Ryan Buckland: Melbourne are the AFL’s Harlem Globetrotters and West Coast Eagles are in for a world of pain

The AFL’s Harlem Globetrotters roll into town on Sunday, to play the closest thing the league will have to the Washington Generals. Melbourne will remember Optus Stadium fondly. The last time they were here they broke a 57-year premiership drought by dismantling a Western Bulldogs side that still looks a little broken. They come this time with an 8-0 record, riding a 15-game winning streak, and with their opponent in West Coast languishing. It isn’t quite the 2495-game winning streak the Globetrotters were on before they lost a game, but as far as football goes, it’s as close as we get. Melbourne have played only about 120 minutes of football to the level we know they can reach so far this season, and it’s all they have needed to put eight wins on the board. Their victory against St Kilda last weekend is a case in point: In roughly 20 minutes of game time across the first and second quarters, Melbourne scored 49 points and conceded seven. For the other 80 minutes, the Saints outscored the Dees by four points. If the Eagles can lose a wet, dreary night game by 75 points, they’ll lose an afternoon game with the autumn Perth sun in the sky by plenty more. Watching the best teams do their thing is one of the hidden treasures of following the AFL. With modern defensive set-ups and hyper-fit players able to work within them, we don’t often get to see one team genuinely overpower another with their skills and teamwork. It isn’t fun for the team being worked over, but if you set that aside it can be like watching the Harlem Globetrotters. I’m not convincing you, am I? New direction: Luke Jackson. Jackson is an unusual player, with an unusual career arc. An international basketballer as a junior, Jackson made a late switch to football. A quick YouTube review of Jackson’s hoop prowess suggests he had the skills to make it in the big time, but will have lacked the size to compete in the NBA in his junior role as a centre. He’s certainly tall for the AFL, although at 199cm stands a little shorter than many of the key-position players and ruckmen in the league today. Brisbane have eight players who are 2m or taller. What sets him apart are those skills. History says a man standing at that height has no business being clean below his knees, silky smooth running the arcs, or deadly with his disposal. Jackson is all of those things. In some ways Jackson was a free hit for the Dees, given the position their list was in heading into the 2019 draft and the unusual means by which the club crashed to 17th on the ladder that year. Melbourne’s 2019 season will be a great curiosity for football historians in the future: going from preliminary finalists in 2018 to second last and pick three in 2019, only to surge back and win a premiership in 2021. The image of Jackson bursting from a centre bounce, gathering the ball running at close to full speed, and dishing it to a sprinting Clayton Oliver who kicked a goal from the 50m arc just before three-quarter-time at last year’s grand final is burned into my brain. It was a tasteful homage to a classic Nic Naitanui centre bounce play. West Coast fans will be hoping there’s a chance Jackson becomes a regular feature in Perth. He signed a one-year extension to his standard draftee contract during the 2020 off-season, and is notionally on the market this off-season. The challenge of valuing Jackson is the fortunate and, by modern standards at least, unusual fact he has played as a second ruck behind perennial All-Australian Max Gawn in almost every game in his career to date. These days clubs prefer to hold young ruckmen back in State leagues until they build the size to match it with guys who have been in the system for years. Can we look to the past as a way to flash forward to Jackson’s future? This week’s chart compares Jackson’s first 37 games to the early careers of the past 10 ruckmen who’ve made it into the All Australian team, spanning about 20 seasons. The small number reflects the fact that many ruckmen make a spot their own throughout the prime of their careers. For comparison purposes the chart shows total disposals and contested possessions per game, with the usual top right quadrant being the place you want to be. Jackson is there, alongside Adam Goodes, Brodie Grundy and Nic Naitanui. The closest comparison to Jackson is Goodes, which is a fascinating output given the plethora of roles Goodes’ athleticism and skill allowed him to play through his career. This chart also shows just how good Naitanui was right out of the gate, despite being second fiddle to Dean Cox for the first 100 or so games of his career. According to AFL statistics, Jackson is taking about 28 percent of the ruck load for the Dees so far in 2022. His ruck work still has a way to go, with hit-out win rates and hit out to advantage percentages well down on what a top-flight ruck would be expected to post. But he doesn’t have to be right now, given the guy who is in front of him. And that’s perhaps the most tantalising side of Jackson: what comes next, given what we’ve seen to date.