IN THIS week's Sliding Doors, brought to you by ventraip australia, our chief football correspondent Damian Barrett puts Mitch McGovern, Darcy Moore, Port Adelaide, St Kilda, plus more in the Doors' spotlight.
What's Barrett saying about your club? What's he saying about the AFL? Check it out.
| If | Tom Lynch is in the 22 THEN ... |
| then | the Crows are a four-goal better team. |
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| If | the ins for the home Saturday night match against North are McCluggage, Hodge and Hipwood ... |
| then | can't see why the winning streak won't easily continue. |
| If | Mitch McGovern can't be bothered presenting himself in OK physical condition ... |
| then | that's mostly on him. But it's partially on those in power who let him get away with it until it suited their cause to make a public example of him. |
| If | the word hamstring is used in any sentence which also includes Darcy Moore ... |
| then | it's a major worry. Given his troubled history with that part of the body, even minor damage is major. |
| If | he thought the AFL dream was over and hadn't played it since a debut-only game 1056 days ago for another club ... |
| then | we love the Will Snelling story. And it's another positive, mid-season draft story. |
| If | the Dockers' bottom appeared to have fallen out after four consecutive losses ... |
| then | the infected elbow of Nat Fyfe is something they could have done without. Big worries for this club, regardless of result against the Swans on Saturday. |
| If | I was once fully against finals being held at the Cattery ... |
| then | I've done a 180. Chris Scott making a clear, compelling case. Which won't be agreed to by the AFL (unless it's a very low-drawing opponent) due to deals caught up in other arrangements inside other contracts. |
| If | you really want to know when the Suns went wrong ... |
| then | go back to 2008 when Andrew Demetriou was in charge. And more pertinently, the reasons behind a fresh club being brought to life. |
| If | your star, out-of-contract midfield gun hurts his knee in round 16, has that same knee strapped up for the start of round 17 and three minutes into that game hurts that same knee ... |
| then | the media is more than justified to ask questions about Giants' medicos. We definitely should have asked more of them in the past. |
| If | you think Clarko has given up on 2019 ... |
| then | you don't know Clarko. He's still thinking finals. We'll know if he's being delusional after the early Sunday game against Geelong. |
| If | as expected the Dees lose to the Eagles and the Blues beat the Suns ... |
| then | Melbourne will finish round 18 in second last place. Just absorb that. The pre-season favourite potentially with just the hapless Suns beneath them. |
| If | a club sacks its coach, installs a young caretaker, moves on its footy department boss, has a former director making calls and job offers to seemingly anyone he can think of, all the while supposedly conducting a "review" ... |
| then | we have no idea why the CEO would take off overseas for a long time during this period. Rhyce Shaw has had to be not just interim coach, but list manager, confidant, spruiker, motivator, spokesman. |
| If | you're a really tough club, and not just a pretend, conditionally tough one ... |
| then | you'll attempt to "terrorise" – that's your word, Ken, not ours - Dusty this Saturday at the MCG. |
| If | indeed Port does seek to "terrorise" Dusty ... |
| then | there's going to be massive, ugly-for-Port consequences. |
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| If | I've been critical of the Saints even before this season became another mess ... |
| then | I don't resile. It's been a disaster on so many fronts. But all senior officials deserve credit for the class in which they have dealt with sacked coach Alan Richardson. They were upfront from the outset with him, honest the whole way through. |
| If | he's one of the professionally proudest men to have ever entered the AFL ... |
| then | he's going to be shattered at missing the finals for the first time in his nine seasons as coach. But at this stage of his club's life, and with a further four years contractually guaranteed, John Longmire knows that not being part of September is a big-picture positive. |
| If | the heart was in the mouth for every play of the three matches in which Nic Naitanui played this year ... |
| then | it's one of the great disappointments that it won't be this week, and probably for many more beyond it. As sad as it sounds, maybe his body just isn't capable of taking him to a deserved premiership. |
| If | the Bulldogs seem most potent when Beveridge convinces his players they are underdogs ... |
| then | he's got an easy "sell" this week, being able to warn his men that this weekend's game against St Kilda is more dangerous with Ratten as coach than it would have been with Richardson. |
| If | you actually bothered to take a moment to understand what Steve Hocking meant when he said he was hoping to "get a balance back in so that (tackling) is not a feature of the game" before you sprinted to outrage ... |
| then | you wouldn't have looked as silly as you now do. |
