Opinion
The countdown to Round 1, 2023 has officially begun – so throughout January, I’ll be looking at all 18 AFL clubs and doing my best to put together an optimum team for the new year.
I’ll take injuries and suspensions into account, but this won’t be a predicted team for Round 1 – think of it more as a guide to what your team’s best 23 (the 22 starting players plus the new unrestricted substitute) could look like as the year unfolds.
Today’s edition features everyone’s favourite punching bag, Gold Coast. Check out the links below if your team has already been done, or if you’re just interested in my rambling thoughts about why Jake Soligo should play wing for the Crows next year.
>> Goalsneaks galore, but who holds the fort down back for the Crows this year?
>> More new guns than they know what to do with, how do the Lions fit everyone in?
>> Is this the team that can take Carlton from heartbreak to happiness?
>> Why Tom Mitchell looms as recruit of the year for never-say-die Pies
>> The Bombers have promise… but can Brad Scott unlock it straight away?
>> Can the most important teenager in the AFL deliver for the Dockers?
>> Is this the Cat who can fill the shoes of the greatest captain ever?
When you add a star key forward to a youthful list that has been slowly improving over the last four years, that’s usually a sign prosperity is near.
For the Suns, that’s exactly what they have in front of them with Ben King returning after a pre-season knee injury wiped out his 2022. Mabior Chol and Levi Casboult performed admirably to fill the void, but whether both stay in the team as part of a three-pronged forward line or Casboult is ushered out, King is the long-term leader of the Suns’ attack.
The Suns have put together a capable defence, possess a burgeoning midfield with key pillars getting better every year, and in Jarrod Witts have one of the game’s most effective ruckmen. Already the highest-scoring side outside the eight in 2022, King’s return might be just the extra push they need to take that final step from competitive outfit to worthy finalist.
Of course, this is Gold Coast they’re talking about: at every critical juncture in their history, the Suns have crashed and burned. Something feels different about this iteration of Suns, though; only time will tell whether the light at the end of the tunnel is just another oncoming train.
The Suns aren’t quite the finished article in defence, ranking 12th for points against in 2022: but all the right pieces are there to suggest the unit is on the right track. After the nadir of 2019 where they conceded the most points in the league by more than 200, they have steadily improved to finish 2020 in 14th and 2021 in 13th. Small gains, but hey, you take what you can get.
Central to it all is Sam Collins, who regularly flies under the radar as one of the best key backs in the game. He attended the second-most defensive one-on-ones in the game last year, behind only Brisbane’s Harris Andrews, and lost on average two of every nine. Considering he stands the opposition’s number one forward week in, week out, that’s an exceptional strike rate.
Collins is a lock, but the challenge for the Suns will be to find a capable second tall in their backline to ease the pressure on the talented Charlie Ballard. With the right match-up, Ballard was exceptional as an intercepting defender, but was frequently asked to punch above his weight and stand quality opponents. He performed admirably, even clamping down on Charlie Curnow and Jesse Hogan in consecutive weeks early in the season, but in the vein of Jake Lever, he has too many aerial attributes, and reads the play too well, to be reduced to simply a lockdown back.
It’s a toss-up between Caleb Graham and new recruit, and former Giant, Jake Stein for that second tall role in my view, especially now that Rory Thompson’s body has officially ended his playing days. I’ve given the nod to Stein partly due to his extra mobility, and partly because I remember him being brilliant in the Giants’ 2021 elimination final win over Sydney and am adamant he is an AFL-standard player.
He’s far from a household name, but Sean Lemmens has been a constant presence in the Suns’ backline under Stuart Dew, and is the closest thing they’ve got to a shutdown small defender until Connor Budarick returns from his second ACL rupture in 18 months.
With Wil Powell tipped to spend more time around the ball next year, Lemmens becomes all the more important as an experienced presence behind the ball.
Speaking of experienced presences behind the ball, Brandon Ellis looks set to finish his career as a sensible, precise distributor at half-back. After starting at the Suns on a wing following two premierships with Richmond, Ellis sticks out considerably in a youthful team with virtually no finals experience, and after spending time in the backline as cover last year, would be an ideal kind head to marshal the Suns’ defence while also possessing the ability to start game-breaking chains.
I remain firmly of the belief that a similar role is where Jack Lukosius best fits in this team. King’s injury saw Dew experiment with him as a forward, and with just eight goals in 13 games last year, the results weren’t great.
He’s too good a ball-user to not be played in a position where he can get enough of it as possible; whether that’s pushing up to a wing or taking kick-ins from defence, a distributing role similar to his exceptional 2021 would likely benefit both player and club.
He remained in the Suns’ midfield rotation last year, but with an influx of new players sure to spend time in there, now might be the time for David Swallow to, like Ellis, make a move to defence. One of the few Suns to have lasted the journey with the club, their inaugural pick 1 was the next man in behind the Suns’ ‘Fab Four’ (more on them in a second) at centre bounces last year, but even if he is slowly shunted out of that group, he still has plenty left to give for a young side on the rise.
Jack Lukosius. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
The Suns became an exceptional clearance team last year; they ranked fifth for getting the ball out of the centre, and fourth from stoppages in total. As a result, they averaged the fifth-most inside 50s in the AFL, the most of any non-finalist and marginally better than eventual preliminary finalists Brisbane, Sydney and Collingwood.
There’s no reason for Dew to steer away from a successful formula. Jarrod Witts is a titan as ruckman and co-captain, though their backup ruck stocks remain as concerningly bare as they were when he missed most of 2021 with a knee injury to hand their season a hammer blow. Matt Rowell is an utter contested beast who wins more than two-thirds of his possessions at the coalface, Noah Anderson the smooth-moving handball receiver who could easily win a Brownlow when he fixes his at times dodgy kicking, and Touk Miller the hardest two-way runner in the game who does everything brilliantly.
Only Clayton Oliver had more clearances in last year’s home-and-away season than Miller, while he also finished second behind Anderson at the Suns for inside 50s, second behind Rowell for tackles, first for contested possessions, second behind Anderson for uncontested possessions, and third behind Ben Ainsworth and the now-departed Izak Rankine for goal assists.
Pretty much the only thing he doesn’t do is kick goals himself, although to be fair to him, Anderson and Rowell don’t really either.
The Suns’ ‘Fab Four’ attended more centre bounces than any other four-man combination in the league by a long way: really, only Melbourne’s Gawn-Oliver-Petracca-Viney quadrant of brutality even comes close. The Suns aren’t quite in that league just yet, but they’re not all that far away, and closing fast.
Fresh from Brisbane looking for more opportunities, Tom Berry should also be part of that rotation, perhaps taking on Swallow’s minutes, while top 2022 draftee Bailey Humphrey and the emerging Elijah Hollands will also likely get their chances in the engine room from time to time.
After a dominant VFL finals series, Sam Flanders might also need to see more opportunities lest he begin looking for a new home. Further down the pecking order is Brayden Fiorini, who has proved a ball magnet regularly when given on-ball opportunities but doesn’t seem to be in Dew’s plans.
The wings are more interesting, especially if Ellis does indeed continue at half-back. Dew has already flagged a move for the talented Wil Powell onto one wing, which could result in a breakout for the neat-kicking, pacy youngster.
I’d love to see Lukosius take the other, but if not him, then surely Jeremy Sharp will be given further opportunities to make that spot his own after losing his place in the team midway through 2022. Sharp isn’t perfect, but he’s an elite runner and was exceptional by foot as a junior.
The mark against him with Dew seems to be his inability to find his own ball in a gameplan built on winning the hard ball, but the Suns were keen enough to keep him that they vetoed a trade with Fremantle to hold him to his contract. That surely suggests he’s in their plans in some way, shape or form.
Touk Miller of the Suns runs the ball during the AFL AAMI Community Series match between the Gold Coast Suns and the Geelong Cats. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Ben King‘s return has the potential to be a game-changer for the Suns in 2023, but Dew will first have to decide whether to keep the forward line structure that worked well without him last year, or look to add extra height and marking power to the attack.
You can pencil Mabior Chol in either way: the Suns’ leading goalkicker last year was an outstanding acquisition from Richmond, with his strength in the air and sheer athleticism both on the lead and when the ball hit the ground making him a nightmare match-up. Teams will have to be wary about moving the best defender onto King, because Chol hasn’t yet taken a game by the scruff of the throat, and you feel it’s just a matter of time until he does.
With no King, Levi Casboult was a life-saver as a key pillar deep in attack: remarkably, his 35 goals were more than he managed in any one season of a decade spent with Carlton. 33 before Round 1 begins, though, he was always just a temporary option, and while Chol and King are mobile enough to allow Casboult to play deeper, it’s hard to see the Suns risking become too top-heavy by playing them all, and the former Blue is the obvious choice to make way.
There’s no Izak Rankine at ground level anymore, having jumped ship to Adelaide, but Malcolm Rosas showed enough in 15 games last year to suggest he can do a reasonable job taking up the mantle of small forward in chief. Rosas doesn’t win as much of the ball as Rankine, and nor does he have quite the same effectiveness by foot, but Dew’s forward line has always been about pressure when the ball goes to ground, and Rosas doesn’t need to be Stephen Milne 2.0 to provide that.
That’s surely the role earmarked for new recruit Ben Long, too. Lured from the Saints, Long is an old-skill no frills player who attacks the ball hard and the man harder. The Suns don’t really have too much of a nasty streak in their team, so having Long as a capable enforcer could prove handy in a scrap, and Long’s arrival might just push Nick Holman, who plays a similar scrappy role as a pressure forward, to the fringes.
It will be interesting to see whether Rankine’s trade prompts a move closer to goal for Ben Ainsworth. The enigmatic Sun had probably his best year in 2022 as a high-roaming half-forward, good for a goal a game but rarely spending enough time close to the big sticks to impact the scoreboard further.
He did, though, lead the Suns for marks and finish fourth for inside 50s, so it’s likely Dew will continue to develop him as a quasi-on-baller until he’s ready to take the next step and become a permanent midfielder rather than turn him into a pure goalsneak.
He might have only played five games last year, but Joel Jeffrey did plenty in that time to suggest he’s worth persisting with as a third tall. His five-goal haul against the Western Bulldogs took advantage of a size mismatch and the Dogs’ lack of respect for him. Dangerous at ground level, mercurial near goals and deceptively strong overhead, Jeffrey seems a far more versatile option in the forward line than the bigger, slower Casboult.
King’s return, though, is the key. The Suns finished third-last in 2021 for average inside 50s, and he still managed 47 goals from the limited opportunities afford to him – and as a standalone tall, too.
Now, with the Suns providing their forwards far more chances AND with Chol to take some of the heat off, if King can return to the form he displayed before his knee injury, the sky is the limit. For him, and the Suns themselves.
Ben King. (Photo by Graham Denholm/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Backs: Sean Lemmens, Sam Collins, Jake Stein
Half-backs: Brandon Ellis, Charlie Ballard, David Swallow
Centres: Jack Lukosius, Matt Rowell, Wil Powell
Followers: Jarrod Witts (c), Noah Anderson, Touk Miller (c)
Half-forwards: Elijah Hollands, Mabior Chol, Ben Ainsworth
Forwards: Joel Jeffrey, Ben King, Malcolm Rosas
Interchange: Tom Berry, Sam Flanders, Bailey Humphrey, Ben Long
Substitute: Jeremy Sharp
Emergencies: Levi Casboult, Alex Davies, Sam Day
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