Scotty Watters Reviews the AFL Semi Finals (14.09.2026)

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Mark Duffield (1:05)

Time to talk to Scotty Watters, a former St Kilda coach, former player at West Coast Fremantle and Sydney, and of course, a Premiership coach at Subiaco as well. Scotty, welcome.

Scotty Watters (1:18)

We ride again, Duff. We ride again. It was a hell of a game and another huge contest now coming Friday night, but they did what they needed to do. They responded straight away. Shay Botland out of the middle set the scene, but what a game. It was a terrific performance.

Mark Duffield (1:34)

They kind of show great intent from the word go, and it looked like they'd set themselves to play a certain way, win, lose or draw, didn't they?

Scotty Watters (1:44)

I thought they adjusted. They were braver with the ball in hand.

There was talk early about being prepared to take the tackler on. And if you look back on the previous week against Hawthorne, they were jittery about getting rid of the ball in a hurry and started to promote errors. But this week, they did. They played with courage.

You know, they're stars. You always look better when your stars turn up to play. Bolton, 26 disposals. Jackson's game was one for the ages. And if he can come anywhere near that again this week, he is the player that can take free metal to a Premiership ultimately. 25 possessions, 35 hit outs, two goals, eight clearances. Leading clearance player on the ground. In a five-minute burst, he basically took that game from a potential loss to a win. He was amazing.

Mark Duffield (2:36)

So there was the two free kicks in the third quarter where he cleverly positioned himself where, in an experienced day, Ruckman was like to interfere with him. But the ground level gather after the Ruck contest in the forward pocket, which ends up in the goal to Patrick Voss.

I just don't... I can't think of another Ruckman that can do that.

Scotty Watters (3:00)

I've said this early in the year, and I know we're going back decades and decades, but probably the only other Ruckman I've ever seen do what he does was Stephen Michael at South Through Mantle Football Club where, you know, we compete against bigger Ruckman often, but it was his damage on the ground. He was often first to get it, and he does that. Center bounce stuff is more critical than it's ever been in the competition. They've won 23 to 13 at center bounce, and what that does puts enormous pressure, obviously, on the opposition defense, but it takes pressure off your own defense. It's so much easier to defend the ball that's coming out of your own forward 50 Big, big selection decisions this week. Chapman, McVee, Ryan, what do you do with Brendan Cox? Is he ready to come back or not?

And what do you do with Brandon Walker? Is he the right match up for Papley? So, they'll be shifting the magnets around a lot over the next few days.

Mark Duffield (3:54)

Yeah, I would have thought Chapman's safe. I think he's been a pretty key member of the defense, and the fact that he plays tall and small. I know he made a couple of bad decisions with the footy on the weekend. I also thought he came up fairly big in the last quarter when the game was on the line. But you're right.

Interestingly, when Brisbane played Sydney... Now, I know Brisbane turned up with an attitude that stunk to high heaven, but when they played Sydney, they were caught a little bit short in defense, and it meant that Harris Andrews had to sort of second-guess his possessioning, and as a result, Logan McDonald popped up and kicked six. So I guess there is a question, is there a case to play all of Oscar McDonald, Alex Pearce, and Brennan Cox this weekend if Brennan Cox is fit?