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Don’t be jealous of the AFL’s new Big Three

5th July, 2016
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The Cats are in form - again - and deserve to be. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Expert
5th July, 2016
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We’re 14 games into the most even season in living memory, yet the usual suspects sit atop the ladder. Don’t hate on the new Big Three.

Instead, think how your club can become more like them. It’s simpler than you think.

As it stands, the 2016 AFL ladder looks more cramped than a Western Bulldogs stoppage at the SCG. Hawthorn sit a game clear on top with an 11-3 record, giving way to six teams with 10-4 records, and West Coast bringing up the top eight rear on 9-5.

Port Adelaide sit in ninth on 7-6 – but around about 30 percentage points behind the Eagles on percentage – before a further five teams sit one game behind the ledger on 6-7. It’s bonkers.

The result of this is that the bottom four teams have won a combined eight games from 56 outings. We can worry about that motley crew in late August.

With eight rounds remaining in the home-and-away season, we’re bringing out the calculators to justify extra interest in games played by teams currently outside of the party. The fabled mathematical chance, which has come good once in the past decade as best I can tell (when the Tigers surged home in 2014), is the stock in trade of caller stuck with non-finalist football.

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Despite the early season promise of an even season delivering, we’re heading into the run home with three names at the top of the ladder that we’re used to seeing there: the Hawthorn Hawks, Sydney Swans and Geelong Cats.

In case you’re new to this, Hawthorn, Sydney and Geelong have won nine of the past 11 premierships stretching back to 2005, and all five of them since 2011.

That’s a misleading statistic in some senses, because Hawthorn have won the past three in a row. However, these are three of the most winningest teams in the league over any medium term horizon you wish to carve the data, and they’re here again, despite taking vastly different paths to contention this season.

They are the AFL’s modern Big Four, except there’s only three of them. Hmm. Big Three will have to do. Here’s a taste of why we’re approaching September with familiar faces in tow.

Hawthorn: Commitment to system
For all intents and purposes, Hawthorn came into the 2016 season planning to reprise their 2015 campaign. The only significant changes to their best 22 were the retirements of David Hale and Brian Lake, and departure of Matt Suckling. Hale was barely functioning by the time September rolled around, anyway. Coming into the year it was clear they were the team to beat because of course they were, but that there was a change of the guard looming large.

But as the season rolled on, things got more challenging. Jarryd Roughead’s injury, then his illness, Luke Hodge’s injuries, Brad Hill’s overcorrection to a couple of good years, and Cyril Rioli’s declension from Bruce McAvaney’s dream cloud, were additional spanners thrown into the works of a finely tuned football machine.

It looked too much to manage, and in a lot of ways it has been. But as they do, infuriatingly well, Hawthorn have kept winning.

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The Hawks have won all four of their close games in 2016, which is the catalyst behind their ladder-leading wins tally on a meagre percentage of 119.6 – the third lowest of the top eight. If two of those were to break the opposite way, which as we discussed earlier in the year was certainly in play, then Hawthorn would be in eighth spot behind West Coast, and within striking distance of their opponent this week, Port Adelaide.

I said it in that article. Hawthorn haven’t recaptured their best form from the 2015 season in the year to date, but have done enough to get themselves into winning positions, and then held on with some combination of skill and luck. This holds true some nine weeks later.

The Hawks are doing what they know how to do, and doing it well enough to keep themselves in the conversation. Ten Hawthorn players with less than 50 games experience have suited up this season, and collectively played 74 of Hawthorn’s 308 games as a unit. James ‘If Only He Wouldn’t Duck’ Sicily has played the full season, while Billy Hartung has played 13 and Jonathon Ceglar has played 12. They are proving that system trumps personnel, to a point.

There’s been a lot of talk about Hawthorn’s poor outcome on the contested possession ladder in recent weeks. They aren’t winning the ball as frequently as they have in the past – not that the Hawks have been near the top of the contested possession differential ladder in recent years – but when they do, they are going to work. Hawthorn’s fleet of elite kicks and rampaging small forwards have combined to see the Hawks retain their status as a deadly attacking force.

When adjusted for time in possession – a critical driver of which is contested possession wins – the Hawks have the fourth-sharpest attack in the competition. They score 12 per cent more points per minute of possession than the league average, behind Adelaide (20 per cent), Port Adelaide (15 per cent) and West Coast (13 per cent).

A fleet helmed by Cyril Rioli, who is ably flanked by Paul Puopolo and Luke Breust and supported in the tall department by Jack Gunston and Sicily is, evidently, still very good. Hawthorn have had one of the best offensive systems in the competition for years, and it has stood up in the face of 2016’s adversity.

Defensively, though, the Hawks look more vulnerable. Coming into the year there was plenty of chatter than a Brian Lake-less back six would be a weakness in this iteration of the team, and so it has been. Hawthorn have the seventh-best defensive output in the league to date according to my Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER), on account of an average rate of score conversion by their opponents, and an above average scoring accuracy. Hawthorn’s midfield is still keeping the ball out of the defensive zone well – the Hawks are third in the league on inside 50s against – but the problems start when the ball gets in there.

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They look a player short, at least compared to recent times which is what we’re judging this team against. James Frawley is performing well in Lake’s stopper role, while Josh Gibson is performing incredibly well for a 33-year-old. Ben Stratton is a sneaky-elite small defender, and Grant Birchall is a less sexy version of GWS’ Zac Williams. Tim O’Brien has been given a run, as has Daniel Howe, and both look a little, if not expectedly, raw.

That’s detail. At the aggregate, Hawthorn are showing once again why coach Alastair Clarkson has a coaching institute named after him – even if I’m the one that created it and it is a figment of my imagination. They may not make it to the top four given their run home versus the runs home of their foes, but all they need is a stamped ticket to be dangerous.

The Hawthorn board – led principally by its president – were said to have been extremely close to handing Clarkson his notice in 2010. Instead, we’re in 2016, wounded, with a target tattooed on their backs each year – a testament to the regard in which they’re held – but on top of the ladder. Building to the heights of Hawthorn takes time, and commitment to system.

Sydney: Salary cap artistry
The academy system has helped, sure, but Sydney’s array of young talent has emerged as among the best in the competition in the first 14 rounds of this year.

Coming into 2016, the Swans had signed on their youngest list since 2009. This was supposed to be their year of non-contention, where the youngsters learned the ropes and the more mature bodies struggled to adapt to the fast football that became Sydney’s go-to plan in 2015. It was to be a Sydney dip of course; nothing dramatic, and they’d make finals because of their talent alone, but the flag was beyond them.

Well, it is certainly the year of the youngster at Sydney. Over 14 rounds to date, Sydney have been 15 days younger than their opponents on match day on average – an unthinkable statistic no more than two years ago. Tom Mitchell, Luke Parker, Jake Lloyd, Isaac Heeney, Callum Mills, Zak Jones, Harry Cunningham and George Hewett have all played 12 games or more for the Swans this year, and are all under 24 years of age. Roar alumni Sarah Olle wrote a great piece examining Sydney’s youth boom a fortnight ago.

Mills and Heeney in particular have burst on to the scene, and look primed to destroy planets as they grow and develop. Both are products of the Sydney Swans’ academy system, and there are more like thrm waiting in the wings so we’re told.

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Most of Sydney’s youngsters are still cheap in an AFL contract sense; highly rated youngsters, yes, but they are youngsters all the same. Luke Parker is on his third contract, but the remainder are likely doing their work for 60 to 80 cents on the dollar. Indeed, Tom Mitchell is holding out, searching for an upgrade on his contract which expires at the end of this year.

This inflection point has been timed, either by accident or on purpose (and I’d suggest more on purpose than you think) perfectly in the context of what is likely a very tight Sydney salary cap.

Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett were two of the most sought-after players in their respective years of availability, and Sydney astutely put their calculators to work to fit them into their means. Tippett had revelled in the role as Sydney’s primary ruckman this season – and would have been an interesting All Australian candidate – prior to his recent injury, while Franklin is doing Franklin things week in, week out.

The Swans are populated by highly rated players across every line, save perhaps for defence. Franklin, Tippett, Dan Hannebery, Josh Kennedy, Parker, even perhaps Jarryd McVeigh are on large, long-tenor contracts, mostly signed when the Cost of Living Allowance was still alive and well. It will be dead after this season, which should create some nasty pressures for Sydney’s football department.

Except it won’t, because the AFL’s salary cap is set to increase significantly under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement being hammered out. Sydney won’t get the full benefit of the rising cap in a relative sense, because of the downward squeeze on their personal credit limit after this season. But that won’t matter, given where they find themselves.

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Sydney have a roughly average run home; playing three top four compatriots, and five sides that sit outside of the Punching Bag Zone (aka bottom three). Their next fortnight, with games against fellow Big Three members Geelong and Hawthorn, could lock them into the top four.

They can thank astute management of their salary cap, both in times of regulated plenty and deregulated difficulty, for their privileged position. Sydney show what a ruthlessly efficient administration can achieve.

Geelong: Seizing the opportunity
Patrick Dangerfield’s free agency was the chance Geelong grasped, with both hands and their feet and every other body part capable of grasping things, when remodelling their list at the end of last year. It meant moving on a number of their respected veterans – one of whom has gone on to emerge as a cherry on top of a finely crafted footballing sundae at his new home – bringing in prime age players, and trading away the traditional path to renewal in high draft picks.

Thus far, the experiment in aggressive deal-making is paying off better than most expected. There were some who saw this version of the Cats emerging from a frantic fortnight at the end of last season, but a 10-4 record must have been at the very top of expectations.

Geelong are an interesting case study in contrarianism this season. The Cats are playing with feet on the brake and accelerator in even measure, and are perhaps the most balanced of all sides in the race this year – they’re the only team ranked inside of the top four on both my OER and DER. Yet, teams that hit them hard, play fast, or do some combination of these, have had their measure.

Geelong’s lone loss against a top eight peer came against a rampaging GWS in the week following a crushing Round 1 win. Yet their record is an impossible – for a top four contender – 4-3 against sides not in finals contention.

In the spirit of this week, Geelong are a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside of an enigma. Coming into the year that was the status of their bold list management strategy, but we’re now beyond reasonable doubt that it has paid off handsomely.

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The common thread? It’s not on the field
Despite the differences, all three teams are having great success in 2016. It isn’t likely that they’ll all end the season in the top four – Hawthorn in particular is looking vulnerable – but once again we’ll be watching on in September as the masters of the league go at it.

Despite the differences, one factor is constant: strong, unified, stable leadership off the field. This is an under-rated feature of the best sports clubs in the world, and one that it would appear is becoming more in-vouge across the AFL.

Think about Brisbane, Richmond, even Collingwood – although the senior leadership at the Westpac Centre has been anything but stable in recent years – who re-signed coaches many thought should be kept on tenterhooks for this season.

The AFL’s bringing-in of Paul Roos was ostensibly about creating an environment of stability; a $3 million investment that is paying back ten-fold now. Fremantle’s rise came after a complete overhaul of their off field leadership, West Coast have had the same CEO for one billion years. It has emerged that Carlton’s somewhat puzzling 2016 season is all about creating a safe, stable environment.

Hawthorn have built their impenetrable fortress over more than a decade, favouring stability over emotional change along the way. Sydney have emerged as the masters of their own domain, managing their personnel with aplomb.

Geelong, like Hawthorn, built over an extended period of time, but have displayed the courage to make bold decisions when opportunities presented themselves. These are the things which characterise each of the new Big Three in various measures.

It goes beyond this, of course. Each have built their own formidable home base of support – or, in Hawthorn’s case, a home away from home – and have sizeable fan-bases to separate from their money, both from football and non-football sources. But sitting atop of the piles of money are great administrators.

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There has been some crazy talk in recent times about the ‘EPL-isation’ of the AFL; that “fans would be bored” by another Hawthorn victory.

How cute. Ignoring the logical inconsistency of a salary caps in the AFL versus the open market of the EPL, and the colossal strawman strung by a former AFL coach, those types of reactions are likely to build in the weeks and months ahead.

Instead of preparing the scythes, the other 15 clubs and their constituents should be taking notes. Football’s Big Three are at the top for a variety of reasons, but one that cuts across them all: they are very good at their jobs.

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