West Coast Eagles
If a year is a long time for most football clubs, the last two have been an eternity for West Coast. Just 24 months ago, the Eagles were a premiership fancy, with a list seemingly stacked with young talent the envy of other clubs. Things didn’t go to script though, the likes of Scott Selwood, Luke Shuey and Andrew Gaff failing to take the next step to become genuine stars and veterans Dean Cox and Darren Glass retiring before contending for another flag. Any hope the Eagles could surge into the eight this year pretty much collapsed at the same moment as Eric Mackenzie’s knee; the reigning best and fairest’s NAB Challenge injury has forced him out for the season. If that wasn’t bad enough, key forward Jack Darling has barely trained all summer and can’t shake a lingering foot injury.
West Coast has always been good at beating up on minnows – last year’s percentage of 116.86 was better than three finalists – and that will probably be the case again. But even though they now boast a Brownlow medallist, the Eagles’ midfield simply isn’t good enough for long enough against teams above them.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Rookie Tom Lamb, with his Heppell-like blond mop, seems ready-made. Sharrod Wellingham, severely disappointing in his two seasons since being traded by Collingwood, is impressing his coaches. And Nic Naitanui, so often the Eagles’ barometer, seems fit after two injury-plagued years. But West Coast is a proud club that demands more than just glimpses of success – particularly after playing deep into September not long ago. Coach Adam Simpson may be entering just his second season, but Brenton Sanderson and Brendan McCartney will tell him that loyalty and football clubs don’t go hand in hand. The finals may be a long shot, but providing fans with hope is crucial. (KK)
Collingwood
It’s not unfair to say that Collingwood are hardly flying heading into 2015. Last year’s 11th place finish wasn’t helped by a horrendous run with injuries but as a rule, the Pies aren’t big on excuses. Nathan Buckley thought he’d inherited a Ferrari when he took the keys from Mick Malthouse but this Collingwood list this year looks more like a Mazda MX-5.
You need to look past the bluff. President Eddie McGuire’s pre-season statement that the club was capable of contending for the premiership this year has to be viewed in context; it happened at a celebration of the club’s flag-winning history, so there was a lot of love in the air. McGuire is also a salesman – the best in football – with memberships to flog and a club aura to maintain, regardless of football realities. These are also not statements you have to make if the point is self-evident.
With premiership expectations in check it’s best to focus on the main positive, which is the pleasing amount of potential contributors in Collingwood’s young brigade. Ruckmen Brodie Grundy (20) and Jarrod Witts (22), defenders Jack Frost (23) and Tom Langdon (20), and midfielders Tim Broomhead (21) and Taylor Adams (21) all have a lot of excellent football ahead of them and will benefit from the responsibility and experience gained last season. Draftees Darcy Moore and Jordan De Goey loom on the horizon.
Lion-hearted Luke Ball is a loss in every sense and Dayne Beams’s departure to Brisbane leaves a heavier scoring load on the shoulders of captain Scott Pendlebury, Steele Sidebottom, Dane Swan and newly-arrived Levi Greenwood, because Collingwood’s forward line is dysfunctional to say the least. Into the fold this year comes Travis Varcoe, a weapon in an excellent side at Geelong but a more puzzling proposition in a middling one. Collingwood’s recent recycling experiments with Quenton Lynch, Jesse White, Tony Armstrong and Patrick Karnezis hardly fill you with hope. Maybe any or all of Jamie Elliott, Alex Fasolo and Jarryd Blair will reach new heights in 2015. Maybe not though. If so, the Pies are just making up the numbers this year. Patience, not premierships, should be the mantra. (RJ)
Brisbane
At the back end of last season, Brisbane briefly flirted with the idea of using a live lion as a kind of mascot/cum conversation starter at the Gabba. “Fan engagement“ and “matchday experience“ are the current buzzwords, encompassing everything from hovercrafts, to over-caffeinated fun-facilitators, to wild felids. In these censorious times, the idea never stood a chance. But there’s no doubt Brisbane need an angle. The club is heavily in debt. In a tough market, they have to scrap for every dollar. The coach believes the AFL has left them festering for too long. Leigh Matthews reckons if it were not for league assistance, “we would handed the keys back”.
When they ruled the football jungle over a decade ago, Brisbane played a straightforward, strutting brand that held up when it mattered it most. What do they stand for these days, exactly? New recruit Mitch Robinson – not exactly football’s most respected voice, granted – reckons they’ve been pushovers for the best part of half a decade. With Jonathan Brown now vying for the title of Australia’s most affable man on the panel show circuit, they have lost the heart of soul of their club.
But they certainly have their strong suits, with most of it concentrated in the midfield. Most coaches would kill for their abundance of big bodies and ball magnets. Tom Rockliff is a two-times best and fairest winner, a club captain at 24 and one of the premier midfielders in the competition. Lewis Taylor, the subject of one of the more curious betting plunges in Australian sport, is the reigning AFL Rising Star. Recruits Dayne Beams and Alan Christenson are premiership players with a fresh start, free from the suffocating Victorian fishbowl. Daniel Rich and Matthew Leuenberger are virtual recruits themselves, having played just a handful of games in 2014
The rub is their forward line, which is full of beanpoles still learning their lines. They’re also a little light on for key defenders. Pearce Hanley is also expected to miss more than four months with a serious hip injury. That said, they loom as the joker in the pack, the team best equipped to come from the clouds and possibly shake up the status quo. (JH)
Carlton
A well-entrenched idea within American consciousness is the idea of all things relevant coming from either the East or West coasts. Within American media, the majority of their portrayals of life come from either ends of the country. News networks, situation comedies and international magazines see this wide middle as an afterthought. Within AFL’s flyover country (the middle of the ladder), resides Carlton. This year they’ll celebrate two decades from their last flag, still suffering the residual effects from their post-millennium meltdown.
Mick Malthouse is in the final year of his contract, and the ageing coach will face growing questions of if he can take the club forward. It’s clear Carlton are in a phase of retooling, so Malthouse only has a few months to undertake improvement whilst selling to the club and its supporters a vision of the future. This juggling act involves the development of key players all over the field. Lachie Henderson continues to be the impressive key swingman for the club, Levi Casboult and Liam Jones will look to fill the long held void up forward. Sam Docherty, Dylan Buckley and Patrick Cripps must break into the team and start stringing together games in order to help sell this vision.
Malthouse’s teams will always be competitive, as they were last year when threatening in most games to only fall away after a poor 10-minute patch. Ageing top liners like Chris Judd, Andrew Carrazzo and Kade Simpson won’t help the cause, but thankfully for Malthouse, Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs are developing into the leaders they were predicted to become. For Carlton, they must begin to escape mediocrity now or risk being further considered an afterthought in the game’s modern pecking order. (BC)
