Well, the Blues were sent packing in unceremonious fashion. The Dogs, they were dogged, and they were sent packing as well. The Power coughed up another golden opportunity in the worst way possible. Can they possibly recover? And the Giants they coughed up a twenty seven point laid deep into the third quarter against the crosstown rivals in what was an incredibly spirited weekend. They were the losers. They were the losers, the Giants, the Power, the Dogs and the Blues. Two of them go home. Two of them have to butter up and get it done this weekend in semi finals. The winners, well, they can please themselves. The Lions roared loudly at the Gabba in what will be the last game at the Gabba for this season. They belted Carlton in this submission sixty zerol at one point, if you don't mind. The first hour of footy on Saturday night was incredible, perhaps as good as we've seen from any team this season. The Hawks, they seize control of the game with what they're calling fockball. Never heard of it, don't know what it means, but I'll tell you what. It's impressive to watch Geelong perhaps the most impressive performance of the weekend. They were irrepressible, unbelievable in smacking Port Adelaide to all parts of Adelaide Oval and eighty four point victory if you don't mind. And the number one seeds, the big dogs, the top dogs, the Sydney Swans all hail Sir Isaac. Isaac Keenney's individual performance was as good as we have seen. So we moved past the qualifiers and the eliminators and it's all elimination from here. Semi final weekend, too big games to fascinating games. The high flying Hawks travel across the border and take on the wobbly power in Adelaide. That's on Friday night on Channel seven, of course, and I'm keen to explore some game style adjustments that I think Port should make can make, and if they do make, we'll give them a chance to win this game, which is just a strange thing to say. Port Adelaide, the team that finished second. Port Adelaide, the team who will be playing at home, yet most and I mean most giving them next to no chance. More on that momentarily, and what I have already claimed or proclaimed as potentially the game of the finals, Brisbane travel to Nji Stadium for the first time since Round seven twenty twenty. At my account, about eight or so of those players in the Brisbane lineup have never played at the Showgrounds in Western Sydney. To tackle the Giants. That will be an absolute That will be an absolute cracker. But before we dive into the semis, let's have a look back on what we saw on qualifying final and Elimination Final weekend. It was Geelong winning by eighty four points twenty goals eighteen. It could have been even bigger the margin. It could have easily been one hundred points. And we know Geelong can beat Port Adelaide by one hundred or more in finals. We've seen it before two thousand and seven Grand Final. Hello. But I ask you which was more stunning. Was it Geelong's near perfect performance there's sheer dominance, the eleven goals to one second half. Was it Max Holmes just running away from anyone and everyone in a power jumper? Or was it the absolute collapse from Port Adelaide, the no resistance from Port Adelaide, the no energy, the lifeless port Adelaide, which was more stunning? Which was more surprising, I know, in the current climate in twenty twenty four and probably for the past ten years, really, we instantly jumped to the negative. We instantly jumped to Port Adelaide, and I did tweet before the game that if Port were to lose, it would be one of the all time cough ups, and I think it is. But you also need to look at Gelong and how good they were, how great they were, and how flawless they were. Now we know Tom Stewart was out of that game late. The rumors were circulating on Thursday afternoon that he'd already bought it a flight home. He was too sick to be around his teammates. Will fearful for those on the plane with him. He's probably infected a few of those guys. But I thought the balance in the evenness of that back six or seven looked really good even without Tom Stewart. The Cats invest a lot of energy and a lot of planning trying to ensure Stuart can be set up to be their best player, certainly out of the back half. But I loved Zach Guthries game. He stepped up and rebounded a fair bit as well, so he was a big, big contributor in that game. Of course I loved and everyone loved Laws and Humphreys. He was flawless with the ball perfect by foot, both feet, doesn't matter right or left. It's not perfect, it doesn't look perfect, but certainly goes where it needs to go. So Gufrie and Humphreys down back were sensational. Jack Henry, I thought, played his best game of the season, eerily in defense and certainly with the ball in hand he was able to hit those short forty fives and help kick start Gelong's ball movement. So from a Geelonged perspective, sensational. From a port perspective, a couple of coaching errors. Now, look, it's easy to sit here in hindsight and say Port did this and did that wrong, and mucked up here and mucked up there. But but starting Jason horn Francis on the bench beggars belief, to be honest. Now, I've asked around for the opposition view, the contrarian's opinion to why he starts on the bench, and they tell me they don't like to have Rosie Butters and horn Francis around the ball at the same time. They prefer a more balanced group. So Willem Drew might be in there. He might be standing shoulder to shoulder with your opposition's best midfielder, which he tried to do last Thursday night. Ollie Wins goes through there. But I ask you this in order of preference, Rosie, Butters and Horn Francis. As a genuine clearance, explosive breakaway play in a big final, Francis has to be number one. He has to be prioritized strely. He needs to be the one around the ball. Now, the game was dead and buried, but you could see for yourself in the second half he was the only one capable of running away and breaking away from stoppage. Connor Rosie played maybe his worst game for the season. Butters, of course, was subbed out of the game at half time with a rib sternham lung issue and it's tbc what he looks like moving forward. But not only was it the seventy nine percent game time that Horn Francis played. Now that's not not a low number. That number's fine, but starting him on the bench for the first handful of minutes. Occasionally, when there are no goals in a game, it can be really hard for that first rotation to happen. Some teams force it and will come early. I know Geelong like to bring their first rotation at three or four minutes and they'll say, look, we'd prefer to prefer you to come off after two and a half minutes, then seven and a half minutes. But occasionally it can be difficult for those guys to get on, so Horn Francis is stuck on the bench and then he spends some time forward anyway, So I'd love to know the game type percentage that he spent as a true midfielder, as a genuine midfielder, particularly when the game was still up for grabs in the first half. Look in the second half it was dead and buried. So that was the first issue. And I can absolutely guarantee you if I was a betting man, which some say I am, I can categorically, absolutely sensationally guarantee you Horn Francis will be starting on the ground against the Hawks on Friday Night. The other issue, or the other coaching issue I thought Port run into was how they mishandled Sean Manner going up to stoppage. So he was the half forward, whether they knew it was going to be him, or not, it didn't really matter as soon as you see the Cats send a forward up to outnumber around the ball, and I think they've primarily done that knowing how potent Port's midfield can be. So they're trying to get the midfield stoppage numbers, clearance numbers on level pegging by using an extra half forward. So the used Manner, who let me just say, I didn't know he could hunt the opposition and hunt the ball like that. He hunted the ball and the opposition like a genuine inside mid But what he also did was able to get forward and get ahead of the game as well. So Port tried to counteract it with Darcy burn Jones sitting off the back of the stoppage and meeting Manner as he was going to come through. Now we saw on the vision. I was watching a little bit of the vision at halftime and they picked up Manna just floating forward and no one picked him up at all, No port Adelaid players identified him as a forward getting forward, getting free out of the ball, and he was able to kick a goal or two from that, but his damage was being done around the ball whilst burn Jones was effectively standing. They're just waiting for him to come back and meet him. So that was a big miss. I think they needed to send Burne Jones up and into the stoppage and fight fire with fire. Don't allow Geelong to have an extra around the ball. Go up there and fight fire with fire. So a couple of misses from the Power coaching group, of course. Jeremy Cameron nine indisposals, four goals three. I thought it literally did quite well, funnily enough. In most situations. Cameron just makes you pay. Any positional error, any mental error, he just makes you pay. He just makes you pay. There are a couple of goals that Cameron got that there was nothing a leader could do about it, no pressure on the ball at all. Shannon Neil, of course, a lot spoken about his place in the team. He did a great job, played his role really really well, took some big marks, took nine marks overall, kicked two goals too. I thought he did his job beautifully. And without Farrell and Houston in that team, and perhaps we overlooked how significant a loss those two guys are, both rebounding the footy by foot but also playing on some of the dangerous small forwards for Geelong bort not only had no rebound, they had no one to play on Brad Close, they had no one to handle Manner, no one to play on Tyson Stengel, who was a big factor in the first half, no one on grind Myers, and so on and so forth. So the Cats small forwards and we know how important they are. They get up, they get involved in the game and they're so creative. They just dominated that game. So Geelong they roll to get another preliminary final at the MCG against either GWS or Brisbane. Twenty four hours after Thursday night, we saw ninety seven thousand people pack in to the MCG for the All Victorian contest between the Dogs and the Hawks, and what a dominant display from Hawthorne. It was. Forget about the Dogs. We can't trust them. Hopefully I have been clear enough with that perspective in that opinion over the past couple of months. You just can't trust them. You couldn't trust them last year and you can't trust them this year. And look, I accept the fact they made a Grand Final in twenty twenty one, but when you look at their results for twenty two, twenty three and now twenty four They're a mediocre football team. It's the only way you can describe them. I'm not sure how you can describe them in any other way, whether you've got the view that their least is excellent or their least has big holes in it, I'm not sure you can describe them as anything other than mediocre. But this was all about the Hawks. Now, the scoreboard won't tell you that they hammered and handled the Dogs, but these numbers will. So the Hawthorne were plus eighty four in disposals plus twenty and inside fifties, plus twenty five in contested possession, an area where the Dogs pride themselves, took thirty one more marks, took nine more marks inside forward fifty and had twenty nine scoring shots to seventeen, and telling Lee had eleven more tackles. So not only did they have eighty four more possessions, they also laid eleven more tackles. That was a proper beat down. The kel Shadeer story is amazing. I played some footy with his brother Harry in Adelaide. Great athletes, dynamic athletes, and clearly kel Shadeer is just taking to the game. He's emerging before our very eyes and Massimo de Ambrosio I was one who sat in the camp that he was robbed of an All Australian wing spot. I think you need to pick true wingers in the wing spots. Thirty two disposals, five hundred meters gained or more if you don't mind Lloyd Meek? Has he improved? Has anyone improved more than Lloyd Meek since he left Fremantle and made his way to the Hawks. Twenty three disposals, forty six hitouts and a goal. He dominated Tim English in that game. Nick Watson, he kicks four and he displays the pick five ability that the Hawks used on him. And again I'll say that the Dogs are who I thought they were. They'reun'trustworthy and I'm not sure what they do moving forward. Bonton Pali played forward for too long. Luke Beveridge tried to deflect that, but for some reason he did. You can book your vak Doggies fans now. The game of the weekend promised to be the Sydney Showdown, and the Sydney Showdown delivered in spades. The Swans were down twenty seven points deep into the third term and they rolled victory behind an epic individual performance from Isaac Keeney. Let's not forget what Tom Papley did. He was the energizer, he was the firecracker, he was the fire starter, and he was the one winning that crucial one v two at half forward against two giants. Got the handball over the head to Isaac Keeney and he kicked the goal, dribbling it through from about seventy meters. An incredible performance from both those two guys. But I ask you have we seen a better individual performance in finals in the past handful of years than what we saw from Isaac Keeney. Thirty disposals, eight score involvements, seven key clearances and three goals plus you can give him the Mark of the Year as well for good measure. Unbelievable from Heeni And I ask you again, have we seen a better individual performance in the past five or six years than what we saw from Izach Heene Braden Campbell. I thought he was desperately unlucky to be the sub. He would not not be the sub in seventeen other teams, but he delivered massively. Perhaps in a way he didn't help himself in terms of getting into the twenty two because he played so well and so impactfully as the sub nine disposals and the goal in that last quarter. I'd been worried about Big Brody Grundy, but he won that clash against Kieran Briggs was back winning the footy, looked energized, looked fit, looked like he was covering the grand well. So he'll benefit from a week off as well, Big Brody Grundy. From a GWS perspective, Sam Taylor and Jack Buckley were huge. The Swans forwards did next to nothing. I know a Mardy kicked that Lake goal, but Taylor and Buckley was so so good for most of that game. Toby Green's effort or not effort, but his game was interesting. He was wasteful with the ball in hand. He missed some opportunities. It has been a funny old season for him. His number stack up, but when you're trusting your eyes, it's just been a weird season for them. This was game of the weekend and I'm telling you now I picked these two teams to meet in a Grand Final, and not much has changed my opinion. I think these two, alongside Geelong, are clearly the best three teams left in it. Finally, Brisbane and Carleton what a way to when the weekend we witnessed an epic miss match. Brisbane took ak forty sevens and machetes to this fight. Carlton only had butter knives in their kit. They had nothing in their arsenal to get it done. The game quickly more from a game of guys who had been injured, guys who were a little bit nervous and tentative, to straight up embarrassment. That first hour, unfortunately, was straight up embarrassing. Tom deconing I think as the sub was the best indication that these guys weren't right physically and probably emotionally. You're looking around thinking, well, if Tommy's good to go, why is he the sub? Well, I guess being the subs telling me he's not good to go? How many others aren't good to go? Was Adam Cherry a week to ten days shy of the proper preparation coming off multiple hamstrings? Like there were so many guys. We know Sam Dougherty wasn't fit to play in terms of match practice, but they took a chance. It didn't work. I do give Carlton a pass, I know not many are I give them a pass. I think they can rebound strongly. In twenty twenty five, that's so many injuries at just the wrong time. It all went wrong for them. You might say their form was dipping already, and maybe it was. They will give in next to no chance to recover from that because of those injuries. So I think they can rebound. But after it was sixty nothing, Brisbane were thinking about next week and Carlton were thinking how did this go so wrong? All right, let's move on to this week's games just quickly. How can Port win? So I mentioned off the top they need to make a couple of game style adjustments for them to win. Now I'm talking about the team that finished second and what they need to do to beat the team who finished sixth at the team who finished second's home ground. Amazing, but that's where we are without Houston and Farrell and giving enormous credit to Hawthorne's defensive system, I think Port needs to be a little bit more precise, a little bit more composed, and perhaps dare I say it, careful with the ball coming out of their back half. They're incredibly aggressive, trying to bite off a real sizzle kick through the corridor and when it works, they score. But I like to call those kicks goals no matter what, because if they land and they hit the target, they're a goal for your team, But if they miss the target or they're intercepted, it's a goal to the opposition. And Hawthorne have got so many small, twitchy, fast footed young guys who can cut those balls off. I think it's just asking for trouble, particularly when the guys who had been making those kicks all season long for Port were Hughes and Farrell And now you're looking at maybe your bergman, you're rolling one or two others back there, Darcy Burne Jones to try and create that ball movement. It's a dangerous proposition. So I think that's their first adjustment. Not quite as aggressive going through the corridor. You can still look to use the corridor, but use it with shorter kick mark type of ball use. Don't try and scissle one forty meters through the air a foot off the ground and try and hit a target because those kicks are going to get cut off, and when they get cut off, you can't defend them. And the other thing speaking of defending is perhaps Port Adelaide need to hold a bit of a goalkeeper, a bit of a gatekeeper, and ain't a defender this week, and I'm wondering whether it's a savaate Galia. He hasn't done much as a forward. He went there out of desperation. He's done a job, but I think and as poorly as Charlie Dixon was last week. Georgiard's with more space, maybe that'll work better for him. I would give great consideration to moving Radigalia down back and just asking him to keep everyone in front of him. Don't let a Hawthorne player get between you and the goals, and be vocal with that. Because Hawthorne aren't built to take you up high, turn you around and with their great ball use and foot skills be able to get that in between kick and then get out the back. And because Port like to defend quite high, they are vulnerable to that. So does Radigalia go back and does he stand as an anchor? Just give him the instruction to not let any Hawthorne play between he and the goals. Don't get too high. If you're going to make a mistake, be too far away from the ball, because at least we can have some protection. Too. Many times Port Adelaide get goals scored against them with players running back toward goal with little pressure on them. They just can't make that mistake. So two big adjustments for them, But I think that's where they're at. Typically at this time year, you wouldn't want to make these type of adjustments, but that's where Port Adelaide are at. Their performance last week tells us that. And in away Hawthorne and maybe the worst type of opposition for them to come up against, but hey, they're on their home deck. Once they run through that batter, they're not going to be thinking about that eighty four point loss. They're going to be thinking about getting the job done. GWS and the Lions. Now again, I'll double down. I think this could be the best game all of September. I think we're in for a barn burner here, folks. Now, we saw the Giants obliterate Brisbane on Anzac evening. That was in Canberra, and we spoke too on radio this week. Last week I should say Brandon Stasvich, the lockdown defender from Brisbane, and he said that game was the turning point for them. They went away, they thought about it, they talked about it, and they really made a point to change their season and they have. They went on a big winning run which was ironically ended by the Giants again in Brisbane, was much closer game. The game where you'll remember I think the game was in round twenty two. The lines are up by thirty points at quarter time. And lost that game, but there were some numbers that really stood up for Brisbane and something they'll look back on and say we can do it again. So it's interesting. As I said, around eight players from Brisbane haven't played at the Showgrounds in Sydney. It's a great place to play. I'm not sure it to be full Brisbane and the Giants in Western Sydney is a second semi final, not necessarily the way the AFL would have drawn it up, but that's the game we've got and I reckon she'll be an absolute cracker. I'll give the edge just to GWS, but I think both these teams can win the whole damn thing if they get rolling. I absolutely do. The Giants weren't far away. I mean they were a better fourth quarter away from getting through and earning a home prelim. As it is against the best team in footy. So either of these two teams can win this game. Either of these two teams can be there on Grand Final Day, and I think either of these two teams can win the premiership. But I'll give the edge to the Giants. That means the lines will be done. I'll give the edge to the Hawks. I wouldn't be surprised if Port Adelais picked himselves up off the canvas. But I'll go with the Hawks and I'll go with the Giants. So there it is, two games on a big weekend, semi final foot He can't wait for it. Those who love the NFL and the NFL is back in action, make sure you check out the Field NFL on any of your various podcast platforms, whichever you prefer. And the Fab five, which is my five favorite NFL bets for the weekend, started off inauspiciously as I'm sitting down to record where one and three. We're one and three, so we need the New York Jets to get the job done plus two and a half for us to go two and three on the weekend. But make sure you have a listen to the podcast. Have a look at the five of those that have been watching the AFL Show all season long, stick with us only a couple of weeks to go, having an absolute blast doing it, and thanks to those who have been watching week in and week out. So we've got two games on the slate, the Lions at the Giants the Hawks at the Power Enjoy them both. You can see them both live and free on Channel seven. I'll chat to you next week.

Well, the Blues were sent packing in unceremonious fashion. The Dogs, they were dogged, and they were sent packing as well. The Power coughed up another golden opportunity in the worst way possible. Can they possibly recover? And the Giants they coughed up a twenty seven point laid deep into the third quarter against the crosstown rivals in what was an incredibly spirited weekend. They were the losers. They were the losers, the Giants, the Power, the Dogs and the Blues. Two of them go home. Two of them have to butter up and get it done this weekend in semi finals. The winners, well, they can please themselves. The Lions roared loudly at the Gabba in what will be the last game at the Gabba for this season. They belted Carlton in this submission sixty zerol at one point, if you don't mind. The first hour of footy on Saturday night was incredible, perhaps as good as we've seen from any team this season. The Hawks, they seize control of the game with what they're calling fockball. Never heard of it, don't know what it means, but I'll tell you what. It's impressive to watch Geelong perhaps the most impressive performance of the weekend. They were irrepressible, unbelievable in smacking Port Adelaide to all parts of Adelaide Oval and eighty four point victory if you don't mind. And the number one seeds, the big dogs, the top dogs, the Sydney Swans all hail Sir Isaac. Isaac Keenney's individual performance was as good as we have seen. So we moved past the qualifiers and the eliminators and it's all elimination from here. Semi final weekend, too big games to fascinating games. The high flying Hawks travel across the border and take on the wobbly power in Adelaide. That's on Friday night on Channel seven, of course, and I'm keen to explore some game style adjustments that I think Port should make can make, and if they do make, we'll give them a chance to win this game, which is just a strange thing to say. Port Adelaide, the team that finished second. Port Adelaide, the team who will be playing at home, yet most and I mean most giving them next to no chance. More on that momentarily, and what I have already claimed or proclaimed as potentially the game of the finals, Brisbane travel to Nji Stadium for the first time since Round seven twenty twenty. At my account, about eight or so of those players in the Brisbane lineup have never played at the Showgrounds in Western Sydney. To tackle the Giants. That will be an absolute That will be an absolute cracker. But before we dive into the semis, let's have a look back on what we saw on qualifying final and Elimination Final weekend. It was Geelong winning by eighty four points twenty goals eighteen. It could have been even bigger the margin. It could have easily been one hundred points. And we know Geelong can beat Port Adelaide by one hundred or more in finals. We've seen it before two thousand and seven Grand Final. Hello. But I ask you which was more stunning. Was it Geelong's near perfect performance there's sheer dominance, the eleven goals to one second half. Was it Max Holmes just running away from anyone and everyone in a power jumper? Or was it the absolute collapse from Port Adelaide, the no resistance from Port Adelaide, the no energy, the lifeless port Adelaide, which was more stunning? Which was more surprising, I know, in the current climate in twenty twenty four and probably for the past ten years, really, we instantly jumped to the negative. We instantly jumped to Port Adelaide, and I did tweet before the game that if Port were to lose, it would be one of the all time cough ups, and I think it is. But you also need to look at Gelong and how good they were, how great they were, and how flawless they were. Now we know Tom Stewart was out of that game late. The rumors were circulating on Thursday afternoon that he'd already bought it a flight home. He was too sick to be around his teammates. Will fearful for those on the plane with him. He's probably infected a few of those guys. But I thought the balance in the evenness of that back six or seven looked really good even without Tom Stewart. The Cats invest a lot of energy and a lot of planning trying to ensure Stuart can be set up to be their best player, certainly out of the back half. But I loved Zach Guthries game. He stepped up and rebounded a fair bit as well, so he was a big, big contributor in that game. Of course I loved and everyone loved Laws and Humphreys. He was flawless with the ball perfect by foot, both feet, doesn't matter right or left. It's not perfect, it doesn't look perfect, but certainly goes where it needs to go. So Gufrie and Humphreys down back were sensational. Jack Henry, I thought, played his best game of the season, eerily in defense and certainly with the ball in hand he was able to hit those short forty fives and help kick start Gelong's ball movement. So from a Geelonged perspective, sensational. From a port perspective, a couple of coaching errors. Now, look, it's easy to sit here in hindsight and say Port did this and did that wrong, and mucked up here and mucked up there. But but starting Jason horn Francis on the bench beggars belief, to be honest. Now, I've asked around for the opposition view, the contrarian's opinion to why he starts on the bench, and they tell me they don't like to have Rosie Butters and horn Francis around the ball at the same time. They prefer a more balanced group. So Willem Drew might be in there. He might be standing shoulder to shoulder with your opposition's best midfielder, which he tried to do last Thursday night. Ollie Wins goes through there. But I ask you this in order of preference, Rosie, Butters and Horn Francis. As a genuine clearance, explosive breakaway play in a big final, Francis has to be number one. He has to be prioritized strely. He needs to be the one around the ball. Now, the game was dead and buried, but you could see for yourself in the second half he was the only one capable of running away and breaking away from stoppage. Connor Rosie played maybe his worst game for the season. Butters, of course, was subbed out of the game at half time with a rib sternham lung issue and it's tbc what he looks like moving forward. But not only was it the seventy nine percent game time that Horn Francis played. Now that's not not a low number. That number's fine, but starting him on the bench for the first handful of minutes. Occasionally, when there are no goals in a game, it can be really hard for that first rotation to happen. Some teams force it and will come early. I know Geelong like to bring their first rotation at three or four minutes and they'll say, look, we'd prefer to prefer you to come off after two and a half minutes, then seven and a half minutes. But occasionally it can be difficult for those guys to get on, so Horn Francis is stuck on the bench and then he spends some time forward anyway, So I'd love to know the game type percentage that he spent as a true midfielder, as a genuine midfielder, particularly when the game was still up for grabs in the first half. Look in the second half it was dead and buried. So that was the first issue. And I can absolutely guarantee you if I was a betting man, which some say I am, I can categorically, absolutely sensationally guarantee you Horn Francis will be starting on the ground against the Hawks on Friday Night. The other issue, or the other coaching issue I thought Port run into was how they mishandled Sean Manner going up to stoppage. So he was the half forward, whether they knew it was going to be him, or not, it didn't really matter as soon as you see the Cats send a forward up to outnumber around the ball, and I think they've primarily done that knowing how potent Port's midfield can be. So they're trying to get the midfield stoppage numbers, clearance numbers on level pegging by using an extra half forward. So the used Manner, who let me just say, I didn't know he could hunt the opposition and hunt the ball like that. He hunted the ball and the opposition like a genuine inside mid But what he also did was able to get forward and get ahead of the game as well. So Port tried to counteract it with Darcy burn Jones sitting off the back of the stoppage and meeting Manner as he was going to come through. Now we saw on the vision. I was watching a little bit of the vision at halftime and they picked up Manna just floating forward and no one picked him up at all, No port Adelaid players identified him as a forward getting forward, getting free out of the ball, and he was able to kick a goal or two from that, but his damage was being done around the ball whilst burn Jones was effectively standing. They're just waiting for him to come back and meet him. So that was a big miss. I think they needed to send Burne Jones up and into the stoppage and fight fire with fire. Don't allow Geelong to have an extra around the ball. Go up there and fight fire with fire. So a couple of misses from the Power coaching group, of course. Jeremy Cameron nine indisposals, four goals three. I thought it literally did quite well, funnily enough. In most situations. Cameron just makes you pay. Any positional error, any mental error, he just makes you pay. He just makes you pay. There are a couple of goals that Cameron got that there was nothing a leader could do about it, no pressure on the ball at all. Shannon Neil, of course, a lot spoken about his place in the team. He did a great job, played his role really really well, took some big marks, took nine marks overall, kicked two goals too. I thought he did his job beautifully. And without Farrell and Houston in that team, and perhaps we overlooked how significant a loss those two guys are, both rebounding the footy by foot but also playing on some of the dangerous small forwards for Geelong bort not only had no rebound, they had no one to play on Brad Close, they had no one to handle Manner, no one to play on Tyson Stengel, who was a big factor in the first half, no one on grind Myers, and so on and so forth. So the Cats small forwards and we know how important they are. They get up, they get involved in the game and they're so creative. They just dominated that game. So Geelong they roll to get another preliminary final at the MCG against either GWS or Brisbane. Twenty four hours after Thursday night, we saw ninety seven thousand people pack in to the MCG for the All Victorian contest between the Dogs and the Hawks, and what a dominant display from Hawthorne. It was. Forget about the Dogs. We can't trust them. Hopefully I have been clear enough with that perspective in that opinion over the past couple of months. You just can't trust them. You couldn't trust them last year and you can't trust them this year. And look, I accept the fact they made a Grand Final in twenty twenty one, but when you look at their results for twenty two, twenty three and now twenty four They're a mediocre football team. It's the only way you can describe them. I'm not sure how you can describe them in any other way, whether you've got the view that their least is excellent or their least has big holes in it, I'm not sure you can describe them as anything other than mediocre. But this was all about the Hawks. Now, the scoreboard won't tell you that they hammered and handled the Dogs, but these numbers will. So the Hawthorne were plus eighty four in disposals plus twenty and inside fifties, plus twenty five in contested possession, an area where the Dogs pride themselves, took thirty one more marks, took nine more marks inside forward fifty and had twenty nine scoring shots to seventeen, and telling Lee had eleven more tackles. So not only did they have eighty four more possessions, they also laid eleven more tackles. That was a proper beat down. The kel Shadeer story is amazing. I played some footy with his brother Harry in Adelaide. Great athletes, dynamic athletes, and clearly kel Shadeer is just taking to the game. He's emerging before our very eyes and Massimo de Ambrosio I was one who sat in the camp that he was robbed of an All Australian wing spot. I think you need to pick true wingers in the wing spots. Thirty two disposals, five hundred meters gained or more if you don't mind Lloyd Meek? Has he improved? Has anyone improved more than Lloyd Meek since he left Fremantle and made his way to the Hawks. Twenty three disposals, forty six hitouts and a goal. He dominated Tim English in that game. Nick Watson, he kicks four and he displays the pick five ability that the Hawks used on him. And again I'll say that the Dogs are who I thought they were. They'reun'trustworthy and I'm not sure what they do moving forward. Bonton Pali played forward for too long. Luke Beveridge tried to deflect that, but for some reason he did. You can book your vak Doggies fans now. The game of the weekend promised to be the Sydney Showdown, and the Sydney Showdown delivered in spades. The Swans were down twenty seven points deep into the third term and they rolled victory behind an epic individual performance from Isaac Keeney. Let's not forget what Tom Papley did. He was the energizer, he was the firecracker, he was the fire starter, and he was the one winning that crucial one v two at half forward against two giants. Got the handball over the head to Isaac Keeney and he kicked the goal, dribbling it through from about seventy meters. An incredible performance from both those two guys. But I ask you have we seen a better individual performance in finals in the past handful of years than what we saw from Isaac Keeney. Thirty disposals, eight score involvements, seven key clearances and three goals plus you can give him the Mark of the Year as well for good measure. Unbelievable from Heeni And I ask you again, have we seen a better individual performance in the past five or six years than what we saw from Izach Heene Braden Campbell. I thought he was desperately unlucky to be the sub. He would not not be the sub in seventeen other teams, but he delivered massively. Perhaps in a way he didn't help himself in terms of getting into the twenty two because he played so well and so impactfully as the sub nine disposals and the goal in that last quarter. I'd been worried about Big Brody Grundy, but he won that clash against Kieran Briggs was back winning the footy, looked energized, looked fit, looked like he was covering the grand well. So he'll benefit from a week off as well, Big Brody Grundy. From a GWS perspective, Sam Taylor and Jack Buckley were huge. The Swans forwards did next to nothing. I know a Mardy kicked that Lake goal, but Taylor and Buckley was so so good for most of that game. Toby Green's effort or not effort, but his game was interesting. He was wasteful with the ball in hand. He missed some opportunities. It has been a funny old season for him. His number stack up, but when you're trusting your eyes, it's just been a weird season for them. This was game of the weekend and I'm telling you now I picked these two teams to meet in a Grand Final, and not much has changed my opinion. I think these two, alongside Geelong, are clearly the best three teams left in it. Finally, Brisbane and Carleton what a way to when the weekend we witnessed an epic miss match. Brisbane took ak forty sevens and machetes to this fight. Carlton only had butter knives in their kit. They had nothing in their arsenal to get it done. The game quickly more from a game of guys who had been injured, guys who were a little bit nervous and tentative, to straight up embarrassment. That first hour, unfortunately, was straight up embarrassing. Tom deconing I think as the sub was the best indication that these guys weren't right physically and probably emotionally. You're looking around thinking, well, if Tommy's good to go, why is he the sub? Well, I guess being the subs telling me he's not good to go? How many others aren't good to go? Was Adam Cherry a week to ten days shy of the proper preparation coming off multiple hamstrings? Like there were so many guys. We know Sam Dougherty wasn't fit to play in terms of match practice, but they took a chance. It didn't work. I do give Carlton a pass, I know not many are I give them a pass. I think they can rebound strongly. In twenty twenty five, that's so many injuries at just the wrong time. It all went wrong for them. You might say their form was dipping already, and maybe it was. They will give in next to no chance to recover from that because of those injuries. So I think they can rebound. But after it was sixty nothing, Brisbane were thinking about next week and Carlton were thinking how did this go so wrong? All right, let's move on to this week's games just quickly. How can Port win? So I mentioned off the top they need to make a couple of game style adjustments for them to win. Now I'm talking about the team that finished second and what they need to do to beat the team who finished sixth at the team who finished second's home ground. Amazing, but that's where we are without Houston and Farrell and giving enormous credit to Hawthorne's defensive system, I think Port needs to be a little bit more precise, a little bit more composed, and perhaps dare I say it, careful with the ball coming out of their back half. They're incredibly aggressive, trying to bite off a real sizzle kick through the corridor and when it works, they score. But I like to call those kicks goals no matter what, because if they land and they hit the target, they're a goal for your team, But if they miss the target or they're intercepted, it's a goal to the opposition. And Hawthorne have got so many small, twitchy, fast footed young guys who can cut those balls off. I think it's just asking for trouble, particularly when the guys who had been making those kicks all season long for Port were Hughes and Farrell And now you're looking at maybe your bergman, you're rolling one or two others back there, Darcy Burne Jones to try and create that ball movement. It's a dangerous proposition. So I think that's their first adjustment. Not quite as aggressive going through the corridor. You can still look to use the corridor, but use it with shorter kick mark type of ball use. Don't try and scissle one forty meters through the air a foot off the ground and try and hit a target because those kicks are going to get cut off, and when they get cut off, you can't defend them. And the other thing speaking of defending is perhaps Port Adelaide need to hold a bit of a goalkeeper, a bit of a gatekeeper, and ain't a defender this week, and I'm wondering whether it's a savaate Galia. He hasn't done much as a forward. He went there out of desperation. He's done a job, but I think and as poorly as Charlie Dixon was last week. Georgiard's with more space, maybe that'll work better for him. I would give great consideration to moving Radigalia down back and just asking him to keep everyone in front of him. Don't let a Hawthorne player get between you and the goals, and be vocal with that. Because Hawthorne aren't built to take you up high, turn you around and with their great ball use and foot skills be able to get that in between kick and then get out the back. And because Port like to defend quite high, they are vulnerable to that. So does Radigalia go back and does he stand as an anchor? Just give him the instruction to not let any Hawthorne play between he and the goals. Don't get too high. If you're going to make a mistake, be too far away from the ball, because at least we can have some protection. Too. Many times Port Adelaide get goals scored against them with players running back toward goal with little pressure on them. They just can't make that mistake. So two big adjustments for them, But I think that's where they're at. Typically at this time year, you wouldn't want to make these type of adjustments, but that's where Port Adelaide are at. Their performance last week tells us that. And in away Hawthorne and maybe the worst type of opposition for them to come up against, but hey, they're on their home deck. Once they run through that batter, they're not going to be thinking about that eighty four point loss. They're going to be thinking about getting the job done. GWS and the Lions. Now again, I'll double down. I think this could be the best game all of September. I think we're in for a barn burner here, folks. Now, we saw the Giants obliterate Brisbane on Anzac evening. That was in Canberra, and we spoke too on radio this week. Last week I should say Brandon Stasvich, the lockdown defender from Brisbane, and he said that game was the turning point for them. They went away, they thought about it, they talked about it, and they really made a point to change their season and they have. They went on a big winning run which was ironically ended by the Giants again in Brisbane, was much closer game. The game where you'll remember I think the game was in round twenty two. The lines are up by thirty points at quarter time. And lost that game, but there were some numbers that really stood up for Brisbane and something they'll look back on and say we can do it again. So it's interesting. As I said, around eight players from Brisbane haven't played at the Showgrounds in Sydney. It's a great place to play. I'm not sure it to be full Brisbane and the Giants in Western Sydney is a second semi final, not necessarily the way the AFL would have drawn it up, but that's the game we've got and I reckon she'll be an absolute cracker. I'll give the edge just to GWS, but I think both these teams can win the whole damn thing if they get rolling. I absolutely do. The Giants weren't far away. I mean they were a better fourth quarter away from getting through and earning a home prelim. As it is against the best team in footy. So either of these two teams can win this game. Either of these two teams can be there on Grand Final Day, and I think either of these two teams can win the premiership. But I'll give the edge to the Giants. That means the lines will be done. I'll give the edge to the Hawks. I wouldn't be surprised if Port Adelais picked himselves up off the canvas. But I'll go with the Hawks and I'll go with the Giants. So there it is, two games on a big weekend, semi final foot He can't wait for it. Those who love the NFL and the NFL is back in action, make sure you check out the Field NFL on any of your various podcast platforms, whichever you prefer. And the Fab five, which is my five favorite NFL bets for the weekend, started off inauspiciously as I'm sitting down to record where one and three. We're one and three, so we need the New York Jets to get the job done plus two and a half for us to go two and three on the weekend. But make sure you have a listen to the podcast. Have a look at the five of those that have been watching the AFL Show all season long, stick with us only a couple of weeks to go, having an absolute blast doing it, and thanks to those who have been watching week in and week out. So we've got two games on the slate, the Lions at the Giants the Hawks at the Power Enjoy them both. You can see them both live and free on Channel seven. I'll chat to you next week.