Chapter 1: What key moments defined Round 9 in the AFL?
The award-winning Crunch Time. Warner fed it out to Heaney from centre-half forward. What a race! Isaac Heaney on song immediately. O'Sullivan loses his feet in the aerial contest. McDonald had a swing outwards tackle. There's Warner. Intercepts the handball. And just as you say he's quiet, he bobs up with a massive goal. Grundy comes around the front. Patley again. We've seen it once.
We've seen it twice. Ruthlessly effective.
Chapter 2: How did Isaac Heaney influence the game early on?
One of the best teams in football. And it's a marvel and did what they do. Oozing class, the Swans led by Heaney, Papley and Blakey. They held off again. A spirited Kangaroos under the lid. Where it rained goals early, then it tightened up late. But yet again, North fall a smidge short against a really good team.
Dishes off to Bedford. Runs to the 50. Bedford doesn't shoot for goal. He's gone for Stringer. There's a hole on the jumper. Stringer's got the ball. Stringer snaps!
straight stringer goals trying to push it forward ricochet to matraca eyes light up lombard top of the square some fancy footwork to get around the traffic and put it through uh it was the expansion club winning saturday afternoon the giants took blow after blow from the plucky bombers but the class up forward led by toby green and jake stringer plus the connor iron one percenter
sealed the game for GWS. Confusing, big week. And the Suns and Darwin, the perfect pair, as they win their ninth straight in the top end, as the Saints have to yet again count their injury toll.
Took a little run, and then fourth hand ball is good to Bailey, smeared into the path of Dempsey, and Dempsey lights it up from the arc. In a whole lot of space, and he's munged the kick inside, 4.50, and Jeremy Cameron takes it on his chest. 40 metres out to the left and directly in front, Goal umpire starts to work a little way to the right, but not a long way.
And he does enough to get his first of the evening. He's hurriedly on the boot forward. Oh, they just split away. And Mano just checks sides and towards goal. Well, they all need the ball except Jack Bowes. And as the sound sounds, he seals the deal in superb fashion.
And an historic night for Pendles. It was the Cats that purred all night. A third quarter onslaught set up in the first 15 seconds set up a huge win. Cameron was brilliant. Holmes and Bailey did their thing. Ollie Henry found form as the Cats start to find their groove in season 2026. That's for Scott Pendlebury.
A week off, but the countdown is on for a magical moment for the AFL in two weeks' time.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did North Melbourne face against Sydney?
Right around Australia from Marvel Stadium on Mother's Day. And a happy day to all the mums out there. This is Sunday Crunch Time. And this and every Sunday right across the SCN radio network or via the SCN app. We do Sunday crunch time for the all-new Ford Ranger Wolf Track V6. And Osito, the Brussels power tools built to work. Osito, do you. Liam Pickering about an hour away.
Jake Melkson will join us in around 90 minutes as well as we build up towards the D's and the Eagles here at Marvel Stadium. And Josh Jenkins, as always, good morning to you.
Good morning, Cam. Good morning. Just catching up on... The GWS Giants who have doubled down on Brad Scott's retaliation to their banner. So some off-field. That was probably the most interesting part of that game, to be honest. I know it was high scoring. I know there was a comeback. But two average teams, if you ask me, on-field.
But off-field, it's been nice and interesting just catching up on the Giants. Replay a little bit of Brad Scott's press conference. So off-field, the social teams are sometimes more interesting than the on-field versions.
Chapter 4: How did the GWS Giants perform against the Bombers?
You know, the old finals drought and, you know, and Brad Scott, I thought, spoke relatively annoyed as he was, spoke fairly well yesterday. At what point, and I know it's a huge thing because they're a powerhouse club that haven't won a final for two years, but at what point does it stop becoming the butt of jokes of other clubs?
When they win one.
Okay. So you have no drama with yesterday?
No, no. I mean, if you don't like it, it's like, I have the same view about when they score in basketball at the end, when they expect them to run the clock out. If you don't like it, stop it. So if you're not happy about the fact you haven't won a final for 7,000 days, well, go and break the drought.
They're not going to get an opportunity to do that this year, I don't think, JJ.
And whose fault's that?
Well, their own.
So, I mean, look, you can complain about it and you can stick up for your club. I'm not having a go at Brad Scott. You can stick up for your club by all means. But I wouldn't imagine if you're an Essendon person complaining and saying, oh, lay off us. You know, we're doing our best. I mean, that doesn't really fly. This is brutal competitive sport. So, if you don't like it, do something about it.
But it was interesting. I thought maybe, you know, typically when you see, a bit of reaction from the opposition. Sometimes you can see that, you know, potentially that was going to be walked back a little bit from the Giants. Oh, you know, maybe we, you know, apologies, we maybe went a little bit too far, but clearly not.
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Chapter 5: What injuries are impacting the St Kilda Saints this season?
I'm just such a strong proponent of building our game in the northern states, in Western Sydney and on the Gold Coast. I think that's really important for the AFL. Yeah, and I'm reluctant to sort of comment on other clubs, but yeah, they make their decisions, we'll make ours.
A little passive-aggressive Brad Scott postgame yesterday. What I want to say, JJ, yesterday, the game, it just felt like we might touch a little deeper onto it later in it. It just felt like Essendon was so good for a decent slab of time, just didn't have the nail to be able to drive into the Giants. And the Giants had that when you're led by two players, and Green in particular, Stringer.
But the smother, the one percentage, JJ, never mean more in AFL than right now. We've got even competition. You can win games.
we've seen some really close games in the last couple of weeks and the one percenters make a huge huge difference and Connor Iden yesterday with a major smother around six minutes out which would have had the game less than a goal the difference Essendon had about four or five players deep in that uh that passage of play and they couldn't get it done we did see it Luke Jackson on Thursday night when Newcombe was about to kick the ball back towards a Hawthorne goal and Jackson led to a Frederick goal that probably shut the gate there and
Earlier in the year, we've seen that big smother, Alex Pearce, when they were able to hold off the Crows in Adelaide. The smother and the actual momentum changer that the smother actually is, is playing a big part in footy, even in the first eight or nine weeks.
Yeah, potentially it's finally a result of the... inability to bump now. You've got to make a different decision. Bumping is dangerous and the alternate decisions you need to make are either smothering or tackling and players are maybe going for smothers more than they once would when they, you know, typically I think you're Natural instinct once upon a time was to get a bit of a bump on.
They're very hot on the late bumps as well. So not only are you potentially at risk of a suspension if you hit the player in the wrong spot, but equally even a fair bump that is deemed a split second late. The umpires have been super hot on that this year. So maybe it's a byproduct of that. But we have seen some... magnificent efforts from players late in games.
And, you know, typically we talk about that as clutch marks and clutch goals, but clutch defensive efforts are just as important.
Yeah, most certainly because it's just a... It's a mental situation where everything... I'm not saying it's a 12-point turnaround because it has to be a specific, you know, lead to a goal straight away. But it is such a mental change.
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Chapter 6: How do the current standings affect team strategies in the AFL?
So the top six, the fight for sixth. Because you really probably look at it right now, Sydney, Fremantle, Hawthorne, Brisbane, maybe Geelong, they've played some good footy in the last couple of weeks. But you have sort of four probably clear-cut sides. And not to say that it won't change, but if there's four sides, to finish in the top six means you get a week off
which is something that teams have become accustomed to in recent times. But the week off, you play a team that hasn't had any break on the back of the home and away season. So the wild card, put it to one side if your thoughts are so against it, which so many listening to SCN is or are.
But the fact is, if you finish sixth, that is such a huge, monstrous advantage over a team to finish the seventh. We're talking more about finishing 10th compared to 11th. But 6th v. 7th. So the Gold Coast Suns are currently 6th. Melbourne have a chance to go up and be on the same amount of wins today against West Coast. But that's a big one as well.
It's an interesting structured ladder that I think will have greater importance in conversation in the back end of the year. And it applies to how close some of these games are.
I can't see. I mean, that six is the six, is it not? I mean, something would have to go drastically wrong for one of those teams.
in the top six to to fall out i mean you can suggest gold coast are the most vulnerable but i think their game will only get should only get better not will only should only get better they've been disappointing a couple of times this season but i think they're going to improve and they're going to get better they haven't really had continuity with raoul anderson uh petrarca and miller at all this year i think they might have only had them once
As a foursome. So they're going to get better. Of course, they've got Port Adelaide in Darwin again this week. You'd expect them to win that game. So the top six, I mean, we probably say it each and every year and we probably prove to be wrong each and every year. But, gee, it's hard to see that top six changing at this early point in the season.
Well, you've touched on this, JJ, the early, you know, the early crow, which we all go at different times, the early predictions based on ladders, round three, round four, get through, gather round. And while there's a good opportunity for teams to find form, Melbourne are in form.
They got, you know, West Coast today, they got a really big one and a really interesting game next week against Hawthorne. That'll be, I'm assuming, at a minimum, fun to watch. They get a little bit of a tougher run on the back end of it. So they're a team that would have some confidence. But you are right.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the wildcard weekend for the teams?
But maintaining the rage, I thought about the Dogs when they were completely airborne. Now, they were sort of wanting to start the season well for a different reason because they'd started so many seasons poorly, but... it's just so difficult to... And that's why I'm looking at a team like Fremantle, who are a bit clunky from time to time, who aren't playing perfect football.
A team like Brisbane. Now, Brisbane's clunkiness is potentially because they just get a bit disinterested with the game and where they've been and where they know they need to go. But I think being a little bit off your tucker from time to time and being in fourth gear and not always being in fifth or sixth gear is a good place to be at this point in the season.
Yeah, agreed. 0-4-3-3-98-11-16 to get involved off the text. But Gold Coast, nice win. Of course, St Kilda. Hearing Ross Lyon talk about Naz, I'm not 100% certain he's going to play next week as well. Still got some bleeding and a fair bit of soreness in that corky. And Cal Wilkie, he's played, I think, 164, 165 straight games.
He's going to be in a rush against time to get up for next week as well. All right, last week, Liam Pickering is the best in the business. He said Geelong can't win the flag. I'm interested to see what he says today. He's calling rubbish on this, JJ. All thanks to Rosito and Ford Rangers. He's up and about because the 97 Geelong BNF did join us on the other side of this.
JJ and I have been grinding here from 11am at Marvel Stadium. If you want to podcast it, feel free to do it. Jake Malmstrom's going to join us as well. The Bunnings build-up starts next across the SEN radio network.
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