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Dylan Sargent

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Joined February 2013

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Why would the other teams want to trade a proven star player for the potential of a draft pick? They don’t care about the overall quality of the AFL; their only focus is giving their team the best possible chance to win a premiership.

Clubs were happy to trade draft picks to GWS for mini-draft players or pre-listed players because it was in the interests of improving their team.

There are plenty of paths the AFL could have taken to improve the teams GC and GWS put on the field were of a higher standard. They could have prohibited trading draft picks for mini-draft players. They could stipulated that GC and GWS had to pre-list a certain number of players and retain them. They could have reduced the number of 17 year old players that GC and GWS could list.

There are potential flaws with all of these options and it is obviously a difficult issue but it just goes to show that the AFL should have put more thought into it at the time.

GWS Giants AFL preview 2013

There isn’t any point criticising the Giants or Suns players but the fact is that only a handful of matches involving these teams have been competitive. As a Queensland fan, this is particularly frustrating because the Suns are on free-to-air every week instead of a more entertaining and more relevant match.

In this instance, the criticism shouldn’t be of the expansion teams but with the AFL. The swathes of pre-selection and draft concessions that they handed out gave the Suns and the Giants no incentive to put together competitive teams from the outset.

GWS Giants AFL preview 2013

There is no doubt that they would be ecstatic with 5 wins, but I think even that is a stretch.

For all the love for GWS, it is easy to overlook the fact that they actually performed worse the Gold Coast did in their first season. They won fewer games, scored considerably less, allowed slightly more points and had the ridiculously small percentage of 46.17. To put that in perspective, their percentage was worse than the doomed 1996 Fitzroy team.

I think GWS has done a much better job than Gold Coast at putting into place all the pieces for a future juggernaut, but too many of their players are too early in their development curve to expect any significant improvement in wins or ladder position this season.

GWS Giants AFL preview 2013

I agree with you that Collingwood are in the group of contenders for the premiership this season but their form last year was patchy, especially in the second half of the season.

There were a number of factors that may have affected their performance last year outside of the new coaching regime, like Cloke’s contract negotations and the number of young players they had to blood to cover injuries. On balance, I would expect them to be better this season but until they have the results to prove it, I think there remain valid questions over Buckley’s coaching credentials.

Flag contenders leading into 2013 AFL season

I have to disagree with many of the comments about Collingwood’s 2012 season. Under Malthouse in 2011, Collingwood scored the most points of any team while allowing the fewest. Under Buckley last season, they slipped to 6th and 5th respectively. They also outperformed expectations in close games, so their record at the end of the year may have masked their struggles to some degree. performance.

Travis Cloke also did everything but live up to the hype last season. As a result, their forward line struggled and relied far too heavily on the midfield to score goals.

Their down year may well have been attributable to adapting to a new coaching staff and learning a new game plan and Collingwood certainly have the talent to bounce back this season but I don’t think you can say that the transition was smooth last year.

Flag contenders leading into 2013 AFL season

It is hard to put too much stock into Hawthorn’s NAB Cup performances. The NAB Cup is such a small sample size and, given that different teams have different objectives for each game, not a great indicator of future performance. In 2010, Geelong were knocked out of the NAB Cup, only won their last NAB Challenge game and yet ended their season on the premiership dais. If Hawthorn win even one of their three close games, their form is probably not even being questioned.

Hawthorn generate a large number of scoring opportunities on the counter-attack and their is no doubt that the loss of Young to Collingwood and Suckling and Whitecross for most, if not all, of this season will hurt their link-up play on the rebound. Hawthorn, however, also lead the league in goals scored from clearance, so it is not as if rebounding is their sole avenue to goal. Their attack was so prolific last season that they can afford some regression and still be well above average.

The greatest obstacle to Hawthorn’s premiership tilt is their tough schedule, not only playing all seven finalists in the first seven rounds but also being the only team not to have a single repeat game against a non-finals team. If they start slowly like last year, they may be playing catch-up for a spot in the top 4 for the rest of the year, and the record for teams winning the premiership from the bottom half of the 8 is poor.

JOHNNO: Is Hawthorn’s season already on the line?

Nice article James. I’d be interested to hear your opinion on Brandon Jennings reinvention as a facilitator and whether you think he can sustain it into the playoffs. His role change has made their offense run much more effectively, aided by the floor spacing provided by J.J. Redick, in an admittedly small sample size.

Irrespective of how the Bucks’ finish the season, Hammond and the front office have some tough decisions to make in the offseason, with Jennings, Ellis and Redick all potentially being on the market and question marks remaining over all three.

Don't take your eyes off Milwaukee

Great article Dan. Really interesting that you mentioned McCartney’s focus on winning clearances as Plan A, B and C, as this is completely borne out in their season statistics. Last year the Bulldogs averaged the fifth most clearances per game , 13th most inside 50s and were dead last in converting inside 50s to goals.

These stats underscore the two major problems for the Bulldogs mentioned in your article, namely the lack of a functional forward structure and the poor quality of delivery from their midfield. They have also been hurt by Adam Cooney’s knees breaking down much earlier than expected, as he really gave them an explosive inside-outside midfielder to pair with Griffen’s outside run and delivery when healthy.

If you were a Bulldogs fan, you would have to be worried that McCartney suggests that the scoring will take care of itself provided the players get the fundamentals right. The Geelong teams during McCartney’s time as assistant played some of the most free-flowing and entertaining football of the modern era. Even those teams had a definable game plan, albeit one that that was based more on a set of core principles than a regimented style of play (e.g. Collingwood under Mick Malthouse or St Kilda and Fremantle under Ross Lyon).

The talent in the Geelong playing group made the looser game plan a strength because it gave their more brilliant individuals (e.g. Stevie J, Ablett, Scarlett) scope to improvise when they saw opportunities that no-one else would. Translating the same approach to a far less talented Bulldogs team is only likely to further expose the playing groups’ lack of skills.

Western Bulldogs in for the longest of seasons

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