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Opinion
For nearly a decade, there has been an unwritten rule when it comes to the AFL ladder.
Without fail, in each of the last eight seasons, exactly one preliminary finalist from the year before has fallen by the wayside to completely miss the finals the year after.
The last time that didn’t happen? 2014, when Hawthorn, Sydney, Fremantle and Geelong all backed up reaching the last four in 2013 with September action – though as it happens, both the Dockers and Cats crashed out of the finals in straight sets.
Port Adelaide are the most recent team to suffer this fate, with their stunning fall from grace in 2022 seeing them become the only team in the last eight years to TWICE miss the finals following a prelim, having done the same in 2015. Making things more interesting, the Western Bulldogs came within a solitary Carlton point in Round 23 of becoming the second of 2021’s final four to crash out.
Last week, I looked at last year’s bottom five and tipped Adelaide to continue the trend of cellar dwellers making surprise September runs, as well as backing the Blues to do what they couldn’t and end their September drought in my analysis of the teams from 9-13.
Then on Monday, the finals also-rans were put under the microscope – if you’ll recall, I tipped Fremantle to just miss out.
That means, if my maths is right, I need to have one of last year’s preliminary finalists, true to the rule, fail to make my top eight for 2022.
So… who will it be?
Brisbane Lions
4th, 15-7, 119.3%, lost preliminary final
Ins: Josh Dunkley (WB), Jack Gunston (HAW), Darragh Joyce (STK), Will Ashcroft, Jaspa Fletcher (draft), Shadeau Brain, Darryl McDowell-White (cat. B rookie), Conor McKenna (pre-season supp.).
Outs: Tom Berry (GCS), Daniel McStay (COL), Mitch Robinson (ret.), Mitch Cox, Connor McFayden, Ely Smith, Deividas Uosis (del.).
At the time of writing, Brisbane are a popular choice for the premiership among many pundits. When you finish near the top of the ladder four years on the trot, finally break your September hoodoo with two famous finals wins, and add two crucial new cogs in the trade period plus land the best young talent in the game, that tends to happen.
The Lions under Chris Fagan of late have been the epitome of ‘good, but not good enough’. Their dynamic, exciting play, made possible by a star-studded midfield and the most damaging forward line in the game, has been enough to dominate four consecutive home-and-away seasons: since the start of 2019, only Geelong have won more than their 60 regular season games, and no one else really comes close. But it hasn’t always translated to finals football – until now.
Their usual template was flipped on its head in 2022; the Lions missed the top four for the first time in three seasons, but surprised everyone with consecutive September wins over Richmond and Melbourne, the latter a famous triumph as heavy underdogs. Had they benefitted from the double chance, and not been effectively cooked by the time they ran into a red-hot Geelong in the preliminary final, who knows how far they could have gone.
It’s impossible to see the Lions being worse in 2023: Dunkley is a huge get to boost a midfield that can be very reliant on Lachie Neale to win the hard ball, while Gunston is an ideal short-term replacement for Daniel McStay, and offers wisdom and experience to a forward line that probably needs a calm head like his at the tiller.
Then there’s natural improvement from the likes of Hugh McCluggage – maybe this will be the year he finally earns his maiden All-Australian guernsey – Keidean Coleman, Jarrod Berry and finals debutant Darcy Wilmot. Oh, and that Ashcroft fella seems to go alright, too.
Having said that, I’m still not sure I trust the Lions completely. While the additions to their team are excellent, the likes of Dunkley and Gunston don’t exactly fix the issues they have, instead improving to what was already pretty lethal.
Brisbane still are vulnerable defensively – ranking in the bottom half of the competition for points against, and seventh of the eight finalists last year – and the loss of Marcus Adams for the foreseeable future as he struggles with concussion leaves plenty up to Jack Payne and new recruit Darragh Joyce to serve as the second tall back behind Harris Andrews (who, incidentally, also needs to lift after an ordinary 2022 by his high standards).
Dunkley will slot straight into the on-ball brigade, and looms as the perfect Robin to Neale’s Batman; but Chris Fagan will want to ensure McCluggage and Jarrod Berry, the latter of whom enjoyed a superb September in an inside midfield role, don’t see their games slip a notch or two due to lack of opportunities at the coalface.
Equally, I’m just not sure about the decision to move Cam Rayner to half-back this pre-season – not only do Daniel Rich and Coleman, plus the talented Wilmot and fresh arrival Conor McKenna, already offer rebounding options aplenty, it seems a waste of a former No.1 draft pick whose bash-and-crash style just needed a bigger tank to have real promise in the midfield.
Here’s the thing: the Lions are going to be good this year. They’ll hardly lose a game at home, they’ll bully weaker teams with a truckload of points, and almost certainly make the top four – even last year, 15 wins and a percentage of nearly 120 would earn you the double chance more often than not.
But Fagan’s men have fallen short at the crunch in four consecutive seasons, most recently via a 71-point obliteration at the hands of the Cats. That’s a fair bit of improvement to make to win a flag, and I can’t shake the feeling two rivals at least will continue to keep the Lions at arm’s length.
Prediction: 3rd
(Photo by Russell Freeman/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Collingwood
3rd, 16-6, 104.3%, lost preliminary final
Ins: Billy Frampton (ADE), Bobby Hill (GWS), Oleg Markov (GCS), Daniel McStay (BRI), Tom Mitchell (HAW), Ed Allan, Jakob Ryan, Joe Richards (draft), Oscar Steene (pre-season supp.).
Outs: Tyler Brown (ADE), Brodie Grundy (MEL), Ollie Henry (GEE), Jordan Roughead (ret.), Callum Brown, Isaac Chugg, Jack Madgen, Liam McMahon, Caleb Poulter (del.).
I’ll get this out of the way right off the bat, Magpies fans: you are going to hate where your team has landed on my predicted ladder.
I backed Collingwood to finish eighth in last year’s AFL Oracle – and copped flak for it at the time – and they ended up surprising my and everyone else’s wildest expectations in 2022 to make the top four and fall heartbreakingly short of a grand final berth.
There probably hasn’t been a crazier season by a single club in VFL/AFL history: the Magpies won 11 games by two goals or fewer, including six in a row of seven points or less.
They then turned that run of close games into an unstoppable wave of momentum, and by the end of the year were good enough to give Geelong their only challenge of a dominant September, blow the ultra-discipline of Fremantle apart in style, and very nearly stage their most epic comeback yet in a thrilling one-point loss to Sydney that at least ended their season.
So here’s the question that needs to be answered about the Pies: are they lucky, or are they good? My answer is: por que no los dos?
It’s entirely possible for the Magpies to actually improve in 2023, or at least be as good as they were in 2022, and still win a lot less. I’m very bullish about what Tom Mitchell’s arrival means for a midfield that often got bullied for contested ball, while Dan McStay is a handy addition to a forward line that lacks a genuine focal point around which their army of brilliant smalls can gather.
But modern footy moves quickly, and the high-octane, frenetic, chaos-embracing game style that Craig McRae brought to the Pies in 2022 has now had an extra six months to be analysed by every club’s footy department. And in a copycat industry, if one side finds a way to pick it apart, then two weeks later everyone will be doing it.
The Magpies caught a lot of teams off guard last year by playing with incredible freedom, trusting their system to hold up in the long run even after mistakes were made. It’s why they were good enough to twice down Melbourne and Carlton and give the eventual grand finalists a hell of a run for their money – but also why they only just got out of jail against North Melbourne, Essendon, Adelaide and Hawthorn.
The way they play invites randomness, and randomness is what I expect to see from the Pies in 2022: except this year, they probably won’t be able to win the volume of close games that they did last year.
Look at Port Adelaide, who went 6-0 in games decided by 14 points or less in 2021, and 2-8 in 2022. If that happens at Collingwood, suddenly 16 wins can become 11 or 12, and a fight to stay in the eight, without any change in the quality of their footy.
The Pies will also have a trickier draw to contend with by virtue of their top-four finish. Where they banked a pair of wins last year against Adelaide, Gold Coast, Essendon and Carlton, all of whom missed the eight (there you go Pies fans, enjoy the reminder that the Bombers and Blues both missed the eight), this year their double-ups include Geelong, Brisbane and two teams in Port Adelaide and the Blues widely tipped to improve.
The Pies are fantastic to watch, and will cause a lot of good teams problems once again in 2023 – I’m deeply considering tipping them to knock off the Cats in Round 1. But the last team to make the top four with a lower percentage than the Pies’ 104.3 was Melbourne in 1998 (102.7), who’d go on to win just six games the year after… and the make a grand final the year after that.
Buckle yourselves in, Magpies supporters: wherever you finish on the ladder, you’re in for a heck of a fun ride.
Prediction: 11th
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)
Sydney Swans
2nd, 16-6, 127.9%, lost grand final
Ins: Aaron Francis (ESS), Jacob Konstanty, Cooper Vickery, Caleb Mitchell (draft), Cameron Owen, Jaiden Magor (rookie draft), Will Edwards (cat. B rookie).
Outs: Josh Kennedy, Colin O’Riordan, Callum Sinclair (ret.), James Bell, Sam Naismith, Barry O’Connor, Ben Ronke, Lewis Taylor (del.).
Teams that get thrashed on the last day in September can often struggle to respond. The Western Bulldogs in 2021, GWS in 2019, Adelaide in 2017 and Port Adelaide in 2007, all fell drastically off the rails the year after being humiliated on the biggest stage, with the latter three crashing out of the finals entirely.
That’s why Sydney are a particularly fascinating watch this season – particularly in the early rounds. This is a team that doesn’t fit the template of a normal grand finalist – they’re a youthful, exciting team probably still a year or two off their prime, and if anything their success in 2022 was probably a nice bonus before their expected peak in the seasons to come.
That fact was reflected by their player movement in the off-season: not a single best 22 player has departed the club (Josh Kennedy’s retirement saved him a year in the 2s) and of the arrivals, it’s hard to see any of them, even Aaron Francis, being locks in the seniors. Most likely, the Swans will stick with the same best team that they had for the majority of 2022.
My working theory is that if the Swans had only lost the grand final by five or six goals and put up a good fight, rather than an 81-point pantsing, they’d be top-four locks in just about everyone’s ladder predictions.
They are stacked for talent across all lines, balance the enthusiasm of youth expertly with experienced senior heads in key positions such as Dane Rampe, Luke Parker, Tom Papley and Lance Franklin, and across a nine-game winning streak leading into the grand final battered good teams and poor teams with equal brutality.
The biggest concern for the Swans for me isn’t the grand final thrashing completely breaking their spirit, but rather in the little things that can turn a premiership challenge into a battle just to stay inside the eight. For instance, the Swans last year had eight players play all 25 games – the most in the competition – with seven more missing three games or fewer, equal with the 15 Swans that missed three games or fewer in 2021.
Only Tom Papley of their elite core was absent for any length of time last year – it’s a remarkable run on the injury front that seems too good to be true. It only takes a few dominos to fall for the Swans’ depth to be tested for the first time since their rise up the ladder in early 2021 began – if, for instance, Tom McCartin does a knee or Buddy pops a hammy in Round 1, can the Swans cover for their absence and still remain among the competition’s elite?
The Swans will be contending for the flag for a long time yet, and it’s almost impossible to see them emulating the Crows, Giants and Power and compounding a grand final embarrassment with a rapid fall from grace.
But the big dance also showed just how much improving they have to do to make that last step on the road to premiership glory – and I’m not convinced they’re quite ready to take it yet.
Prediction: 5th
Will Hayward and Callum Mills of the Swans celebrate winning the preliminary final. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Geelong Cats
1st, 18-4, 144.2%, premiers
Ins: Jack Bowes (GCS), Tanner Bruhn (GWS), Ollie Henry (COL), Jhye Clark, Phoenix Foster (draft), Oscar Murdoch, Osca Riccardi (rookie draft), Ted Clohesy, Oisin Mullin (cat. B rookie).
Outs: Francis Evans (PA), Cooper Stephens (HAW), Luke Dahlhaus, Shaun Higgins, Joel Selwood (ret.), Quinton Narkle, Nick Stevens, Paul Tsapataolis, Zane Williams (del.).
Every time you think Geelong have reached the end of their tether, up they pop again like the killer in a horror movie, for one last scare.
That’s what I wrote about the Cats this time last year, amid sentiment that 2022 was finally the year Chris Scott’s team would fall out of premiership contention for the first time in seven trillion years.
I only had the guts to put them 6th, but it’s the thought that counts.
After a decade of near-misses, the Cats finally reached the promised land again in 2022, and pretty much proved once and for all that if you’re good and smart and well-run and can bypass the salary cap by giving your star players huge chunks of land in southern Victoria, you actually don’t ever need to bottom out.
As an added bonus, they then bossed the trade period by landing all three of their key targets in Jack Bowes, Ollie Henry and Tanner Bruhn; as an added bonus, they snagged Gold Coast’s top-10 pick in addition to Bowes in a Suns salary dump (Gold Coast having less room in their cap than Geelong is either extremely funny or extremely concerning or both) and used it to pick up another exciting young talent in Jhye Clark.
It’s been a pretty good summer if you’re a Cats fan, and unlike most years, I’m yet to see a single pundit dare to do the annual Geelong write-off this time around. Really, the only question has been whether they can do what they couldn’t from 2007-2011, and go back to back.
The Cats are going to be in this premiership race up to their eyeballs again, of that you can have no doubt. Their defence, built around the genius of Tom Stewart and the incredible talents of Sam De Koning remains one of the AFL’s miserliest, right up there with Melbourne and Fremantle.
Unlike those two, they make little sacrifice to their offensive game to maintain it, ranking third last year for home-and-away points scored and just 19 behind leaders Richmond. By season’s end, they were so far ahead of the rest of the league it wasn’t funny.
And if anything, their list and best 22 looks even more imposing this year. Joel Selwood’s retirement leaves a big hole, both from a leadership perspective and as an extra inside-midfield battering ram; while Tom Hawkins’ likely absence from the start of the season due to a foot problem will be an interesting test for Jeremy Cameron. But aside from that, there’s not a single chink in their armour.
Someone will have to improve considerably to topple the Cats in 2023; this mob doesn’t really do falling off the wagon, and even if they do decline slightly this season, they’re coming from an incredibly lofty perch as it is. Now that they’ve shaken the finals choker tag that plagued them for years, and tweaked their game style perfectly for September success, they’re an obvious premiership favourite with the bookies.
Frankly, the only reason to tip against them going back to back is this: winning two premierships in a row is hard, especially as the clear frontrunner. Yes, Adelaide, Brisbane, Hawthorn and Richmond have all done it in the last 25 years, but here’s the thing: in 10 premierships between those four clubs in their back-to-back years (the Lions and Hawks, of course, won three on the bounce), the Hawks in 2013 were the only one to claim the minor premiership. The rest finished second, third, or even fifth for the Crows in 1998, yet proved an unstoppable force once finals rolled around.
That’s basically what I expect of the Cats. Few teams will beat them or even challenge them at GMHBA Stadium, they’ll dispatch the weaker teams and maybe lose the odd early-season game to their fellow contenders, just to keep everyone on their toes.
But they’ll finish the home-and-away rounds with a double chance, and probably a home final; and from there, even if someone else does pip them for the minor premiership (looking at you, Melbourne), they’ll still have to pry the cup from Chris Scott’s cold, dead fingers.
Tom Stewart of the Cats celebrates. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Prediction: 2nd
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