Six reasons to get excited about the NAB Challenge

A summer without footy is a summer that is often spent toiling away watching some of the other codes that grace our TVs, such as cricket and tennis.

While these are all entertaining in their own ways, for me, they don’t captivate the audience the way footy does.

The passion, the hard-hitting action and the drama are everything that one loves about the sport. It engulfs workplaces and is the subject of discussion every working week of the season.

Alas, we don’t have the real thing yet and are forced to settle for the NAB Challenge, but here are some storylines that should have us excited about the footy this year.

The replacements
The Essendon saga is almost over. That in itself is worth celebrating. What is not worth celebrating is that 34 young men have had their livelihoods taken away by the incompetence of those in positions of power.

The Bombers have had to retool their list coming into the season with 12 of the 34 still on the Essendon list, including captain Jobe Watson and Dyson Heppell.

They’ve been replaced by eight replacement players with two more expected to join them. For some of these players, they have been coaxed out of retirement to help Essendon (James Kelly, Mark Jamar) or are facing their footballing mortality with one final shot in the AFL (Sam Grimley).

A lot of these players have missed a key chunk of pre-season and the NAB Challenge should give an indication of where these guys are at in their careers and what value they can bring to Essendon, and in turn dictate how competitive this team is going to be in 2016.

New homes
The free agent and trade period was one of the biggest that the AFL has seen as it dramatically altered the outlook of a few clubs coming into 2016 and beyond. The biggest name to find a new home was Patrick Dangerfield, who returned back home to Geelong in the worst kept secret in footy.

Joining Dangerfield at the Cats was disgruntled swingman Lachie Henderson from Carlton. Meanwhile, leaving Geelong was triple premiership hero Stevie Johnson who has joined the fledgling Giants.

Other big names to move during the trade period were Harley Bennell, Jack Redden, Adam Treloar, James Aish and Charlie Dixon. The NAB Challenge gives us the first glimpse of these players in their new colours and also allows us to immediately set about ‘grading the trade’.

The draftees
Of course, for those teams not in immediate premiership contention, the most exciting aspect of the NAB Challenge is to see their new blue chip draftees represent the club for the first time.

Particular attention will be directed towards the first overall pick, Jacob Weitering, who is expected to feature in the early rounds. Another big man expected to make a big impact is Josh Schache, who is tasked with turning around the fortunes of an inept Brisbane Lions forward line.

Some other rookies who have had a stellar first pre-seasons and are worth keeping an eye on in the NAB Challenge include Wayne Milera, Callum Ah Chee, Darcy Parish, Charlie Curnow and Daniel Rioli, who will be hoping to have a similar impact to that of his uncle Cyril in his first season when he helped Hawthorn to a breakthrough premiership.

The breakout candidates
Every year in pre-season we hear about those players that have ‘trained the house down’ or are having their best pre-season yet. Truth be told, everyone seems to break personal bests in their time trials but it is in the NAB Challenge that you begin to see whether the hard work will come to fruition.

Some players that are expected to take the next step and move into the high quality realm of AFL players include Josh Kelly, Dom Sheed, Ben Lennon and Kade Kolodjashnij. All the hype, however, is around young Saint Jack Billings. Billings, who had his season cut short by shin splints last season, has come back leaner and stronger in pre-season and looks ready to elevate himself into the top echelon.

Supergoals and the rule changes
A more relaxed aspect about the NAB Challenge that makes it fun are the supergoals, which are of course nine-point goals for those kicked from outside the 50-metre arc.

The AFL, as always, will also be trailing some specific rule changes during the NAB Challenge, with the view of potentially bringing them into the season proper if successful. Some of these appear to be common sense, with a stricter interpretation of dangerous (sling) tackles and deliberate out of bounds being applied. The key trial is the increasing of the lateral width of the protected area for the man on the mark.

The idea of this is to stop players coming in and shepherding those manning the mark, while there will also be an adjustment to the line of the mark and the way it is marked by umpires.

Please no injuries
The one sour note about pre-season is always the injuries that occur. Last season it was Tom Liberatore who went down clutching his ACL in pre-season. Unfortunately, it is part and parcel of the physical game that is AFL.

No one wants to see players have their seasons struck down before they even begin, so even if your team flounders in the NAB Challenge, be thankful if your club is able to avoid a season-altering injury.

What are you most looking forward to in pre-season, Roarers? Is it the prospect of a superstar now wearing your team’s colours or is it one of your young guns emerging from the shadows to become a bona fide AFL superstar?