St Kilda
2015 ladder position: 14th
2016 predicted ladder range: 13-15th
The football gods hate St Kilda, that much we already knew, but in the wake of 2015 it had all looked so much brighter. Sure the Saints finished 14th with only six wins and a draw last season, but that was an overachievement, if anything. Fresh winds had blown through the club thanks to new coach Alan Richardson, a host of capable young players and a confident new CEO – former player’s association boss Matt Finnis – who’d gone all Hasselhoff and literally torn down the wall that separated administrative and football department staff at the club’s Seaford base.
Then the inevitable calamity. The Saints moved to secure disgruntled Essendon swingman Jake Carlisle as a long-term positional replacement for skipper Nick Riewoldt. There was always at least one likely hitch, though the Saints didn’t know for sure that their new recruit would sit out the year with a Wada ban. Worse was the revelation within hours of the trade deal going through that Snapchat video footage existed of Carlisle snorting an unknown substance and as it hit his nose, the shit hit the fan. Just as St Kilda looked to be burying their reputation for staggering around in a constant state of PR crisis, here was a fresh one.
For all that Carlisle will achieve in 2016, the club might as well have sent a helicopter into the I’m a Celebrity jungle and recruited Shane Warne to resurrect his Saints career. And who dodged this bullet? Hawthorn, of course. But if the St Kilda faithful have Bronx cheers for Carlisle they’ll have to hold them until 2017, when he returns to the fold. Until then he’ll work on construction sites where the only white powder in view will be falling out of plaster board.
That farce aside, St Kilda was generally impressive last year off the back of a wooden spoon in 2014 and the newfound buoyancy of Richardson and his side should continue in 2016, though maybe not to sensational ends just yet. Calm administration, the prospect of a return to the club’s spiritual home of Moorabbin, the coach’s high-intensity style of play and a year of solid player development in 2015 leave them well placed to continue a steady rebuild.
And Richardson can be thanked for most of that. He demanded that his men pressure their opponents out of the ball at every opportunity and the young Saints did so.
Emblematic of that harder, more disciplined approach was the form of midfielder Jack Steven, who added a defensive string to his bow in 2015. So did a resurgent David Armitage, a player who was treading water before his breakout year but who enjoyed an impressive average disposal mark of 28 last season. Josh Bruce’s reinvention as a bone fide key forward in a 50-goal season was a pleasant surprise and so was the feisty crumbing efforts of draft bargain Jack Lonie.
On that note, St Kilda have certainly done exceptionally well with later picks in the last half-decade but there’s still some concern that higher ones like Luke Dunstan (pick 18 in 2013), Blake Acres (19 in 2013), Seb Ross (25 in 2011) are good enough to shoulder the midfield load in the long term. Dunstan is the most solid but his disposal efficiency is poor. Ross rarely makes an impact and Acres is yet to show enough at senior level to suggest he’ll be a regular. Want-away Pie Nathan Freeman could be anything but he simply couldn’t get on the park in two years at Collingwood, so we don’t know for sure. Freeman’s hamstring problems have persisted this off-season and he’s still at least a month away from playing.
All this considered, a lot still rests on the performances of Riewoldt (33 years old), Leigh Montagna (32), Sean Dempster (32) and Sam Fisher (34 in July). Not all of them can be expected to fill St Kilda’s key posts forever. And if either of the Steven-Armitage combination is injured or loses form, St Kilda’s emerging midfielders haven’t yet shown that they can pick up the slack.
The current pre-season campaign was a winless one, though that situation wasn’t helped by a washout in North Queensland.
Put simply, St Kilda’s has been one of the worst midfield combinations in the league for some time and hasn’t been helped by uninspiring ruck options. Jason Holmes might change that soon enough, especially if he’s upgraded from the rookie list in place of Carlisle. Young gun Jack Billings could become a superstar of the competition but won’t spend a lot of time on the ball just yet. Newcomer Jade Gresham will get chances, as will father-son selection Bailey Rice across half back.
The technical problems last year were clear; this side lumbers so slowly and cautiously from defence to attack that it’s easy for good sides to set themselves up defensively. It was hardly surprising that St Kilda’s average point tally for 2015 sat at a meagre 77. That transition play and forward structure will need to improve a lot this year. 2014’s No1 draft pick Paddy McCartin has been troubled by niggling injuries and will take a lot more time to mature as consistent tall option. Further improvement from Lonie, Jack Sinclair and the midfielders will have to pick up the slack because indications are that Riewoldt will spend considerable time higher up the ground.
This side’s upward curve was a steep one last year but should the old guard drop off significantly in this campaign, it might flatten out somewhat in 2016.
Melbourne
2015 ladder position: 13th
2016 predicted ladder range: 13-15th
The poor old Dees have been so bad at points of the last decade that they came to welcome mere mediocrity, and that’s what they’ve delivered since Paul Roos came in with his bucket and attempted to save the sinking ship. Roos did that by improving Melbourne’s defence by a not-inconsiderable five goals per game, but in the past two seasons that small mercy has resulted in a WWI scoring rate and a football aesthetic that has left plenty to be desired. This is the short-term price that must be paid for stability and self-respect.
Still, the Dees have been excellent this pre-season, joining Collingwood and Fremantle among the only undefeated sides of the NAB Challenge. Does it mean they’re closer to finals contention or any kind of force? It’s probably best not to be hasty in drawing conclusions from practice matches, but what price the exotic sensation of a winning streak for some of Melbourne’s more resilient players? Defender Tom McDonald put it aptly: “I haven’t won two games in a row, let alone three, even if it is the NAB Cup it’s still exciting to win.” There’s worse habits for football sides to form.
Instead of focusing on the thousands of column inches and billions of terrabytes taken up by speculation about full-forward Jesse Hogan’s employment options post 2017, the Dees have been hatching plans to get him more of the ball because their star full-forward is as potent any in the league and improvements to his wayward goal-kicking style will make him more so. And that ball movement has certainly been better during the NAB Challenge; the Dees are taking risks, which will lead to turnovers but also more of the forward entries that their forwards require.
It’s no secret that Melbourne have botched more drafts than anyone in the past decade and rarely done well with recycling players, but there’s plenty to like about what’s coming through in support of the old faithfuls. Christian Petracca is virtually a new recruit after injury ruined his first season at the club, Christian Salem has talent to burn and that should emerge further in 2016 while Angus Brayshaw’s hard-nosed midfield work was a sight for long-suffering eyes last season.
The Dees had an interesting and productive draft week. Pick nine went on tall forward Sam Weideman, whose family is steeped in football lore (grandfather Murray was Collingwood’s 1958 premiership captain). He’ll take some time to develop but could form a threatening partnership with Hogan if the latter can be retained on a long-term basis.
More interesting still is the young man taken at pick four – inside midfielder Clayton Oliver. With respect to his robust frame he’s probably a similarly reassuring sight for Dees fans as Brayshaw was but also perhaps a concern on draft day itself, because Oliver was a late-surging bolter who didn’t even make the grade for Vic Country’s Under-18 midfield. Based on past recruitment indiscretions, alarm bells were ringing.
But it’s safe to say that fears were allayed by Oliver’s 18-possession, two-goal showing against St Kilda in the final NAB Challenge game. A week earlier, Dees senior assistant coach Simon Goodwin said the first year prospect was “putting a smile on a lot of our faces,” and this is especially the case for Goodwin, who’ll fully experience the fruits of his labour with the likes of Oliver once he steps into the senior role himself.
Now that Jimmy Toumpas has been bundled off to Adelaide, at least the ghosts of Ollie Wines are out of sight. Perhaps not coincidentally, the player to whom Oliver is most readily compared is the Port hard nut. The early signs are good ones, as are those from former GWS on-baller Tomas Bugg, who’ll play a solid role as a defensive midfielder. Bugg is perhaps even the most “Paul Roos” of Melbourne’s off-season additions.
Unsurprisingly for a side rooted to the bottom half of the ladder for so long, few of Melbourne’s senior players are what you would call elite performers. Only defensive rock McDonald, spearhead Hogan, small forward Jeff Garlett and – at a stretch – Dom Tyson go close to fitting that bill. Bernie Vince, Nathan Jones, Lynden Dunn, Colin Garland and Jack Viney give you unerring consistency but elsewhere in the ranks of key senior players – Chris Dawes, Jack Watts, Jack Trengove, Cameron Pedersen, Neville Jetta, Jack Grimes and Heritier Lumumba – either the imminent threat of injury or persistently patchy form make it hard for this side to be taken entirely seriously just yet.
And for all Melbourne’s admirable improvements, you still can’t escape the basic fact that there’s still so many better sides out there. But the Dees might claim a few decent scalps this year, and that would certainly be a start.
The only major drama of the off-season was the loss of new recruit Jake Melksham to a 12-month ban out of the Essendon supplements scandal, which compounds what many would have considered a baffling error of list management strategy to begin with. Still, Melksham’s time on the sidelines has an unexpected silver lining because salary cap relief from the league will possibly allow Melbourne some recruiting leeway at the end of the year. Otherwise Roos has a full list to choose from, the kind of luck Melbourne are due.
The greatest improvement from within existing players is likely to come from the likes of Max Gawn, who has shown in the pre-season that he might be in for a monstrous season in the ruck, and the younger band of midfielders. The defensive options are reassuringly solid.
Consolidation in the middle band of the ladder is the baseline requirement in 2016 but Melbourne don’t yet look capable of very much more.
In focus on Thursday: Collingwood and GWS Giants
