THE 2024 Toyota AFL Premiership Season is in full swing, and Damian Barrett's Sliding Doors is back!
So put your seatbelt on and enjoy the ride as Damo takes off the gloves and takes aim at your team.
So what is he saying about your club? What's he saying about the AFL? You can't say that, Damo, can you? Check it out below.
>> Check out the latest from Damian Barrett
IF ...
I'm regularly annoyed by the Crows' inability to collectively stand up, absorb pressure and win matches when the stakes are at their highest ...
THEN ...
I weirdly find something very endearing about them. They are must-watch, each week. Their brittleness has left them with little wriggle room this season, though, and if they are finals worthy, then they simply must defeat the Hawks on Saturday.
IF ..
plenty are writing the Lions off after round 11 ...
THEN ...
I'm going to hold, for at least one more game. Have the bye this weekend, then the Bulldogs in round 13. Even with the horrific injury list, too much talent to slink away without having a say in the shaping of the top eight.
IF ...
there is a better three minutes of personal impact in a match this year than Patty Cripps’ opening to the final quarter of Thursday night’s game against Port Adelaide ...
THEN ...
nah, there won’t be. Wow. In actually less than three minutes of game time, Cripps kicked two goals, racked up a goal assist and pumped another ball inside 50 which resulted in a Blues goal. What a leader. What a player.
IF ...
there have been some all-time great, against-all-odds Collingwood wins under Craig McRae's coaching in the past two-and-a-half seasons ...
THEN ...
Friday's night's task against the Dogs presents as yet another Everest to climb. The absences include Pendlebury, De Goey, Elliott, Mihocek, Mitchell, Cox, Hoskin-Elliott, McStay. But among those available is a guy by the name of Nick Daicos. And maybe that will be enough. Again.
IF ...
Jordan Ridley was brilliant enough to win a best-and-fairest in a season (2020) which began with him having just nine matches to his name ...
THEN ...
it was no surprise that, having not played at all this year, he was best on ground in the Dreamtime game. A super talent who oozes class.
IF ...
I initially felt that coming back from 25 points down with less than eight minutes remaining to secure a draw against the reigning premier was a good effort ...
THEN ...
upon reflection, it was yet another opportunity missed. The banged-up Pies, forced to play five players with fewer than five matches to their names, had no right to be that far in front at Optus Stadium.
IF ...
Tom Stewart has found a way to win five All-Australian gongs in just seven seasons in the AFL ...
THEN ...
I have no doubt he will find a way to overcome his greatest challenge: the tagger. Jed McEntee, Ben Long and Xavier O'Halloran have all effectively negated his brilliance in the past three matches. Maybe those stints in the midfield, which were mooted in the pre-season, will become real.
IF ...
there is a trait emerging with this club ...
THEN ...
it is the unwanted flat track bully one. More than competitive in home fixtures, regularly ordinary in away matches. Last win when wearing the “white” shorts was more than a year ago. I keep getting told the Suns are set to explode. I keep seeing underwhelming performances when pressure is at its highest.
IF ...
the Giants are to surge in the back half of 2024 as they did in 2023 ...
THEN ...
there will be one man to thank, once again. Toby. The composure, the skill, the ice in the veins, the brilliance, the ability to do what probably less than five others could do in the entire competition in that final quarter, round 11 goal-kicking moment against Geelong at The Cattery was a high-end highlight of the year.
IF ...
you want to read some highly creative writing ...
THEN ...
take a look at Jeff Kennett's latest attempt during the week to distance himself and his club from the unmitigated mess caused by the "investigation" he and his board commissioned into racism at Hawthorn. This probe may have been sincere at part of its core, but all aspects of it, and Kennett's subsequent attempts at recreating history, have only served to heighten hurt – for everyone involved, the First Nations players and their families, as well as those accused of racism. The Hawks, and I have been saying this since early 2023, in my eyes still need to be heavily sanctioned by the AFL for the manner in which this was conducted and then "dumped" with the AFL, regardless of Kennett and the then-CEO no longer being in positions of Hawk power, and regardless of where the matter officially lands in the courts system.
IF ...
the injury to Jake Lever is a problem ...
THEN ...
it has also provided journeyman Adam Tomlinson with unexpected opportunity and responsibility. Was very good in Lever’s absence last week. And he’s too good to be playing VFL.
IF ...
Clarko escaped AFL sanction, again, for his latest embarrassing, uncontrolled, swear-laden spray in front of too many people ...
THEN ...
yet again we hear that he’s sorry. That his actions were undisciplined. That he will seek to be better the next time. Rinse, repeat. Blah, blah. Clarko has been a resource drain on a struggling club that employed him to solve problems, not create them, last weekend’s explosion being the third time he’s directed very poorly chosen words at, or within earshot, of people who didn’t deserve them, in his short time as Roos’ coach. North has won just three matches since he was appointed. And even when on a bye this week, people around him were left to mop up another mess of his creation.
IF ...
an 8-4 scoreline is pretty good ...
THEN ...
from a premiership-chance lens, it is misleading. Just not good enough. Many concerns out of Thursday night’s loss to Carlton.
IF ...
Dusty hasn’t spoken publicly while accumulating 298 AFL matches ...
THEN ...
I’d be staggered if he bothered to do so just because he’s about to hit 300. And I couldn’t care less, because he’d be only giving it lip service, going through the motions, if required to do so. He hates media. That’s OK, and it’s created a mystique for him. Same with Buddy. But it also proves the AFL’s media policy is a joke. Other sports bodies around the world wouldn’t tolerate it.
IF ...
I’m to take a proper deep dive on the Saints’ list ...
THEN ...
Ouch!! Midfield a mess. Depleted backline. Questionable forward line. No quick way out of this mess.
IF ...
Chad, Isaac and Errol sounds like the Drive show team on a FM radio station ...
THEN ...
it's also the most destructive AFL midfield trio we've seen since Judd-Cousins-Kerr. Unfortunately, they're off air this week, a non-ratings period with the Swans on a bye.
IF ...
performances on the home patch of turf have improved dramatically this season ...
THEN ...
results away from Optus Stadium are still hitting embarrassing levels. Round 11's 99-point loss to the Crows was soooo disappointing.
IF ...
there's a lot of noise about where Rory Lobb may be next season ...
THEN ...
let's see what he's got in the next month as a Bulldog. Gets his chance via Naughton's knee injury. Has become a footy "gun for hire", and that's OK, and there is no surprise that he wants to join a fourth club. But there's a big opportunity and role for him right now.
AND THIS ONE'S FOR THE AFL
IF ...
change has finally been ordered on the holding-the-ball rule, and only after Vossy, Dimma, Kenny and others publicly went hard with what so many other senior people in football had been saying for a very long time ...
THEN ...
being late is better than not acting at all. And please, please, please, as part of this change, make sure that free kicks are paid against those dozens of players who on weekends become B-grade actors and pretend they can't dispose of the ball - when they very clearly can!! – in the hope of enforcing a ball-up.
