We’re entering the festive season. A period of anticipation, sure, but also a period of reflection.

Hawthorn won the 2015 premiership, but what if we broadened the criteria of winning to things that are tangential to football?

Welcome to, “Who Won the AFL in 2015”.

Please, don’t consider this a definitive be all and end all list of winners. In case you didn’t know, lots of stuff happens in the AFL these days. This will, at best, miss half a dozen key events, people, movements or highlights.

Feel free to add your own winners (or losers) in the comments, by the way.

Before we get into it, some ground rules:

1. The competition is open to anyone and everyone in the AFL galaxy
2. The competition is not open to anyone associated with the Carlton Football Club
3. Wins and losses count for at most five per cent of the assessment criteria
4. There are no assessment criteria
5. This is not in finishing order, although I did give in to temptation in anointing a top three

Without further ado, here are the disqualified participants. I didn’t call them losers, but feel free to consider them as such.

James Hird
The former Essendon coach was the AFL’s Pyrrhic victory championship belt holder from 2012 through 2014, but it all caught up with him in 2015 when the club decided a sixth year of meandering along wasn’t acceptable. Let’s lump him with Paul Little, Adrian Dodoro, and any of the Sith Lords still employed by the Essendon Football Club.

Channel Seven
More money for fewer games from 2017 onwards, and the prospective retirement of The Voice, means the league’s free-to-air broadcast partner will continue its exorable march to the depths of the Channel Nine cricket commentary team in 2016.

Anyone or anything north of the Tweed
Except Charlie Dixon, Zach Smith, Jack Redden, Jed Adcock, James Aish, and Matthew Leuenberger. Harley Bennell ended the year on the line between winner and loser, in this respect, which is about right.

Friday night football
Refer to rule two.

AFL tribunal lawyers
In the context of work available at the tribunal, at least. There were just nine players to appear before the AFL tribunal in 2015, down from 15 in 2014. The number of players that missed games was down, too, in no small measure due to changes made to the match review panel following the 2014 season. The lawyers lose, but we all win.

Data and statistics monopolies
Okay, so Champion Data still have complete, unwavering oversight of the AFL’s on-field accounting, but two glancing blows were landed in 2015. First was on draft night, where Champion Data’s software appeared to be unprepared for the implications of an academy player bid that went unmatched.

That was a minor one. The more significant one was the AFL’s attempt to force clubs to transition to Champion Data’s player-tracking technology – a company the AFL happens to own a big piece of.

Not enough was made of this, for mine, given in the real commercial world that kind of behaviour amounts to breaking the law. The clubs didn’t like it, but were told to suck it up. Well, it emerged last week that the proposal has been defeated, with someone, somewhere, realising it’s probably not a good idea to make unilateral decisions that affect the entire competition.

Speaking of which, let’s get to our winners!

Honourable mention: Persons employed in external relations and competition integrity roles at the AFL. (This is sort of a winner, sort of a loser, so I’ll give them an honourable mention.)

Congratulations, flack catchers and background briefers, for remaining gainfully employed, despite the difficulties and missteps of Essendon-ASADA, the Talia Brothers, North Melbourne resting, and now Dustin Martin, among a number of other somewhat less egregious errors of judgement that the league handled in its own way this year. Here’s to a less controversial 2016.

Gillon McLachlan
Scandal aside – and to be honest I think much of that is below McLachlan’s pay grade nowadays – it’s been an extraordinary year of reform in the AFL. Think new match review panel, trading future picks, scrapping the substitute, a new gargantuan broadcast agreement, a new innovation in the fixture; this all happened in 2015 people. In true AFL360 style, it’s been a monster year for the league’s prime minister.

But the year ahead looks to be even more critical to the game’s future. On McLachlan’s summer reading list will be Industrial Relations 101 in preparation for the next collective bargaining agreement negotiations ahead of the current agreement’s expiry on October 30 next year. As well as Public Finance 301 as the league has another go at equalisation, and Asset Management 205 with Docklands still on the agenda.

Jack Reiwoldt
The Reiwoldt Redemption continued, with Jack shedding his petulant cocoon and emerging as a beautiful, key forward butterfly in 2015. Where does he sit on the forward line ladder heading into 2016? Number two behind Josh J Kennedy?

Jesse Hogan
The Melbourne key forward has been set a pretty tough challenge for next year: kick 100 goals. That’s not going to happen. But would 70 be out of the question? Attention, Melbourne Demons. Throw some coin this guy’s way next year. Someone big and purple will be lurking.

The centre square corridor
Thought long extinct, the centre square corridor roared back to life in 2015, as (most) clubs at least tried to play more attacking, direct football. The play of the year was most certainly the half back intercept and run up the middle. Not everyone can kick like the Hawks, but you know what everyone can do? Run and carry. Here’s to an attacking 2016.

The Western Bulldogs cheer squad
There has to be a Tumblr of these living somewhere on the internet. The Doggies have become the first AFL team to treat the humble AFL banner with the slapstick that a combination of crepe paper and professional athletes deserve. Here’s a couple of crackers from 2015:

West Coast forward line
Hands up everyone who thought a forward line of Josh Kennedy, Jack Darling, Josh Hill, Jamie Cripps and Mark LeCras would become the most damaging permanent forward line set in the league coming into 2015.

Anyone? Didn’t think so. Both of my hands are down, FYI. That’s three traded players and two second-round draft picks. This group is currently winning, and they will continue to win for the next couple of years.

The 2007 draft class
Not the whole thing, but certainly large chunks of it. Admittedly it doesn’t jump out as a particularly strong draft class when you look at the surface, but consider these names.

Alex Rance
Ben McEvoy
Brad Ebert
Cale Hooker
Callan Ward
Chris Masten
Chris Mayne
Craig Bird
Cyril Rioli
Easton Wood
Harry Taylor
Jack Steven
Lachie Henderson
Levi Greenwood
Matthew Kreuzer
Matthew Lobbe
Patrick Dangerfield
Rhys Palmer
Scott Selwood
Scott Thompson
Taylor Walker
Trent Cotchin

That’s a really good, AFL-standard side all taken in the 2007 draft – maybe a little heavy on the key position players. That list doesn’t include the likes of Dawson Simpson, Cale Morton, Sam Reid, Brendan Whitecross, Jarrad Grant or Robbie Tarrant, who were also taken in that draft.

Almost all of the players listed above are plying their trade in an important role on a top eight or top eight adjacent team, and for those that aren’t it’s been because of injury or playing for Brisbane. A lot of them emerged in those roles in 2015. It’s not quite the ‘superdraft’ of 2001, but give it another year or two and it could give it a run for its money.

Patrick Dangerfield
Even though he moved clubs – and I still think he fits better at Adelaide – there’s no doubting that Dangerfield was a winner in 2015. He and captain Taylor Walker single-handedly got the Crows over the line in the second elimination final, and he capped off the year by winning Adelaide’s best and fairest (for the first time in his career).

If taken at his word, it was a genuine toss up between staying put and moving to Geelong, with the lure of family winning out. No matter where he went, he would be a winner.

Moggs Creek
Who knew what a ‘Moggs Creek’ was before this year? The region’s economy probably doubled in size based on media attention alone.

The owners of ANZ Stadium
Congratulations! You’ve neglected your asset for so long that there are exposed bolts sticking out of concrete just outside of the playing surface, and yet you get to host Sydney versus Collingwood, Sydney versus Carlton and Sydney versus Essendon in 2016!

Todd Goldstein
The Iron Man (patent pending) came into the year as a serviceable ruckman, capable of mixing it with the big boys. He ended the year as the All-Australian ruckman, and with the most Brownlow medal votes for a tap artist since Dean Cox in 2011. Ending a sentence with “the most Brownlow medal votes for a tap artist since Dean Cox” is a good thing for a ruckman.

David Koch
Since he took over as president of Port Adelaide in 2013, the club has transformed, in no small measure because of the steps Koch has led the club through both on and off the field. It paid dividends in 2015, with the Power delivering a profit for the first time since 2007. For all intents and purposes, the club was on its knees when Koch took over, and its now been reborn as one of the league’s small market dynamos.

The Alastair Clarkson Coaching Academy
Of the eight teams in the 2015 AFL finals, four of them had a direct link to Alastair Clarkson in the coaches box: Hawthorn (for obvious reasons), Richmond (Damien Hardwick was an assistant under Clarkson from 2005 to 2009), West Coast (Adam Simpson, from 2010 to 2013), and the Western Bulldogs (Luke Beveridge, from 2012 to 2014).

Leon Cameron (2010 to 2012) and the Giants were on track for the finals, until Shane Mumford went down with an ankle injury in the middle of the year. It is quite possible that Clarkson and four Clarkson assistants make the eight next year.

The academy graduated its sixth student this year, too, with Brendon Bolton taking over at Carlton. No pressure, Bolts. Just keep smiling.

Josh Schache
Dodged the biggest bullet of 2015: being drafted as a key forward at number one by Carlton.

Ross Lyon’s Ponzi scheme
Just kidding, Dockers fans. For all intents and purposes, Fremantle beat Hawthorn in this year’s preliminary final – everywhere except on the scoreboard. The Hawks had just 19 scoring shots for the game, which was their equal lowest tally for the year. They just kicked 15 of them through the big sticks. Lyon and the Dockers will be thereabouts again in 2016; that midfield unit and defensive unit are too good for them not to be.

Players of above average height, speed and endurance
I’m looking at you, steeplechaser. The third man up became something of a comedic sideshow in parts of the 2015 season, as the pill bounced around in mid-air while seven tall guys tried to knock it clear.

The league hasn’t done anything about it in the off-season so far as a rule change goes, preferring to pull the interchange rein first and see what happens. If there’s another year of Under-9s volleyball-style ruck contests around the ground, they may be forced into action. But for now, if you’re tall, fast and can keep running, you became a high utilisation player in 2015.

Bob Murphy
Football’s elder statesman and uber cool grandad in waiting Bob Murphy lost his weekly TV spot but gained nothing but the respect and admiration of the entire AFL community – headlined by his winning of best captain at the AFL Players Association Awards. I almost want him to retire now, start a podcast, write 12 books, and take over the game from the sidelines. Speaking of which…

Gerard Whately
This will be the year we remember for Gerard Whately becoming the undisputed number one voice in the AFL media, if he wasn’t already there. Now if only Fox Footy could work out a way to kill off the co-‘star’ of AFL360, that show might become watchable again.

Geelong Football Club
I said it in my fixture wrap in October, but it’s worth repeating here: what a turn of events for Geelong. This group should make the finals in 2016, and could even crack a double chance if things go according to plan.

I’m still not convinced they have the outside players to match it with teams such as Hawthorn and West Coast, but when you have Dangerfield, Joel Selwood and Josh Caddy barrelling their way from stoppage to stoppage, it might not matter.

Cyril Rioli
After two years wrecked by injury, Rioli suited up in all but one game for the Hawks and played in his fourth Premiership in 2015. Oh, and he won the Norm Smith Medal (I think Adam Simpson has manned him up, finally), made the All-Australian team, and became one of a handful of players in the league with a contract to the end of 2019. I’m now a paid up member of the McAvaney Church of Cyril.

Luke Beveridge
This is what Cam Rose said about the Western Bulldogs in February: “But, the Dogs are still too young for consistent football, still too limited down back, and will still find it difficult to kick winning scores this year.”

I didn’t say anything on the record, but there was no doubting I was in roaring agreement with Cam. I pegged them as a bottom four team. How wrong we all were, and it was in no small measure due to Luke Beveridge, the spinning magnets on his whiteboard, and tactical nous honed during three years at the Clarkson Coaching Academy.

Recent history shows young teams can suffer the second year blues – hey, it happened to Hawthorn in 2009 – but there’s nothing that can change our collective view that this Doggies team has the building blocks in place.

Nat Fyfe
Was it the haircut that has its own postal address?

Was it the ridiculous first half of the year, where Fyfe averaged 31 disposals, 19 contested possessions, nine clearances, five inside 50s and nearly two goals per game?

Was it the cane, or the beanie, or the dinner jacket, or the Men’s Health spread?

Was it playing with a broken leg in the preliminary final, after a nasty knock on a stress fracture less than a minute into the game?

Was it the Brownlow Medal? Was it the Brownlow Medal speech?

It was all of these things. And it is also the fact that he was born in 1991. The football world is this man’s for the taking.

And now, the top three.

Third place: Adam Goodes
I’m not going into it, but if you believe Goodes wasn’t one of the biggest winners in the AFL in 2015 then you may want to undergo a concussion assessment before you next get behind the wheel of your motor vehicle.

Runner-up: The entire Adelaide Football Club
This is another one I don’t particularly want to revisit, and for what I trust are well-known reasons.

The club’s response to the death of their coach, Phil Walsh, was nothing short of remarkable and utterly perfect. Taylor Walker, Scott Camporeale and Andrew Fagan deserve all the praise that came their way in the second half of the year. John Worsfold deserves plaudits, as does everyone who stepped into the fold throughout the tragedy.

Lesser organisations would have struggled with the shock and outright sadness of such an event, particularly in light of the stories which have emerged in the months following. The Adelaide Football Club are winners.

Winner: Alastair Clarkson
In the year that Michael Malthouse was put out to pasture, Hawthorn’s 11-year coach stewarded his team to its third straight premiership, and fourth during his reign. In doing so, Clarkson overtook Leigh Matthews as the coach with the most victories in the final game of the year in the AFL era, and in my mind has taken the title belt as the best modern footy coach. He is one of the game’s most important figures.

Clarkson’s leadership credentials are unquestionable, as evidenced by two dramatically different events throughout the year. First was his bringing together of the players from both clubs in the centre circle on Friday night, following the Phil Walsh tragedy. The second was his dealing with the allegedly drunk peanut following April’s game in Adelaide, and how he handled the events that followed.

Clarkson’s job isn’t done yet, with Hawthorn’s ageing team – they’re the best of the modern era now – set for a tilt at a fourth consecutive flag, and fifth in nine years. Off the field, the Hawks made more money than Collingwood, and are set to pull the trigger on the development of world-leading training and administration facilities very soon.

And according to reports, Clarkson’s set to have his contract extended to the end of the 2020 season, giving him the opportunity to rebuild the team he took from 5-13 in 2005 a back-to-back-to-back flags more than a decade later.

Clarkson won the AFL in 2015, and from the haze of December he’s in the running for 2016, too.

Thanks for the year that was, AFL. See you next year.