Takeaways from the First Half of the AFL Season
The bye weeks give teams, fans and prognosticators a chance to take a breath and survey the AFL landscape of 2019. Here’s some of the intriguing storylines that could influence the direction of the rest of the year.
The bye weeks are upon us. The Lions are finally relevant again, Richmond had a pox called down on them, the Sydney Swans and Melbourne Demons still haven’t realised that the regular season has started, and Gary Ablett has wandering elbows.
Yep, exactly how we drew it up.
Carlton are stuck, without a coach, or a plan…
To call the Blues situation a dumpster fire would give dumpster fires a bad name. At least the destruction of an inferno gives promise to new life rising from the ashes. Carlton have been in their own version of Dante’s hell for the last three years. The raw win/loss numbers say it all.
It got coach Brenton Bolton sacked, it’s caused untold anguish for the fans, and probably made a couple of states side fancy a crack at them.
Admittedly the Blues have been more competitive, and possibly better, than being last on the ladder seems. They’ve had decent showings against Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Sydney and Richmond (when they weren’t an emergency ward masquerading as a footy club), and had heartbreaking losses against the Hawks and the Suns. Their win against Brisbane speaks to what could be possible with this squad.
But the lack of direction — tactically and philosophically — has left them in the dust of so many other sides over the past three years. Their rebuild is in limbo, looking more like taking shots a the draft board in the hope of landing picks without having the ability to turn any player (apart from a sublime Patrick Cripps) into a starter, much less a star.
Cripps is a genuine All-Australian talent who’s second best teammate is probably whichever trainer provides him with water at stoppages. Somehow he’s second favourite to win the Brownlow. Which just shows how brilliant a player he is, and how much of a non-entity the rest of the side has been this year.
… while the Brisbane Lions are for real, right?
While Carlton have completely torched whatever their rebuilding was supposed to be, the Lions — a team that was in a similar position, working through the same kind of blow it up and put it back together again mentality, with a ridiculously young list of unproven talent, and over-the-hill veterans have burst onto the scene.
It’s no longer a question but a legitimate statement. The Lions have arrived.
Sure, they’ve had some wobbles. Falling over the line against the Adelaide Crows in round nine, almost capitulating against Port, letting the premiers West Coast, the Swans, the Hawks and North Melbourne all get out to terrifying early leads before mowing them down.
And yes, they capitulated against Carlton. A performance that shouldn’t be dismissed as an aberration, even if the ‘new coach surge’ claimed yet another scalp. Highlighting the issues coach Chris Fagan and his staff would do well not to ignore if the team is to develop into an elite unit.
But. BUT. Don’t go be mourning the collapse of the season just yet.
The difference this year is that they’re finding ways to win, flashing extended periods of dominance along the way. They’re 7–5 for crying out loud!
They’re winning games they previously would have folded on. I wrote a piece last year on whether they could learn how to win, instead of merely taking honourable losses. They’ve done just that.
A list filled with talent including Cam Raynor, Hugh McCluggage, Harris Andrews and Charlie Cameron, injected with the superstar talent of Lachie Neale, and getting career seasons from criminally underrated veterans like Daniel Rich and captain Dayne Zorko have suddenly catapulted Brisbane into finals contention. Whether they can keep it going is another matter. Inconsistency has plagued them since winning the first three games of the year.
The stretch run is relatively soft for them, so whatever expectations the group had going into the season, it’s now narrowed down to one — play into September.
The Brownlow Medal Race Is Wide Open
The past few years have thrown up scant little unpredictability when it comes to who’ll win the Brownlow. Dustin Martin, Tom Mitchell, Patrick Dangerfield and Nat Fyfe all seemed to have mortgaged the award mid-way through their respective winning seasons. The lack of suspense over who will win has made Brownlow night more about who’s wearing what, and every player worried not to go full Fevola.
But thankfully this year has thrown us a beautiful concoction of uncertainty.
Names like Neale, Cripps, Fyfe, Tim Kelly, Dangerfield, Stephen Conigilio, Travis Boak and Marcus Bontempelli all have claims. Even more exciting is that there could still be dark horse that runs through the field in the back half of the season, there’s just no way to narrow down a fascinating race.
As obvious as it sounds, the players who can dominate down the stretch will find their stock rising. Neale could be Brisbane’s first winner since Simon Black, arguably the greatest Lion, in 2002, and Fyfe would join the rare two time winners list. Dangerfield and Kelly’s run could cancel each other out with Geelong laying waste to all that dare defy them; and Cripps is a lone light in the vast abyss that is Carlton.
Anyone who says insert blank is a lock for Charlie is a liar, every week provides a new turn in the story, a player rises or falls. A charmed run flourishes, or injury cruels promising form. It’s going to be a fascinating subplot as the season reaches its crescendo.
Are the Swans in or are they out?
Three years removed from their loss in the 2016 final to the fairy tale Bulldogs, the Swans suddenly find themselves 4–8 with a horrifying gauntlet ahead — GWS, Fremantle, a revitalized Port Adelaide and Geelong all looming on the dark horizon. Winning against West Coast papers over the cracks more than it answers any questions. They’re running out of time.
They’ve played much better football this past month, despite being decimated by injuries. It feels like they could both go on a tear or completely crater. Do they rebuild or reload? Last year they sputtered over the last two months of the season before being bounced out in week one of the finals. And in 2017 they got stuck in the gate, going 0–6 before somehow willing themselves into the eight.
If they get the full complement back they could do some damage, spoil some team’s aspirations, or even cause a little chaos in the finals. But even then, they’ve got an aging list — with Josh Kennedy, Jarred McVeigh, Kieren Jack and Lance Franklin all on the wrong side of 30, and a bunch of young players that aren’t quite the real deal yet.
It’s simply the reality of time that it will break down all things, even fifteen years of consistency and success.
The top eight is far from set
It’s been a fantastically unpredictable first half of the season and apart from elite teams like Geelong, Collingwood, GWS and West Coast all but booking their spot for the September run, the top eight has an expanded field of hopefuls bunching up behind them.
Two games seperate Adelaide in fifth and St Kilda in thirteenth, with the Bulldogs and Swans only one game back from that. Percentage is going to factor in heavily if the logjam continues through to the final round. Teams like Adelaide, Brisbane, Port and Fremantle have built a nice buffer percentage-wise while the slow starts the Sydney, Hawthorn and Essendon have had might be a hole too deep to climb out of.
As per Champion Data the Lions, Collingwood, Geelong and St Kilda have the easiest run home, while Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Bulldogs and North Melbourne face a horror stretch to close out the season.
Spoils and upsets are ripe for the picking, with each round drastically changing the outlook of a team’s fortunes and the order of the eight. There’s a sense that hope abounds for more teams to see September action this year than in previous seasons.
