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2018's two surprise packets, and three teams who can starting planning for next year

8th April, 2018
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(Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Expert
8th April, 2018
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Three rounds into the year, and we can begin to discern some trends. For instance, we know there are three teams who should begin consciously decelerating and planning for next year.

Those three teams are St Kilda, Brisbane and Carlton, who all have their strengths, but whose weaknesses are not fixable on the fly. The Blues and Lions sit on the bottom of the ladder, winless through three outings. St Kilda jagged a victory against Brisbane, but not without a fight.

The three have percentages that are a step change below the 14th placed Collingwood, who sit on 90.4 per cent. A fourth team, the Western Bulldogs, are down in those depths too, but looked a different unit than in their first two hidings on Sunday.

St Kilda can’t score, or more specifically, can’t turn possession into points. As it stands, the Saints are booting just 1.44 points per minute of possession, 17 per cent below the league average rate and 30 per cent below the league leader (who will shock you – but more on that in a moment). Nothing they’ve tried has worked – three talls, two talls, long kicks, short kicks, stoppages or turnovers.

Carlton can’t stop their opponents from scoring, a stunning turn of events given it was the Blues’ strength a year ago. Carlton has conceded scores of 100 or more in all three of their games, the only team to do so this season.

They only did it seven times in 22 games last season, they’re on track for 22 of 22 as it stands. The Blues are overcommitting to their counterattack, while their personnel group has chopped and changed due to form and injury.

Brisbane have a different kind of defensive problem, but one which is all too familiar. The Lions are struggling to keep the ball in their attacking half, recording an inside 50 differential of -8.7 – second worst in the league (the owner of the worst rate will shock you – more on that in the moment, too).

Brisbane is smoking its opponents at stoppages (+8.3 clearances per game), but can’t keep the ball in its hands, playing with incredible aggression that exposes its back half going the other way.

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It’s not clear each has an answer available, unlike the Dogs, who turned to their high pressing ways to mince the Bombers at Etihad Stadium. There is reason for optimism out west, but elsewhere in the bottom four, the challenges look real.

For Brisbane and Carlton that was to be expected, but for the Saints a slide down the ladder is an unwelcome development.

Outside of this group, we know very little.

The middle class logjam appears to stretch from fifth through 14th, the teams separated by a win and only 63 points of margin. Collingwood, who sits at the bottom, has shown it has the mettle to hang with the Giants and Hawks, and midfield firepower to handle the Blues. Two members have, in some ways, come from the clouds, on account of a big shift in the way they are playing their football.

West Coast, who sits at the top, are scoring at a league-leading 2.1 points per minute of possession, on account of a long-kicking, quick-trigger counter-attack game that takes advantage of its aerial prowess in the back half.

Liam Ryan

(Photo by James Elsby/Getty Images)

It’s a fascinating development, all things considered. West Coast was the fashionable slider coming into 2018, and that could still be the club’s destiny. A time in possession differential of -7.7 minutes per game would be death for most clubs, but for West Coast, it looms as a strength. They are able to absorb opposition attacking thrusts, and flick a switch to move into attack mode themselves with great haste.

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West Coast is doing this without its spearhead in Josh Kennedy, the league’s ultimate bailout man, and a forward who does his best work when given some space to work in. They do, however, have their most important player in place: Nic Naitanui.

In my preseason predictions I picked Naitanui as the likely leader in hit outs to advantage for season 2018. Right now, he’s tied in third with 34 of the things, but has attended just 148 ruck contests, per AFL.com.au. Max Gawn, who sits atop the charts, has 48 HTAs, but has attended almost 100 more ruck contests (243).

That’s because he’s still working back to full strength – Nic Nat has played just 55 per cent of game time on average, compared to 85 per cent for the league-leading Max Gawn.

It bodes well for when he is fully fit. The Eagles have injected plenty of youth and pace into their line up, and they should improve a little once Kennedy returns to strengthen the forward 50. It’s early, but it appears the death of the West Coast Eagles has been greatly exaggerated.

We as a football collective may have also sold the Gold Coast Suns short. Yes, they’ve played a relatively weak slate of games, but other than this weekend’s home-away loss to Fremantle have done all that could have been asked of them. New coach Stuart Dew has his team playing a high pressure brand, replete with some aggressive switching concepts through the middle of the ground.

The Suns are currently +12.9 on tackle rate (tackles per 50 minutes of opposition possession), a very good mark on its own, but a stunning +29.8 turnaround on their 2017 performance. Gold Coast is kicking the ball much more frequently than last year, although that could be influenced by their rain-soaked Round 1 victory over North Melbourne.

West Coast host Gold Coast on Saturday night this week, with the victor to end the round on three wins. That’ll leave said team ensconced in the eight, setting up their season in close to the best way possible.

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Tom Lynch

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Port Adelaide’s season is certainly set up – a 3-0 start, with an away victory against the Sydney Swans in their pocket, the year to date could not have gone better for the Power.

The preseason promise of a flexible forward line has been delivered: 19 of Port Adelaide’s 23 used players have recorded either a goal, a behind or a goal assist so far this season, while nine players have recorded at least two per game.

Remarkably, Robbie Gray is not one of them, the forward booting just two majors to date.

There isn’t a lot that’s different about this year’s Port Adelaide against last year. They still press aggressively, back their defenders in to defend, and run hard between the arcs to create attacking lanes, set up said press, and help the back line.

Their new recruits have helped add a little bit of spark on the counterattack, which could end up being the difference.

The Power have Essendon (away), Geelong (home), North Melbourne (away) and West Coast (home) in their next four, and right now they’d be starting heavy to very heavy favourites against the quartet. But as the Brisbane Lions showed on the weekend, Port Adelaide is vulnerable when the pace is pushed, and the press is broken.

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They have what it takes to score, which is what every team is looking to as its path to victory in 2018. It has made for a delightful first three rounds, and a season that will keep us guessing for a while yet.

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