So much incredible stuff happens across an AFL weekend. It’s impossible to keep up with it all. The Onballers crew are here to bring you a view on the stuff you saw and other gear you might have missed. This is the Onballers Quick Hands, our round in review.

Put you on repeat play you everywhere I go

Ryan Buckland: Joe Daniher is a key forward. Jake Carlisle is a key defender. The two used to share the same forward 50 arc, when Carlisle and Daniher were both key forwards for Essendon. Those were simpler times, when non-disclosure agreement still meant something. On Friday night, the two were opposed from the first minute of the game, and it was fitting that their first real act as a pair shattered the dour start to proceedings.

Immense. Daniher took the ball at the top of his arc, suggesting he was close to four metres in the air. He landed on his like a leopard, prowling familiar territory, swung around on his left foot and hooked a goal. It didn’t end there; those fortunate enough to earn enough coin to allow themselves to be reemed by News Limited got treated to an all-time follow up to the high flying act.

Ten minutes into the third quarter, Daniher and Carlisle danced again. Carlisle ended up sprawled on the floor.

You can see the exact moment that Jake Carlisle's soul exits his body #AFLSaintsDons #AFL #DonTheSash pic.twitter.com/ZxuudoCA7e — Ryan Buckland (@RyanBuckland7) July 16, 2017

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson scored the bout for us. He moved Carlisle into the forward line.

Patrick Dangerfield is now almost certainly a cheat code

Buckland: Jarryd Roughead might have broken half a dozen of Patrick Dangerfield’s ribs in a clean, legal hit with seven minutes to go in the first quarter of Saturday afternoon’s classic. As it is, Dangerfield’s chest is made of steel, and so the force of the hit radiated down to his puny human knee and ankle. Dangerfield was stuck to the MCG turf, and his day was done.

Two hours later, Dangerfield had kicked five goals and six behinds and taken 12 marks (four of them contested) after roaming the Geelong forward 50 like a drover in the open range, doing what he pleased. He went from finished with an ankle injury to breaking the game open as a stay at home key forward in nought point five seconds.

The match callers – TV and radio – and punters alike were at first bemused as to what Geelong coach Chris Scott was doing. By the end of the game we were all left wondering if we’d missed a trick: could Patrick Dangerfield be the forward threat Geelong need to make their premiership leap?

Maybe not. Geelong once again looked mighty vulnerable on a ground with wide open spaces, unable to cramp the plucky Hawks for space and struggling to move the ball in their preferred straight lines. The Hawthorn midfield was well on top of the Cats’ unit, Tom Mitchell running riot in a high disposal first quarter but influencing the game throughout. Dangerfield was clearly missed through the middle; maybe the Cats can clone him come September.

Dangerfield was already the undisputed best player in the competition. Last year’s historic Brownlow medal win was not an aberration. His stat line for 2017 reads: 30.9 disposals, 18.2 contested possessions, eight score involvements, 7.8 clearances and two goals a game. The last player to average more than 25 disposals and two goals per game was, we think, Leigh Matthews in 1979.

After a slow (in a relative sense) start to 2017, Dangerfield is almost sure to sweep the individual awards pool once again. Whether his singular brilliance is enough to propel Geelong to the last game of the year and beyond remains an open question.

Literally the most exciting thing to happen at Subiaco Oval on Sunday afternoon

HuntTorp™: Australia’s new space exploration start up

Jayden Hunt’s Torpedo and The World

Jay Croucher: Jayden Hunt’s goal after the three-quarter time siren had the rare double effect of both cutting the Adelaide Crows’ lead back to 21 points and suggesting that the modern world has made a horrible choice.

Hunt’s torpedo was euphoric. From the moment of connection it was utterly perfect, its height boundless and improbable, its trajectory somehow both violent and smooth.

You can take your torpedos two ways: a tight Daniel Bradshaw spiral, or a manic, rattling Fast and the Furious chase scene spiral. Give me the latter, give me Hunt.

It ascended with such striking power that the camera awkwardly jerked upwards, following the ball against a backdrop of pitch black, its place so high in the night that the top of the goal posts were erased from view.

It shook its way home, the spiral loosening on the descent, its conviction tightening. Afterwards, even Sam Jacobs on the goal line – a tall man whose height was briefly made extraordinarily insignificant – had to chuckle at the ludicrous magic of Hunt’s strike.

The kick made the drop punt seem like a spoiled avocado. The ceiling of a torpedo is so much higher, in so many different ways. Has modern football made the wrong choice abandoning the torp? Have we lost all creativity and imagination? Are we kicking drop punts only because we’re afraid?

Maybe not, probably not. But for a brief moment, Jayden Hunt made us believe that the world was wrong, by showing us that true artists paint off the side of their boot.

My Egg Sandwich Looks Like This Photo Of The Sidebottoms





Ken Sakata is away on assignment in Japan, but wanted to share this with the Onballers crew.

Hi guys,

Apologies for my absence this week.

I present to you five variations on a Sidebottom. And four variations on an egg sandwich I bought at the Airport 7-11 in Narita.





For those keeping score (Left to right): 1. Egg and mayo. 2. Boiled Egg. 3. Steele Sidebottom 4. Omelette. 5. Egg with ham and onion.

Ken will be back Wednesday with something non-sandwich related.