Two months ago, I had a decent rant here on The Roar, lamenting the repetitive nature of the competition, and moaning about the prospect of another Geelong premiership.
Since then, the Cats have fallen in a hole. Chris Scott’s mid-season whining about where Geelong’s home final would be played seemed premature at the time, but looks positively unprofessional now.
Perhaps coaches should stick to the old ‘one week at a time’ mantra.
West Coast and Richmond have hit form, but it is the Brisbane Lions who have burst out of the pack to lay claim to the feel-good story of the season. The Lions’ rise from likely finalist to likely premiers is a surprise to many, although they seemed to have all the building blocks of an outstanding team.
I commented here earlier in the season that the Lions would be a juggernaut by 2021, but I should have typed 2019 instead.
While the AFL administration is no doubt happy to have a good team in Queensland again, Brisbane’s meteoric rise does lay bare some of the structural defects of the competition.
The two teams I mentioned as possible threats to Geelong – Collingwood and Greater Western Sydney – have performed poorly in the second half of the season. Injuries have hit Collingwood like a steam train, while the Giants in recent weeks have lost Stephen Coniglio and Josh Kelly.
On the other hand, the Lions have been nearly at full strength. The improved form of Richmond and West Coast has also coincided with a healthier list.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/AFL Photos via Getty Images )
The fortunes of these teams is highly attuned to available personnel. It’s obvious that losing quality players will hurt a team’s prospects, but why this makes football unsatisfying needs some explanation.
This is not a whinge about the state of the game, or about any particular team. In fact, the AFL is replete with good teams who play good football. But for a sporting purist, good is not necessarily good enough. Sometimes, you need to feel the presence of greatness.
This thought occurred to me during the first match of the Ashes. Steve Smith’s herculean effort in the first innings to keep his team in the match, and then wrest control away from England in the second, was one of the all-time great moments in Australian sport. While cricket is also a team sport, it was the mental strength of one man that won the day.
How often do we see a single player turn the tide in an AFL match these days? Yes, the typical AFL player is better today than those of 20 years ago, but do you ever go to a match to see just one player? We see glimpses of individual brilliance, but players in 2019 who kick a superb goal are likely to be rewarded with stint on the bench.
The pervasive goodness of AFL play – and following that, the absence of greatness – is exacerbated by the thinning of talent across 18 teams. The creation of two new teams was a serious error of judgement. If the league wanted new teams in Queensland and New South Wales, then Victorian clubs should have been cut, or relocated north.
The concentration of talent at the Giants seems unlikely now to have created a premiership-winning team. As much as it pains me to say this, those players would have been better going to other clubs.
The elite talent left at the club is going to be picked off by the richer clubs. The long-term future of both the Giants and the Suns is as player development academies for Victorian clubs.
Elite sport needs greatness. The spread of excellence among modern AFL clubs, aided by equalization measures and the dilution of talent created by the unwise addition of two new teams, means that results are hypersensitive to what happens in the medical room.
The evenness of the competition is good for revenue, but leaves the fan who wants something more than a close game bereft.
In a few weeks, the Brisbane Lions will probably have another premiership trophy. They are a good team who got lucky.
The AFL will be happy, as will their fans. For those wishing to see a great team lift the cup, they will have to wait until next year.
Gary Connell
Guest
The didn’t get lucky The worked hard to get where there at the Brisbane Lions Next year they will come back even stronger and will make finals again
Mono man
Guest
The Gold Coast expansion seemed to be anaged well up to the point where the AFL asked NM to "please relocate and we'll give you some money". They should have said "the license for a team is on the gold coast. Take it or play VFL". The same offer could have been made for a GWS team. The argument against is the loss of melbourne fans and history. If the relocated teams maintain a VFL team and use arden st for their training in Melbourne the conection isnt lost
Raimond
Roar Guru
That’s the sort of attitude that wrecks competitions.
Raimond
Roar Guru
Thanks for the comments. I have decided that I have had enough of this sport, as I don’t find it as enjoyable as I once did. This is my final word on football here, but I may write something on other sports. Goodbye.
Vicboy
Roar Rookie
Watch the last 5 minutes of each quarter and the last 10 of the fourth quarter. Tell me how many stoppages then? And be fair dinkum, 40 max interchange. The more people try to make things safe, the more extreme the behaviour. Look at Gridiron - compare the injuries to when no helmets, padding etc.
PriddisJunior
Roar Rookie
"A person who is supportive of and enthusiastic about a sports team only when that team is performing well."
Milo
Roar Rookie
Is that you Chris Scott?
RT
Roar Rookie
Speaking of rabbitting on....
DingoGray
Roar Guru
The proverbial cart before the horse job here.... You not listening to Coach Chris Raimond? One week at a time. Last week the Suns, this week the Cats and only the Cats.... nothing else to see here at the moment
Cat
Roar Guru
Not at all. Not even close actually.
The watcher
Guest
As a Blues supporter as long as tigers, pies and Dons don't win I'm OK. But I'm also living in Brisbane and want the lions to win. Now that's out there I can say, I think it would be a better finals series if somehow the first first week of the finals isn't Geelong vs Richmond and lions vs Weagles (or Weagles vs Lions). We would want a genuine contest to earn a home preliminary final, and either of lions or weagles could find a couple of % means having to go away twice before the GF, while Tigers or Geelong would waltz into a preliminary at home and the loser goes to Perth or Brisbane. Does Geelong deserve to get no advantage over Richmond yet win more games? Me thinks that the tigers are not playing as well as people think. They got beaten in the contested possessions in 2nd half but blues didn't have the outside run or strong forward structure to take advantage. But both Weagles and lions have this. Lions are a far better team than people think. In the game against bulldogs, the Bont, McCrae, English and Dunkley all combined to monster the contest and clearances from the middle of the third quarter. Yet lions held them off, even without Zorko for the last quarter. And they gave Weagles a 5 goal start and won by 9 goals. Moreover, the actually have 3 GF players in the team (Hodge, Neale and Cameron), while Lincoln McCartney, Ric, and Mitch Roberson have all been at clubs playing finals. Ignore them at your peril.
Angela
Guest
Richmond hasn't played anywhere else for weeks plus next two weeks. Funny how the home-ground advantage everyone rabbits on about every week suddenly becomes a non-issue for finals at the bloody old G.
PriddisJunior
Roar Rookie
The definition of a fair-weather supporter. Yuck
Cat
Roar Guru
Reducing the interchange has proven to have a negative effect on the game. Stoppages have increased since it went from uncapped to 120 to 90.
Cat
Roar Guru
Aluminium foil sales must be high in your local supermarket.
Cat
Roar Guru
This season is no different to any other. If the team you following is doing well it is a ‘great’ season. If your team has disappointed or gone backwards than it is a ‘boring’ season.
JC
Roar Rookie
Didn't Sonny Walters win a few off his own boot a couple weeks in a row? Great examples of individual brilliance I thought.
Iambillbob
Roar Rookie
Ay peter I’ll bet ya today Richmond will score min 50+ points on Carlton’s turnovers today?
Iambillbob
Roar Rookie
I’ll take Brisbane at the Gabba first final.......being a Richmond supporter I see holes in the lions game the tiger will love trust me
George Apps
Roar Rookie
10/10 Raimond - spot on. I am in total agreement with you about modern football. I can't really see any long term solution to this situation either. As you said, the AFL have been a bit hasty in starting new teams instead of looking closer to home to provide a better outcome, eg. one of the Victorian teams who were struggling at that time relocating to Tassie. Ditto regarding "superstars".