Swans to make amends
If their 2014 grand final embarrassment didn’t kill them, which it didn’t, then the experience of having their pants pulled down on the sport’s biggest stage will make Sydney stronger. It’s worth remembering the Swans went into the decider as hot favourites, and there was good reason for that. The Bloods were pretty much the best team in the comp all year (save for a very slow start), and there’s reason to think they will improve further this season. The guts of their best 22 is mostly intact, with Nick Malceski the only member of last year’s grand final team not to suit up in 2015. Sydney’s power and pace through the middle is almost terrifying, their defence (and style of defending) is bombproof, and if last year was a sighter for Lance Franklin, Kurt Tippett and co up forward, then this is the year to reap rewards. The Swans won’t have it their own way, with redoubtable Hawthorn and upstarts Fremantle and Port Adelaide the ones most likely to cash in should Sydney not perform to expectations, but all things being equal the 2015 flag is theirs to lose. Why else would Adam Goodes have staved off retirement for one more year?
Nat Fyfe to get chummy with Charlie
Nathan Fyfe will win the 2015 Brownlow Medal. As responsibly as you are able to do so, dive into the $8 on offer that the Fremantle magician takes Charlie home on the Monday night of grand final week. There are two prime threats to this prediction becoming reality. One is Gary Ablett, the Gold Coast skipper who would have won another Brownlow in 2014 were it not for the season-ending shoulder injury he sustained in round 16. If Gazza plays a full season he’s the one to beat, but that’s no sure thing. The other variable is Fyfe himself. The midfielder is given to lapses of indiscipline, as hordes of elite players over the years have been. This aspect of his game was in evidence a few times last year, never more vividly than when felling Hawthorn’s Jordan Lewis in round 21. Fyfe, at any rate, was already ineligible courtesy of his controversial round-two suspension, and it took two last-round votes from Matt Priddis to prevent the Docker from becoming the third player to surrender the sport’s top individual award through an on-field discretion. Fyfe has upped his votes tally in each of his five seasons in the AFL. In 83 career games, he has garnered a very tidy 75 votes. The umps love him, and the player himself is only getting better. If Fyfe can keep clean in 2015, and of course maintain his brilliance, the Brownlow Medal is his for the taking.
Malthouse to leave the house
This season shapes as a critical one for a number of figures, but the biggest bum in the sling belongs to Mick Malthouse. The three-time premiership coach has carved out an reputation as one the great modern-day mentors – not to mention a press conference reporter’s worst nightmare – but the magic just hasn’t happened in two seasons at Carlton. The honeymoon of the club’s (lucky) finals appearance in 2013 was in no way built on last year, and now Malthouse finds himself facing a monumental challenge in his last contracted term at Princes Park. On the face of it, there is no cause to reckon the Blues will improve markedly on last year’s 13th-placed finish, if at all. On the plus side, the likes of Chris Judd, Lachie Henderson and Dale Thomas will begin the season in better physical shape than before. But too many question marks preside over some of their senior players, Judd and Thomas included, most notably whether their best days are past. There remains enough quality in Carlton’s best 22 to be sure it won’t be all doom and gloom in 2015. But the club’s overall profile is one of transition; indeed Malthouse’s turnover of playing staff these past two years has been amongst the league’s highest. Carlton won’t make the finals this season. And in 2016, perhaps even earlier, they’ll have a new coach.
Free agency to stay on dangerous path
During a recent free agency roundtable that took place on the AFL’s official website, Dockers coach Ross Lyon offered this when asked if players should have a say in which club they go to: “Regulations are in place to supposedly create equality. If you want to have the EPL system where only one or two teams can ever win it, let players go wherever they want, whenever they want.” To which Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley quipped: “They already do.” This year shapes as a defining one for the virtues of free agency. If the idea of the system, which allows long-serving club players easier access to another home, was meant to prolong the careers of said veterans and maybe help out the odd struggling club along the way, so far it’s missed its mark. What we’ve seen is an increase in player power, whereby established stars are using the looming end of their present deal as a bartering tool. We saw it with Lance Franklin, who wouldn’t entertain contract talks with Hawthorn in 2013 so he could “concentrate on footy”. The result was a mindblowing long-term deal struck with Sydney, the reigning premiers, where other chasers included the much-needier Giants. It’s a moot point whether this in itself was bad, as Franklin merely received his worth in a free-market economy. But the AFL isn’t a free-market economy (yet). The Franklin scenario is being relived in 2015 through Patrick Dangerfield, Adelaide’s star Victorian midfielder who will be a restricted free agent at season’s end. The Crows are thought to have enough salary-cap room to counter any bid from a rival suitor, but the smart money is on Dangerfield wanting, and getting, a move to Geelong. If this is how it goes down, what does it say for restricted free agency? And to think the AFLPA wants to reduce the number of qualifying years before a player is eligible. Unless players become more transparent with their plans, unless clubs are assured of getting a return on developing raw talent, free agency will continue to please the few, and perplex the many.
And the rest...
Eddie McGuire will call the kettle black; Western Bulldogs will again show promise, and again miss the finals; Bruce McAvaney will preface a comment with, “You just get the feeling that ...” 416 times during the season; Richmond will finish eighth or 10th; the AFL will trial a one-metre opening of the Etihad Stadium roof; Joel Selwood will bleed; Nic Naitanui will be described as “freakishly talented”; Travis Cloke will kick more behinds than goals; the Match Review Panel still won’t make sense; man will take out personal loan to feed family of four at the footy ... family will complain that food is “yukky”; congestion to get so bad that in one game full forward will line up on full forward, and no one will notice; both the Suns and Giants will still need time; Kevin Sheedy will yearn for the good old times at Windy Hill; Collingwood will miss the eight again; Nick Riewoldt will remind himself not to remind himself of season 2010 during one of St Kilda’s ritual floggings; Taylor Walker will win the Coleman Medal; Ross Lyon will say, “Aaaaw, yeah, no, I don’t know”; Chad Wingard will take the mark of the year; the AFL will do its best to forget Ben Cousins; 23% of these predictions will come true.
