1. Thursday night’s qualifying final at the home of the Fremantle Dockers in front of a packed purple haze.

This is an intimidating venue for Hawthorn to enter with the memory of the Dockers kicking the last five goals at Optus Stadium in round nine to overcome them. The area of the ground where I think Freo can challenge the Hawks is midfield depth. If one of Jai Newcombe or Will Day is contained, I think the Dockers run a little deeper. Think Andrew Brayshaw, Caleb Serong, Shai Bolton, Luke Jackson, Hayden Young and Murphy Reid pinch-hitting at times. Either end of the ground look reasonably even. This midfield edge and the home crowd should get the Dockers into a preliminary final.

2. Friday night’s elimination final at the ‘G, 90,000-plus in the house to watch the rampaging Blues and the rested-up Cats. Carlton will go in very confident with an excellent recent record against Geelong.

Sometimes you just match-up well against another team. A couple of things to watch for me is the master and apprentice in each team’s backlines. Which defence can get more out of Tom Stewart and Connor O’Sullivan versus Jacob Weitering and Harry Dean. The Blues defenders were both excellent against Melbourne. The other point is who does Cats tagger Oisin Mullin go to in the midfield, Sam Walsh or Jagga Smith? I think it could be Smith in his first season. I can’t wait to see how these battles pan out.

3. I wasn’t an advocate of wildcard round and the main reason was 10 teams playing finals in an 18-team competition.

Feels like rewarding mediocrity. Of course, when you have two desperate teams playing, they will fight it out. We got good contests last weekend. The true test will be the elimination finals this week. Let’s see how we go this weekend, I hope we don’t get blowouts.

4. Gee that ended quickly for Melbourne. From round seven to round 23, they basically sat between fourth and sixth on the ladder.

The loss to the Western Bulldogs really hurt, dropping them to the wildcard and into the lap of a red-hot Carlton. The momentum was lost because of a suspension to Jacob van Rooyen and injuries to Matt Jefferson and the backline general in Jake Lever. After playing an attacking watchable style all year, it felt a bit harsh that they didn’t get into real September action. Timing and momentum are everything in footy.

5. I tell you what, as a Collingwood fan, watching your team under Craig McRae must be some sort of ride. While it’s over for 2026, gee, you got value for money.

The Pies are in every game, playing an exciting high-pressure style. The players buy in completely. Unfortunately, this season they fell short against other top-10 teams. Defensively always sound and in the back half of the year, the scoring increased. There will be a bit of a changing of the guard over summer with the retirement of Steele Sidebottom and and Scott Pendlebury. But being the biggest club in the land, players will want to come. If that is Lachie Neale, then the loss of the veteran stars is covered. You have also found some genuine young talent with Sam Swadling being the best of them. But you definitely need to keep adding some more high-end youth into this current group. I would not be giving any a first- round pick. Craig McRae gets the best out of any group. While that loss last weekend hurts, the Pies will always contend under Fly.

6. Pendlebury is off to play for the Suns for at least another year and will then stay on as an assistant coach.

Pendles has always stated that he sees himself coaching, so why not play on next year as an on-field assistant for Damien Hardwick. He will certainly bring some strong defensive coaching ideas from Collingwood. The Pies are one of the most disciplined defensive structured teams in the competition without the ball. The Suns fell to the 14th-ranked defense this year. He could then help coach this on-field on game day. The Suns are not riding far up the ladder in 2027 unless this area improves. With ball in hand he is still a very good player as well. Great signing for the Gold Coast.

7. It appears the 40-year career of one of the great coaches is finished after the sacking of Alastair Clarkson at North Melbourne.

With a year to go on his contract, it looks like there was a breakdown in communication between the coach and playing group. North just hadn’t been able to fix up their defensive structure this year, giving up only eight points less per game in 2026 than 2025. Clarko would have worked overtime to get this right but once you try and change things on the run and communication gets confused between player and coach, it’s hard to get it back on track. It’s clear that North needed more improvements in this area for Clarko to remain. At the end of the day, the 20 wins from 82 games wasn’t enough for the North board. Looking at the list, it’s in pretty good shape and the next coach has been left a very solid foundation from one of the greats in Clarko. Clarkson was a ground-breaking tactical innovator who changed the game forever with his defensive zone set ups at the Hawks. It won him four flags before the rest caught up. Rest up, Clarko.

8. The outrage and false accusations hurled towards the Richmond players’ end-of-season get-together has been completely over the top.

They were at a private gathering and caused no harm to anyone. The publican who hosted them was glowing in his assessment of how polite and grateful they were. No trouble at all. In fact, he denied the speculation surrounding the group. He was actually there. A few may have got a little intoxicated but hurt no one. The amount of vitriol has been unfair, in my opinion.

9. The 30th annual Legends game was the best and most successful ever. What a fun night it was at Marvel last Thursday.

An incredible 29,000 people turned up and would have left very satisfied. Great sports entertainment. Recently retired superstars like Buddy Franklin, Dusty Martin, Gary Ablett and Dane Swan embraced the game and put on a show. They didn’t just turn up and go through the motions. Gee whiz, they can still play and that’s what you want to see. Not 50-somethings like me that can’t run anymore. And one million dollars raised for prostate cancer research. Everyone’s happy and had a ball. Well done to everyone involved.

10. Bravo to the NRL and the South Sydney Rabbitohs for what they are doing to get Jai Arrow to 100 games.

For those that don’t know, Jai was diagnosed with MND last off-season and forced into retirement sitting on 98 club games. The 100 comes up this weekend. It’s a very emotional story at only the age of 31. The NRL have tweaked the rules to get Jai running out and on the team sheet. Go look at the vision of him entering the arena with his Rabbitohs teammates last Saturday. Not a dry eye in the house.