With Round 23 officially in the history books and the premiership season now complete, these are the final seven stories to come from the home-and-away season.
Apologies in advance to Melbourne fans, this one ended up being Melbourne-centric.
7. AFL players should be better informed
With ten of the eighteen clubs finishing their seasons, Mad Monday should be in full effect. However end-of-season celebrations have been more subdued recently.
An interesting sidebar to this was seeing seven West Coast players in a coffee shop early this afternoon. It didn’t seem right to see them in a coffee shop instead of a bar today.
While players being caught out by heavy drinking sessions have been reduced in recent years, a new threat has emerged in social media. With players posting hundreds of pictures on social media throughout the day it was little surprise that trouble has come from it.
Considering that AFL clubs now employ full-time employees who handle social media, how a scandal like this can break is more baffling than a player being full of booze. In Melbourne’s case, one social media expert should not have a job come Tuesday morning.
6. Melbourne is the first team to go winless at home since the ’95 Lions
Nearing in on the 20-year anniversary of Fitzroy’s demise from the AFL, it could be seen as somewhat fitting that they would have company in the 11-home-losses-in-a-season hall of shame.
If Melbourne fans wondered if it had been a lean season for singing the song, they were right as Melbourne did not win an official home game. In fact they won just three matches in 16 tries in Victoria across the season with their fourth win coming in Adelaide.
5. Melbourne had the worst attack in the league, and seventh-worst defence
Sorry Melbourne fans, I did warn you that this one was heavy centric on the Demons. For anyone who even watched one game of Melbourne this season the worst attack in the league should come as no surprise given they had a spate of injuries to key forwards, had a non-functional forward system for much of the year and spent many games not even looking to attack their own goal.
However the real dampener is that for all the talk of the Demons improving defensively, they were still the seventh worst in the competition for points against. The gap to make up to the top teams is still massively defence-focused.
Now with another year of stunted growth for their forwards, how long before they are going to have a balanced team that can make finals? It has been a step forward compared to their attack but questionable whether that step forward is going to be a hindrance to being able to kick winning scores.
4. 12 teams scored more than 90 points in a game in Round 23
This has been the worst season in AFL history for scoring, with the average points per team per game 86 – which is a six point drop on last year’s 92. Never before in the 25-year existence of a national AFL competition have so few points been scored.
The silver lining came in Round 23, which was the highest scoring round of the season.
After a season of lacklustre defensive struggles, it was a refreshing end to the season to see team’s play with reckless abandonment.
3. Forwards are great in a free flowing game
For most of the 2014 season the talk has grown about forwards and big goal kickers being dead. Again Round 23 showed that the lack of big goal kickers has nothing to do with talented players and all to do with coaches wanting to be involved in defensive struggles.
At the weekend Josh Kennedy kicked eight, Tom Hawkins kicked seven and Jay Schulz kicked six. It is hard to remember back to a round where key forwards all kicked bags on the one weekend.
Again Round 23 showed that the talent in AFL forwards is as good as it has ever been. They just simply have not been able to show their true abilities because of the move of the game to being about defence.
2. Fremantle is riding some good omens into finals
On the injury front it is not good news as two of the team’s best defenders are likely to miss the whole finals due to injury. However if you care less about personnel and more about stories, Fremantle has a great omen in their big brother.
In 1991 West Coast lost their first grand final to Hawthorn, while in 2013 Fremantle lost their first grand final to Hawthorn. In 1992 West Coast finished fourth behind three teams tied at the top of the ladder while in 2014 Fremantle finished fourth behind three teams tied at the top of the ladder.
In both 1991 and 1992 West Coast had the least points against while in 2013 and 2014 Fremantle had the least points against. If Geelong and Fremantle is your 2014 grand final match up, just hand the cup to the Dockers.
1. The Richmond finals story writes itself
If the previous comment wasn’t strong enough, an indication into how I like the stories more than anything, this one will reinforce it. Back in the dying moments of the 1998 grand final there was a great line by Bruce McAvaney about the Adelaide Crows, saying where they had to win on their path to the premiership.
For Richmond the story is starting to take shape. “They had to win in Sydney over the minor premier just to make finals, they had to go to Adelaide, they had to go to Perth, they came back to Melbourne and now they are just one step away from the most unlikely premiership in history.”
A lot of talk about this season being the ‘Stephen Bradbury’ of a Brownlow winner. Perhaps the premiership will have the same description.
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