AFL Oracle: Someone ALWAYS surges into September from the bottom five... so who will it be in 2023?

We’ve had our appetites whetted by a host of practice games and the AAMI Community Series, and now the AFL’s season proper is just days away.

That means only one thing here on The Roar – it’s time for the AFL Oracle to make its return!

Just as I did last year, I’ll be dividing teams up into groups based on where they ended up in 2022, and see who’s on the rise, who’s spiralling downwards, and who should be prepared for more of the same in the new season.

Today, I’ll be taking a look at last year’s bottom five; after that comes the 9-13 bracket (Thursday), last year’s finals also-rans from 5-8 (next Monday), and lastly, the four preliminary finalists (next Wednesday).

Think your team is destined for another long season after finishing near the bottom in 2022? Think again.

Since the 18-team competition began in 2012, eight out of 11 seasons have seen a side that finished in the last five claw their way up to make finals – including the last four years. And in one of the others, 2018, both 12th (Hawthorn) AND 13th (Collingwood) from the year prior did it.

On top of that, the Magpies became the second team in that stretch to make it to the top four from the bottom five last year (the other being Adelaide back in 2012), proving that the sky really is the limit from even the lowest rungs of the ladder.

So, who’s best placed to be this year’s Magpies and make a shock September run? Let’s find out.

North Melbourne

18th, 2-20, 55.8%
Ins: Daniel Howe (HAW), Griffin Logue (FRE), Liam Shiels (HAW), Darcy Tucker (FRE), Harry Sheezel, George Wardlaw, Brayden George, Cooper Harvey (draft), Blake Drury, Hamish Free (rookie draft).
Outs: Jed Anderson (GCS), Jason Horne-Francis (PA), Tom Lynch (retired) Atu Bosenavulagi, Kyron Hayden, Matt McGuinness, Jared Polec, Josh Walker, Patrick Walker (delisted).

What a rollercoaster of a last 12 months it has been for North Melbourne. Their fans endured a horror two-win season that saw them claim a second straight wooden spoon and sack coach David Noble, before landing their saviour when Alastair Clarkson agreed to sign on.

Then, the allegations of racism against Clarkson during his time at Hawthorn dropped and became the talk of the footy world; just weeks later, number one draft pick Jason Horne-Francis requested a bombshell trade that turned into the most complicated deal in AFL history, and afforded the Roos two top-five picks in exchange.

Those two picks, George Wardlaw and Harry Sheezel, are set to play plenty of senior footy in 2023, with Sheezel in particular already looking an exciting prospect.

Now that things have settled down, the Kangaroos enter the year with minimal expectations and a young list which sorely needs game time. Another season like 2022 would be a disaster, but it’s going to be incremental improvements from here, and no one knows better than Clarkson just what a mess he has walked into, and that it will take time to turn the ship around.

Frankly, a good season for North would be to avoid a third wooden spoon on the trot – and with Ben Cunnington back full time to anchor a strong midfield featuring young star Luke Davies-Uniacke and new co-captain Jy Simpkin, Clarko has just enough talent available to him to clear that bar.

Prediction: 17th

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

West Coast

17th, 2-20, 59.8%
Ins: Jayden Hunt (MEL), Reuben Ginbey, Elijah Hewett, Harry Barnett, Coby Burgiel, Noah Long (draft), Jordyn Baker, Tyrell Dewar (category B rookies).
Outs: Junior Rioli (PA), Josh Kennedy, Jack Redden (ret.), Hugh Dixon, Tom Joyce, Zac Langdon, Patrick Naish, Jackson Nelson (del.).

The Eagles don’t often find themselves near the foot of the ladder, but after a 2022 season from the blackest depths of hell, they were fortunate North Melbourne had one of the worst years in modern football history to narrowly avoid a dreaded wooden spoon.

After an extended period challenging for a second flag after their 2018 success, West Coast’s list sorely needed a reboot; and with an excellent crop of young Western Australian talent acquired in the draft, there’s plenty of optimism at the club that the future is bright.

The Eagles are a hard team to place in 2023; all logic suggests they will again finish in the lower rungs on the ladder as their young guns develop and the rebuild begins in earnest, but this is also a team that has never done bottoming out across their AFL history.

Indeed, the last time they finished this low, their wooden spoon year of 2010, they bounced back brilliantly to reach the preliminary finals in 2011, off the back of a sparkling group of young guns around some cool older heads.

Don’t be surprised if the Eagles turn out to be the team from this bottom five that makes it to the eight – especially if they can turn Optus Stadium back into the fortress it is whenever they’re even remotely good – but there are just too many unknowns about the quality of their list in the here and now to back them for such a drastic improvement.

Prediction: 14th

Tim Kelly of the Eagles gathers the ball. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

GWS Giants

16th, 6-16, 84.6%
Ins: Toby Bedford (MEL), Aaron Cadman, Harry Rowston, Darcy Jones, Max Gruzewski, Toby McMullin (draft), Nick Madden (category B rookie).
Outs: Tanner Bruhn (GEE), Bobby Hill (COL), Jacob Hopper (RIC), Jake Stein (GCS), Tim Taranto (RIC), Matt De Boer (ret.), Jarrod Brander, Zach Sproule (del.).

The Giants’ premiership window officially slammed shut in 2022, bringing with it their worst season since 2014.

Making matters worse, a salary cap crisis saw them need to offload several best-22 players for minimal returns, most obviously losing Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto to Richmond. Haemorrhaging talent has become a real issue for the Giants in recent seasons; given the damage this has wrought on their fellow expansion club Gold Coast, it’s a less-than-ideal situation in which the club finds itself.

But there’s still plenty of talent on the Giants’ list: new solo captain Toby Greene won’t be suspended for the first five rounds like he was last season, while both Josh Kelly and Stephen Coniglio showed there is plenty of life left in them with resurgent ends to 2022. If Lachie Whitfield can do the same, they’ll be even more well-stocked for classy midfielders than they already are.

Then there are the young guns: Sam Taylor became one of the game’s elite key defenders in 2022, while Finn Callaghan has been enormously impressive this pre-season and looks on the cusp of a breakout second year. That’s without even mentioning No.1 draft pick Aaron Cadman, who wasn’t picked for the Giants’ pre-season win over Gold Coast but will surely be blooded at some point in 2023.

There’s a path back to success for the Giants, if they’re smart and resourceful enough to keep on the straight and narrow while the kids develop. But there’s enough doubt over new coach Adam Kingsley’s short-term plans for this team, and whether his game plan will suit the likes of Kelly and Whitfield, to have me sceptical about their chances of improving too much this year.

Prediction: 15th

Number 1 draft pick Aaron Cadman of GWS. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/AFL Photos/Getty Images)

Essendon

15th, 7-15, 83.2%
Ins: Will Setterfield (CAR), Sam Weideman (MEL), Elijah Tsatas, Lewis Hayes, Alwyn Davey Jr, Jayden Davey (draft), Rhett Montgomerie (rookie draft), Anthony Munkara (cat. B rookie).
Outs: Aaron Francis (SYD), Michael Hurley, Devon Smith (ret.), Cody Brand, Tom Cutler, Josh Eyre, Brayden Ham, Tom Hird, Garrett McDonough, Alec Waterman (del.).

Essendon weren’t as big a train-wreck as West Coast or North Melbourne on the field in 2022, but off it you could make a reasonable argument that they were even more woeful.

It led to the sort of radical, off-season cull of key personnel – there’s a new coach, president and CEO in 2023, for starters – that will either be just the culture shock the Bombers need to escape decades of mediocrity… or one step too far for a former powerhouse on the edge of a cliff.

The Dons surprised everyone with a finals run last year, and have a habit of lifting under a new coach. Here’s a stat for you: the last Bombers coach to not take the team to the finals in either their first or second year in charge was Bill Stephen in 1976-77 (he was then sacked).

Since then, Barry Davis, Kevin Sheedy, James Hird, Mark Thompson and Ben Rutten have all taken the Dons to September in their first season at the helm, while Matthew Knights and John Worsfold did it in their second – and you could argue Worsfold’s first proper season with a full team to pick from was 2017 anyway.

Could Brad Scott follow a similar path? It’s very possible – and you don’t get far in predicting footy these days expecting anything normal out of Essendon.

But while they have a very solid core, led by the likes of new skipper Zach Merrett, Peter Wright and Darcy Parish, there’s too much flakiness from the rest of the team to have any confidence in them doing too much improving in 2023.

Prediction: 16th

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

Adelaide

14th, 8-14, 86.7%
Ins: Izak Rankine (GCS), Max Michalanney, Billy Dowling, Hugh Bond (draft).
Outs: Billy Frampton (COL), Luke Brown, Fischer McAsey (ret.), Ben Davis, James Rowe, Brett Turner (del.).

I said at the start of this piece that there’s always one side from the previous year’s bottom five who makes a shock jump into the eight: and given I’ve tipped the previous four teams to all stay well and truly near the bottom, I’ve probably given up the goose who my money is on for 2023.

I agonised over this more than any other team in my pre-season ladder predicter – I gave serious thought to West Coast and GWS as my finals bolter – but for me, the Crows are the best-placed team of the lot to be this year’s surprise packet.

Part of it is the sheer necessity for the Crows to get there: after three years under Matthew Nicks, the Crows have gone from 18th, to 15th, to 14th, improving in wins and percentage in each year. But at some point you’ve got to either make the leap into finals or drown in mid-table mediocrity, and I don’t think Nicks can expect to comfortably survive another season of only incremental gains.

But mainly, I just think the Crows are ready. Their best footy over the last two years has been a nice mix of inside toughness and outside dash and dare, with the likes of Rory Laird, Sam Berry and Ben Keays in the engine room getting it in the hands of a power-packed array of key forwards from Taylor Walker to Darcy Fogarty enough for a winning score.

In 2021, they knocked over the eventual premier as well as the 2022 champion in Geelong; last year, they claimed the scalps of finalists Richmond and the Western Bulldogs, and started Carlton’s hellish late-season slump.

They’ve also got, to my eye, a handy draw: they play non-finalists Port Adelaide, West Coast, GWS and Gold Coast twice, and that of the five interstate games they have against the 2022 top eight, one is a Ballarat game against the Bulldogs, where they beat them last year.

If the Crows can turn Adelaide Oval into a fortress, which they’ve threatened to do at times last year, then they could easily fight their way to a 12-win season, which, in an even season, might just be enough to sneak their way into September.

(Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

I don’t see the Crows as a genuine flag contender yet; but like I said, there is ALWAYS a team that shocks the footy world by getting good from seemingly nowhere.

I got Collingwood right last year, so here’s hoping my intuition stays strong about the pride of South Australia.

Prediction: 8th