Greater Western Sydney
Victorians perhaps have been too hasty to dismiss the Western Sydney experiment. Clubs were faced with a choice with draft concessions – take the easy wins now and let the expansion clubs stockpile talent or force the AFL to target established players with the backing of league coffers. The other clubs voted for GWS to be a short-term team of easy beats, eventual powerhouses if they got their list management correct. The acquisition of Ryan Griffen was a statement, seeing him lead a midfield that’s got big things planned down the line.
In the short term, there are still a few growing pains for Leon Cameron to address. Decision making and navigating on the counter are still extremely average, with a fair few instances of losing the ball in midfield in pre-season and getting punished on the counter. It’s improving and it’ll take time, but it’s an important element of the modern game, as players have little or no time to correct a mistake at this level.
Thankfully we’re spared the entire Jeremy Cameron saga that was on the cards. There are a few others like him on the Giants list; Dylan Shiel, Josh Kelly, Toby Greene, Will Hoskin-Elliot, and like the Gold Coast it’ll be fun watching them bloom until they start dominating the opposition. Finals should be the aim in 2016, but until then, the Giants just need to lose the tag of easy beats and get victories at home to ensure confidence in the project. (BC)
Western Bulldogs
Even in their so-called glory years of 2008-2010 when three preliminary finals failed to produce a grand final berth, the Western Bulldogs were never a glamour club. They don’t command attention like the Pies, Hawks or Tigers and unlike their mates down the road, don’t have a regional newspaper devoted to them (did someone mention the Ablettiser?). But the Dogs’ media department was forced to work overtime in the off-season. First, there was talk of discontent between senior players and then-coach Brendan McCartney. Next, a bombshell as skipper Ryan Griffen demanded a trade and Adam Cooney departed. McCartney was shown the door and the Dogs shocked the footy world by swapping Griffin and pick six to the Giants for boom youngster Tom Boyd.
So Bulldogs fans enter 2015 in limbo. Before Griffin’s exit and reigning best-and-fairest winner Tom Liberatore’s pre-season injury, there were grounds for cautious optimism. But without their two best midfielders from last year, it’s hard to see them matching top eight teams for more than a half here or there. Eyes will be on Boyd and his six-year, six million-dollar contract. But the forward has played just nine games, and it’d be folly to set high expectations. New coach Luke Beveridge will simply hope Boyd eases into his new club by playing a role alongside Stewart Crameri (Asada investigation pending) and youngster Jake Stringer.
After blitzing the pre-season, Marcus Bontempelli is being talked about as a potential All-Australian inclusion in just his second season. The emerging Jordan Roughead, Jackson Macrae and Mitch Honeychurch will offer youthful exuberance, but they’ll be inconsistent without too much senior support. Patient Bulldogs fans – and it’s a pre-requisite with just one flag in the cabinet – know their team is building something. It won’t arrive this year, and there’ll be beatings along the way. But you can’t enjoy the destination without witnessing the journey. (KK)
Melbourne
So far in the pre-season Melbourne has lost to what was effectively an Essendon VFL side and also suffered the gut-punch of losing No2 draft pick Christian Petracca to a season-ending knee injury. You’d certainly hope that’s the worst of the year’s news behind them. In year two of the Paul Roos era, lower-middle ladder stability is probably a realistic aim.
Will there still be pain? Probably, because Melbourne’s draw for the first half of the season is brutal. In the first 12 rounds they’ve got Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Sydney, Fremantle, Geelong, Richmond, Gold Coast and also Adelaide away. Things are necessarily a bit more comfortable in the run home and the hope would be that they’re not too deflated by then.
Defence has been the bedrock of the Roos revival and the Dees certainly tightened up in this area last year. That mitigated the soul-crushing blow-outs that characterised the Bailey/Neeld era but didn’t exactly sate those with appetites for such exotic footballing phenomena as scoring goals. What should help in that respect is the arrival this year of rebounding defender Heritier Lumumba, a man who only seems capable of running and kicking in one direction; straight down the middle.
Chris Dawes and great white hope Jesse Hogan will be glad for Lumumba’s presence and also hope that Nathan Jones again gets better help in the midfield. As far as scoring spark goes, Jeff Garlett was as good a pick-up as the club could have hoped for without giving too much away in return. Could he, Christian Salem and Jay Kennedy-Harris create something special? Maybe.
Daniel Cross was in his own unassuming way one of the recruits of last season for the Dees and theirs was a diminished midfield in his absence, when injuries came. Jones will continue to mine packs with courage and hopefully drag Jack Viney along with him, while Dom Tyson and Christian Salem at their respective peak levels of output will again add the kind of polish that’s been lacking during the dog days. Tyson arguably has the greatest star potential of any Demon.
Square-jawed on-baller Angus Brayshaw looks like precisely the kind of brutish, no-nonsense player that Melbourne missed in their woeful drafts of the past decade; when he shook Roos’ hand on draft day he went nose-to-nose with him as though he was requesting a cage match. If that kind of attitude spreads and the Demons continue to get all of the little things right, the rest will start to fall into place. (RJ)
St Kilda
Worse than opprobrium, gloating or vitriol, what you really hate from rival supporters is pity. When your team is so consistently bad that you get motherly pats on the shoulder from people telling you it’ll be alright, or condescending comments about how your boys did really well because they managed to perform a few fundamental skills of the game correctly for half an hour here or there, you know you’re in a bad place.
This is life for those who love St Kilda, adopted near-universally as the people’s second team since Fitzroy vacated the sentiment marketplace. But the Saints have a plan and it’s under way. Low-profile coach Alan Richardson has the club’s blessing to rebuild their list from the ground up, focusing on draft recruits, so expectations for now are low. Richardson joined the club from Port Adelaide – if he can improve the Saints at even half Port’s speed, he’ll do well.
Nick Riewoldt remains the club’s inspiration, showing his younger team-mates the commitment that has made him so admired over the years. The experienced core will be Leigh Montagna, Sam Fisher, Farren Ray and Sean Dempster. Veteran Adam Schneider is back on a rookie contract.
But the Saints are all about the younger talent. Key forward Paddy McCartin has had plenty of attention but is years from his best. The young running guns are Jack Billings, Luke Dunstan, Eli Templeton and Blake Acres, all having shown exciting signs. New recruit Tim Membrey gives some forward heft, while Hugh Goddard is touted as a future key defender. Jack Newnes probably already is one. Mid-career midfielders like Jack Steven and David Armitage had strong years in 2014 and will try to bridge the gap, but the Saints need to get a couple more seasons of work into their young players before they can start looking upwards once more. (GL)
