Four Points: Grundy and the King’s ransom, Tigers’ Mini revival, Hawthorn’s bite

When Brodie Grundy paws the ground in the middle of the MCG waiting for the first bounce on Monday, after Max Gawn kindly acquiesced to his new teammate’s plea to take the first tap against his old team, it distils the narrative of the day and the two teams in into one moment, one contest.

As much as this match is about two top-four teams and a game that could shape the finals, it is more personal than that. It is about the player the Magpies got rid of and the players they preferred to him.

Will Grundy beat Mason Cox in the ruck? Will he outdo Darcy Cameron around the ground? Can he prove Collingwood made the wrong choice and show them that he is the better ruck than either man in black and white?

They are inevitable questions drawn from his high-profile trading, but they are also slightly misguided for, more accurately, the choice was not between Grundy and either of those ruckmen. It was a choice between contracts and a philosophical shift in list management about where and how you commit money under your salary cap.

The contest in that regard is not between Grundy and Cameron or Grundy and Cox. It is Grundy and Cameron and Tom Mitchell. It is Grundy and opportunity cost.

Collingwood could not have brought in Tom Mitchell if they didn’t trade Grundy out. They didn’t get rid of Grundy to get Mitchell, but once Grundy went they needed Mitchell, and they could afford to get him.

So they traded Grundy and even after paying $300,000 a year of his salary at Melbourne they still got Mitchell and ended up with more money in the bank to potentially spend on other players in the coming years.

Grundy’s Collingwood contract averaged at roughly $925,000 a season, but in some years it was significantly more than a million.

No one doubted Grundy was a good player, the question was whether you pay a ruckman than much money. Are you better off spending less on a ruck and using that money on midfielders? Collingwood felt so.

The effect of the trade is that Grundy is now being paid by Melbourne about what you would expect him to earn – roughly $600,000. The balance of $300k is being topped up by Collingwood. The Magpies consider the change in the contract not as a $300,000 cost each year, rather a $600,000 saving in the salary cap.

Collingwood used some of the saved salary on Mitchell. Hawthorn are paying about $250,000 of Mitchell’s contract at Collingwood this year. In effect, they sought to solve a ruck clearance problem not with a ruckman but with a midfielder.

The first question they asked was not about whether they liked one ruckman more than the other, it was do we fix a clearance problem by changing the ruckman or changing the mix of players? They changed the mix. And the net effect is they are better at clearances with Cox or Cameron in the ruck and Tom Mitchell ferreting the ball than they were before.

Then there is a debate about the type of ruckmen for the game you play. Grundy’s greatest ability is to that he can run like another midfielder. He is also very good at clearing the ball himself from stoppages. What he is not great at is marking the ball around the ground or forward.

Cameron and Cox provide stronger marking targets up the line coming out of defence than Grundy did.

Under Craig McRae Collingwood like to have their rucks fold back behind the ball to support defence, Grundy preferred to run and push forward with the play.

So the question wasn’t only one of how much you spend on a ruckman, it is what type of ruckman do you want? Grundy is a good player but not the type of ruck that suited what McRae wanted. And with Mitchell at the feet of his two rucks now, Collingwood have found a total package that works regardless of whether Grundy has a good game on King’s birthday.

Tigers’ Mini revival

When Damien Hardwick abruptly ended his coaching career at Richmond it unavoidably indicated the coach felt the team couldn’t play finals this year, for he wouldn’t walk out on them with finals in the offing.

And, yet, it also didn’t signal that at all. Hardwick’s words were actually very specific, for what he said was that he didn’t think he could get them to the finals this year, not that the team couldn’t make finals. There’s a difference. He felt he might have been the one standing in their way. He was wrung out and lost for ways to tease the best out of the players.

Andrew ‘Mini’ McQualter presents as the change of voice, not direction. The Richmond game has not changed. Ordinarily when a coach leaves midyear it is because the team is in trouble and the season is done. The caretaker coach lifts the shackles and urges the players to play with freedom and take risks.

The difference with Richmond is that that has always been their game: play with freedom and take risks. They are not playing like a team that feels doubted by Hardwick. They are playing like a team that feels it can still do something this year. And with teams like the Bulldogs falling in a hole the possibilities of a push for the finals.

The change in fortune at Richmond has partly been personnel – the impact of Toby Nankervis coming back after missing five weeks should not be underestimated – but it is also that Mini change of voice.

Hawthorn’s Lions bite

Hawthorn have lost six games this year by more than 50 points – one of them was just last week – and yet they can come out and do that against the Brisbane Lions, beat a team sitting comfortably in the top four. Again.

This is the Hawthorn team that has won the last four against the Lions and on each occasion the Hawks have been a bottom-six team and the Lions a top-six team. All clubs have bogey teams but having a bogey team at the other end of the ladder to you is just weird.

Hawthorn will continue this year to have some big losses because that is what young developing sides do, but they are interspersing those with wins playing this fast, high handball game.

Whether it was their design or they have happened onto something that works for them but the handball-heavy game when they get it working is very hard to combat. Yes, whenever you touch the ball that often you have more chances for a mistake, but when it comes together like it did on Saturday it creates run and fast ball movement that is hard to combat.

Tackling tackles

After Dan Butler’s surprising suspension for the tackle that concussed Nick Blakey, the change in approach to tackles has become clearer.

Like the bump, the tackle has become an outcome-based offence. If you choose to bump and get the head, then it is on you, you are punished. Now if you tackle and the player’s head hits the ground, regardless of the technique used to tackle, then it is on you, you are punished.

Previously it was only if the method of tackle – the sling tackle, the spear tackle – was inherently dangerous. Now it is about the outcome. It is a reverse onus. It is the responsibility of the tackler not to let the head of the player they are tackling hit the ground.

This implies there are no accidents in football and that everything is avoidable. That is a hard argument to prosecute in a collision sport.

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