4 Points: Can we back in a Melbourne flag?

This isnt a fugazi. This isnt just noise. This is an ear worm with worrying news.

Jake Lever has done his knee. For a team with all the threads knitting together at the right time, this is a thread that has now been cut. Melbourne will not unravel, but they are a lot thinner from the loss.

Lever was brought in by Melbourne to fix an accepted deficiency in defence that will now once more be exposed.

He was the player who played defence as offence. He was – is – a dynamic intercept-marking defender who allows a team to repel attacks and rebound. He is ranked fourth in the league this year for intercept possessions behind only Scott Thompson, Rory Laird and Alex Rance. He is the player that shifts the momentum from back foot to front foot.

But he has re-injured the cruciate ligament in the knee that was reconstructed when he was a 17-year-old in 2013, and now needs another reconstruction.

Advertisement

That is significant. It was significant that Melbourne tinkered immediately against the Dogs on Saturday and still won the game handsomely with him off the ground. But the win was not as significant as the loss of Lever.

His loss will have repercussions for the season. It does not mean the Melbourne momentum will be halted but it will not help it accelerate.

Lever is not Alex Rance, but he is good. He is structurally significant in the release he provided for Tom McDonald to play forward, or on a wing.

Melbourne will almost certainly not send McDonald back behind the ball to cover for Lever because he has become so important for them in front of the ball. McDonald's teammates still laugh and shake their heads at the idea of 'Tom McDonald, 'dangerous goal kicking forward'. As a defender, it was preferable that he gave the ball to others to kick, yet as a forward he is a good shot for goal.

Not only have his scoring contributions helped the Demons, he has helped make Jesse Hogan a better forward. Hogan is now second in the Coleman Medal race behind Ben Brown.

Hogan and McDonald are ranked one and three for scoreboard impact from rounds six to ten. Hogan has kicked 14.3 in that time with 10 score assists. McDonald has kicked 15.3 with eight score assists. They are punishing numbers and reinforce the fact McDonald will now stay forward.

Regardless of Levers injury it would have to be a moment of desperation for Simon Goodwin to switch him back to defence. Goodwin would be expected to bring in a player to play the Lever role and minimise the disruption to the team. The replacement would most likely be Sam Frost. Josh Wagner also played five games this year in defence, but at 189cms he is not a key defender.

Melbournes counter attack is weakened slightly by a backline of Oscar McDonald and Sam Frost, who both have limitations with the ball in hand. Lever took time to establish himself, but his last month has been everything the Demons chased him for.

Fortunately they have also been able to blend good running from behind the ball, with Neville Jetta playing the best footy of his career. Jayden Hunt was a revelation last year but cant get a game now. He has played five games this year but has been out of the team since round seven. That is a measure of how Melbourne is travelling for he would be a certain starter at most other clubs.

Like Hunt, Dom Tyson has also been squeezed out. Tyson is a solid player and has been a regular since coming to the club, but now he has been pushed down the pecking order primarily by the pleasing emergence of Angus Brayshaw.

The Demons have won the last six matches by no less than six goals a game. They have said they want to blinker out the external noise, the fugazi, but Levers injury is an unpleasant noise it is hard not to hear.

Too hot to handle

This week it was Hoskin-Elliott who kicked six. Two weeks ago it was De Goey who kicked six, and in round seven it was five goals. In round four it was Jaidyn Stephenson who booted five.

Collingwood plays a forward structure that uses two tall forwards, but it's often the third target who has done the damage.

Yes, mature-aged debutant Brody Mihocek – who replaced Ben Reid – booted four goals but this has not normally been the case for the Pies. More importantly, he was not beaten in the air, and gave them the contest they are looking for from a key forward.

But it is this collection of players – Hoskin-Elliott and De Goey in particular, and the novice Stephenson to a lesser extent – who are all good overhead and at ground level and so able to be isolated deep depending on who is in the purple patch. It makes the Pies an awkward forward set up to defend against because their contributors are varied. They booted 21 goals on Sunday against Fremantle.

Collingwood, like Melbourne, is now firmly in the eight and on a hot streak. But like Melbourne, Collingwood's wins have been against thin opposition, although they have both beaten fancied Adelaide. Next they play each other, so one will at least walk away with their reputation more enhanced.

Aye of the Tigers

Richmond has taken their game back to a level that is better and higher than any opponent.

Essendon was a decent opponent, in that they had won their last two games. They were not a decent opponent in that they had already shown this year a propensity to deliver this sort of match. They have too many players who float in and out of games, too many players who can be shut down.

In truth Richmond played as if the oppostion was irrelevant. It felt like it would not have mattered who they played because the Tigers were up for the event and intent on taking down whomever they played.

Richmond had that mania about their game that will be pleasing in two respects. One, they have retained the level of intensity of September last year, and two, it verifies that they have found gears in their game now. They have been winning games this year with pressure but without having to dial the pressure up to ten in every moment of every game to get the job done.

When Essendon had their best periods of play they played the way you have to against Richmond. They took the game to the corridor and ran at the Tigers. It is risky, but counter-intuitively it is less risky than the safe option of going long down the line. That safe approach plays to Richmonds defensive zone and thus plays into their hands. Going to the corridor, taking the game with pace and putting the defence under pressure is the key. But there is risk with it when it doesnt work. And Richmonds pressure is so good it often does not work. But it is the risk you have to take.

The stage is set

Callum Sinclair acted so badly when he fell to ground on Friday night he could be used in a regional TV ad selling feed grain. He was rightly fined, if not for staging, then for crimes against acting.

Alex Rance should also be fined. His dive was slightly worse in the context of his game because it worked – he got the free. The umpire simply told Sinclair to get up and stop being a dill so it had no impact on the game whereas Rance might not have got the free without the dive.

His trampolining lurch forward in the marking contest exaggerated any contact there was. Yes, this happens weekly in a less exaggerated way, but that doesnt mean you dont tell Rance to ease up a little and make him a little lighter in the pocket. He has a bit of form here too, after throwing himself backwards from Buddys push last year.

Nat Fyfe, meanwhile, will probably get off with a fine for his forearm to Levi Greenwood's head on the basis it was careless contact not intentional. He had jumped and left the ground when he struck Greenwood in the head. It was late, and being to the head had the potential for serious injury which are complicating factors, but he might reasonably argue it was part of the play and Greenwood played on without any apparent lingering concern.

Michael Gleeson is a senior AFL football writer and Fairfax Media's athletics writer. He also covers tennis, cricket and other sports. He won the AFL Players Association Grant Hattam Trophy for excellence in journalism for the second time in 2014 and was a finalist in the 2014 Quill Awards for best sports feature writer. He was also a finalist in the 2014 Australian Sports Commission awards for his work on Boots for Kids. He is a winner of the AFL Media Association award for best news reporter and a two-time winner of Cricket Victorias cricket writer of the year award. Michael has covered multiple Olympics, Commonwealth Games and world championships and 15 seasons of AFL, He has also written seven books – five sports books and two true crime books.

Most Viewed in Sport

Morning & Afternoon Newsletter

Delivered Mon–Fri.