Greenwood chooses the perfect moment
THE old saying that it doesn’t have to be your match but it can be your moment never rang truer than for Adelaide’s Hugh Greenwood on Saturday.
Greenwood was a shock omission for the game against the Giants in Adelaide after accumulating 20 touches (10 contested), two clearances and seven tackles in the come-frombehind win over Melbourne in Alice Springs the round before. He was the latest of late call-ups after forward Tom Lynch injured a calf in the warm-up just before the first bounce.
As a result, he had a quiet game for three quarters, but with the game on the line in the final term, he pushed forward to take a strong, contested pack mark and kick truly to give the Crows an eight-point lead on the way to a 21-point win.
Greenwood finished with only seven touches for the game, but every one was contested.
Tarryn Thomas continues to grow and had a major bearing on North Melbourne’s win over Gold Coast on Saturday.
The No.8 selection in his first year was on fire in the first term, booting two goals and giving away another two as the Kangaroos basically killed off the game with a seven-goals-to-one first term.
Thomas drifted out of the game after that stunning opening, finishing with 12 touches, but 10 of those were contested. Teammate Ben Brown finished with two goals, but was slightly below par in his trademark goalkicking as he missed another three shots on goal. FREMANTLE’S Alex Pearce must have walked under a ladder, tripped over a black cat and smashed a mirror previously because he can’t take a trick. The key defender has been a star in the Dockers’ surge up the ladder after finally getting a decent run, with many experts having him as a potential All-Australian.
But in the previous round’s upset win over Collingwood at the MCG, the Devonport draftee suffered a broken ankle, the third lower-leg break of his career.
Pearce had his 2016 campaign terminated after fracturing his right leg and he didn’t play at all in 2017 after suffering a partial fracture in the same leg while doing running exercises.
Pearce had been in careerbest form this season, and is confident he will come back from his latest injury as a better player. “I have been in this situation before, so I know what it feels [like],” said Pearce, who spent 672 days on the sidelines following his two leg fractures.
“This injury certainly isn’t as bad as my last one. It’s not anything too drastic. Once the bone heals, I’ll be fine.”
— with AAP know I am absolutely the right man for a head coaching job at the moment.”
Mitchell said he was enjoying a “pretty good apprenticeship” after returning to Victoria to work under Clarkson.
“At the moment I don’t feel like I could honestly look someone in the eye [and say] I’m the man,” he said.
“Eventually I’d like to get to that point but there’s a lot of learning to happen.”
The four-time premiership player said he had been humbled to be linked with the North and Carlton roles.
Mitchell was not one of six coaches included in the latest intake for the AFL’s level-four program. Carlton interim coach David Teague, Melbourne strategy co-ordinator Craig Jennings, Ashley Hansen and Daniel Giansiracusa (Western Bulldogs), Ashley Prescott (Gold Coast) and Henry Playfair (St Kilda) are the participants.