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We have now come to the final week and four teams have now become two.
On Friday night, Hawthorn ended a streak of 11 losses against the Cats to win their spot at the grand final.
What makes Hawthorn’s win more impressive is the fact that they were 20 points down at ¾ time.
In the other preliminary final, Fremantle was able to use their incredible pressure, on top of a passionate crowd at Paterson Stadium to push them into their first grand final ever, and end the Swans’ hopes of back-to-back Premiership flags.
Another week, and two more teams will now start their plot for next seasons flag tilt. For Geelong and Sydney, their 2014 preseasons will start soon and hope that they can go further next year.
Before that time, it’s time for them to reflect on the past season and assess what went right, what went wrong and what they need for next year.
Geelong: What Went Right?
For Geelong it was more of the same, as one of the most dominant teams in the competition in the last six years. This year, it was once again the usual suspects that provided Geelong with the standard performance that once again propelled them into second place, and into the preliminary finals.
Across the halfback, Corey Enright and Andrew Mackie provided the run and carry out of defence. Through the centre, Joel Kelly, Joel Selwood, Joel Corey and Stevie Johnson, provided the run and spark at the feet of their ruckmen. While, up forward, the now usual suspects of James Podsiadly and Tom Hawkins provided the twin towers of the Geelong forward line, with Allen Christensen and Travis Varcoe still running around at their feet.
They veterans have also been helped out by some great new additions in Josh Caddy, and Jarred Rivers playing their first games for Geelong, while Steven Motlop also had a fantastic season, become a real livewire in the Geelong forward line.
What Went Wrong?
Not much can go wrong when a team reaches the preliminary finals, and that is certainly true for Geelong.
Throughout the season they only lost four games, with the biggest margin of 10 points against North Melbourne in Round 19. However, what really went wrong for Geelong were their finals performances this season.
Despite the fact that they made it to the preliminaries, their performances in finals were a far way off the usual standard for Geelong that many of their fans had come to expect.
It all started in the qualifying final against Fremantle, at their home ground in Geelong. Much had been made of the AFL’s decision to play a final at Geelong’s fortress home ground of Simonds Stadium.
Many gave Fremantle no chance to win, as Geelong had turned their occasional home ground advantage into a seemingly unstoppable winning streak.
However, Fremantle managed to beat the Cats, denying them a chance to host the final, and making their final run that much more difficult. The Cats went on to post a comeback win against Power, overcoming a 23-point half time deficit into a 16-point win.
However, the Cats season all came to a head in the game against Hawthorn, a team that the Cats had a seeming mental advantage over.
However, despite leading for most of the game, and seemingly having the advantage over Hawthorn yet again Geelong managed to cough up the lead and ended up losing the game by five points, despite leading by 20 points at the start of the final quarter.
Where to for next year?
Geelong have one of the oldest lists in the AFL, and most of their gun players are the wrong side of their 20s.
Several of Geelong’s star players including, Bartel, Chapman, Corey, Enright, Hunt, Johnson, Kelly and Podsiadly are over the age of 30, or will be by the time the next pre-season starts, and they will be joined before long by Stokes, Rivers, McIntosh, Mackie and Lonegran.
This group has formed a large majority of Geelong’s stars for the last half decade, and have continued to defy the odds by keeping the Cats incredibly competitive, despite being dismissed as “too old” several times by commentators.
While there is no guarantee that this will be the last year of the Cats time at the top, before long the senior Cats players are eventually going to retire and they will need to find players who are quickly able to cover and become Geelong’s next generation of superstars.
Eventually Geelong is going to have to go through some sort of rebuilding, and how long this takes will depend on the caliber of players it can recruit. If they can recruit smart, the drop won’t be too bad.
Due to carry over talent, Geelong should still make the eight, despite the added commentators once again saying that they are too old and too slow.
There is still enough talent, depth and skill in the list to challenge the best sides in the competition in their day. May feel the pinch of out going champions over the next few years though.
Sydney: What Went Right?
The Swans seem to have access to an unending source of talented players. Over the past year, they have rebuilt a side using a few stars of their previous premiership window and found some players from relative obscurity.
In the absence of premiership defender Alex Johnson they were able to upgrade rookie Dean Rampe, who became a great rebounding defender, immediately stepping up to play at a high level.
The Swans also unleashed some potential future weapons in Tom Mitchell, the son of Barry Mitchell, and Brandon Jack, brother of Kieran Jack.
Sydney’s ability to not only debut these young players have helped Sydney get back into premiership contention in such a short space of time after their success in 2005 and 2006 which saw them qualify for back to back grand finals against the West Coast Eagles, which saw them break the longest premiership drought in VFL/AFL history.
The Swans did incredibly well this season, especially to get to the preliminary finals, despite carrying a growing list of injuries which included Adam Goodes, Sam Reid, Alex Johnson, Gary Rohan and Rhyce Shaw as well as missing key forward Kurt Tippet for a more than half a season due to his suspension by the AFL.
What Went Wrong?
For the Swans it was a case of their good players falling apart at the wrong time, the closer the Swans got to the pointy end of the season, the more their players seemed to be wearing down. In the final series alone the Sydney list suffered injuries to Adam Goodes, Tom Mitchell, Kurt Tippet and Ben McGlynn
By the time Sydney lined up against Fremantle at Paterson’s they looked exhausted. They had just come out of the game against Carlton, which despite winning comfortably in the end, was held scoreless in the last quarter and despite the best efforts of McVeigh, he was unable to drag them over the line and the Swans season was over.
The Swans also seemed to have a large concentration of very difficult games right at the end of the season, playing Geelong at Simonds, before facing Hawthorn in consecutive weeks losing all of those games.
Where to For Next Year?
Sydney seems to have an amazing knack for finding players who are ready to step up when needed.
This ability will be required again as the Swans have lost the services of hard nosed forward Jude Bolton, who already stated before the preliminary final loss that this would be his last season.
His retirement joins the retirements of Martin Mattner and Mitch Morton who already announced their retirements from the game earlier in the season. The Swans still have a few players left in their 30+ brigade in 2012 Norm Smith Medalist Ryan O’Keefe, dual Brownlow Medalist Adam Goodes as well as Ted Richards and Lewis Roberts Thompson.
The rest of the Swans list is remarkably young, with many of their stars under the age of 28, including Tippett, Kennedy, Jack, Hannebery and Parker.
All of these players are sure to form the core Swans team over the next few years and under the leadership of Jarrad McVeigh the Swans should have the ability to push for deep September action over the next 3-4 years as long as they keep developing players at the same rate.
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