It’s a match made in footy heaven
IT is the marquee match-up of the AFL’s nominal 2018 All Australian full forward against its All Australian full back.
There are only two caveats attached to the Tom Hawkins v Alex Rance match-up on Friday night.
Richmond is extremely likely to back in its system and instead play David Astbury on the white-hot Geelong forward. And is Rance actually the All Australian full back after a six-week period where he has been below par compared to his standards?
Friday night’s game is mouth-watering enough before you even get to who might play on Geelong spearhead Hawkins. Coming off two seven-goal games, he is the hottest forward in the AFL.
Yet the one truism of the way Richmond plays is they don’t really care what the competition wants them to do.
Rance is their 0-30m defender, happy to take whichever tall forward is stationed in his area. So much so that when these two teams met in Round 13, the Tigers threw first-gamer Ryan Garthwaite on to 221game star Hawkins.
Astbury was out with an ankle sprain, but the Tigers refused to upset their structure by pushing Rance further from goal. Garthwaite gave up two early goals but was otherwise extremely solid as Rance instead played 53 solid minutes on Patrick Dangerfield and only 20 on Hawkins.
It has been two years since Rance played Geelong with Hawkins his main opponent, Astbury keeping Hawkins to one goal in last year’s qualifying final. So on Friday night, Rance will almost certainly play on his own man (Patrick Dangerfield or Jack Henry).
Rance has plenty at stake as he tries to do what even AFL legends Steven Silvagni and Matthew Scarlett did not.
Another All Australian jacket for the current All Australian captain would give him five consecutive nods, rarefied air in the modern era. But by his own admission he hasn’t been at his best.
Champion Data actually has Lions full back Harris Andrews ahead of him on rankings along with Jeremy McGovern, nominally the All Australian centre half back.
From Rounds 14-19, Rance averages only 66 ranking points (down from 92 in Rounds 1-13) and 1.8 intercept marks (down from four in Rounds 1-13).
His metres gained have more than halved (278 to 119) and his one-on-one contest loss percentage has doubled (32 per cent from 16 per cent)
Meanwhile Andrews has missed four weeks with a brain bleed and just had seven goals kicked on him by Hawkins.
All of it makes Friday’s clash more intriguing.
In a game where many believe Geelong can knock off high-flying Richmond, we are about to get plenty of answers.
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BIG TEST: Alex Rance of the Tigers handballs while being tackled by Tom Hawkins of the Cats during the round 13 match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.