Daicos in the guts, Gawndy's first run and new coaches galore: Ten things to watch out for in AFL pre-season matches

The AFL pre-season officially begins today, with every team set to play two practice matches – one official, one the definition of a ‘scratchie’ – to gear up for the 2023 season proper.

Well, everyone except the Western Bulldogs and GWS Giants, that is, who haven’t scheduled a scratch match this weekend but will take part in the AAMI Community Series next week. If you need to get up to speed on who’s playing who, when and where, head here.

For some teams, it’s a chance to impress a new coach still yet to decide on their best 23 for the real stuff; for others, it’s a chance to shake off some of the cobwebs of a long off-season or establish themselves in a new position.

Here are ten things to watch out for this AFL pre-season.

Daicos in the guts

After one of the best debut seasons in recent memory across the half-back line for Collingwood, Nick Daicos appears set to go to a new level in 2023.

The son of a gun has already spent plenty of time in the midfield for the Magpies in their intra-club hit-outs, and looked seriously impressive to boot.

Daicos’ speed, positional awareness and lethal right boot were all wielded to devastating effect by Craig McRae in a rebounding role last year, but in 2023, it looks like last year’s Rising Star will be driving the ball inside 50 more often that not.

Opposition defences beware: you’ll probably be seeing plenty of this for the next seven months.

JHF’s homecoming

Depending on who you ask, Jason Horne-Francis’ acrimonious departure from North Melbourne for Port Adelaide in last year’s trade period was either a calculated move from a young competitor sick and tired of mediocrity, or the act of a spoilt child crying home to Mummy.

Kane Cornes has already assured every eye will be on the South Australian this pre-season with some glowing praise of his old firm’s new recruit; and while yes, he was reported to be ‘quiet’ in the same intra-club game Cornes was gushing over (by his brother Chad no less), you can’t deny this moment right here is pretty cool.

There are plenty of names jostling for spots in a deep Power midfield, but if Horne-Francis can make an impression in the next fortnight, a starting gig alongside the likes of Ollie Wines, Connor Rozee and Zak Butters could easily be his. If not… well, it’s hard to make the ex jealous when you’re stuck on a forward flank.

A new dawn for North

Speaking of the ex…

The Kangaroos enter 2023 with something that, of recent times, has been in short supply at Arden Street… hope. They have the legendary Alastair Clarkson at the helm, a pair of new captains in Jy Simpkin and Luke McDonald, and a year ahead of them where the club has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

No one is expecting ‘Clarko’ to work miracles straight away; but a tightening-up defensively, further improvement from a strong young midfield core led by Simpkin and Luke Davies-Uniacke, plenty of senior action from new draftees George Wardlaw and Harry Sheezel, and an end to the sort of humiliating thrashings that were only too commonplace in 2022 are all realistic goals.

That all starts now. Get the wheel turning in pre-season, and long-suffering North fans will start flocking back to watch their team begin its rise.

Alastair Clarkson. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

The Eaglets

Like the Kangaroos, West Coast are coming from a loooong way back to start 2023. Also like the Roos, they have enough talented fresh faces on the books to make even a tough season on the field one of promise.

I actually think the Eagles might surprise a few people this year (spoilers for my upcoming AFL Oracle season previews), and if they do, like it was in 2011, the kids will have plenty to do with it. For Jack Darling, Andrew Gaff and Luke Shuey 12 years ago, read Reuben Ginbey, Elijah Hewett and Campbell Chesser.

All three have shown exciting signs during intra-club matches thus far in 2023, and Chesser in particular will be a welcome sight for Eagles’ fans in the practice games as he returns from the serious ankle injury that destroyed his 2022.

It’s been a long time since the Eagles have had a crop of young guns like this; an overdue rebuild, but one already showing promise in spades.

Cotchin the forward

There are always one or two position changes flagged in January that turn heads around the footy world; this year, it’s Trent Cotchin’s moving switch into attack that has generated the most debate.

A triple-premiership captain and the heart and soul of Richmond’s recent dynasty, the veteran was a genuine goalkicking midfielder in his prime, but it’s been a good while since he hit the scoreboard on a regular basis.

At 32, it’s pretty late for this old dog to learn some new tricks, and recent examples around the league – Sydney trying to convert Josh Kennedy from clearance beast to half-back, for instance – haven’t exactly worked out too well. It’s well worth watching Cotchin more closely than usual in the next fortnight to see whether this is a move with a chance of working well, or a last-ditch attempt from Damien Hardwick to keep his stalwart in the best 23.

Return of the King

Take a side chock full of young midfield talent, with a tight defence, and add in a 22-year old who kicked 47 goals in 2021. Pretty handy, huh?

Gold Coast did a tremendous job covering for Ben King in 2022 after he ruptured his ACL 12 months ago, with Mabior Chol and Levi Casboult stepping up to become an efficient one-two punch up front. But now, the man who is set to spearhead their attack for the next decade is back and ready to roll.

King’s return offers a fascinating dilemma for Stuart Dew. Does he stick with Casboult and Chol and form a three-headed monster in attack? Is Casboult thanked for his services as a stop-gap and left as a pure back-up? Does Chol get given licence to use his near-unmatched athleticism and roam further up the ground, leaving the two big guys as the deep options?

We’ll get the first glimpse of just how the Suns will look up forward this pre-season; however Dew structures them up, a player like King is good enough to boost the perennial battlers into September for the first time.

Ben King. (Photo by Graham Denholm/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Sicily the skipper

Adelaide, Brisbane, Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle, Geelong, Hawthorn and North Melbourne all have new men in charge for 2023, after a spate of off-season resignations. But it’s safe to say none will be as captivating to watch in their new role as James Sicily at the Hawks.

A heart and soul player for many years, Sicily filled Ben McEvoy’s shoes as interim captain for periods in 2022, but this is now officially his team. And given it’s a team stocked with youngsters and not a whole lot of proven AFL-calibre talent after a trade period cull, he’s also quite clearly the Hawks’ best player.

Sicily plays his best footy right on the edge, so it will be interesting to see whether he looks to lead by example this pre-season and establish the Hawks as a side not to be bullied despite all the fresh faces.

If the club, as most expect, finds itself closer to the bottom than the top this year, it will also be worth watching how the always-volatile defender copes on struggle street, too.

Gawndy’s first run

We’ve had a whole off-season to ponder it, but now, the first look at the Max Gawn-Brodie Grundy ruck combination at Melbourne is only days away.

I’m almost certainly getting carried away, but this pairing has the potential to dramatically alter the face of the game – if it works. Get it right, and not only will the Dees rule the skies all season long, but have two genuinely elite ruckmen both capable of influencing the game all over the ground.

It’s the sort of dramatic tactical intrigue you don’t see all that often in the modern game; even the Dean Cox-Nic Naitanui ruck tandem at West Coast a decade ago didn’t have quite as high a ceiling as ‘Gawndy’. Make no mistake, I’ll be tuning in this weekend to see just what Simon Goodwin has planned for his twin towers.

Four heads are better than one… right?

This is one for the official AAMI Community Series, but those games next weekend will give us all a first look at the new four-umpire system recently introduced by the AFL for 2023.

Like everything involving umpires, reaction to the increase from three on-field umpires to four has been… mixed. Footy fans, in general, want to see less of the umps, not more.

At the same time, the prospect of an extra set of eyes to spot infringements that might otherwise go unpunished, as well as reducing the distance umpires have to cover to hopefully lessen any fatigue-based errors that might happen late in games, seem like pretty reasonable goals to pursue.

Most likely, this will be like the majority of AFL rule changes in recent times: plenty of grumbling early, then by mid-season mostly forgotten about as everyone gets used to the new reality, and then a flare-up somewhere down the line when something goes badly wrong.

(Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

New men in charge

Four men are set to take the reins of a club for the first time in 2023 – though three of them have been in the hot seat before: Brad Scott at Essendon, Adam Kingsley at GWS, Clarkson at North Melbourne and Ross Lyon at St Kilda (again).

The natural reaction when a coach gets a second stint at the helm somewhere else is to assume they’ll be bringing their old philosophies and game plans with them: after all, not a whole lot changed for Lyon when he headed over to Fremantle after his first stint at the Saints.

But that’s not always true: it’s going to be hard for Clarkson to replicate Hawthorn’s old kick-happy, ultra-aggressive style with the personnel he has at the Kangaroos, while Lyon doesn’t have a Nick Riewoldt or Matthew Pavlich clone to build a forward line around (at least until Ben King returns from his shoulder injury).

Scott, meanwhile, might have as much pressure on him as any new coach of a bottom-four side has ever had. The Bombers made finals just 18 months ago, and many at the club (and in the fan base) are only too keen to write off 2022 as an annus horribilis.

There’s plenty there for him to work with, but it’s about as far from the North Melbourne side he guided to back-to-back preliminary finals in 2014-15 as you can get. This isn’t a team full of tough-as-teak workhorses with the occasional diamond in the rough; this is a side stacked with style as far as the eye can see, but not nearly enough in the way of substance (see: Stringer, Jake).

Newly appointed Essendon coach Brad Scott. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Kingsley might be most fascinating of all: a key ingredient in the Tigers’ recent multi-premiership set-up, he has to find a way to at once make the Giants a competitive force on the field again, and begin the foundations of a successful culture to prevent them continuing to haemorrhage talent.

He’s got a better playing stock at his disposal than Stuart Dew, who has managed the latter at Gold Coast and looks on the precipice of the former – but it has taken five years and counting to do it. It’s doubtful Toby Greene, Josh Kelly, Stephen Coniglio and co. have five more years left in them; but does Kingsley have enough star power left to strike while the iron is hot?