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Opinion
The countdown to Round 1, 2023 has officially begun – so throughout January, I’ve been looking at all 18 AFL clubs and doing my best to put together an optimum team for the new year.
I’ve taken 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.
Last but not least, it’s time for the 2016 premiers, my beloved Western Bulldogs.
Check out the links below to see what I had to say about your team.
Adelaide | Brisbane | Carlton | Collingwood | Essendon
Fremantle | Geelong | Gold Coast | GWS | Hawthorn
Melbourne | North Melbourne | Port Adelaide | Richmond
St Kilda | Sydney | West Coast
The Bulldogs are set to be a fascinating watch in 2023 – that is, for all you neutral supporters out there.
Earmarked as the likeliest team of last year’s top eight to miss the finals this time around after just barely scraping into September in the funniest way possible, there’s still enough talent on the Dogs’ list – despite losing reigning best and fairest Josh Dunkley – to suggest remaining in the hunt for a premiership is a legitimate possibility.
They’re an impossible team to predict with any confidence, however: the maddest coach in the league, Luke Beveridge, sees to that. Virtually every season, he finds a role for a hitherto unheard of VFL journeyman that gets them regular matches and minutes over other, seemingly more talented options. See ‘McComb, Robbie’, ‘Scott, Anthony’ and ‘Gowers, Billy’ for further information.
Defending opposition attacks better is also a must: the Dogs were frequently embarrassed on the counterattack last year, and were just about the easiest team in the competition to score on when inside 50 late in the season. It doesn’t matter how good your personnel – if they’re not playing as a team, your chances of success are slim.
Teams have basically worked out over the last 12 months – really, every since Melbourne piled on three goals in 35 seconds in the 2021 grand final – that if you get the ball quickly inside 50 against the Dogs, their defence falls to pieces.
Only Geelong conceded fewer inside 50s on average than the Dogs last year, yet they conceded the eighth-most points – primarily because only North Melbourne, West Coast, Essendon and Hawthorn (i.e. four of the bottom six) gave up more marks inside 50 per game.
On average, teams marked the ball every 3.96 times they ventured inside the Dogs’ defensive 50 – even North Melbourne were up at 4.28. Melbourne, the league’s best, went at a tick over 5.8. That’s disaster areas.
It’s for pretty much this reason that the Dogs have turned to Liam Jones to try and address the problem. No team had more contested marks taken on them last season, with a big chunk of those coming from big key forwards being too strong and too good for Alex Keath and Ryan Gardner.
Mitch Lewis, Ben Brown, Todd Marshall, Jeremy Cameron and new Bulldog Rory Lobb (more on him later) were among the many, many talls who ripped the Dogs apart in the air and in front of the big sticks last year. Jones hasn’t just been brought back from ‘retirement’ to play VFL: he’s in to battle the monsters.
In 2021, in a Carlton side whose defensive plan was basically to have Jones and Jacob Weitering duke it out one-on-one with opposition talls on a weekly basis, Jones excelled: he attended the fourth-most of them in the league (110), with his loss rate of 11.8 per cent the best in the league of any of the top 100 attendees.
If he can replicate that staggering success – and a year out of the game and age of nearly 32 makes that very much a 50/50 prospect – it fixes a whole lot of issues the Dogs have defensively.
Jones’ arrival is also exactly what Keath needs to rejuvenate his career. It’s easy to forget that at Adelaide, he broke out as an intercept-marking second or third tall back behind Daniel Talia – he won a Showdown Medal in that role. At the Dogs, though, he’s been forced to play on the likes of McKay, Tom Hawkins and Charlie Dixon, and up until last year made an excellent fist of it.
In 2022, though, Keath looked banged up, was slow off the mark, got dropped, and was a big reason why the defence fell apart at the back end of the year.
But if he can return to his Crows role while Jones and the dogged Gardner – or perhaps the recast Josh Bruce, who has spent the pre-season training with the backs – take the main attacking threats, his aerial capabilities at his best can give the Dogs the intercepting back they’ve needed since the prime Easton Wood years.
As for the smalls, veteran Taylor Duryea still remains exceedingly important – missing the elimination final due to the birth of his child, the extra responsibility placed on Ed Richards saw not only his attacking game suffer dreadfully with a bunch of horrid turnovers, but also let Michael Walters in particular off the leash.
Duryea remains, for now at least, the Dogs’ best small defender – a fact Charlie Cameron knows only too well.
One aspect to consider is whether the Dogs continue with both Bailey Dale and Caleb Daniel as rebounding defenders. Neither are especially accountable for an opponent, and Dale’s extra pace and longer kick have seen him quickly shoot past Daniel in importance to the team.
Daniel’s elite decision-making, sharp skills and good game awareness are crucial attributes, but have at times become a bit obsolete with Dale so impressive coming out of defence. A bit more on that later.
Beveridge, madman that he is, tried plenty of Adam Treloar across half-back last season, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that continue. For one thing, midfield spots at the Dogs are so tight; for another, his experience and ball-winning ability add an extra dimension to a defence that can often bite off a bit more than it can chew (see Richards, Ed). With a full pre-season training in that role, too, he should be less of a defensive liability than he was at times last year.
That leaves Jason Johannisen and Bailey Williams, both of whom were moved out of the main defensive group last year (Johannisen as a pressure forward, Williams as a defensive winger), on the outer once again. I still maintain both have value in the side as part of a team defence, but if the Dogs go taller down there with Jones and two of Keath/Gardner/Bruce, plus Richards as a mid-sized option, it’s hard to make room for Williams in particular.
Liam Jones at Bulldogs training. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
The Bulldogs’ star-studded midfield began to get a few ‘overrated’ criticisms thrown their way last year, and not without cause.
While their stat lines remained impressive – the Dogs led the competition for average clearances last year, generated the third-most inside 50s per game and ranked a respectable sixth for contested possessions – it felt for a lot of the year like the dominance the Dogs need in the engine room to be competitive was missing. And defensively, a lot of the ease with which teams scored on them late in the season is on the midfield group’s lack of pressure on the ball-carrier.
It’s a harsh ask, but the Bulldogs’ deficiencies in defence and up forward – namely, a lack of reliable contested-marking talls at either end – mean the midfield either needs to radically improve its kicking inside 50, or win such an overwhelming amount of the pill that it doesn’t matter.
After nearly winning a Brownlow in 2021 and being, in my eyes, the player of that season, Marcus Bontempelli struggled with injury throughout 2022, with his numbers and impact eye-catchingly down.
A fit and firing Bont solves a lot of problems for the Dogs – he’s their best midfield user by far, kicks goals, and always chops out in defence with a timely spoil or intercept mark when it’s needed. Time after time in 2021 he’d strap the Dogs on his shoulders when the going got tough, but aside from a vintage game against St Kilda and a glorious first half against Freo in the elimination final, that was missing in 2022.
Jack Macrae, too, was down, I’d argue as an extension of Bontempelli’s form. That duo is probably behind only Petracca-Oliver for one-two midfield punches in the league, with Macrae the inside ball-winner getting the footy in Bontempelli’s hands for maximum impact. In 2021, he was also one of the most underrated kicks going inside 50 in the game.
Notably, Macrae’s centre bounces attendance went down from 77 per cent in 2021 to 64 per cent last year, as he spent considerable time on the wing and looked ill suited to it. He isn’t overly fleet of foot, but he has exceptionally clean hands, wins stacks of his own ball and flies under the radar every week. Surely the loss of Dunkley means he moves back into a permanent on-ball role.
The Dogs experimented early in the season with Tom Liberatore as a half-forward, but abandoned it shortly after and returned the clearance machine to the on-ball group. His importance to the side is well known – teams have laid tags on him in the past over even Bontempelli – and he’s certain to be in the thick of things once again this year.
31 in May, though, we’ll probably start to see his output diminish in coming seasons, and as we saw in the elimination final he missed through injury, his hardness, brilliant hands and decision-making aren’t going to be easy to replace.
That’s probably why Daniel has spent the summer training with the midfield group. I mentioned before that Daniel was beginning to become obsolete in the backline group with Dale such an effective rebounder, and his diminutive height meant he was a defensive liability that teams sought to exploit.
Nevertheless, he spent some of his early days as a midfielder-forward, impressing with his clean hands and decision-making – Sam Mitchell comparisons were forthcoming after an eye-catching 2016 elimination final in particular. He won’t be as aggressive as Liberatore, but the Dogs do need an injection of quality ball-users around the footy, and Daniel fits that bill to a tee.
Speaking of quality ball-users, Bailey Smith… ain’t one. He’s a bizarre case because he has the elite running power to be one of the game’s best wingmen, but then when he does get the footy in space he can’t hit a target to save himself. Or he just bombs to the top of the goalsquare and saves everyone the bother of trying to lead.
Daniel’s impending midfield move, and likely more minutes for the emerging Riley Garcia if he can force his way in, leads me to think that Smith will again be only a semi-regular addition to the main engine room, with Bontempelli, Macrae and Liberatore still the major players.
On a wing, though, he can do what he did throughout an excellent early few rounds of 2022: push up into the on-ball group once the ball is bounced, and basically play as an extra midfielder around the ball, to use his pace and explosiveness to best effect.
Remember how I said before that Beveridge always finds room for a new VFL plodder to try and turn into an AFL-standard player? Well, my tip for the 2023 edition will probably find himself on the other wing: Oskar Baker.
Baker’s arrival as a 24-year old delisted free agent on the first day of the pre-season supplementary period, having been delisted by Melbourne months earlier, is a bizarre move to make if the intent is not for him to play regular senior footy.
On top of that, he’s a wingman by trade, having played that role at the Demons. It just so happens that the Dogs have lost a winger, Lachie Hunter, to the Dees themselves.
The third clue is that Beveridge has frequently hunted a defensive winger to drop behind the ball and act as an extra barrier to protect his fragile defence. Robbie McComb, Roarke Smith, Bailey Williams and even briefly Mitch Hannan have all been cast in this role, without much success.
Baker’s whole skill set and acquisition just fits so perfectly into the Bevo mould that I’d frankly be shocked if he didn’t run out there against his old side for Round 1.
After spending the best part of 20 years with not a single key forward worth a damn – I’ll never forget the dark years of Ayce Cordy, Tom Campbell and Jarrad Grant being our spearheads – the Dogs find themselves spoilt for choice in attack in 2023.
Aaron Naughton, Rory Lobb, Sam Darcy and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan all find themselves sharing the same space inside 50 – indeed, so top-heavy were the Dogs looming that Josh Bruce will need to reinvent himself as a defender to return to the senior team anytime soon.
The Dogs ranked fourth in the league for marks inside 50 last year, so there will be plenty of opportunities for that foursome to excel. Importantly, Naughton and Ugle-Hagan in particular are more than capable when the ball hits the ground, and given the Dogs will play most of their games in perfect conditions under the roof at Marvel Stadium, they should be able to play all four most of the time without weakening their structure.
Naughton might have finished with more goals (51) in 2022 than in 2021 (47), but that’s a trick of the light: he averaged one whole fewer mark inside 50 per game season to season, was well down on contested marks (3.2 to 2.3) and only his much improved accuracy in front of goal got him there.
Nevertheless, he stands as having the most to gain from Lobb’s arrival: the biggest, strongest key defenders tend to outbody him one-on-one, leaving getting a good lead and jump at the ball his only real goal-scoring option, but if they now gravitate to the bigger and more powerful Lobb, he has the chance to take advantage of some mismatches.
Darcy is an interesting one – of the four, he’s the obvious one to leave out when conditions or opposition demands it. The 19-year old beanpole showed against Hawthorn in Round 23 last year just how hard he’ll be to spoil when he puts some weight on: his reach is just tremendous.
For a team unlikely to win the flag next year, but one with an impressive young core of talent and a bunch of other tall forwards to take the pressure off, he’s totally worth pumping games into by the bucketful.
Lobb, I imagine, has arrived to try and bridge the gap until Darcy and Ugle-Hagan are ready to explode, and try and snag another premiership before the Dogs’ star-studded midfield begins to lose its lustre to Father Time.
Beveridge loves recruiting players who play the game of their lives against the Dogs (see O’Brien, Tim) and Lobb is just the latest example: he kicked four and played like Wayne Carey in Round 21 last year, and had his moments in the elimination final.
Freo fans will point out that he tends to turn up his heels when the heat is on, provides minimal defensive pressure and can kick like an arthritic giraffe on occasion, but with so many talls around him he doesn’t need to be Hawkins. He needs to have enough presence to command a quality key defender, clunk the odd contested mark when the Dogs send a Hail Mary bomb inside 50 and chop out Tim English in the ruck for a few minutes every quarter.
Another 36-goal season like he achieved at Freo last year would be perfectly acceptable – and with the Dogs getting the ball inside 50 far more regularly than the Dockers, don’t be surprised if he averages two goals a game and still provides more than enough hair-tearing moments for us Dogs fans.
It’s a big pre-season for Ugle-Hagan, because for much of his young career he has been confined to the forward 50, and with Lobb and Darcy now on the scene the town probably isn’t big enough for the three of them. But if he can use his mobility, pace and excellent jump further up the ground, playing a role similar to Jeremy Cameron’s at Geelong (no pressure there, Jamarra) he’d still bring plenty to the team.
As for the smalls, Cody Weightman bagged a more than handy 36 goals last year, but probably needs to work on his pressure game and crumbing skills at ground level to give the Dogs what they’re missing.
A lot of his goals are generated from marks on the lead, which are handy but probably not what a side with so many tall options needs, especially with Toby McLean likely to return full time to the set-up and also exceptional overhead. There will be plenty of spilled balls for him to feast on next year if he’s good enough, though.
One of Beveridge’s most inexplicable moves last year was dropping Rhylee West, no doubt infuriating his dad some more. For a stretch mid-season he was the pressure small forward every good team needs: not winning much of the ball but doing something smart with it nearly every time, tackling like a man possessed and ensuring the ball remained locked inside 50 on all occasions.
Maybe someday he can, like his dad Scott before him, become a fully-fledged midfielder; but for now, I’d settle for him becoming the best-22 player he clearly is.
With he, Weightman and Johannisen as pressure smalls each kicking a goal or two a game – plus the exciting new draftee Charlie Clarke to provide the same if given the chance – the Dogs have the potential to be a serious headache for every defence in the competition.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Backs: Ed Richards, Liam Jones, Ryan Gardner
Half-backs: Adam Treloar, Alex Keath, Bailey Dale
Centres: Oskar Baker, Jack Macrae, Bailey Smith
Followers: Tim English, Marcus Bontempelli (c), Caleb Daniel
Half-forwards: Rhylee West, Aaron Naughton, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan
Forwards: Cody Weightman, Rory Lobb, Sam Darcy
Interchange: Taylor Duryea, Jason Johannisen, Tom Liberatore, Toby McLean
Substitute: Riley Garcia
Emergencies: Josh Bruce, Roarke Smith, Bailey Williams
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