Without dwelling too much on Carlton, Round 8 2015 drew the curtain on the longest and one of the most decorated coaching careers of all time. It began at Footscray, ended at Carlton, and spent most of it’s time at Collingwood. But the Malthouse legacy will forever be synonymous with the decade of dominance spent with the West Coast Eagles in the 90s. The Eagles made the Finals of all 10 seasons under Malthouse, including 2 Premierships from 3 Grand Final appearances. But that may perhaps be going a bit too far back in history for this post.
This post is all about the state of the League after Round 8 2015, and also to make a minor correction on my pre-round post when I stated there were “3 Grand Final re-matches” during the round when there were in fact 4. The Bulldogs have only one Premiership to their name, and it was with a victory over Melbourne in 1954 that this was achieved. But that was over 60 years ago back in the old VFL days, while the other 3 (Geel v Carl, Ess v Bris, Haw v Syd) were all replayed match-ups from “AFL” Grand Finals. But with that being said, in each of these 4 replayed match-ups from previous Grand Finals, the results were all reversed! .. Says something about atoning for past indiscretions I think.
In fact, “atonement” seemed to be a bit of a Round “theme” this week. With Richmond atoning for their Elimination Final loss last year against Port Adelaide, and Collingwood atoning for their two previous shock losses to Gold Coast. Even GWS got in on the atonement theme by defeating probably the biggest bullies of their AFL infancy the Adelaide Crows. But the Giants are beginning to grow into their name by breaking new ground and winning 3 straight matches, solidifying their Top 4 position in doing so.
Which leaves us with two more victories from the Round to address. And while neither of the teams from WA have broken any of their own winning streak records just yet (Freo’s stands at 9, West Coast’s at 11), this week saw both the Dockers and the Eagles in the winners circle for the 5th straight Round, breaking their previous combined best of 4 weeks last achieved late in the 2006 season. The last time either team tasted defeat was when the two actually played each other in Round 3, and if it eventually takes that match up to break either streak we’ll have to wait until Round 20.
A similar trend seems to be taking shape in New South Wales, with the other occupants of the Top 4 both sitting on 3 straight wins. The Swans and the Giants also played in Round 3, and have a return match in Round 21. But both NSW teams will have to face either one of the WA teams before that match happens. The Sydney v West Coast match-up being the earliest between the current Top 4 .. But that’s just getting too far ahead of us now. Who knows what the Top 4 will look like by then. Things change pretty quickly in football. So one week at a time folks .. One week at a time!
