Houston’s role, Cameron’s focus, Carlton’s path: The Notebook, Round 22

It’s a bumper three topic edition of The Notebook for Round 22.

Let’s not waste any time in the intro and get straight into it, starting with Dan Houston’s time so far at Collingwood.

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The not-so-curious case of Dan Houston

There’s a simple explanation for Houston’s role at Collingwood this year. The discussion shouldn’t be around his current form, but rather why Collingwood have opted to use Houston in this way – with the caveat this all goes out the window if he’s actually playing hurt.

Nevertheless, the Houston we saw at Port Adelaide was a primary distributor as teammates looked to get the ball in his hands as often as possible. In 2023 and 2024, Houston ranked behind only Zak Butters and Connor Rozee for handball receives:

Average handball receives per game at Port	2023 & 2024
Zak Butters	10.1
Connor Rozee	9.8
Dan Houston	8.1
Ollie Wines	7.4

At Collingwood this year, the role of primary distributor off half back has gone to Josh Daicos, which is understandable given Daicos’ form. But instead of creating a two-headed monster terrorising teams off half back, Houston has been left to play as essentially a functional medium defender.

The handball receives list at Port Adelaide paints a different picture to Collingwood’s leaders this season:

Average handball receives per game	2025 (min five games)
Nick Daicos	13.0
Josh Daicos	12.1
Scott Pendlebury	9.4
Steele Sidebottom	8.1
Pat Lipinski	7.4
Ned Long	6.6
Jack Crisp	6.1
Dan Houston	6.1

An extremely niche stat I enjoy is looking, outside of on-ballers, is total centre clearances. Half backs tasked as the primary distributors get the odd one here and there, with their role to offer immediate options.

Over his last two years at the Power, Houston had 23 centre clearances from a grand total of zero centre bounce attendances. It’s hardly earth shattering or game changing numbers, at an average rate of roughly one every two games, but an indicator of the role.

Those 23 clearances came in 17 separate games out of 47 played, so it wasn’t as if there was one or two games which counted for the majority.

Compare it to Houston’s time at Collingwood, and he’s managed a centre clearance in one of his last 12 games. It’s minor in the grand scheme of things, but another illustration of how he’s asked to play a different role to what made him so appealing at Port Adelaide.

There was an attempt to change things against Hawthorn. Josh Daicos started on-ball and Houston was looked at plenty early. But after Jeremy Howe’s injury and with a backline reshuffle needed, the Pies opted to shift Daicos down back once again. From there the setup was largely business as usual as Hawthorn carved Collingwood up around the contest.

Whether it’s too late to try and change again remains to be seen, given the sudden urgency around results that seemed unfathomable five weeks ago before the collective dip across the board. It does seem strange to commit a first-round pick and six-year contract to someone and then play them in a way that takes away their main strengths.

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For those who have missed it, the last five Notebook entries on The Shinboner, plus…

The 2025 Team Structures Page
Melbourne’s list and style assessment: Round 21’s Notebook
Hawthorn’s shift, St Kilda’s list approach: Round 20’s Notebook
Brisbane testing tweaks, a crack in Collingwood’s midfield: Round 18’s Notebook
Essendon’s changes, Adelaide in the air: Round 17’s Notebook
Brisbane, Essendon, Geelong, GWS health checks: Round 16’s Notebook

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Geelong’s focus on Jeremy Cameron’s race to 100

After a couple of egregious examples of Cameron-watch against Essendon, teammates looking for him when there were multiple better options elsewhere (including the actual goals), it felt like time for a quick scan to see whether they were exceptions or the rule.

The extra wing time we saw earlier in the season had already largely been disposed with before recent weeks. In its place is the more standard key forward role, with a licence to get a little higher up the ground within the normal structure where feasible. We saw plenty of that against North Melbourne, when the Roos opted to only play a key defender on Cameron when he was closer to goal. In theory, the goal was to hand over to a half back when Cameron ventured further away.

In practice, there was minimal handing over, and Cameron made the most of it to do as he pleased. He had a season high for handball receives (lots of handball receives mentions in today’s post), and eight marks inside 50, ending in 11 of the easier goals he’ll see. None of it was outside the realm of normalcy.

Following that, in the last two weeks as the century chat kicked into overdrive, we’ve seen the best and worst of Geelong using the attention to both advantage and disadvantage.

The best came in the third quarter against Port Adelaide. The Power were clearly selling out and dedicating extra resources to Cameron, so the Cats used that to their advantage, either looking elsewhere or using Cameron as a reference point for others work off.

Geelong kicked nine goals to one, and Cameron had a grand total of zero disposals. Which isn’t to say ignoring Cameron = goals, but rather an illustration of what can be achieved by reading and reacting to opposition cues; an area they normally do better than any other team.

The worst came in the final quarter against Essendon. Cameron was targeted inside 50 seven times, his equal most at any time since moving to Geelong. Although it obviously didn’t have a bearing on the result, the type of process that led to those targets was antithetical to how the team normally plays.

(Sidebar: Unless they knew the umpires would get drawn into the hype with some of the decisions we saw late. In which case, genius.)

Whether it continues in this next fortnight, and to what level it influences their play that’s normally so hard to game plan against*, will be a fascinating watch. It might sound alarmist to bring up the chance of it knocking the team ever so slightly off course, but sport is littered with examples of milestones inadvertently bringing a change in focus.

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*The reason there’s an asterisk there is because that specific topic will be held for Geelong’s Finals Dossier if they make the top four. Which means for those who missed the announcement, confirmation the Finals Dossiers will return for 2025.

In the sixth edition of the series, all of the top four teams will be covered, with each post covering a team’s evolution from week to week throughout the year, how they beat you, how you beat them, along with a couple of other tweaks to previous editions that won’t be revealed until the first post drops.

Depending on an individual’s Patreon subscription level, they’ll receive access Finals Dossiers access at different times.

Here are all the details on what to expect.

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Carlton’s chosen path forward

In the spirit of balance, after last week’s Notebook focused on Melbourne’s path after removing Simon Goodwin, it seems only fair to have an entry this week on Carlton’s path after sticking with Michael Voss.

“Two years ago we were in a prelim, so I think tactically he’s (Michael Voss) pretty good.”

Those were the words of Graham Wright in a press conference on Tuesday. Most likely those words were to paint a public image of unity and togetherness, because it’s clear Carlton’s game style hasn’t evolved this year like it should have, even allowing for the availability.

The staleness has been covered ad nauseum over recent seasons – here’s the Carlton page of the blog for reference – with last year’s glimmer of hope of an evolved game style quickly snuffed out when everyone decided to get injured at the same time, leaving a cobbled together group limping to the finish line.

Since then, and at the moment, Carlton have two game styles. One is solely focused on contest and risk minimisation. The other is with the handbrake off when the situation demands it’s the only way to go.

Without going all the way back and relitigating ancient history, Saturday against Gold Coast was another perfect example. The first three quarters were largely reactive and grinding in every facet, from stoppages to general play.

Then, with the margin at 45 points with a term remaining, the instructions clearly changed, and it was proper proactiveness at every possible chance, starting at the contest and then connected to general play.

The change clearly rattled Gold Coast for a while, because the -15 contested possession differential was their equal worst for a term this season.

But equally importantly for Carlton, they maximised their advantage by increasing their speed of ball movement through a variety of short and long kicking, increasing their play on percentage from (limited) marks (33% in the last quarter after 23% in the first three), and cutting the Suns up with forward handballing.

Carlton in 2025	Round 1-21	Round 22, Q4
Metres gained per handball	1.4	4.2

The pace of play was so frenetic compared to Carlton’s norm – the 4.2 metres gained per handball would set historical records if maintained for any length of time – it understandably fizzled out in the last few minutes, further illustrating the evolution that needs to happen as soon as possible.

It’s physically impossible to consistently play as fast as Carlton did in the last quarter, so that won’t be the base standard going forward.

But it should also be impossible to enter games with the ‘contest and grind’ mindset we’ve seen far too often, because it’s outdated and not in line with where the game is trending. Melbourne realised it and were making changes even before they dismissed Goodwin. It’s on Carlton to make their changes with the same coach at the helm or waste another year in 2026.