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 dire Crows, brilliant Nick Vlastuin, and the AFL's blunder of not suspending Scott Pendlebury. Plus, a mythbusters approach to the Charlie Curnow free kick discourse.
1. The biggest disappointment of 2024 thus far is ... Adelaide
If Adelaide loses to Melbourne on Thursday night, in what's the opener to this year's Gather Round, it's season over.
I floated this stat last week ahead of Collingwood's must-win clash against Brisbane and I'm running with it again. In league history, there have been 162 teams start a season 0-4. Just five of them were able to rebound and play finals, meaning 96.9% of those teams missed out.
A loss would leave the Crows with a mountain to climb and they don't appear in any way equipped to be able to conquer it, particularly given the fixture is only getting tougher from here.
The primary concern for Adelaide in the early part of the year has been the drastic drop off in scoring and its efficiency forward of centre.
Last year, they ranked first in the league for points per game (95.3), this year they've plummeted to 17th (55). In 2023, they were also the No. 1-rated side at turning inside 50s into scores, this year they rank dead last in that category, 8% lower than any other team. That includes West Coast.
These issues have a lot to do with the struggling midfield. While the Crows are generating the same amount of inside 50s per game, the inability to win uncontested ball further up the ground means their entries are often rushed and not to the advantage of their forwards. As a result, Adelaide's marks inside 50 have dropped from 13.2 per game in 2023 to just six per game in 2024.
There's no denying Thursday night's game against the Demons is season-defining. The Crows simply must find a way to win and avoid falling into that 0-4 hole which is almost impossible to recover from. If they can't, the season will be viewed as a total failure.
2. Does Charlie Curnow rely on goals from free kicks that much?
North Melbourne fans -- heck, basically every non-Blues fan -- love to get stuck into Charlie Curnow and question just how good the back-to-back Coleman Medal winner really is.
"How many goals would he kick without the free kicks," is an all-too-common line I hear week after week. It was no different on Good Friday when Curnow drew four frees against the Kangaroos and finished the game with four goals next to his name.
But I'm here to debunk this myth! And, as you'll discover, such discourse is a little rich when it's coming from North Melbourne supporters!
For those wondering, the player who has relied on free kicks the least in this time is Brisbane's Zac Bailey. Just three of his 70 goals dating to the start of 2022 have come courtesy of frees.
Anyway, back to Curnow.
So, one in five Curnow goals come from free kicks. Not as many as you thought, right? The other way we can debunk this myth is by looking at who has kicked the most goals in that period not from free kicks. The answer? You guessed it, Curnow.
If you're the focal point of a potent forward line, like Curnow, you're going to draw attention and, as a result, a greater number of free kicks. It's as simple as that. Please give the man some respect!
3. The AFL is afraid to suspend its players and be viewed as 'soft'
When it comes to what's acceptable on the football field, the AFL continues to set an abhorrent example for the next generation.
As expected, Collingwood icon Scott Pendlebury escaped punishment for striking Brisbane co-captain Lachie Neale last Thursday night. The league may as well be yelling into a megaphone that it's happy to have these cowardly actions feature prominently in the game.
Lachie Neale received a free kick following this incident involving Scott Pendlebury.#AFLLionsPies pic.twitter.com/2rE1poEp54
— AFL (@AFL) March 28, 2024
The AFL set a lazy and worrying precedent in Opening Round when it didn't suspend Carlton's George Hewett for a similar hit on Neale. The same can be said when it let Nick Daicos off for striking Blake Acres in a game late last year. The examples are endless and it's a shocking look for the league, which has seemingly done a U-turn from that zero tolerance approach it appeared to be -- correctly -- heading towards half a decade back. Tom Hawkins certainly remembers the automatic week for a punch to the guts.
Any striking -- regardless of a player's record, where the hit lands and if it was on or off the ball -- should be met with, at minimum, a one-week suspension. It's the only way the AFL can eradicate such unnecessary behaviour from the game.
The broadcasters are also not helping the cause, consistently referring to these incidents as 'love taps', while ex-players stick up for their mates by claiming 'there's not much in it'. It's striking, and the attempted downplaying of it is pathetic. The language, attitude and consequences must change.
4. Nick Vlastuin is on target for an unprecedented defensive year
Without Nick Vlastuin, the Tigers wouldn't just be 0-4 in season 2024, they'd likely have a percentage somewhere in the West Coast ballpark.
Vlastuin has bailed Richmond out time and time again and is playing every bit like an All-Australian defender. Perhaps this is the year he finally receives a blazer.
Through the opening four rounds, Vlastuin is averaging 10.8 intercept possessions and 512 metres gained per game. Since 2018, there have been just nine other instances of players averaging those numbers through the first month of a season.
FACT: Vlastuin's 43 intercept possessions is the equal second-most Champion Data has recorded through four games.
No player has ever averaged 10 intercepts and at least 500 metres gained for an entire season. Even the list of eight intercepts and 500 metres gained per game players is extremely short! Here's who Vlastuin is on track to join, if he can keep it up.
There were signs this leap was coming from Richmond's star back.
Since the start of last season, Vlastuin has accumulated the fifth-most Rating Points of any general defender in the league, behind only the more attacking Jack Sinclair, Dan Houston, Nick Blakey, and Jack Crisp.
5. Super subs - the best games we've ever seen from subs
Speaking of Jack Crisp ... eyebrows were raised last week when the Collingwood line-breaker was named as his side's sub for what was a must-win game against Brisbane at the Gabba.
Crisp was injected into the game nine minutes and 27 seconds into the third quarter and absolutely took over, finishing with 13 disposals, six contested possessions, five tackles, and a goal as the Magpies notched their first win of the season.
Champion Data awarded Crisp 14.8 Rating Points in the 51 minutes he was on the field, which is the second-most recorded by a sub since it was re-introduced in 2021. It was also the the third-fewest minutes required to reach that mark since 2015, with only Sam Walsh (Round 19, 2023) and Brent Daniels (Round 12, 2023) doing it quicker -- both of which were subbed out of their respective games.
All of it got me wondering, what's the best game we've ever seen from a sub?
Devon Smith's 15.3 Rating Points in Round 4, 2022 was the most a sub has recorded. That day, Smith had 12 disposals, eight contested possessions, four tackles, two direct goal assists, and a goal of his own in a half of footy.
What about the best sub by minutes played?
Former Tiger and Eagle Patrick Naish takes this one out. Naish recorded a Rating Point every 136 seconds he was on the ground in Round 7, 2021, though he only played six minutes of the game! The best effort with a minimum of 30 minutes played belongs to Carlton's Matt Kennedy in Round 8, 2023. He finished with 11.9 Rating Points from 32 minutes of game time.
6. What I'm looking out for this week at Gather Round
The Gather Round opener between Adelaide and Melbourne has been sold out for some time, so too has Port Adelaide's clash with Essendon the following night. But don't be fooled into thinking that's the measure of whether or not the concept was a success in year two.
Instead, keep an eye on Sunday afternoon's game (barely, mind you. It gets underway at 12:30pm local time) between Gold Coast and GWS, the two expansion sides that are consistently being hosed for generating subpar crowds. I'm fascinated to see the crowd number for this one.
And while we're on the subject of Gather Round attendances, the double-headers are great, in theory, but what seems to happen is we have both games played in front of half empty stadiums. It's an ordinary look.
The AFL needs to incentivize fanbases to either arrive earlier or stick around for the second game. Filling those stands will improve the weekend exponentially.