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The AFL’s first round rivalled the Essendon drugs saga for length, but Round 2 will be quickly upon us, and the question about which of four teams has the most at stake is a pressing one.
Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond and Sydney all disappointed in the first week of Round 1, and all players, coaches and fans have had two weeks to consider the consequences of a second consecutive loss.
Sadly for supporters of two of these teams, a 0-2 start to the year is going to become reality, as the Tigers and Blues kick off Round 2, and the Swans host the Magpies in the Saturday night feature.
Collingwood has a strong record against Sydney going back a number of years, but this has been mitigated in recent times with the Swans winning two of the last three.
ANZ Stadium holds no fears for the Pies though, having won their Round 20 match last year by a comfortable five-goal margin.
Nathan Buckley is already starting to feel the heat from sections of the Collingwood fan-base and media, and when you’re in charge of the biggest football club in the land, expectation will always be high.
This should be tempered by knowledge that the side is not ready to challenge for a premiership this year. They are also a long way from fielding their best 22, the configuration of which may be up in the air all season.
Still, a 0-2 start, followed by a Round 3 game against Geelong, is an uncomfortable place to be.
GWS were always going to be both Giants and giant-killers at some point, it was just a matter of which highly credentialled club would fall victim to them first. Sydney suffered the ignominy, much to the disgust of their fans who feel nothing but contempt for their spoon-fed little brother.
With the deepest midfield quality in the competition, the acquisition of the game’s hottest property in Lance Franklin, plus the promise of a full season from 2013 big-name recruit Kurt Tippett, a grand final appearance from the Swans was the minimum expectation of most people.
You have to go back to North Melbourne in 1999 to find the last grand finalist that started the season with two losses. And if they do falter again, a trip to Adelaide to play the Crows awaits, which won’t be an easy assignment.
Will we be shrugging off the first-up surprise as an aberration, or seeing it as a sign of a deeper malaise? There’d be no better way for Sydney to kick-start their premiership campaign than to defeat a bogey side on turf where they don’t have the historical advantage.
The famous Bloods culture has been renowned for the ability to dig deep and respond when challenged. This week they’ll get their chance to do exactly that.
Carlton needs to prove they’re not just treading water under Mick Malthouse, as an army of critics have been lining up to hypothesise.
They’ll be going into Thursday night’s match against Richmond as slight underdogs with the bookies, but also expected to win by many that are mindful of the hold they have over the Tigers. This ascendancy was never clearer than on the massive finals stage last September, in front of almost 95,000 people.
They played some very good, organised football against Port in Round 1, but couldn’t maintain the rage over four quarters. Malthouse will have us believe that they are just short of fitness, and will be a top four or six contender once they’ve caught up.
With Essendon, a team that beat them twice in 2013, to follow Richmond, they’re staring at another 0-3 start to the year if they go down this week. We saw they couldn’t finish in the top eight after conceding that sort of start last year, and it will be mighty difficult again.
Richmond arguably has more at stake than any of them. While many had pegged Collingwood and Carlton to be mid-table strugglers, and the feeling is that Sydney will come good anyway, the Tigers were internally bullish about their top-four prospects.
Add to that a combustible fan-base starved of success and feeling they are more than owed, plus a media that will relish the opportunity to savage a perceived ‘soft’ playing list, and the pressure is well and truly on to deliver.
Similar to the Swans they’ll be starting favourite on their home turf, but facing a side that has troubled them more than any in recent years.
To add to these problems, Richmond looked mentally and physically slow against the Suns, and were exposed by an opposition able to spread aggressively when in control of the ball.
Carlton has no shortage of foot speed, and looked fast and clean in the first and third quarters against Port. Their pressure will also cause the Tigers trouble.
Richmond’s confidence will have been shaken by the Gold Coast loss, so they need to show they’ve overcome the mental demons, as well as the accumulated scar tissue from many humiliations at the hands of the Blues.
Two losses to teams they, and most of the football world, would perceive as below them would be a catastrophic beginning to the year.
It would potentially be fatal to their top-four or even final-eight chances.
Negative news stories dominate the AFL landscape, and there always has to be at least one team and coach in the gun. We all indulge in it, and love it when it’s not our club.
Four of the biggest clubs in the game go under the microscope this round, and only two will escape it. For those that don’t, the pain is coming.