MARCUS: Well boys, funny story. Driving into Pakenham this morning I stopped at the Cardinia Road/Princes Highway intersection and saw a kangaroo dodge the traffic and cross the road and head towards Grandvue Estate. It was so bizarre, so unnatural, and I think there are few places that can provide eye-catching and out-of-the-ordinary moments quite like a sporting field can, hence us being here as sport reporters. Dave, you obviously had a huge weekend and we’ll get to you in a second, but Jonty, please open the episode today with your best action from the weekend.
JONTY: I’ve got two pieces. There was a play on Saturday in the Ellinbank and District Football League grand final that encapsulated Buln Buln’s premiership. Ruck, Bobby McCallum, who won best-on-ground honours this year, got the ball to Matthew Gray, who won the corresponding medal last year. Gray marked the ball on the point of the 50-metre arc, then went back and kicked a goal, and it laid the platform for a really strong second quarter for Buln Buln. They were on top in the second quarter but did not get the scoreboard nourishment they deserved, however I thought that play epitomised the confidence they played with all day, and was a great summation of their back-to-back premiership success over the last two years.
MARCUS: Scoreboard nourishment…that’s a new one!
JONTY: Also, Riak Andrew has had a very good three weeks for the Dandenong Stingrays. He closed down first round prospect Harry Armstrong yesterday and is now firmly in draft contention.
DAVE: Interesting that you should mention him Jonty… we’ll get to that in a second. Boys, what a day at Garfield it was on Saturday for West Gippsland Football Netball Competition grand final day. There was an estimated 5000 people there, and the best highlight came from Orlando Kane-Gillard from Phillip Island. The Goon kicked the first five goals of the game and you thought ‘what’s going on here?’, but Kane-Gillard picked the ball up in heavy traffic early in the second quarter and got the ball rolling for Phillip Island, and it was an absolute ripper, right in front of one of the beer tents that gave it a big roar. But I’m giving my best action to Jarrod Smith. In the last quarter, Nar Nar Goon was a point down at three-quarter-time and Harrison Brain put them in front four minutes into the last quarter. The ball then went into the Goon forward line again, and when a Phillip Island defender picked up the ball, Smith ran him down with a big tackle shortly after Brain’s goal and put them further in front. Smith didn’t have a great day as a whole but for seizing the moment with a run-down tackle and goal to put them two scores in front, he gets my best action.
MARCUS: My best action goes to a guy who could probably win this award every week if I watched him closer – Wandin’s Aaron Mullett. During yesterday’s Outer East Football Netball preliminary final against Woori Yallock, he let rip with an incredible 50-metre pass that landed perfectly on the chest of Brodie Atkins streaming into an open goal. It was such a good kick that I think Atkins couldn’t believe the quality and actually dropped the mark, but kept his composure and ran into an open goal to put the icing on the cake. He had a defender right on his tail but played the situation perfectly by not taking possession, meaning he would earn a free kick if he got tackled. It’s fair to say that I’m very excited for next Saturday’s grand final when Wandin and Narre Warren go toe-to-toe again.
GOON SALUTES
MARCUS: Dave, massive Saturday for you watching Nar Nar Goon triumph in both seniors and reserves football. What does that say about the club’s football program?
DAVE: They won a few netball flags as well. Nar Nar Goon had a lot of quality players come into the club this year. I think in the last three years, they’ve played against Tooradin in the reserves grand final, so they’ve always had strong depth, but this season’s it’s gone to another level. Guys like Harrison Brain, Ryan Bromley came back, Taylor Whitford; the coach of Casey’s VFL team, a 31-year-old who’s played in five premierships in the Tasmanian State League. He’s an elite footballer and almost as good as Trent Armour; quick-thinking and hard at it. They’ve recruited so well.
JONTY: Whitford is regarded as one of the best players to have played in the TSL.
DAVE: I went through the last quarter and got the stats, and he was the number one player on the ground. He had seven kicks and took four marks and controlled the last quarter. They’re got players like that, and they’re recruited all these blokes on the back of the club’s culture. Whitford, Smith, they’ve all come in because they’ve got mates there and that’s what stands out to me about this premiership year. They’ve got a huge supporter base despite not having heaps of success. They’ve won two flags in the last 44 years; since 1980, they’ve only won in 2010 and now 2024, but go to a home-and-away game at Nar Nar Goon and there are always heaps of people there. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s one town removed from Pakenham and suburbia and it has the country town feel, but there’s something magical about that club. They had two players announce their retirement, in Brent Hughes, who I learned this morning started his career as a 14-year-old in 2005, and was the only remaining premiership player from 2010, and Troy McDermott, who was a premiership player at Beaconsfield in 2014. Then there’s kids like Clancy Pope, a teenager who’s won a flag at a club where his dad didn’t. But I think when I look back, the image I’ll have in my head is the president, Patrick Noonan. He’s ridden the highs and lows there more than anyone else and seen so much heartbreak. Seeing him on the interchange bench wiping tears from his eyes when the final siren rung, I think that will be my main memory.
MARCUS: What about Phillip Island? Three losing grand finals now…
DAVE: Their number one goal kicker this year, Billy Taylor, didn’t look right after copping a knock and didn’t come back on in the second half. It was just one of those things that went against them. The wind that had been blowing in the direction they were going to kick to in the final term died-down to nothing, so it feels like something is almost conspiring against them. I wouldn’t worry too much about them, they got smashed with injuries and it was a big effort just to get through.
JONTY: The worst thing when it comes to wind is, I want both teams to have two quarters each with and against the wind, and when it doesn’t happen, it’s a major frustration.
DAVE: They at least had it when it was blowing at its strongest in the second quarter, but you’re right. One last thing, we like to pump our tyres up when we get things right, and back in the preseason I declared that there is ‘no team I’ve seen better placed to win a premiership than Nar Nar Goon is this year’, and they’ve saluted, so I’m pretty happy with that.
MAC’S MEGA DEAL
MARCUS: Jonty, you touched on Riak Andrew earlier and last week his brother Mac made headlines after signing what, if reports are correct, is one of the biggest contracts in AFL history – around $12 million over nine years. What do we think about the contract itself? For me, I was pretty shocked, purely because we don’t know what his best position is yet, and it feels like a deal based on his potential, which is always a risk.
JONTY: I agree with that. Gold Coast has made some strange list management decisions in recent years including some salary dumps, and locking someone in for that long does feel strange, particularly 40 games into his career. We know it takes key position players like him a long time to develop and where he’s going to sit in comparison to the other talls in his draft class, it’s hard to project right now and the contract threatens to be an overpay. In regards to handling the pressure, at least not being in the Fishbowl of Melbourne will help him. From what I’ve heard, he’s a laid-back character, and being in Queensland he’ll be a bit sheltered from the commentary, but there’ll be a lot of expectation on him from the region, being a Berwick junior, not just in the broader football world.
DAVE: What do you guys think of him as a player?
JONTY: He came through the system as a very highly regarded forward-ruck and his intercepting at AFL level has been phenomenal, but he’s probably only played two statement games in his career to date. There have also been reports that Harley Reid should demand $20 million based on what Andrew has received.
DAVE: When you’re coming through junior footy, what’re your dreams? Playing AFL footy, making a list, then in the first couple of years you get the taste of senior footy and you develop that hunger and want a big contract. This seems like it’s been fast-forwarded really quickly and it doesn’t feel like he deserves what he’s going to get, as you said. I wonder, does it take away that hunger? Look at Brodie Grundy at Collingwood, he was a superstar but then you pay him $7 million over seven years and he hardly gets a kick. Travis Cloke did the same after his old man bargained hard for a big contract; as soon as he got it he lost his form. With Mac, is he going to buy a big house, a nice car and lose focus on footy? I wonder about what a contract does for the hunger and natural development side of things, because he seems to have jumped a couple of hurdles already to get to that point.
MARCUS: In terms of pressure, I will put it to you guys that there’s been very few athletes from this region that will face the pressure he will as one of the best paid players in the history of the AFL to date. One nomination I’ll put forward to counter that, and admittedly it’s not the same type of pressure, but Casey South Melbourne champion and Springvale boy Damien Fleming bowling the final over of the 1999 World Cup semi-final, and the underarm down the pitch to affect the run out on the final ball – the pressure then would have been immense.
DAVE: (eyes lighting up) Do you guys remember the cover drive that Lance Klusener hit earlier in that over? It was the hardest rocket that’s ever come off a cricket bat that went straight to the boundary. Fleming had about 10 runs to defend at the start of the over and completely stuffed it in the first couple of balls. Somehow South Africa choked. I was working in Dubai when that happened, and we got a bottle of champagne in the pub we were watching in, sprayed it all over the floor, then I ran and slid across the floor in it – that’s how happy we were.
MARCUS: That could have landed you in jail over there, couldn’t it? Spraying alcohol?
DAVE: Yeah, it depends on where you are. But I can’t think of too many athletes under the same type of pressure like that.
JONTY: I would question how much pressure he’d have internally at the club on a day-to-day basis. For me, anyone that plays in an AFL grand final is under more pressure for that moment in time, than what Mac would be under. Guys like Cody Weightman, who played juniors around here, played in the 2021 grand final. That pressure and weight of expectation, particularly if you go in as favourites, is really hard to replicate. It’s a moment in time, rather than being spread across a long period of time.
DAVE: Do we think AFL commentators will revert back to his contract a lot? Or is that just the way footy is now?
JONTY: Yes. Based on history and the length of his contract, someone line Darcy Parish has come under fire based on his contract terms after Essendon gave him the big deal last season.
MARCUS: You’ve also got disgruntled former players in media roles who laid the foundations for contracts like these to be signed that never got any of the spoils themselves during their playing days, that will potentially feel that he’s earning too much compared to what they did in their prime.
DAVE: Then there’s potentially disgruntled Gold Cast players, too!
MARCUS: Yep, the possibilities are endless; we’ll see how it plays out. Thanks for the chat, boys!
