previous players as to when he took off he legitimately thought he was a chance to take the mark. He actually does arrive at the drop zone to take the mark, it's just Burne Jones coming from the other direction, beats him there.

And then I do.

Think I think he tries to go as limp as he can to minimize what becomes an inevitable.

That's a good point because he you slow the frames down as I did today about three steps earlier, his arm right arms comes across as if to say, well, I'll cover up here, and then he'd be in all sorts of trouble. But then whether he's quick enough to compute that that's not going to work. But then threw himself back open. Yep, maybe that works.

Can he articulate that of the tribunal tomorrow night and be persuasive that's the way to be to charge like.

Patrick Daneyfield advantage to do that, so go for your life.

All right.

Let's bring in the coach, say Justin Longmuir, who was forceful in his defense in the post match, so we'll get an insight into the state of mind of Alex Pearce and the defense case. And Adam Kingsley, who's been brilliant with us on Coaches Night a couple of years now. So Freemantle and the Giants represented thingst Where are you just looking at me?