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Arguably the two best sides of the home-and-away season get our finals series underway, and this is the first 2015 AFL Finals Forecast.
MORE AFL FINALS:
>> EAGLES VS HAWKS PREVIEW
>> DOCKERS VS SWANS PREVIEW
>> DOGS VS CROWS PREVIEW
That’s right, not content to get most of the hard-to-pick games wrong during the dog days, I’m taking my questionable forecasting abilities to the post season.
For all nine games during the 2015 AFL finals, I’ll make a case for both sides, before forecasting a victor.
In case you weren’t already aware, this finals series shapes as one of the more unpredictable in recent history, mostly because of the advent of the Western Australian apocalypse. The road to the MCG is unusually long this year, and it’s put both West Coast and Fremantle in the box seat.
But the beauty of the format is that things cap flip very quickly. A win to either Hawthorn or Sydney in Week 1 could shake things up. So without further ado, let’s get into it!
Qualifying final #2
West Coast vs Hawthorn
Friday, 11 September, 6:20WST
Subiaco Oval, Perth, Western Australia
The Round 19 match-up between these two sides was one of the better games of the year, with the Hawks coming back from a small three-quarter time deficit (and trailing for all but the final 15 minutes of the game) to record a 14-point win.
It was supposed to be the game that decided who would finish in second place, and for a time it seemed inevitable that Hawthorn would reel the Eagles in, but the Hawks’ loss to Port Adelaide in Round 21 threw a spanner in the works. It doomed Hawthorn to having to win in the west at least once to make it to the grand final.
But they won in the west already, against the Eagles no less, so what’s the big deal?
There are two particulars that complicate matters.
First, Hawthorn played West Coast closer and tighter than they have any individual team in any individual game in their current era. The Hawks are a decidedly average tackling side when it comes to total effective tackles per game – preferring to beat you by clever positioning without the ball, and an overwhelming dominance of possession once they do have it. In Round 19, Hawthorn laid a total of 100 tackles on West Coast, which is the most under current coach Alastair Clarkson.
The Hawks simply cramped the Eagles for room, and kept them to just 169 uncontested possessions, down on a season average of 231 per game. West Coast also had just 189 kicks (season average is 206) and took 56 marks (92 per game).
To do that, Hawthorn gave up some of their outside game too, recording fewer kicks and fewer uncontested possessions than they tend to. But the kicking differential between the two sides translated into territory, and the Hawks managed to pound their way to victory on the back of 53 inside 50s to 44.
It was an unusually inside game by the Hawks, who like to deny their opposition possession and win with their superior foot skills. Hawthorn managed to win the game despite scoring just 88 points, which was the lowest winning score they kicked in 2015. By contrast, West Coast had a record of 14-1-1 in games that they have held their opponent to 88 points or less.
Clarkson got away with it once, but he won’t get away with it again here. It was shock and awe stuff, and took the Eagles by surprise. The top end of West Coast’s midfield still got their share of the ball, but the drop off from Matthew Priddis to Mark Hutchings was stark.
That’s one part of the story. The other is player availability, particularly on the West Coast side.
In the Round 19 match-up, West Coast were missing Nic Naitanui, and were forced to turn to Scott Lycett as a one-out option against Jonathon Ceglar and Ben McEvoy due to the late pull out of Calum Sinclair. Meanwhile, Jeremy McGovern returned from a hamstring injury, only to go down with another in the last quarter.
The ruck battle in particular was something of a one-off occurrence, with West Coast going down in centre clearances 6-15. That’s an area that they excel at, which is in no small way – in fact is in a very large way – driven by Naitanui.
Nic Nat’s certainly back, and the Eagles have regained their start up spark. Naitanui to Luke Shuey to Josh Kennedy is one of the more predictable possession chains in the game, but its ridiculously effective.
Hawthorn are the league’s second best clearance team, winning 5.6 more per game than their opponent on average. West Coast, by contrast, are seventh in the league on +1.4. But as I say West Coast tend to dominate in the centre of the ground, where Hawthorn’s weapon of choice is the general play stoppage. Hawthorn tend to play two genuine ruckmen, and have a line-up of midfielders that permit so many different looks that it’s hard for the opposition to match up.
It’s the style of play that West Coast aspire to, but they’re just a little bit short on depth when it comes to elite clearance players, and are still a season or two away from being considered a hardened, established team. Let’s not forget, West Coast finished ninth last season, and weren’t expected to go much better in 2015, mostly because of their list.
Both sides have very potent forward lines, and rank first (Hawthorn) and second (West Coast) on offensive efficiency rating (OER) in 2015.
Kennedy, the Coleman Medal winner for 2015, is the modern key-forward archetype: tall, strong, but agile enough to beat his opponent once the ball hits the ground. Jack Darling has worked his way into this season after injury threatened to derail it, while Mark LeCras, Josh Hill and Jamie Cripps are perhaps the most unlikely trio of successful small forwards we’ve seen in many years. The five of them account for close to 70 points per game in direct scoreboard impact.
Hawthorn, by relative contrast, have a larger spread of scorers. Where they lack a genuine key forward like Kennedy for West Coast, they make up for it with a fleet of smaller, hard to match up scoring avenues, that give the Hawks unparalleled flexibility.
Where it gets a little tricky, and begins to favour the Hawks just a little bit, is the respective back-line match-ups. Or, for West Coast, the lack of back-line match-ups.
You see, Hawthorn have got a back six that rivals any of the modern era. They bought in James Frawley from Melbourne, and he picks up the third tall or least agile of the small forwards. Brian Lake will wear Kennedy for the whole game, Josh Gibson will use Jack Darling’s eagerness against him and roll off at every opportunity, and the likes of Ben Stratton and likely Shaun Burgoyne represent enough of a rebound threat to pose a headache for West Coast’s small forwards.
But down the other end, West Coast are vulnerable to Hawthorn’s flexibility and precision ball movement. A lot has been made of the ‘Weagles Web’, which is just a fancy name for a zone defence that brings elements of man coverage to stop direct forward movement. To make it work, the Eagles need to have time to set their zone up and block the lanes, which is time West Coast’s forward and midfield won’t be able to give because of the quality of Hawthorn’s prime movers.
Although, Hawthorn’s lack of a true key forward plays into the man-zone hands a bit, because help is generally just a few metres away when the ball comes in high and long. And the smaller size of West Coast’s defenders means they have enough agility to go with most of Hawthorn’s forwards one-on-one.
This is all a roundabout way of saying I’m still not certain why Hawthorn played West Coast the way they did in Round 19. At peak form, Hawthorn are good enough to beat everyone, whether it be a high-scoring shootout or a lower scoring trudge. I’ve heard the weather being used as an excuse, but in all seriousness rain in Perth is like pouring half a litre of water from a tin watering can.
If this were being played on a neutral venue, or in Melbourne, it would be a lean Hawthorn game – probably by the same margin I’m selecting below. Don’t get me wrong, West Coast would certainly give it a shake, and be in for much of the night, but Hawthorn’s money in the bank, tactical nous and flexible forward set up is just too much for anyone to take. And home-field advantage matters in cross-country battles.
But we’re not playing in Melbourne. West Coast have played 12 games at Subiaco Oval in 2015, for an average points for of 115.6 and against of 67.8. They have conceded 100 just once, and that was the Round 3 derby. Their only losses have come to Hawthorn and Fremantle; outside of this, West Coast have won their home games by an average of 64 points.
The influence of Naitanui can’t be missed here, either. Hawthorn’s McEvoy and Hale are old-school, big-bodied ruckmen. Naitanui jumps all over those types like an Olympic pole vaulter – without the pole. I expect West Coast to have the ascendency at centre bounce clearance situations, but if they can win the around-the-ground stuff, that will go a long way to helping them win the territory battle.
Hawthorn’s best chance is to turn this into a scrap, but I don’t think they will. The weather forecast is looking a little dicey too, which could even things up a bit in the ball movement stakes.
West Coast are at home, and so are in the box seat for this one. The Eagles should win this game, by a margin of 18 points.
That’s my Second Qualifying Final Forecast (we’ll work on the name for next year), what’s yours?