SANFL 2024 season preview: Tigers, Blues tipped as clubs to beat
It’s almost time for ball up on the 2024 SANFL season and Andrew Capel and Peter Cornwall have reviewed every club. Read the season preview.
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Last year’s SANFL grand finalists Glenelg and Sturt are tipped to be the teams to beat again this season while new Double Blue Will Snelling has been backed to be the league’s star recruit.
That is the view of the 10 SANFL coaches, who believe the 2024 season looms as one of the most even on record.
In an exclusive The Advertiser poll, the Tigers and Double Blues are the clear favourites to play finals this year and the teams most likely to make the grand final, according to the coaches.
Glenelg beat Sturt by four goals in last year’s premiership decider but coach Martin Mattner’s Blues outfit arguably recruited better than any other club over summer, bringing in four key players, including former Essendon and West Adelaide midfielder Snelling.
“The four players (Snelling, Sam Conforti, Flynn Perez and Morgan Ferres) that we brought into the club will fill a few needs we felt needed addressing,” Mattner said.
“We wanted to top up with a bit of top-end talent and they all bring something a little different.’’
SANFL 2024 PREVIEW
16-page liftout in the Wednesday, March 27, edition of The Advertiser
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TOP 50 SANFL SIGNINGS FOR 2024
Illustrating the evenness of the competition is that eight of the 10 clubs are given a good chance to play finals this season.
Asked to select four teams other than their own who they think will play in the major round, Glenelg recorded the maximum nine votes from the coaches and Sturt eight.
2022 premier Norwood, which lost its first eight games last season to slump from first to seventh, was tipped to rise dramatically, recording six nominations.
Port Adelaide and Woodville-West Torrens – under new coaches Hamish Hartlett and Sam Jacobs respectively – were next in the pecking order, with four.
Last year’s beaten preliminary finalist Adelaide, Central District, which made the finals for the first time in six years last season, and North Adelaide also have their admirers, earning three nominations.
Only wooden spooner West Adelaide, which appears to be on the improve, and rebuilding and injury-hit South Adelaide did not receive a vote.
While Sturt has improved, Tigers premiership coach Darren Reeves believes his side is also better than last year, despite losing only three games in a stunning first season in charge.
“The balance of the squad overall is probably better if you are talking about a top-30 playing list,’’ he said.
Apart from the clear top two – five coaches picked Glenelg as the team most likely to play in the grand final apart from their own side and three selected Sturt – Norwood and Port were the other teams that caught some coaches’ eyes.
Eagles mentor Jacobs picked the Redlegs to feature in the grand final while Roosters coach Jacob Surjan chose the Magpies.
50 RISING SANFLW STARS TO WATCH
Gun recruit Snelling is tipped to make a sensational return to the SANFL after his recruitment from the Bombers.
The former Blood played 64 AFL games and kicked 28 goals for Essendon from 2019-23 and
was one of only two players to gain multiple coaches nominations to win the Magarey Medal as the SANFL’s fairest and most brilliant player.
He had two, along with reigning medallist Harry Grant from Central.
Interestingly, Eagles State captain Joseph Sinor topped the poll as the rival player the coaches would love to have in their team.
The tough, uncompromising midfielder gained two votes, with Grant, Glenelg’s Liam McBean, Matthew Allen and Luke Reynolds, North’s Harrison Wigg and Frank Szekely, Port’s Nick Moore and Sturt’s Tom Lewis getting one each.
The season starts on Thursday night, with Norwood hosting Sturt at The Parade.
Here is your club by club 2024 season preview.
ADELAIDE – A NEW LOOK
Adelaide has been a consistent premiership threat over the past two seasons but the Crows will have a new look about them this year. And that starts from the top.
Michael Godden, who has coached the Crows into SANFL preliminary finals in the past two seasons, is taking a step back as his role in the AFL ramps up, allowing just-retired club favourite Matthew Wright to make a start in the coaching role.
Godden will be in charge of Adelaide’s SANFL team for the most part but when there’s a scheduling clash with the Crows’ SANFL and AFL teams, Godden will work with the AFL team and Wright will coach the local side.
Wright, Adelaide’s longest-serving SANFL captain and an AFL development coach at Adelaide for four years, will take the reins in the opening two rounds against South and Central.
Godden, a premiership coach at Woodville-West Torrens when the club played finals in each of the nine years he was at the helm, believes Wright has what it takes to successfully step into the role.
“We identified that a couple of years ago, clearly he was still playing so it was difficult but he has been drip-fed into coaching and this year I have given him a lot more responsibility and he’s taken to it like a duck to water,” Godden said, noting after Wright had taken charge for half of his first practice match, “he said, wow, it sort of gave him the bug. So that’s pretty cool. I may be coaching my way out of a job, but that’s okay. We are developing from within and that’s important”.
Godden and Wright, who work together every day at the Crows, “have a lot of similar views. We have the same sorts of beliefs, what wins games of footy, what type of people we need, what’s important, what’s not”.
There is alignment right through the club from AFL coach Matthew Nicks down.
“Our ultimate goal is to win an AFL premiership, we don’t hide from that. So my job is to make sure Nicksy has the players educated the right way,” Godden said.
“We are trying to make sure the next generation can step straight in when Nicksy requires them. If we happen to win along the way, that’s brilliant, but we also need to understand the big picture.”
With that in mind Godden, the AFL Coaches’ Association development coach of the year for the past two seasons, has AFL duties including acting as an assistant on game day, co-ordinating the club’s training programs and helping develop all coaches throughout the club. “We ask the players to get better, so we are working at getting better and that is a part of my role.”
Wright, who ended an outstanding playing career with his 300th senior game in last year’s preliminary final loss, could hardly have a better mentor as he swings full-time into coaching. But it won’t necessarily be an easy gig. The consistency of the past two seasons – the Crows won 12 minor round games in 2022 and 13 last year and won a final in each season – isn’t a given any more in a year of change.
Gone are last year’s best-and-fairest winner Jackson Hately, consistent Tyler Brown, Tom Doedee and Andrew McPherson, along with the goalkicking expertise and experience of Wright, while big possession-winner Matt Crouch, who dominated the midfield for much of the 2022-23 seasons, is again thriving in the AFL.
“SANFL is very heavily weighted to midfield and we had a very strong midfield last year – this year is an unknown midfield because they are young men,” Godden said. The loss of experienced, hardened players extended to the Crows’ development squad.
“We lost a couple of our more senior players in Isaya McKenzie and Lou Sharrad, who were really important because they have played a lot of footy. They have now moved on, so our next generation are kids who have only played amateurs, so I don’t know how they are going to adapt. We are training them, they look great but I don’t know. We are going to have a very young team, a third of them are probably teenagers.”
At various stages last year the Crows were rampant, including a six-game winning streak late in the season that featured wins against all other finalists, a 20-point win against eventual premier Glenelg at the Bay a big statement.
“At times we felt like we were the best team in the competition,” Godden said.
Despite beating eventual runner-up Sturt in the qualifying final, losses followed against the Bays and the Blues. “We probably got unlucky,” Godden said as injuries/surgery to ruck star Kieran Strachan, Crouch, Luke Nankervis and Elliott Himmelberg cost him his best line-up.
While Jack Madgen this year will provide passionate leadership as new skipper, it’s again unsure what strength line-up the Crows will have.
CENTRAL DISTRICT – ONWARDS & UPWARDS
“It puts a little bit of fire in the belly to go two games further into a grand final, that is what we are striving for.’’
With those words, coach Paul Thomas summed up Central District’s lofty aspirations for 2024. After last season making the finals for the first time since 2017, the Bulldogs are targeting a return to the SANFL summit – 14 years after they won their ninth premiership in 11 seasons in a remarkable era of dominance from 2000-10.
“We feel we are in a good place to push forward in 2024,” fourth-year Dogs mentor Thomas said.
“Last year our benchmark for what success looked like was playing finals, given we hadn’t played finals for ages and were coming off only eight wins in two years.
“Now, after the recruiting we’ve done and the games and development we got into players last season, our benchmark is to definitely play finals but really make the top three. That gives you a great opportunity to move two games further from what was a first semi-final appearance to be playing on the last day of the season. We feel that is certainly within our scope.”
One of the SANFL’s sleeping giants from 2018-22, when it finished no higher than seventh, Central took giant strides last season.
It snuck into the finals by coming from behind at three-quarter time to beat Port Adelaide at home in Round 18 and then repeated the dose against the Magpies in the elimination final. The Dogs were then outgunned in the first semi-final by eventual grand finalist Sturt after leading at half-time.
“Last year was a huge year for our club – and I use the word ‘club’,” Thomas said.
“Our men played finals, our women won their first premiership from their first finals campaign, the under-18s participated in the finals and the under-16s won the grand final. In benchmarking, it’s like, this is where we know we want to be and we have a big enough sample size to know what body of work forms that. We’re always looking for other small marginal gains but we now know who we want to be and how we want to show up and if we do that as a whole club – and our men’s program leads that – then we can take the next step.’’
Part of that next step, according to Thomas, is improving “on-field game awareness from our leaders”.
“That’s not wanting to put any pressure on them but we played Sturt three times last season and felt we were in good positions in all those games and (the Blues’) James Battersby, Tom Lewis and a couple of their other senior players wrestled the game away from us, whether it be through attacking the game or game awareness and clock management,” he said.
“We know our leaders were young but they now have a bit more experience and are becoming established players of our club, so we hope they can bridge the gap in these circumstances and help turn those close losses into wins or make our close wins a little more comfortable. I think that will help bridge the gap for us.”
Central has appointed co-captains this season, with Kyle Presbury joining incumbent Jarrod Schiller in the lead role.
Leading goalkicker Aiden Grace will be vice-captain, with Billy McCormack, Jez McLennan, Luca Whitelum, Ethan East, Billy Iles and Nick Lange rounding out a nine-man leadership group.
The Bulldogs made a big play to bring two of their former players, midfielder Jackson Hately (Adelaide) and Rhett Montgomerie (Essendon), back to Elizabeth following their delisting from the AFL but they opted to play in the VFL this season.
But they have recruited well, bringing in a host of quality players, including key defender Dayne Posthuma from the GWS Academy and exciting small forwards Jack Callinan – son of four-time Central premiership player and former Crow Ian Callinan – and Jake Gasper.
Wilson Barry, Kai Pudney, Kade Dittmar and Maximus Monaghan will give Thomas’s side greater midfield depth, alongside on-ball star and 2023 Magarey Medallist Harry Grant.
“It’s no secret we pushed pretty hard for Jackson and Rhett but when the two lads decided it was best for their journey to play in the VFL it opened us up to add more depth in terms of what we could do,” Thomas said.
“Mark Ross (football manager) went about finding other really good talent and the players we have brought in have really added to our group – I can’t wait to see what they can do.”
GLENELG – HUNGRY FOR MORE
There’s no letting up. Glenelg may have won the league and reserves flags last year but coach Darren Reeves says there’s no doubt there’s hunger for more.
Not only that, comparing this year’s playing core to last year’s premiers, he believes “the balance of the squad overall is probably better if you are talking about a top-30 playing list”.
That’s despite the Bays being without some big names – Magarey Medallist Luke Partington, powerhouse midfielder Brett Turner and key defenders Brodie Newman and Toby Pink, who has made his AFL debut with North Melbourne. But 2019 premiership captain Chris Curran is back, along with premiership defender Will Gould and Oscar Adams, while Nick Stevens looks an outstanding addition. And last year’s premiership captain Max Proud’s retirement was short-lived.
“There’s some real competition for spots, so that’s driving the training standards … that’s exciting,” Reeves said.
“I feel like our training standards that were really strong last year have gone up another level.”
After Reeves impressively led Glenelg to the premiership in his first year at the helm, it wasn’t long before the Tigers were setting their sights on back-to-back flags for the first time since the club’s halcyon days of 1985-86.
“I gave them until the beginning of November to celebrate, feel good about themselves but once we hit that point, start thinking about how you can get better,” Reeves said.
“I wanted to give our senior blokes as much time off as we can knowing full well they would prepare themselves really well … just to refresh themselves a bit … most of them would be here running anyway – you just can’t stop them.”
Reeves set January 8 as the return date for his senior players.
“To their credit they came back in incredible condition,” he said. “They’re hungry … we reckon we have a bunch of guys who are driven and ready to go again.
“As soon as they came back to training, the times in the 2k time trial were improved and their strength testing was up there. There wasn’t one guy who didn’t come back in better condition than they finished last season in. That fills you with great confidence.”
The chance to win a third flag is “absolutely a driving force” for 2019 and ’23 winners Proud, new skipper Liam McBean, Matthew Snook, Darcy Bailey, Luke Reynolds, Jonty Scharenberg and Brad McCarthy.
Right now, club legend Peter Carey is the Tigers’ only triple-premiership winner, so they are chasing history.
From the moment he arrived at the Bay, Reeves was impressed with the club’s leadership group.
And it’s not just the current group of McBean, Matt Allen, Bailey, Reynolds, Corey Lyons and Alex Martini who continue to lead the way, with premiership skippers Proud and Curran also huge support for the Tigers’ up-and-comers.
“It’s a great position to be in to have blokes like that floating around who aren’t part of the leadership group,” said Reeves, who noted of this year’s group, “they all have different strengths they bring to the table but all of their strengths complement each other really well”.
Reeves said triple Ken Farmer Medallist McBean, “is an outstanding leader in all aspects. I’m not sure I’ve come across a bloke who is ready more than him to become a leader. Liam’s incredibly good at connecting people and looking out and caring for people and he also leads by example the way he plays”.
Having Proud play on is “huge”. “I felt like he had unfinished business and he is playing the best footy he has ever played,” Reeves said. “He’s been phenomenal through pre-season.”
Outstanding Allen, Reeves’ tip for the Magarey Medal, is driving standards – “he has stepped up and he’s another outstanding leader of our group”.
And ruckman Cam McGree, a major factor in last year’s premiership, has a, “real hunger to get better … he gets reward because of the way he trains, he’s such a competitor … the blokes around him walk taller because he’s there with them”.
The query around this year’s Tigers has been the midfield, with the losses of stars Partington and Turner.
Their moving on was a blow but Reeves didn’t feel the club needed to recruit another high-quality midfielder – “we had won the reserves and we felt like we had two or three kids who were going to be really high quality”.
Archie Lovelock, who played in the league grand final, Jake Walker, who impressed in the reserves win and has “been outstanding through pre-season … we feel like he’s ready to go”, along with Ben Ridgway and Reid Kuller are players to watch out for.
Talented James Bell will get more midfield minutes, while Gould will spend time there. There’s already last year’s club champion Lyons, the unstoppable Snook and Allen. And Cole Gerloff, Bailey and Martini are in the midfield mix as well. Clearly there will be no letting up.
NORTH ADELAIDE – THRILL SEEKERS
“The sky is the limit for us.”
That is how North Adelaide coach Jacob Surjan summed up the off-season changing of the guard at Prospect.
A heap of veteran stars are gone, with 2022 Magarey Medallist Aaron Young and his fellow former AFL players Andrew Moore and Jesse White retiring from the SANFL, along with standout defender Cameron Craig.
But the Roosters have rebuilt their list with some young, explosive playmakers who Surjan believes can prove difference makers for a side that slumped from second in 2022 – when it went within a whisker of winning the premiership, heartbreakingly losing the grand final to Norwood by one point – to sixth last season.
“It’s sad when you lose some greats of your footy club but that’s a part of footy,” Surjan said. “We feel we have been able to recruit to fill some little deficiencies in our game, especially around the midfield where we had really good clearance guys but probably not the best speed, spread and running capacity out of there. So we really addressed that, bringing in some quality players who are very good runners, with speed and endurance. Luke Fellows, Luke Lawrence and Ewan Mackinlay are quick and they spread and burst out of stoppages, which is really exciting for us.
“Sam Ramsay has also come on board (from South Adelaide) and is a huge get for us, while Harrison Elbrow has benefited from getting another pre-season under his belt. Add an influx of speed from (other recruits) Tariek Newchurch, Blayne O’Loughlin and Kym LeBois, along with (mainstay) Franky Szekely, and we feel we have greater balance in our game. When North Adelaide is running and moving the ball with speed, not just leg speed but speed of ball movement, I think it is really exciting for us and our supporters.
“Then we have to make sure we are hard-nosed in regards to what we do defensively and that we are all on the same page. We have put a lot of work into that in the off-season so hopefully it will pay dividends.”
Classy Newchurch (Adelaide) and LeBois (Carlton) will also add some goalkicking power for North after stints at AFL clubs. The small forwards/midfielders possess X-factor qualities, are lightning quick and brilliant around goal.
“When Kymy came back to us the first time (from the Blues in 2020) he kicked 24 goals, while Tariek has kicked 22, 26 and 28 goals in the past three years for the Crows,” Surjan said. “Add those guys to our team and the fact Nigel Lockyer has had the best pre-season of his life and we look pretty dangerous in attack.”
Surjan noted despite some big-name departures, North still has “plenty” of experience and leaders on its list, headlined by 2020 Magarey Medallist Campbell Combe, captain Alex Spina, vice-captain Harrison Wigg, leading goalkicker Keenan Ramsey and ruck iron man Mitch Harvey, who will show the way.
“We still have plenty of mature heads in the group, which is good, but when you lose a couple of your older guys you get to see the next leaders who will rise up and take that opportunity,” Surjan said.
“We are looking to build that next generation of leaders, so it’s exciting.”
Surjan described the Roosters’ fall from grace last season as “very disappointing” after they started the year as a flag favourite. North went from winning 13 minor round games in 2022, finishing minor premier, to only eight last season. Injuries played a role in the club’s slide down the ladder but some key players performed below expectations.
“It was a disappointing year in terms of the expectations of where we were meant to be,” Surjan said.
“But unfortunately we did have a lot of injuries to key players, which hurt. The good thing out of that is we got to see Jack McCann play and he was outstanding and Charlie Dinning came in and took his game to the next level. So while it was disappointing not to play finals, the flip side was we got to see some young, developing kids come through.
“Maxie Blacker and Hughen Wissman were another two, so the future is bright. But we want to play finals every year, we want to compete hard and play in a grand final every year, so hopefully we can do that this season.”
NORWOOD – LOOKING FORWARD
No Rokahr, no Nunn, no problem.
Despite losing two of the SANFL’s best and most influential players, Norwood is confident it can rebound from a horror 2023 campaign to re-emerge as a flag contender this season.
After enduring a nightmare premiership defence when they lost their first eight games and had to deal with the tragic death of a flag hero, Nick Lowden, the Redlegs have “put a bow” on last year and are “looking forward”.
“We know we have a lot of ground to make up from last year but we put a bow on things quite quickly at the end of the season,” 2022 premiership coach Jade Rawlings said.
“We had a lot of players who were pretty keen to start afresh, given the circumstances and especially losing one of our players last year. We want to make sure 2024 is an optimistic view, so we have put all our energies into what we can be and what we can do rather than what didn’t happen for us.”
Rawlings, who famously steered Norwood to a thrilling, come-from-behind one-point win against North Adelaide in the 2022 grand final, saw his side slump from first to seventh last season.
The Redlegs lost their first eight games after suffering injuries to key players and while they finished the year strongly, winning six and drawing one of their final 10 matches, the finals bird had already flown.
“When you have a season that is not desirable it’s a sum of a whole lot of little parts and we were quite detailed in reviewing that,” Rawlings said. “But I’m not big on being too retrospective. It’s more about what we are going to do moving forward.”
The Legs, however, will be moving forward without two of their favourite sons and best midfielders.
Dual club champion and last year’s Magarey Medal runner-up Nik Rokahr has moved to the WAFL to play for Swan Districts while Matthew Nunn has, at 26, retired from the SANFL and joined Adelaide Footy League club Payneham.
The highly-respected premiership stars have left big midfield and leadership holes to fill at The Parade. But Rawlings is adamant other players will rise to the occasion to soften the blow.
“Every club every season goes through players departing for whatever reason, it’s just the natural flow of this competition, so it’s how you adapt to it,” he said.
“Sometimes you call players irreplaceable but the exuberance of youth and the unknown is what you look for. Any team that has been successful has usually had someone emerge and that’s what we’ll be looking for.
“We believe in our group, the players we have, especially from a leadership perspective. Jacob Kennerley co-captained with Nunny last year, so it offsets his rawness to it (the captaincy) and he is absolutely ready to assume that role in his own right.
“Some guys take two-to-three years to develop into senior players and we feel there is a nice group there that should push to play senior footy. We’ve also had some players who didn’t play as much as they would have liked last year and some new players who have come over thinking they will be a part of our senior team straight away, so it’s going to be a very competitive team to get into. It’s an ideal scenario when you have pressure for spots and a competitive environment and we think we’ve put together a group that is going to be able to have a lot of depth and a lot of players capable of playing senior footy. Where that lands, we’ll wait and see.”
The Redlegs have recruited well, bringing in a host of quality players. They include two Norwood juniors who have returned following AFL stints – Cooper Murley (from Collingwood) and Alastair Lord (Essendon) – South Adelaide midfield ball magnet Mitch O’Neill (South Adelaide), West Adelaide’s Jordon Boyle, former Essendon VFL captain Billy Cootee, Tasmanian star Ben Simpson and small forward Joeve Cooper (Murray Bushrangers/Shepparton).
“O’Neill is rated very highly in our competition and will be a genuine acquisition for us, I’ve been really pleased with Boyle and what he’s brought to the group, Murley and Lord have really developed their games in the AFL system, Cootee should hit the ground running and Simpson is genuinely tough and has really good credentials, being runner-up in the Alastair Lynch Medal in Tasmania last year,” Rawlings said.
Rawlings also is excited by what a fit and firing Jackson Callow can offer his forward line. Tasmanian Callow, who was taken from Norwood as a mid-season draftee by Hawthorn in 2021, returned to The Parade last season but played only five league games, including the last four, because of injury. The Redlegs were a much better side when he returned in Round 15.
Callow averaged 20 disposals, eight marks and three goals in the final three rounds. “Jacko’s incredibly important for us,” Rawlings said. “He’s a ripping person who is very well regarded by the players and is an emerging leader. A 195cm, 98kg key forward who can play the way he does is worth his weight in gold.”
PORT ADELAIDE – IT’S HAMMER TIME
New Port Adelaide coach Hamish Hartlett has hailed the club’s class of 2024 SANFL -contracted players, declaring they are “certainly as good, if not better, than they have ever been”.
In what could be Port’s final season in the local league, Hartlett believes the quality and depth of the Magpies’ top-up men has left them well placed to at least repeat last season’s top-five effort.
“We have had (former Power player) Paul Stewart heading up our footy operations for the Magpies this year and he’s done a great job in accumulating a great list of Magpies top-up players,” said Hartlett, a West Adelaide product who played 193 AFL games for Port from 2009-21.
“We have a few extra players than we’ve had previously. There are 23 SANFL-contracted players (including 12 new faces) as opposed to the 12-to-15 we had in previous years, so we have a broader range of players to select from. And a lot of the players we have brought in have SANFL experience, which is a nice bonus because they have an understanding of what it takes to be successful at this level.
“Overall, it means we have more depth and that if we get a few injuries and suspensions in the AFL, which obviously affects your SANFL side, we should have some good quality players to fill the void.’’
Port last season was often forced to field a ‘Land of the Giants’ SANFL team, particularly in attack, because it had so many young talls in its AFL squad.
Hartlett, who has taken over the SANFL coaching reins from Tyson Goldsack, said while the Power brought in some more height in the AFL trade period, including ruckmen Ivan Soldo and Jordon Sweet and key defenders Esava Ratugolea and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, the club’s ‘outs’ meant it had a better-balanced squad while its influx of versatile SANFL-contracted players would give its state league side more flexibility.
“Obviously the development of our young AFL players is paramount but overall I feel our (SANFL) squad is stronger than it was last year, so I would expect we will be super competitive again and pushing for another finals campaign,” Hartlett said.
“The Magpies-contracted players we have brought in are generally smaller or medium-type players who are capable of playing a variety of roles.”
Apart from recontracting some key SANFL men, Port has signed a group of players with SANFL experience who Hartlett said were “seeking greater SANFL opportunities”.
They include Bailey Chamberlain, Kye Roberts and Reed Stevens (from West), Lachlan Pascoe and Beau Baldwin (Norwood), Tyson Brazel, Josh Byrne and Harry Williams (North) and Dustin Launer (Central). Port has also signed classy Redlegs defender Logan Evans, 18, under the SANFL Rookie Program.
“All these players have versatility in their games,” Hartlett said. “They will add real depth to our squad while we are really happy we have managed to retain the (SANFL-contracted) guys we really wanted to keep.”
They include new captain Nick Moore, Cody Szust, Jake Weidemann and Murphy Short. Former Eagle Moore replaces the retired Cam Sutcliffe as skipper and Hartlett loves what the tough, aggressive 24-year-old brings to the table.
“I think everyone loves the way he goes about his football,” Hartlett said.
“He’s certainly a leader who leads by his actions on game day, which I think is the most important thing you want from your captain – someone who is going to play the way you want your football club represented. Moorey works incredibly hard, he’s as tough as they come on the field, super courageous and what I’ve seen from him throughout the pre-season is that he is certainly a vocal leader as well.
“He has been fantastic for the group, he sets really high standards on the training track and what I also love about ‘Moorey’ is he always sticks up for his teammates. If anyone is in a bit of trouble he is always the first to go over and help them out.”
Hartlett described moving into the Magpies’ coaching hot seat as “really exciting”. “It’s a privilege to coach this club at any level and the honour is not lost on me,” he said. “Obviously it’s a bit of a different role to most of the other SANFL coaches in terms of the game plan and education I will feed to the Magpies contracted players because it will pretty much be filtered down through our AFL system, so a lot of that is taken out of my hands. But I’m really excited by the opportunity to coach the SANFL program and am looking forward to building on the great work already put in place by ‘Goldy’.”
SOUTH ADELAIDE – YOUNG TALENT TIME
It is the start of a new era at Pantherland.
After making consecutive preliminary finals in 2020-21 for the first time since 1964-65 and then crumbling under the weight of a succession of injuries and ageing stars, South Adelaide has made the tough call to take a long-term view with list management.
With key men Keegan Brooksby, Bryce Gibbs, Matthew Broadbent, Joseph Haines, Matt Rose, Zach Sproule and Mitch O’Neill departing, it is all about building its next flag-contending team, meaning its 2024 focus is on getting games and experience into its kids.
Coach Jarrad Wright, who has been at the helm since 2018 and is coming off his first losing season, believes the Panthers will field by far the youngest team in the SANFL as they search for the players who can form the nucleus of their side as they continue their agonising pursuit of their first premiership since 1964.
“Our philosophy this year will be based around development and synergy,” Wright said.
“We got close (to winning a flag) a few years ago, in 2022 we had a ton of injuries and four or five close losses to just miss out on finals and last year we sort of went trigger happy (with recruiting) in trying to win it.
“Some of the older boys held on for one more year when we knew their time was ending and some of the connection points last year were just a little bit out too, so we decided to reframe.
“When I came into the job in 2018 we played a heap of kids and built up to make some preliminary finals, with players like (Hayden) Sampson, (Liam) Fitt and (Eamon) Wilkinson, and we have a really good batch of kids coming through now who are in the same boat and we want to make sure there is room for them to play. We will try to get 20-to-30 games into those guys over the next two years to start to really push the boundaries again in 2025-2026.”
The next-generation Panthers Wright is banking on include Liam Nye, Angus Bradley, Isaac Birt, Jonti Schuback, South Australia’s hottest 2024 AFL draft prospect, Sid Draper, and his 2023 under-18 premiership teammates Tom Wheaton, Noah Howes and Nic Schroder.
“South’s strategy in the previous couple of years was about bolstering the list to have a crack at the title,” Wright said.
“A few things went wrong for us but our under-18s last season won our first flag at that level and we have a really good batch of kids coming through, so we need to make sure they have room to grow.
“Obviously as coach you are aiming to win but expectations around our season will be about getting a stable group of 25-to-30 players who are under 21 to play games together. If you look at Glenelg’s premiership side last year, there were more than a dozen players aged 25 and above with plenty of league games under their belt, whereas 15 members of our side this year will probably have less than 30 games experience. We’ll most likely field the youngest team in the competition by a significant way this season, which means we’re probably three or four years away from being at peak performance, but it’s exciting for our club to go down the pathway with so many quality, local kids.”
It is a brave decision from Wright to be the driver of what he describes as a “reset”, given he is out of contract at the end of the season.
“It is the right thing to do from a club perspective,” he said, noting the key recruits South has signed this year – Arlo Draper, who has returned to the club after being delisted by Collingwood, Callum McCarty, Jake Arundell and Tom Beaumont – are no older than 23.
“We hadn’t made back-to-back preliminary finals since 1964-65 when I took over as coach and we got there in 2020-21, so I’m looking at this season like it was my first as coach. Some older guys have stepped away on their own accord through (SANFL) retirement rather than list management decisions and that will help provide opportunities for some younger kids coming through who have some exciting talent and speed.
“They have been in our junior pathway system for five or six years and now the door is open for them to get league football opportunities. Given the youth of the team there’s probably going to be some ups and downs along the road but to see the growth of these kids coming through is certainly going to fill my coaching cup this year.”
STURT – BLUE SKIES AHEAD
Four grand finals, no flags – Sturt was the “nearly” story of 2023.
The Double Blues enjoyed a standout year, making the league, reserves, under-18s and under-16s grand finals but finishing empty-handed in terms of silverware. They cruelly lost all four grand finals by an average of only 14 points.
“We were good but not good enough,” coach Martin Mattner said of his club’s heartbreaking end to 2023.
“We have to get better and I think what happened last year will only act as a driving force. There is great drive from our group and an understanding we weren’t quite good enough and need to improve and we think we have taken steps to do that.”
When Mattner, who led Sturt to consecutive premierships in 2016-17, returned to coach the club in 2021 after an AFL assistant coaching stint with Adelaide, he set about building the Double Blues’ next premiership squad. He is starting to enjoy the fruits of that labour with only the cherry to be put on top.
“What I am proud of is that three years ago when we hadn’t been playing finals we made a decision to play a lot of kids, our junior players – Casey Voss, Will Coomblas, Tom Lewis, Josh Shute, Rory Illman, Daniel Fahey-Sparks, Lachie Burrows, Oliver Grivell, Joel Thiele, Amos Doyle, these type of guys – with a view to building a group of players who were going to be our next premiership players and we are now seeing the fruits of that,” Mattner said.
“We had a tough first year (finishing sixth) and did not win many games (nine), although we were competitive. In 2022 we did enough to get into the finals (finishing fifth with an 11-7 record) and last year we did enough to get into the grand final. That experience is good for this group and now we just need to see some natural improvement and progression from these younger players while tweaking a few things to help us take the next step.”
One of the tweaks will be to play former Brisbane Lion Connor McFadyen as a permanent key forward after his successful transition from defence late last season.
“We’ll look at playing Connor more forward for the whole season, which I think is a real bonus for us because he will give us another avenue to goal,” Mattner said.
“He was able to kick some goals in last year’s finals and will add another dynamic to our forward line.”
Sturt also believes it topped up its list nicely with key recruits over summer.
Former Port Adelaide and Essendon small forward/midfielder Will Snelling was the big fish while ex-Double Blues junior Morgan Ferres (from Gold Coast VFL), dashing North Melbourne defender Flynn Perez and Bombers VFL player Sam Conforti round out a quartet of quality signings.
“The four players we brought into the club will fill a few needs we felt needed addressing,” Mattner said.
“We wanted to top up with a bit of top-end talent and they all bring something a little different.
“Snelling is a little bit older and brings experience, leadership, quality and class and the ability to play an inside-outside game, which we needed to get better at. He’ll be really good for us in terms of complementing other players in the team.
“Conforti is similar but is a left-footer, so he will add another slight point of difference, Perez will be a third or fourth tall defender for us and he kicks the ball really well, which will be handy across half-back. Ferres is also looking really good and will play forward and a little bit of midfield. We are really excited about the four of them and also some of our under-18s coming through.
“Players like Luca Slade, Henry Maerschel and Declan Gladigau were all discussed as far as last year’s drafts were concerned and we would hope a couple of these guys or other under-18s coming up will play some league footy and really drive the group as well. We are looking to improve everyone on the list, so that competition for spots becomes really tough.”
Sturt has lost key midfielders Patrick Wilson (West Adelaide) and Martin Frederick (Claremont) but Mattner is convinced his club has plenty of blue sky ahead.
“We have a young, driven group which I’m really excited about,” he said.
WEST ADELAIDE – READY TO RISE
Near enough isn’t good enough any more.
West Adelaide is a club going places, with passionate coach Adam Hartlett determined to make the Bloods, with whom he was a premiership star in 2015, “relevant again”.
He and his team took a giant stride towards that last year by being super competitive but often it was a case of so near, yet so far as Hartlett’s up-and-coming youngsters just couldn’t buy a close win.
Until the last two games, the Bloods, who had comfortably beaten South, Norwood and North, had been involved in six games that were decided by less than two goals – and lost them all. But Westies refused to concede and, after trailing the Redlegs by 35 points early in the third quarter in round 17, they stormed home to have an after-the-siren shot to snatch a win but settled for a draw. In the final round up-and-coming forward Liam Delahunty bagged the final two goals to snatch a last-gasp six-point win that could act as a springboard for better things ahead.
It’s hard to believe Westies again ended up with the wooden spoon last season considering just how much improvement the club made, how Hartlett thrived in his first season as coach – “I’ve loved it” – and how proud he was of his players’ development. But they were coming from a long way back.
West had won a total of just nine games in four successive years of finishing last from 2019-22.
And Hartlett had to start with the basics – the Bloods’ defence had been by far the worst in the league in 2022, conceding 87 points per game.
Shoring up the defence was his first priority and that was a big tick – West conceded just 73 points per game, less than Port, which played finals.
Hartlett wanted his men to be fitter and stronger. There were huge steps in that area last season and they have continued on in remarkable fashion over this pre-season.
“We’ve had 43 players from 2023 retest their 2km time trial and 34 of those guys have run PBs this summer, so that’s really promising,” Hartlett said.
“The culture and understanding that this is a hard competition to win games of footy, you’ve got to work hard to get your reward, the boys have really taken that in their stride and are pushing each other.”
There are still improvements to be made – and they have been targeted over summer.
“We know we need to be more consistent with what we’re doing,” Hartlett said.
“You go back over the vision of those close games and we’re switching off mentally, structurally, not getting things quite right. We go away from our defensive system when 90 per cent of the game it works well. It’s just tightening up these areas.”
It’s time to believe. “I think that plays a lot in it, absolutely,” Hartlett said.
“Playing the moment when the moment is there – don’t shy away from it, embrace it and be claiming the footy, or laying a strong tackle.”
Despite the near misses, Hartlett said, “there were a couple of games there I was so proud and really excited that we can compete with anyone. We found a way to defend better, we were moving the ball quite well going forward and able to score, we were able to hang in games a lot longer than years gone by, so that filled me with a lot of confidence”.
While there were “lots of positives”, Hartlett said, “there were some really important KPIs we didn’t rate well in (West was last in the league in clearances, struggling in contested possessions and generating turnover in the midfield), so the contest has been a huge focus of our pre-season”.
Hartlett says he has “learned a lot. I’ve really enjoyed coaching this pre-season. I understand the group now, what makes them tick. I am really liking the buy-in from this group.”
Leading the way has been Isaac Johnson, who was outstanding on game-day last season with Kaiden Brand sidelined and has thoroughly deserved the captaincy role with Brand stepping back because of concussion issues.
Adding another layer of experience from winning cultures are Sturt premiership star Patrick Wilson and former Tiger Brady Searle.
Unfortunately, class midfielder Wilson will miss most of the season after ACL surgery but he has gone straight into the Bloods’ leadership group and Hartlett loves the impact he has already had on West’s young guns.
Last year’s club champion Josh Ryan has been a gun defender battling the odds for years but Hartlett says he is becoming more dangerous as a rebounding back, while dashing Kobe Ryan, who finished seventh in last year’s Magarey Medal, “has bulked up nice and strong”.
He is excited with what’s ahead for Tom Morrish, who will push into the midfield, and Delahunty.
“We know we can compete with everyone, let’s be more consistent in what we do, let’s limit these lapses and see where it takes us,” Hartlett said.
WOODVILLE-WEST TORRENS – ON THE REBOUND
New coach Sam Jacobs believes there is plenty of young talent to go with some outstanding leaders to lift the Eagles back to the heights they have become accustomed to “sooner rather than later”.
After stunning back-to-back flags in 2020-21 the Eagles slumped to seventh and eighth in the past two seasons, premiership coach Jade Sheedy stepping down and presenting the chance for Jacobs to return ‘home’ to the club he started out with in league footy 18 years ago.
“Straight away we aim to play finals – I think that is always your starting point in any season,” said Jacobs, who noted the 2024 campaign for him would contain, “a lot of learnings … to establish my knowledge around the group, a deeper level with the competition but my main aim is to establish that connection with my players”.
Jacobs knows from recent history rebounding quickly is achievable in the SANFL.
“The club after the back-to-back premierships obviously took a hit with so many players getting drafted and it’s not something you can recover from overnight but we are really big on promoting from within and we have a lot of belief in our pathways, so I am confident we will be on the right track sooner rather than later,” he said.
“I think we are fortunate we have a lot of young players who are putting their hands up to play and are ready for league footy. It’s the good thing with the SANFL, you can bounce back pretty quickly, which I am confident we can.”
Jacobs doesn’t need to look back far to see a club leaping from missing the finals to actually winning the whole thing – the Eagles did it under Sheedy in 2020. And Sturt achieved the feat in 2016, while North did it in 2018 and Glenelg in 2019.
And Sheedy last year helped the Eagles’ long-term hopes. “To Sheeds’ credit, when the season wasn’t exactly shaping how he or the club wanted he kept playing and developing the young guys – it obviously helps me because a lot of these players are around the 15-20 league games experience, so throw another season on top of that and they’re starting to hit the right age,” said Jacobs, a Crows ruck great who won three Showdown Medals in a 208-game AFL career.
Jacobs has been a coach-in-waiting for some time – “coaching is definitely a passion of mine … the fact it was the Eagles probably sped up the process,” he said. Working on the defensive aspects has been an early priority.
“For me, we need to tighten that up a little bit, which is the demand of the competition rather than just mine,” he said.
“The competition demands you are top two-top three in defence to put your hand up, so that’s certainly an area we will look to grow and from there just to free them up offensively.”
Apart from enjoying working with president Christine Williams, new chief executive David Couzner and assistant, club great Gavin Colville, Jacobs has some inspirational players to lead the way through to a bright new era.
“Joey Sinor is a great leader of our club, obviously loves our club … he has come through our pathway – state captain, club captain, his record speaks for itself,” Jacobs said.
“We are fortunate we’ve got a lot of these younger players coming through but we’ve got leaders like Joey and Knighter (Riley Knight) and Sam Rowland and these types to lead the younger brigade through.”
There’s plenty of inspiration in passionate 2023 best-and-fairest James Rowe.
“He is awesome – I am really enjoying working with Jimmy,” Jacobs said.
“He is a class player, he is too good at this level to be totally honest – we are very fortunate to have him. Rowey demands levels of expectation from other players but he never asks anyone to do anything he’s not prepared to do himself.”
Key forward Connor Ballenden has continued to step up with “a really strong pre-season … he will have a big say in how we go this year as well”.
Knight’s season ended after Round 11 last year because of an ankle injury and Jacobs is “excited for him to get back … once he gets continuity in the game he is one of the best in the comp”.
And ruckman Jarrad Redden, who played a key role in the 2020-21 flags, is back. With big men Dave Brinker-Ritchie and Jordy Lukac battling injuries, the Eagles reached out to Redden.
“He’s in really good shape and he jumped at it. We are confident he can come back in and make an impact.
“I’m really excited about a lot of our team – I think we can really start the year well and hopefully build the momentum from there.”
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