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Greater Western Sydney (GWS) coach Kevin Sheedy is convinced his “humidicrib” squad can avoid embarrassment when they taste AFL action a year ahead of schedule in the 2011 pre-season.
GWS, due to enter the AFL in 2012, will almost certainly be part of an 18-team competition as part of a radical revamp of next year’s pre-season.
The league admits the plan, starting with a lightning carnival-style opening round of shortened matches, exposes what will be a young, partly-formed GWS squad to the risk of damaging thrashings.
But Sheedy, whose previous 27-year reign at Essendon yielded four premierships, believes they will surprise the doubters and possibly even beat some established clubs.
“The youngest team that ever probably won a premiership was (Essendon in) 1993 and they didn’t think we’d win it,” he told AAP.
“We were actually 50-1 to win the premiership in 1993, but James Hird, Mark Mercuri, Joe Misiti, Rick Olarenshaw, David Calthorpe, they were all sort of teenagers, so you never know.
“Obviously (GWS) won’t win a premiership, but we might be fairly exciting.”
While the 1993 side became known as the Baby Bombers, Sheedy said GWS would be still “in the humidicrib” next year.
He said it would provide an excellent chance to test their progress and publicly stamp their arrival.
Despite Sheedy’s optimism, it will be an enormous challenge to compete, with what will be a similar squad to the current Gold Coast outfit, which is winless in four VFL games.
Gold Coast have just four players with AFL experience – Nathan Ablett, Daniel Harris, Sam Iles and Danny Stanley.
AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan said the “left field” formula was preferable to any plan the league could devise for a 17-team competition to cater for Gold Coast’s 2011 introduction.
He acknowledged that a partly-assembled GWS squad risked being smashed by opponents, although the AFL will look at ways to supplement their list to try to make them competitive.
“That’s a real risk, you’ve got someone though in Kevin Sheedy who doesn’t mind taking risks,” McLachlan said.
“I think we need to contemplate that when we look at how we support what they can do with their squad.
“I don’t have answers about how that can be done.”
Under the revamp, there will be six groups of three for the opening round, with each club to play a mini-game of two 20-minute halves against each of the other teams in their group.
Each group’s games will be played back-to-back at one venue.
The winner of each group, plus two wildcard teams, or “best losers”, will progress to a traditional knockout format, involving full-length games, for the remainder of the competition.
McLachlan said the existing clubs and television broadcasters liked the concept.
He said clubs liked the idea of being able to give their top players short competitive hit-outs in the opening weekend, then have three full-scale games to prepare for the season proper.
A 17-team model proved impractical, with options such as having a club sit out of one or more rounds, or a first-round winner being eliminated, deemed unacceptable.
The new format could also avoid another revamp to deal with 18 teams in 2012 and beyond.
“If it’s successful … it’s something we could take forward indefinitely,” McLachlan said.
Meanwhile, he said the AFL was close to settling on formats for next year’s 17-team regular season and the 18-team seasons to follow.
Next season will almost certainly be 22 rounds over 24 weeks, with two byes per club, while the current expectation is a 22-round season in 2012, when no byes will be needed.
The eight-team finals format is likely to stay.
“I don’t think there’ll be any change to the finals series in the foreseeable future,” McLachlan said.
“That’s my view and it may well change as we contemplate an 18-team season, but as we stand here today, I don’t see any change coming.”
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