Hawthorn
When AFL clubs become really, really good – multiple premierships good - they give the appearance that they could take on virtually any footballer in the league and, merely by slotting into the well-calibrated system, make a player of them. Think of the various Sydney and Geelong sides of the last decade, particularly the way the Swans turned recycled non-entities into premiership heroes.
You might call it a “culture” or a “system”, but Alastair Clarkson’s Hawthorn side is probably a step beyond that now because these aren’t any old players they’re bring in, they’re guys who are already established as high performers. Last season it was Ben McEvoy, before him Jack Gunston, Brian Lake, Josh Gibson, David Hale and Shaun Burgoyne. This year it’s James Frawley, an All-Australian full-back capable of taming any of the league’s forward beasts.
As a single component Frawley won’t win you many games but it’s scary to consider how much better he’ll make those around him. Gibson will roam freer than ever and at 33 and creaking, Lake can be a Clark Keating-like proposition who is nursed through to finals time. Irrespective, the Hawks just have an aura now, hard won and not likely to be relinquished soon.
It would actually be wrong to say that Hawthorn’s position as the destination of choice for premiership-hunting, want-away stars is a primary driver behind its recent success, though hunger for success helps. Leadership, depth and the adaptability of their coach is the most potent formula. The high profile top-ups augment a line-up stacked with players Hawthorn has cannily identified and expertly developed. In 2014 Will Langford went from anonymous rookie to finals superstar in the space of a season. That didn’t happen by luck.
The only risk of regression in this squad is that old hands like Lake (33), Sam Mitchell (32), Shaun Burgoyne (32) and Luke Hodge (30) drop off drastically, but even that seems a reach. Age is actually on Hawthorn’s side, depressingly so for opposition fans. Grant Birchall (27), Luke Breust (24), Frawley (26), Jack Gunston (23), Bradley Hill (21), Langford (22), McEvoy (25), Cyril Rioli (25), Liam Shiels (23), Isaac Smith (26), Ben Stratton (26), Matthew Suckling (26) and Brendan Whitecross (25) are an imposing core group of players for the next half-decade and beyond.
You’d run out of superlatives discussing any or all of Hawthorn’s best dozen or so but also consider the fact that at any given point, Jed Anderson, Jonathon Ceglar, Taylor Duryea, Billy Hartung, Ryan Shoenmakers, Jonathan Simpkin, and Alex Woodward – quality players that other clubs would love to have – might be biding their time in the VFL. The club also has a bill of health that seems almost too good to be true. Success seeps from the walls at Hawthorn. Who’d bet against Clarkson? Who’d bet against his side performing a three-peat in 2015? (RJ)
Sydney
Like Geelong, the Sydney Swans have now spent a decade as serious contenders. Where the Cats turn unlikely draft picks into stars, Sydney’s specialty has been recycling underperformers from other teams. Some of the renovations have been astounding, and other clubs must sometimes wince in frustration, like selling your granddad’s old car for chip change only to see it restored as a classic and flogged off for a small fortune.
So not everyone was impressed when Sydney went to the showroom floor and bought Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett in mint condition with a sock full of cash. Not all has looked well at the club: their grand final loss was inexplicably limp, and the departure of Nick Malceski to an unproven Gold Coast isn’t exactly a gold star for dressing room atmosphere. But Sydney have been tough for years, and coach John Longmire in time-honoured fashion urged them to channel that grand final loss into this year’s win.
Franklin, Tippett and Sam Reid have Sydney’s tall forward stocks sorted for millennia. The smalls and midfield group is well seasoned: Dan Hannebery, Kieren Jack, Lewis Jetta, Josh Kennedy, Craig Bird, Ben McGlynn and Luke Parker are all in the sweet spot between about 80 and 160 games. Jarrad McVeigh, Adam Goodes, Ted Richards and Rhyce Shaw provide the experience while good young players like Harry Cunningham, Tom Mitchell and the super-fast Gary Rohan come through. It’s a compelling mix, and it should have Sydney right in the thick of things for yet another campaign. (GL)
Port Adelaide
Port were undoubtedly the story of the season last year. In 2011 and 2012 they were a rabble that couldn’t beat new expansion sides. By 2013 they’d surged into the finals, and in 2014 they fell three points short of a grand final spot in a classic against the eventual premiers. They played the most exciting style of any side, and to top all that off they completely owned the redeveloped Adelaide Oval, whose intense sell-out atmosphere is already part of footy folklore.
The pure exhilaration of 2014 will be hard to match a season later, but with any luck it has left us with a side that is now hardened. Port in the latter half of last season looked tired, victims of their own energy expenditure in slumping from first to fifth. If they can go into this season with the confidence that they belong at the top, they won’t get over-excited by being there.
Port have the best midfield in the comp: start with Travis Boak, Kane Cornes, Hamish Hartlett, Jared Polec, and Oli Wines; throw mobile ruck recruit Paddy Ryder in the middle of them; then rinse through freak small forwards like Jake Neade, Chad Wingard and Sam Gray. Namesake Robbie Gray was by most accounts the player of last season, at times turning in an elite midfield performance with an elite small forward’s job stacked on top. With solid bookends to keep the rest in shape, this should be a season to get down to Adelaide Oval and feel the noise. (GL)
Fremantle
“It is easier to destruct than to create,” says Ross Lyon. There, in eight words, is a snapshot of a man, a club and in many ways, the modern game. Few would be so honest as to admit it. Lyon, not a man to be trifled with, doesn’t give seven stuffs what we think of him and his team. As a former English football manager once said, “if you want entertainment, go and watch clowns.”
When the Dockers are in full flight, when they afford the opposition all the elbow room of the Tokyo Subway and when Lyon’s orders are carried out to the letter, there’s a horrible beauty to them. But these are testing times for “Runner-up Ross”. His Dockers were sent packing in straight sets last September. Their list is the second oldest in the competition. A drugs ban hangs over resident irritant Ryan Crowley. And Colin Sylvia has been banished to the WAFL after porking up over Christmas. Still, this is a no excuses club. As the coach says thrice weekly, “Don’t give me problems, give me solutions”.
The Dockers started poorly last season, winning just half of their opening eight games. They were bedevilled by injuries and seemed a shadow of their 2013 selves, yet finished just one game from top spot. In the knockout final, they started like millionaires but kicked poorly and left the door ajar for a frighteningly fit Port side to run over them.
There’s talk of a more attacking mindset, of a more direct route to Matthew Pavlich and co. But this is Freo and this is Ross Lyon. They’ll seek to squeeze, suffocate and shut down. They’re in the mix but their clock is ticking – tick-tock, tick-tock…. (JH)
North Melbourne
It’s 40 years since the perennial whipping boys of VFL football broke through for their first premiership. In the 1970s, the Kangaroos were a whole lot of fun. They had a messianic coach, administrators with garbage bags full of cash, superstars on every line, a giant gasometer looming over its home ground and a bewildered elephant clodhopping around the boundary line at quarter-time.
The Kangaroos of this epoch are a decidedly more low-key proposition. Their reigning best fairest, Ben Cunnington, could enjoy anonymity on most Melbourne streets. Only the indefatigable Brent Harvey made the preliminary 40 man All-Australian squad last year. They rely on an even spread. They are rarely afforded the glamour Friday night fixtures.
Week to week, they can be hard to get a read on. They win at juicy odds and fold up as favourites. They’re the sort of side that can fire off 10 unanswered goals, fall in a heap and then hang on to win grimly. Last year’s knockout final against Geelong provided a neat snapshot. Geelong were rattling home and North’s defenders had the wobbles. But in a buttock-clenching final couple of minutes, they held their nerve. In previous years, you suspect they would have found a way to lose.
It was indicative of a maturing list and a club with a grand plan. They continue to recruit well, are financially sound and, in cricketing parlances, they bat deep. Few teams boast such an accomplished “bottom six”. But they are notoriously slow starters, having not won a round one game since 2009. What’s more, they haven’t beaten their opening round opponents Adelaide in South Australia for 12 years. They will then encounter Port Adelaide, Geelong and Hawthorn in the subsequent month. The Roos could win them all or flatter to deceive. Your guess is as good as ours. (JH)
The Guardian’s coverage of the 2015 AFL season gets up and running with Russell Jackson’s liveblog of the opener between Carlton and Richmond from 6:35pm AEDT on Thursday evening.
