Déjà vu for the top-up Bombers
It’s the AFL’s version of Groundhog Day. Twelve months ago a depleted Essendon team were preparing for the NAB Challenge with a smattering of hastily organised top-up players. A year later, the coach has changed but the same stars remain on the sidelines, after Wada banned 12 current players (and five former Bombers now at other clubs) for 2016.
So how can anybody possibly predict what the Bombers will dish up when they take on Carlton, Geelong and West Coast during the NAB Challenge? Typically, practice games are for fine-tuning game plans that have been worked on for months. Not only is new Bombers coach, John Worsfold, trying to help the entire club rediscover the spirit it clearly lost last year, he’s now doing so with the added challenge of missing half a team of good-to-excellent players, replaced by footballers who mere weeks ago were relaxing on the couch with a pizza and a beer.
At least they’ve selected their top-ups wisely. Ryan Crowley, James Kelly, Mathew Stokes and Mark Jamar bring a collective 805 games of experience and will get plenty of pre-season game time to help them gel with their new team-mates.
If you’re a glass half full Essendon fan, you’ll point to the improvement of Zach Merrett and Joe Daniher and exciting recruits Aaron Francis and Darcy Parish as reason for a slim semblance of hope for the NAB Challenge and beyond. The rest of us sense that potential pre-season success, most likely against the lowly Blues, may be as good as it gets for quite a while.
Footy’s going everywhere
Mandurah, Wangaratta, Joondalup, Mackay and Mount Barker – not the RSL tour schedule of the latest X-Factor reject, but some of the off-Broadway locations that will host NAB Challenge games over the next three weeks.
The AFL’s commitment to taking footy to non-traditional heartlands is heartening, and for many of the towns hosting matches, professional footy players coming to town is a big deal. Just look at Mackay, which will host the Brisbane v St Kilda clash on 6 March, and expects to receive a $1.5m economic boost for one afternoon of footy.
Although many of the venues used in the first three weeks don’t have the type of amenities AFL fans come to expect, there’s something romantic about buying handmade salad rolls from old ladies at the canteen behind the goals at half-time and running onto the field after the game for a spot of kick-to-kick.
Things return to normal for the final pre-season hit out for all 18 teams (10-13 March), played exclusively at regular AFL stadiums in Melbourne, Perth and the Gold Coast. So don’t become too accustomed to the cheap soft drinks and circa-1980s beer prices.
Some better luck on the injury front, hopefully
At this time of year, with the pre-season slog almost over and the smell of the Sherrin in the air, there are no words that send shivers down the spines of coaches and fans alike than “NAB Challenge injury” (perhaps apart from “have you seen what our new recruit has done on Snapchat?”).
Last year, as misfortune would have it, two reigning best-and-fairest winners in West Coast defender Eric Mackenzie and Western Bulldogs young gun Tom Liberatore suffered ACL injuries on the same weekend. Despite the significant losses, both teams went on to play in September (and in the Eagles’ case, a grand final) and in nice symmetry, Mackenzie and Liberatore are both slated to begin their comebacks over the next three weeks.
Elsewhere, big-name recruits Charlie Dixon (Port Adelaide), Adam Treloar (Collingwood) and Chris Yarran (Richmond) look set to keep fans waiting, each only an outside chance to see NAB Challenge minutes.
But in better news a handful of players barely sighted in 2015 – like Dale Thomas, Daniel Wells, Jared Polec and Brent Macaffer – have publicly targeted NAB Challenge returns. For them, an otherwise meaningless practice game must feel like Christmas Day.
And Geelong’s feel-good story continues with four-times knee reconstruction patient, Daniel Menzel, who made his senior comeback last August after almost four years on the sidelines, so far enjoying an incident-free pre-season and on track to play in the NAB Challenge. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for his similarly luckless mate at Fremantle, Anthony Morabito, who tore his hamstring less than two weeks ago. Between them, the pair must have walked under more ladders than you’ve had hot dinners.
Carlton’s long and winding road begins
Even if you took some sadistic joy from Carlton’s misfortunes last season (who can forget the Blues’ six Friday night losses by an average of 75 points?), you can’t help but feel a little sorry for new coach Brendon Bolton. The happiest man in football – evidenced by the permanent beam on his face when he helped Hawthorn to a 5-0 record during the illness-enforced layoff of Alistair Clarkson in 2014 – has taken over a club literally at Ground Zero. Former best 22 players Lachie Henderson, Chris Yarran, Tom Bell and Troy Menzel are now at other clubs, and Chris Judd has hung up his boots.
Clearly, it will be a vastly different Blues team that takes on Hawthorn, Essendon and Sydney over the next three weeks or so. Bolton looks set to unveil his four top 20 draft picks, led by the No1 young talent in the land Jacob Weitering, plus father-son recruit Jack Silvagni, and the Blues also landed five former Giants during last year’s trade period.
With so many fresh faces and only three practice games to implement things before the round one season opener against Richmond, it’s little wonder that Bolton’s philosophy seems to be to put the fun back into football for his players.
Carlton fans understand there’s no quick fix, so as long as Bolton avoids the type of outlandish statements often favoured by his predecessor, they’ll warm to him. And if Carlton beat Essendon on 28 February, in what shapes as a preview of the wooden spoon battle? They’ll be in love.
The Paddy party begins
Given the rapturous response Patrick Dangerfield received the last time he played at Simonds Stadium – before he’d swapped Adelaide’s tri-colours for the hoops of his hometown Geelong – the mind boggles at how he’ll be received when he suits up as a Cat for the first time on 26 February against Collingwood.
Chris Judd’s first practice game for Carlton drew an estimated 12,000 back in 2008 and Geelong’s D-Day (Dangerfield Day, of course) should comfortably exceed that.
The Cats haven’t shied away from hyping their multi-million dollar recruit, either. The three-times All-Australian midfielder appears on everything from billboards to membership cards down at Catland, before he’s kicked a ball in anger.
Dangerfield’s explosiveness and goal sense would, of course, be an asset to anyone but he seems a perfect fit at Geelong where Joel Selwood has been forced to do too much heavy lifting in recent seasons.
As fate would have it, the skipper has been all but ruled out of the NAB Challenge and seems doubtful for round one with a lingering foot injury that some suspect is worse than the club is letting on. If Dangerfield was hoping he could ease into his new club with a fellow superstar by his side, he may be sorely mistaken.
Still, such is the excitement around Geelong that Dangerfield could trot out during that first practice match, give away some clumsy free kicks, chalk up some clangers and still get a standing ovation. Adelaide fans: you might want to keep a wide berth for a little while.
