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Call it the tipster’s nightmare – because that’s what Round 15 is. Just a look at this week is enough to give your average tipster a headache, and let’s be honest, most of us have a headache already.
After all, 2015 has probably been one of the hardest seasons to predict in a long while. A couple of times this year I’ve thought I had a good idea of where each team was at and who was ahead in the races for finals and the flag, only for that to be promptly blown out of the water.
Collingwood and Port Adelaide? North Melbourne and Geelong? West Coast and Adelaide? Good luck tipping these nightmares. We’re battling here not only with inconsistent sides but emotional factors.
How will the loss of Phil Walsh last week – still fresh in our hearts and minds – affect the performance of Port Adelaide, West Coast and Adelaide, all sides he has spent time at in recent years?
And how can anyone really hope to predict North Melbourne? The most effective means of tipping them at the moment is to throw a dart at the board and see which colour it lands on.
The game of the round
Hawthorn and Fremantle is a match-up I’ve been looking forward to for a while now, given Fremantle’s blistering start to the season and Hawthorn’s obvious status as the reigning back-to-back premiers.
These two sides meet in Launceston this week and even though Fremantle are two games clear on the top of the ladder, you’d have to think this will be a difficult one for them.
After all, their form hasn’t been quite right since their loss to Richmond – they’ve beaten Gold Coast, Collingwood and Brisbane in the time since, but none of them convincingly.
The Hawks on the other hand have won their last five on the run, are back in the top four, and picking up steam to chase a third premiership.
Who’ll get the points? It could be a season-defining game for both clubs.
The fizzer
In a round that’s mostly full of tight matches, there’s an obvious candidate this week for the game nobody wants to watch, and it’s in the traditional Sunday twilight timeslot – Sydney and Brisbane.
While any given game has the potential to go differently to what we expect and be worth the watching, this one just doesn’t look a likely prospect.
Brisbane have shown a little more fight lately than they did in the early part of the year, but really, a 2-11 team on the bottom of the ladder just doesn’t seem likely to match it with a 10-3 team in third, no matter how you style it.
Universal love
It’s got to be the Saints at the moment. They’re a team full of young guns with a lot of promise, and what do you love to watch more than that? Young forward Jack Lonie – last week’s Rising Star nominee – typifies the side in some way. Young, exciting, full of potential.
Plus they just knocked off Essendon to the tune of 110 points. If that’s not going to get you an outpouring of love from AFL fans all over the world, what is?
This week they have a trick assignment, heading up north to face GWS at home. If they can back up last week’s performance with another win there, they’ll be the talk of the town.
Not so much…
No one’s too big a fan of Essendon at the moment, including lady luck. Not only are they fresh from a 110-point hiding and facing a WADA appeal, but this week they lost their captain Jobe Watson for the rest of the season due to shoulder surgery.
It’s pretty clear at the moment that any promise Essendon showed last year towards being a regular finals threat or even a possible premiership contender was a little misplaced.
Maybe it was the coaching magic of Bomber Thompson, maybe it was just a good year for the list, but it looks now like they’ve been badly overtaken by the younger teams in the competition.
AFL fans around the country aren’t exactly sympathetic with the Bombers’ plight to begin with, so the judgement calls are coming thick and fast.
The Bombers come up against Melbourne this week, a team they’ve lost to more often than not in recent years despite the Demons’ often diabolical form. Lose again this week and the background noise will go up in volume yet again.
The big IN
There’s a couple of handy players on the horizon for a return this week but the one set to make the biggest splash in my view is Brisbane captain Tom Rockliff.
After an outstanding season in 2014 which saw him named All-Australian and moved to the Lions’ captaincy over the off-season, he’s had a rubbish year in terms of his luck with injuries.
A knee in the wrong place from Travis Varcoe took out his ribs partway through Round 1, and in just his second match after returning from injury he was knocked out cold a few minutes in by a bump from Steven May.
Despite some good form over the next few weeks he pulled up sore and found he had re-broken a number of his ribs. Since then he’s been on the sidelines for the last six weeks.
Back for the Lions this week, he probably won’t be enough to make them legitimate challengers against the Swans, but his competitiveness and leadership is something they’ve been sorely lacking. Welcome back, skipper.
The big OUT
Without a doubt the biggest out of the week is Essendon captain Jobe Watson. He’s been down on form for a while, but now that shoulder surgery has ended his season, it leaves the club without their leader at arguably the toughest time in their history.
True, the Bombers have been dealing with the drugs saga for a few years now, but at least in the years prior they were playing decent footy. At the moment, they’re struggling on-field as much as they are off-field. It’s a bad place to be in.
While Watson can still provide a solid influence around the club, they’ll sorely miss him on gameday. Here’s hoping the likes of young leaders Dyson Heppell and David Zaharakis can step up for the Bombers in his absence.