North or Port best placed for future success

Nothing brings on the obituaries for a football team like a straight sets exit from a finals series.

Already this week my esteemed colleagues on The Roar, Michael Cowley and Dan Lonergan, have sounded the death knell for Fremantle and Geelong respectively. And to be fair to both, they make compelling cases.

The Fremantle top end, so critical in their rise to premiership contenders, is showing the tell-tale signs of battle fatigue, and the Geelong underbelly might just be a bit softer than we otherwise suspected.

But with two flag contenders potentially on the slide, where do the new kids on the block, Port and North, sit in relation to the mythical ‘premiership window’?

Is it right now? Is it next year? Or are they simply pretenders in the manner of Adelaide of 2012, who will never again rise to preliminary final level with the current group of players?

Most would suggest that North Melbourne are the team most up against it to turn this week’s prelim into a sustainable tilt at a premiership. We judge the future capacity of teams through the prism of elite players, and particularly elite players in their prime.

The Kangaroos have eight players aged 28 or over, an age at which point your best football may not be behind you, but rarely is it in front of you. Of these eight, three of them are arguably North’s very best players – Brent Harvey (36), Nick Dal Santo (30) and Daniel Wells (29). We know how important they all are in breaking matches open through their creativity and hard running.

Drew Petrie (31) has rediscovered good form at exactly the right time this finals series, doing his best to dispel the notion that he is a flat-track bully that underwhelms against quality opposition. Sam Gibson (28) has been enormous in September too, and could be leading any North award for best finals player.

Nathan Grima (29) and Scott Thompson (28) are the key defensive planks, and Michael Firrito (30) has once again become an important member of the best 22.

We know what we’re going to get from these players, but it’s the next generation that will need to take their places in this club’s elite bracket, not only for North to defeat Sydney this week, but if they are going to have sustained success.

The majority of these players have taken steps and shown flashes that they might just bridge the gap on their experienced teammates in the not-too-distant future. The flag aspirations of their football club depend on it.

Champion Data‘s Prospectus is always the number one read for every true footy fan each season.

The 2014 edition only had one Port Adelaide player rated in the elite category (the surprise of Angus Monfries for those playing at home), yet when we cast our eyes over this side when they’re at their very best, every player in a Power jumper seems to be one.

The difference between Port and North is that most of the players in the conversation for such a label at the Power are aged 26 or younger. These are names like Travis Boak, Hamish Hartlett, Chad Wingard, Robbie Gray, Matthew Lobbe, Oliver Wines, Jackson Trengove, Matthew Broadbent and Jared Polec.

If all of these are not elite players now, they will be soon, and have already proven themselves match-winners on multiple occasions. Each of them are big game and big moment players, which is so critical when it comes to winning finals.

Port play a hard-running, hard-tackling, ferocious style that is tailor-made for the finals cauldron. They also have the players to execute such a style, but do so combined with a sometimes outrageous flair.

Can the Power upset the Hawks at the MCG this Saturday? They just might. But even if they don’t, it’s hard to argue that they won’t be playing football at the pointy end of the season for quite a few years yet.