Just who will make way for 2016's AFL improvers? Rohan Connolly
The Age
December 7, 2015 This is a pretty good time of year to be a supporter of an AFL club for whom 2015 was a disappointment, and one word sums it up. Hope.
There's a new swag of players to lift your team from the doldrums and in a few cases a new coach to breathe life into a moribund culture. There's the glowing reports of pre-season training, players "fitter than they've ever been", and injured stars back on the track.
Most importantly, there's not yet been any games to dull the glow of optimism surrounding next season. Nor any serious analysis of at which team's expense yours will manage to make the climb up the ladder. And that's becoming the most problematic part.
Take this year, for example. Two teams in particular, West Coast and the Western Bulldogs, proved that it needn't take all that much for the gap between also-ran and contender to be breached significantly. On that basis, you can argue a relatively convincing case for several potential big improvers in 2016.
But who makes way for them? Recruiting and list management are hardly exact sciences, but AFL clubs have become a lot better at long-term planning and the business of sustained success than they used to be.
As a consequence, we're seeing fewer "fly by night" teams making a novel finals appearance before slipping to the lower reaches again. And others hanging around the top end longer.
When you talk the business of September, "perennial" is a word which comes to mind for three clubs in particular, Hawthorn, Sydney and Geelong.
The last finals series was a sixth in a row for both the Hawks and Swans. Hawthorn have appeared in eight of the last nine finals campaigns, and the Swans 12 times in the last 13 seasons. Geelong had been part of eight straight Septembers and 10 out of 11 until missing out this year.
Three members of the 2014 final eight dropped out last season for the Eagles, Bulldogs and Adelaide. They were Port Adelaide, the Cats and Essendon. Another team widely tipped for September action, Gold Coast, were even more disappointing.
Geelong's demise has been ritually predicted for a while now, but who saw Port Adelaide's dramatic stumble coming?
For the Bombers and Suns, meanwhile, there were extraneous factors at play, the extent of which took most observers aback, Essendon's mental resolve finally collapsing under the weight of the ASADA saga, and a mounting pile of cultural and behavioural issues at Gold Coast coming home to roost.
They're not the sort of factors you tend to take into account when compiling a predicted ladder for the following season. All of which makes turning a potential top 14 for 2016 into just eight likely finalists harder than ever.
Who'd be game to confidently tip against Hawthorn making it four flags on end, let alone miss the eight? It's getting harder to see Fremantle scaling premiership heights now, but then the Dockers did win more home and away games in 2015 than the previous two seasons.
At face value, Sydney might be one team in ladder terms looking a little vulnerable with some loss of experience in Adam Goodes, Mike Pyke and Lewis Jetta. Maybe, though, a bona fide ruckman in Callum Sinclair will allow Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett to combine more up forward. And the Swans have, after all, made an art form of proving the critics wrong over the years.
Adelaide's loss of Patrick Dangerfield obviously is a stern test of the Crows' midfield depth, but Troy Menzel and Paul Seedsman aren't bad pick-ups, and Don Pyke would hardly be the first recipient of a "new coach bounce".
Richmond and North Melbourne always seem to be the subjects of much scepticism. But going into 2016, the Tigers, even for another elimination-final setback, have been good enough to finish the home and away rounds fifth in two of the past three years, while the Roos are coming off two preliminary-final appearances.
And if, indeed, West Coast and the Bulldogs aren't about to relinquish the hard-won gains of 2015 without a struggle, we may well have a major top-eight traffic jam on our hands.
It's fortune, fate, and lady luck which seem destined to play ever larger roles in sides' seasons from hell. But even their creep of doom is months away. Right now in the football landscape, however fleetingly, everyone's a winner.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/just-who-will-make-way-for-2016s-afl-improvers-20151207-glhlhj.htmlRohan added on SEN that he has Richmond making the finals again which might surprise Tiger supporters who think he doesn't like us. The team is in its prime and he really likes the addition of Yarran.
