Duff’s Dozen: Mark Duffield rules an eye over the finer points from a blockbuster final regular-season round

Wow! Now that is some end to the AFL home and away season. At the MCG in front of almost 90,000 fans Carlton were in the eight with two minutes remaining in the season, just like they were at the end of every round of the home and away season... and then they weren’t. The Blues butchered late leads against top-four opponents in their last two home-and-away games and will miss the finals for the ninth year in succession. In Canberra on Saturday the Dockers, led by Caleb Serong and steered by Michael Walters, did enough to at least make the Carlton-Collingwood game mean something to them by beating the Giants. And in Geelong, Jamie Cripps kicked three very good goals for the Eagles but West Coast’s dreadful 2022 season came to a dreadful finish with Tyson Stengle kicking four goals in an 85-point Geelong win. Ben Rutten was sacked, Michael Hurley, Robbie Gray and others were farewelled and the eight is set. If the four weeks of finals carry as much drama as the home and away finale, we are in for some sort of September. 1. AFL dodges Dayne pain The sledge that Dayne Zorko delivered concerning a family member that left Harrison Petty in tears on Friday night might have deserved stronger action, but the AFL were right to let the matter rest at an apology. There was no point subjecting an innocent third party to more scrutiny by pursuing the matter further. As for Zorko? He might want to work on fixing his team, who were terrible on Friday, rather than firing off callous and immature sledges. 2. Caleb Serong The Dockers, apart from Serong, were still on the bus when the ball got bounced against the Giants in Canberra on Sunday and might have been out of the game but for the 2020 Rising Star winner’s feisty excellence in the midfield. They were able to salvage the win as Will Brodie, David Mundy and Andrew Brayshaw joined in with him. Serong finished with 32 disposals with 15 in contests and 11 clearances. Elite. 3. Michael Walters Executed one of the game’s turning points when he pulled Isaac Cumming down in a tackle for his first goal and added two more vital ones in his 200th game. His three goals take his tally from the past six games to 10, with a total of 20 for the season, and after a slow and difficult start he is building nicely into finals with goals in every game since round 18. Important piece of the puzzle in a Freo forward line still taking shape. 4. Sam Taylor Absolutely superb in defence for GWS and at times threatened to prevent the Fremantle win as the Dockers came hard at the Giants and their five-goal lead. He took 11 intercept marks, ruled the air and at times made Fremantle forwards look silly as they stayed grounded in the hope he would let one slip. Like Tom Barrass, building a very strong case for All-Australian honours. 5. David Swallow Spends a lot of time playing in the shadows of Touk Miller and young guns Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell these days, but he gave Gold Coast a reminder of his capability against North Melbourne while the Kangaroos gave Alastair Clarkson a reminder of the task in front of him. Swallow had 32 disposals with 18 in contests, nine clearances and eight inside-50s to go with a goal. The Roos barely gave a yelp and have a long road ahead, regardless of who is coaching. 6. Tyson Stengle Did his All-Australian claims on a small forward berth no harm at all with four brilliant goals against West Coast. One from the GMHBA Stadium forward pocket was a Goal of the Year contender - around the corner in the clutches of a tackle with serious heat coming from both sides of his body. Has great balance and poise and is a superb finisher in the mould of Izak Rankine. Doesn’t mind playing at the feet of Tom Hawkins either. 7. Jamie Cripps Kicked three goals from limited chances in his 200th game for West Coast to remind everyone what a great servant of the club he has been. All were set shots but all were, at best, half chances from difficult range or a challenging angle. Cripps’ gut and surge run was a key to the 2018 flag and he will be a key to the club’s improvement next year, hopefully uninterrupted by injury. 8. Robbie Gray There was a lot of ‘talk it up’ hype to try and bring some life to a dead rubber Showdown. They probably could have just relied on the farewell to a club great to bring the fans through the gates at Adelaide Oval. The 34-year-old struggles with a wonky knee these days but he still had some great moments as Port surged clear of the Crows, and he went out kicking two goals in front of more than 50,000 adoring supporters. One of the great forward-mids of his era. 9. Michael Hurley and ‘Truck’ Rutten Essendon board members take note: If you want to see what makes footy great and how badly you treated your coach, observe Hurley’s send off and Ben Rutten’s emotion in the rooms. Hurley nearly died from a post-surgery infection and has had to fight like hell just to play one more AFL game. When he kicked a late goal against Richmond, his Bombers teammates weren’t the only ones who went to him - the Richmond players did too. Rutten’s tears in the room with his family showed the human cost of a board that doesn’t appear to know what it is doing. As Jobe Watson described it: “It’s diabolical”. 10. Sam Darcy The stats won’t tell you just how big the young son of a gun was in the final outcome of the Dogs v Hawks game in Launceston. Hawthorn were all over their opponents at one point in the second quarter of a match the Bulldogs had to win to have any chance of playing in September. Darcy took two great pack marks and got a good piece of a third. He kicked two goals and the soft drop from the third created a chance for a Roarke Smith major. Darcy finished with 13 disposals and six marks and just those two goals, but they marked a turning point as well as another indication of a lanky kid’s enormous potential. 11. Carlton cost themselves The Blues were 24 points up with a quarter left. They won the inside-50 count by 21 and the contested possession count by more than 50. But the Magpies have proved themselves the masters of the close ones this year, and the Blues have shown themselves to be utterly clueless in the past two weeks. At a time when a point would have been enough to get them a finals berth, Sam Docherty kicked out of bounds on the full and Corey Durdin turned the ball over when he had Harry McKay ahead within range of that point. Extraordinary drama and extraordinary heartbreak for finals-starved Blues fans. 12. Salt in Freo’s wounds A plucky St Kilda teased the Dockers with the possibility of a boilover upset against the Swans all the way to the finish before falling just short. Ben Long was heroic and Max King shook off the yips to boot five goals, but the Swans were sustained by three goals to Will Hayward and kept their cool when the gap had narrowed to just over a goal with four minutes left.