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With the early exits of North Melbourne and West Coast from the finals last week, we are now left with six teams: Adelaide, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney, Hawthorn, and the Western Bulldogs.
With six possible grand final match ups, only one stands out: Adelaide Crows versus Western Bulldogs. Although they face long odds to get to the big dance, everyone around the country should be barracking for them.
It’s the best potential match up, that would offer the most enthralling viewing for fans across the league. But first let’s look at the alternatives.
Sydney
Sydney has received a lot of praise this season as many expected them to fall away this year. After finishing as the minor premiers, they looked clear favourites coming into September.
Much of the praise has come from their seeming ability to rebuild a roster without bottoming out. However, what those pundits haven’t considered are the clear advantage the Swans have had to do so.
Over the last four years they have recruited Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett, and drafted Isaac Heeney and Callum Mills – whom both warranted a top three pick. With such an advantage, Justin Leppitsch could have coached this team to the finals.
It’s effectively meaningless if they win it all now.
Geelong
Geelong’s dynasty had just come to end. We’d finally seen a Geelong team miss the finals for the first time since 2006. Then we saw the great migration as players across the league nominated the Cats as their desired location.
Most importantly among them, Patrick ‘The Messiah’ Dangerfield was freed from the grips of Adelaide, and suddenly they were back to their winning ways.
No rebuilding, no major coaching changes, just a couple of lucky player movements and they might get a cup. Teams spend decades building premiership-worthy teams and Chris Scott has one fall in his lap? If that’s not unworthy, I don’t know what is.
Hawthorn
Do I really need to go through this? No one wants to be around for ‘Four-thorn’. Besides having to deal with obnoxious Hawks fans, there are so many reasons that the Hawks don’t need another premiership.
Chief among them is the heel turn the Hawks have made in recent years. They’ve gone from classy competitors to vicious, no-holds-barred attack dogs.
The likes of Hodge, Lewis, and Mitchell have recently learnt that they can get away with punching opponents and have made a habit of it. This villainy is already being rewarded with the likes of Jaeger O’Meara’s once-in-a-generation talents, wouldn’t another premiership just be overkill?
Greater Western Sydney
The Giants have come a long way this year, there is no denying that. After finally maintaining their intensity for a full season, they look ready to lift the cup. But this is a team built on gifts from the AFL.
The Giants were given every possible advantage to build a team. From draft concessions, to picking players from other teams at their leisure, to salary cap allowances, the Giants have been able to put together a super team.
The only thing worse than this team making finals so quickly is watching them win all the way through on their first try. Just ask Tigers fans, who haven’t seen their club win a final since 2001.
None of these teams deserve a new flag in their cabinets. Nobody in their right mind should even want to see them compete for one.
For one reason or another they don’t deserve it and would be a blight on an otherwise fantastic season of football. Instead, there are two teams that undoubtedly deserve it.
Adelaide
Adelaide have shown some grit this year. They lost a coach last year, and watched their best player walk out and a have one of the best individual seasons in recent history.
Add that to the buffet of talent that now plays against them this September*. In a year when few expected them to play finals, the boys from West Lakes would’ve finished top two if it wasn’t for a complete meltdown in Round 23.
This year they’ve played an exciting brand of football that centred around their Hydra-like forward line built on a variety of dangerous players.
Don Pyke has shown the league what a team can do despite tough circumstances. Wouldn’t it just warm you heart to see a team overcome the odds and hold up that cup on the first day of October?
Western Bulldogs
The boys down at Whitten Oval have had a rough year. Their current roster looks more like an emergency room than a group of high level athletes. But their never say die attitude, instilled in them by Luke ‘Saviour of the ‘Scrays’ Beveridge, has seen them run deep into September.
With a swarming defence and a young midfield, the Bulldogs have brought some fight back into a club that has been mostly mediocre since the turn of the century.
Fans have been waiting 62 years for the sequel to Footscray’s defensive masterpiece in 1954. If anyone deserves to see their team win a flag it’s the three generations of fans that have been waiting.
If the Bulldogs and the Crows face off for this year’s Premiership we would see everything that is great about football. We’d see underdogs dispel the great AFL myth that you can’t win outside the top four.
We’d see some fresh faces on a stage recently dominated by dynasties. A grand final with two sides absent from it in recent years would be a fitting climax to a season celebrated for its spread of premiership quality sides.
God knows I can’t watch Geelong play Hawthorn again…
*Kurt Tippett (Sydney Swans), Patrick Dangerfield (Geelong Cats), Jack Gunston (Hawthorn Hawks), Phil Davis (GWS Giants)
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