Each week of the 2024 AFL season, ESPN.com.au's Jake Michaels looks at six talking points.
This week's Six Points features the incredibly underwhelming Toby Greene, woeful officiating, why we should be praising North, as well as Zach Merrett and Jake Waterman.
1. Toby Greene has been the biggest disappointment of the year
Heading into the season I ranked Toby Greene as the No. 1 player in the AFL. Outrageously talented, ultra versatile, a footy IQ that's off the charts, and the swagger ... the swagger alone!
And you know how I know it wasn't an outrageous take? Because not one person pushed back on it.
Now with that said, Greene's first quarter of 2024 has been incredibly underwhelming. And in terms of player expectation, I'm struggling to find anyone who has been more disappointing, thus far.
A quick look at the stat sheet likely won't convey it, with most numbers -- namely disposals, possession rate, inside 50s, and marks inside 50 -- having not dipped too far, but what will stand out is his lack of scoreboard impact.
Greene has kicked just nine goals through six games. If you take out his five goal haul against the Suns during Gather Round, he's kicked four in five games. At this stage last year he had 16 majors to his name.
He's also having a career-worst year in terms of accuracy. Greene's lowly 33% conversion rate has seen him fall to second-last in the league for player expected scores.
But the most damning number is his Rating Points plummet. Last year, Greene was the No. 1 rated general forward in the league, scoring 14.3 Rating Points per game. This year, he's averaging just 8.4 per outing. That average ranks him 231st in the competition among the 442 players to have featured in at least three games, sandwiched between the likes of James Borlase, Riley Bonner, Jack Carroll, and Chayce Jones.
So why hasn't Greene's lacklustre start to the year been a bigger story? Well, the Giants have been winning. At least until last week, when he went and got himself suspended for a game. I'm not sounding the alarm on Greene -- in fact, I'm not worried about him at all -- but there's no doubt there should be enormous pressure on him to deliver when he returns to action in Round 8.
2. Scared umpiring is ruining the game
For the second time in eight games, Adelaide should feel completely robbed of victory. From an officiating perspective, a botched result once in eight games isn't good enough. For it to happen twice in eight is just plain embarrassing.
But it's not just the Crows who have been stitched up this year. Fremantle would argue they should have beaten Carlton during Gather Round, if not for a dubious mark decision and subsequent free kick that flipped the game on its head.
The AFL introduced a fourth field umpire at the beginning of the 2023 season in a bid to improve the quality of officiating and ensure fewer missed calls, particularly in crunch time. In theory, it made sense. In practice, not so much.
I don't understand how not one umpire could blow their whistle for a Crows free kick after Sam Draper dived on top of the ball in the dying seconds of last Friday night's thriller at Adelaide Oval.
ESPN's @j96barca talks about the biggest issue with AFL umpiring in 2024, and it isn't the umpiring itself.
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This one is as clear cut as it gets. You don't need the rule book to confirm it's a free, our eyes can see it. Draper never lost possession after falling on top of the ball and made absolutely no effort to release it. Unsurprisingly, the league confirmed the wrong decision was made -- not that it will appease Crows fans.
I'd argue the latest failure by the league's officiating crew was the second-worst late-game field umpiring decision of the last 10 years, only behind the non holding-the-ball call when Zac Bailey wrapped up and dispossessed Mark Blicavs on Brisbane's goal line. We simply cannot allow these monumental gaffes to decide games.
3. Those arguing North Melbourne should have thrown their final game of 2023 are only encouraging tanking
There's something hypocritical going on in our game and it's really getting on my nerves.
As Harley Reid's star rises with each passing week, more and more footy fans and media pundits seem to be campaigning the idea North Melbourne should have purposely lost their Round 24 game against Gold Coast last year.
Of course, losing that game would have meant the Kangaroos finished the season on the bottom of the ladder, securing the No. 1 draft pick and the opportunity to select Reid a few months later. Instead, they won it and slipped to pick No. 2.
But the people arguing North should have lost on purpose -- we don't need to name names -- are some of the same ones who dragged Melbourne through the mud for its tanking scandal under Dean Bailey in 2009. Do you not realise the Kangaroos throwing that game against the Suns would have been effectively the same thing?
We should be celebrating the club for playing the season out with integrity and not attempting to manipulate the draft in order to land Reid.
4. The kick-in kings and why they are so important
Just about everyone seems to love smashing players who take kick-ins, often describing them as 'cheap disposals'. But have you ever stopped to think that maybe the kick-in, when literally every opposition player is in front of you, might be one of the toughest and most important kicks in the game?
Here's who has taken the most kick-ins at your club since 2020, as well as how often those chains reach the forward 50, and result in a score or goal.
5. Only Isaac Heeney and Patrick Cripps are having better seasons than Zach Merrett
The best thing the Bombers have done in the last decade is give the club captaincy to Zach Merrett.
The star midfielder took his game to another level in 2023 and seems to be raising that bar yet again in the early part of this season. In fact, I'd argue only Isaac Heeney and Patrick Cripps have enjoyed better starts to the year.
Merrett is averaging career-best numbers across the board. He ranks top 10 for disposals, handball receives, looseball gets, uncontested possessions, and Ranking Points, but it's his immaculate ball use and ability to set up attacking thrusts that make him such a valuable asset to the Bombers.
FACT: Merrett is the only player in the league to poll 10+ Brownlow Medal votes in each of the last eight seasons.
He's also one of the most consistent players in the league, almost routinely providing A-grade production. His lowest disposal count of the year is 27. I have him potentially polling Brownlow Medal votes in five games. And even his worst AFL Fantasy game is 103 (only Merrett, Heeney and Harry Sheezel are yet to dip under 100 this season, among players to have played six games).
Give that man more respect!
6. Take a bow, Jake Waterman. You're in very rare company
Anyone have the Eagles scoring back-to-back wins on their 2024 footy bingo card? I certainly didn't. I can also comfortably say I didn't foresee consecutive bags of five goals for Jake Waterman, yet here we are.
It might not sound that amazing but it's something the King brothers, Toby Greene, Aaron Naughton, Bayley Fritsch, Charlie Dixon, among many others, have never managed. It's even more remarkable when you consider just two weeks ago Waterman had played 88 games and never once finished with a five goal haul.
Since 1999, there have been just five players achieve the feat of backing up their first career game of five with another one the following week. The only one to play more games before doing it than Waterman was Drew Petrie, who did it in games 119 and 120.
In these last two games, Waterman has also clunked 13 marks inside 50 and eight contested marks. He's looming as a real weapon for the Eagles moving forward.