CARLTON hosts Hawthorn at Etihad Stadium on Friday night and there is plenty about both clubs dominating the media on the morning of the game.
Increasingly the news breaker, Gerard Whateley published a story to the ABC website late on Thursday night declaring that Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has a three-year contract extension sitting on his desk merely awaiting his signature.
Readers of The Age then awoke on Friday morning to a report by Caroline Wilson that Melbourne was offering Clarkson a five-year deal to cross to the club he played 41 games for in 1996 and 1997 after leaving North Melbourne.
Importantly, Wilson’s Footy Confidential co-host and Melbourne powerbroker Garry Lyon offered a firm, but on the record "no comment" when queried on the offer by Wilson.
Writes Wilson: "While Clarkson has said in the past week that he expects to be with the Hawks next season - and both parties remain confident of that outcome - a Melbourne offer of five years and up to $1 million a season could test Clarkson's resolve."
We strongly expect Clarkson to stay at Hawthorn, but he must be pleased that the negotiations have become as drawn out as they have, because the better the Hawks play and the more interest he attracts from outside Waverley Park, the more money he stands to make in his next coaching contract.
Blues can be unsociable, too
Hawthorn got its season back on track last year with a dose of unsociable football in round nine against Carlton. Chris Judd was hit hard early and the Blues finished with just one fit player on the bench in the 50-point loss to the Hawks at Etihad Stadium.
Jake Niall writes in The Age that the Blues believe they are better placed to withstand any physicality from the Hawks this time around, should it eventuate. They believe the recruitment of mature-aged players such as Nick Duigan and Jeremy Laidler will make a big difference on Friday night.
When asked whether the Hawks physically targeted the Blues last year, Hawthorn football manager Mark Evans said all he could recollect from the match was that it was the first week the Hawks decided to start ramping up their interchange rotation numbers.
Media Watch was at that game and remembers how the Hawks harassed the Blues at every opportunity and how, with the exception of a period in the third quarter, the Blues barely offered a yelp. We can say with reasonable confidence that it will be an entirely different proposition this time around.
Juddy or Buddy?
Snapping at the heels of the established footy media for several years have been the various online footy blogs, that, it must be said, regularly produce some excellent content.
And five of them had their moment in the sun in The Age on Friday, asked to chime in on the debate most of us have engaged in at one time or another - Juddy or Buddy.
The invited blogs were Contested Footy, After Grog Blog, The Roar, Dreamteam Talk and Footy Tragic. And the result?
Juddy 3, Buddy 2.
The various bloggers raved about both players. But the edge went to the Carlton skipper because he is regarded as just that bit more consistent and that he makes his team instantly better. Compare Carlton of 2007 to 2008. The point was made that Judd would walk into St Kilda and instantly make the Saints the premiership favourites.
Media Watch won’t be offering an opinion on which player he prefers. He is tragically biased towards one of the competing clubs on Friday night.
Backing Yarran to shine
In the Herald Sun, Jon Anderson had a chat to Carlton’s recruiting chief Wayne Hughes about the recruitment of Chris Yarran.
Hughes recalled watching Yarran and Fremantle’s Stephen Hill go head-to-head while playing in a WAFL preliminary final. Small forwards in the mould of Eddie Betts and Leon Davis were all the rage at the time and Yarran was touted as a similar sort of player.
But Yarran played further up the ground in that match and Hughes reported back to Carlton coach Brett Ratten that ideally, Yarran would play for the Blues as an attacking half-back flanker.
"Right from when he arrived I'm sure 'Ratts' [Carlton coach Brett Ratten] had it in his mind that one day he would play off half-back," Hughes told the newspaper.
As mentioned before, the Blues were roughed up by the Hawks in the corresponding clash last year and Yarran was among those who failed to shine. He will be a much more important player this time around and the Hawks will give careful consideration as to the right match-up. That Michael Osborne wasn’t recalled by the Hawks to fulfill precisely this role is a surprise.
Rocket's replacement
With Rodney Eade taking the sensible approach and choosing not to see out the remaining three games as coach of the Western Bulldogs, the focus on who will replace him at the Whitten Oval begins in earnest.
While not quoted directly in the story, Leon Cameron has indicated to the Herald Sun that he is keen to go through the process, which if successful, would see him to return to the club after a 12-month stint as the senior assistant to Alastair Clarkson at Hawthorn.
Interim senior coach Paul Williams has expressed his willingness to be considered for the position on a permanent basis as well.
Cameron has earned rave reviews at Hawthorn for his work in the forward line, and the Hawks will reportedly let him commence the process with the Bulldogs.
They would hate to lose him during the finals, but it is the same situation Alastair Clarkson found himself in with Port Adelaide in 2004. Clarkson finished up with Port between the qualifying and preliminary finals in 2004 upon his appointment as coach of the Hawks.
Clarkson also let Damien Hardwick leave the Hawks with one game left in 2009 after he won the coaching job at Richmond.
No more Crowbots
The Adelaide Advertiser has looked at Adelaide’s gameplan under stand-in coach Mark Bickley and has delivered a glowing review.
"Gone is the slow-paced, overly structured style, which saw the club slump to its worst ever start to a season [4 wins, 12 losses]," writes Andrew Capel. "It has been replaced by an exciting, unpredictable brand of football built on winning the hard ball and then breaking downfield in waves."
"The Crows have been transformed from Crowbots to hard-nosed adventurers."
They certainly appear to be more entertaining, and had any of their key forwards been able to hang on to the footy a bit more in the opening stages of last Sunday’s match against Geelong, the Crows might yet have stolen the win.
It has been an impressive job audition to date from Bickley.
Swans biggest rivals
The Sydney Morning Herald has identified St Kilda as perhaps the biggest rival the Sydney Swans have in the AFL.
Michael Cowley has identified several previous clashes between the sides, including the 2005 preliminary final, the 'pig on the SCG' match in 1993, and the Tony Lockett-Peter Caven clash of the following year as matches that typify the keen feeling between the two clubs.
There has also been high-profile player and coach traffic between the clubs with Lockett and Barry Hall transferring from the Saints to the Swans, and Sean Demspter, Adam Schneider and most notably, Ross Lyon, heading south to the Saints.
Sunday’s ANZ Stadium clash between the sides is the 51st meeting between the clubs since the Swans decamped to Sydney in 1982.
What the article doesn’t mention is that between 1897 and 1964, the two clubs were separated by only the Albert Park Lake, and that while neither club was particularly successful, their geographical rivalry was really strong.
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the AFL or the clubs.
You can follow Ashley Browne on Twitter @twitter.com/hashbrowne
