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For those US sports fans that follow Bill Simmons, most would be familiar with the ‘Ewing Theory’ which is named after the New York Knicks’ famous and fearless leader Patrick Ewing from the 1980s and 90s.
The theory denotes the phenomenon when a star player’s team inexplicably performs better without their presumed star player.
This theory was galvanised in 1999 when the Knicks made the NBA Finals for the first time since 1970s, which also coincided with Ewing being out of the side due to an injury early in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Over the past decade there have been a number of local sporting cases which warrant classification under the Ewing Theory. A current rugby example that could be examined is the current All Blacks form making a strong case for those that believe they were better without Richie McCaw and Dan Carter in recent years.
The two prominent cases in play for the NRL and AFL finals series this year are Billy Slater from the Melbourne Storm and Patrick Dangerfield from the Geelong Cats respectively.
These cases are quite different in nature and there are recent equivalent examples in the two codes.
A potential Ewing Theory example was Gary Ablett Jnr and the Geelong Cats who won the flag in 2011, the season after Ablett departed for the Gold Coast. While this probably cannot be classed as a pure case of the Ewing Theory given, unlike Ewing, Ablett had already won two premierships with the Cats, it did present a strong case of the Cats’ over-reliance on Ablett in 2010.
This was especially the case in the 2010 preliminary final against Collingwood which the Magpies won by 50 points, and Ablett looked like the only competitive player on the Cats roster with 40 possessions.
The last time the Storm played in the NRL finals with Billy Slater they were convincingly bundled out in the first week. Since then Slater has been mostly unavailable due to injury. His replacement Cameron Munster has helped see the Storm improve with a home preliminary final in 2015 and the minor premiership this year.
However, unlike Ewing and more like Ablett, Slater has technically played in three winning grand finals so the Ewing Theory can only really be applied to the back end of his career. And Slater will have the chance to disprove this theory by improving the Storm’s performance in 2017, no matter how they end up this year.
There is a unique alternate Ewing Theory case in Australia which we can claim as the Finch Theory, named after former NRL halfback who almost single handedly determined the two 2009 grand finalists (Melbourne and Parramatta).
The out-of-form Eels released Finch after Round 4 only for him to be picked up by the Storm in Round 7 who languishing outside the top eight.
The fortunes of both clubs eventually picked up as they adjusted to life with and without Finch.
For the Eels, it paved the way for establishing one of the most dominant and entertaining three-month stretches of football in recent times. They toppled the minor premiers St George Illawarra along with the second and third ranked sides out of the finals in consecutive weeks.
In doing so, this opened the way for the Storm to have a relatively smooth path to the grand final where they would bring the Eels’ run to an end.
There is no question in that the Eels would not have made the grand final with Finch, as the dynamic form and chemistry of Jarryd Hayne, Dan Mortimer and Feleti Mateo would never have been realised.
Similarly, the Storm would not have won the premiership that year, as Finch provided a crucial rudder and support base which the side lacked to allow the Storm’s Big Four of Slater, Greg Inglis, Cooper Cronk and Cam Smith to flourish.
It is hard to find another example of a mediocre playmaker (at the NRL level) having such a profound influence on an NRL season simply by switching teams mid-season, and it is something that may never be repeated again on this scale.
That being said, the Finch Theory is clearly in play for Dangerfield if the AFL grand final is between Geelong and Adelaide.
As recently as two weeks ago the Adelaide Crows looked to be even better without him, while the Cats are also proving to be much stronger with his Brownlow form presence alleviating the pressure Joel Selwood has had in recent seasons.
For the Crows players like Rory Sloane and Matt Crouch have appeared to be the biggest beneficiaries with Dangerfield’s departure. However how much stronger the Crows are will be determined in the next four weeks, along with potentially the second Finch Theory member.
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