AFL season preview: Why your team has absolutely no chance
As the AFL season prepares to get underway, we underline exactly why you should not be excited about your team’s premiership chances.
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The AFL season kicks off this week with Opening Round before the season fully gets underway with round 1 in Melbourne next week.
Every team starts 0-0 and there’s plenty of reason for optimism, aside from the horrific run of pre-season injuries to players like Errol Gulden, Tom Green, Marcus Bontempelli, Zak Butters and Charlie Curnow.
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Footy fans have high hopes for their team to go all the way and win the premiership, but we all know it could take just a few months for those dreams to be crushed.
Adelaide
Still recovering from the worst school camp of all time after their 2017 grand final loss, the Crows haven’t played finals since they did the infamous power stance during that fateful series.
Solid new recruits and all, but the Crows are an Izak Rankine hamstring injury from missing the eight and Matthew Nicks losing his job.
Brisbane
For all his detractors, Joe Daniher’s moustachioed magic did plenty of heavy lifting to help the Lions win the premiership last season.
Now Joe has pulled up stumps to go full Byron hippie, can Eric Hipwood’s skinny limbs shoulder the load of the forward line?
The Lions are welcoming back four first-choice players from ACL injuries and the No. 1 pick Levi Ashcroft (don’t get us started on the compensation they didn’t have to give up for the father son pick). This mob will be tough to beat again. Dare we dream of a Lions-Broncos double?
Carlton
It’s now been 30 years since Carlton last won a flag when Silvagni and Kouta were running around. Quickly growing a reputation for getting so near yet so far, Charlie Curnow having a clean up on his knee isn’t a great sign for the baggers. Neither is the fact Sam Walsh hasn’t had a healthy pre-season in yonks. But when fit and firing, the Blues have one of the best spines in the comp. If they can get the best out of Tom De Koning, and Walsh and Adam Cerra can help out Patty Cripps, they might be a shout. But this is Carlton we’re talking about. Thoughts and prayers for your Instagram feeds when Dan Gorringe posts his first “lid’s off” vid of the year.
Collingwood
Coach Craig McRae has gone full Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, going all chips in as he chases another premiership after 2023.
Who could blame him, we’d do the same if Nick Daicos was on our team.
Does he have a couple of aces up his sleeve? Or a full house of 10 veterans aged over 30 creaking and ready to crumble by the mid season bye?
Essendon
Get the birthday candles ready, and the drunk uncle up on stage for a speech, the drought since the last time Essendon won a finals game is 21 years old! Seems like they’re going to blood some youngsters this season, so maybe next year their finals drought will have graduated uni.
Fremantle
Freo have lost their fair share of players over the years, and there’s already talk Luke Jackson might want to go back to Melbourne. We’re getting deja vu all over again.
Coach Justin Longmuir has gone onto a rolling contract on the eve of the season. Not entirely sure how that works with Freo’s HR department, but it might be near impossible to sack him if things turn south.
Shai Bolton’s farewell speech at Richmond’s B&F was truly something. Hopefully for Freo’s sake he offers more enthusiasm at his new club in Perth. A very handy pick up for the Dockers, they should be a lock for top four.
A genuine premiership fancy, will we see Freo win a maiden flag or drop anchor?
Geelong
Bailey Smith heads to the Cattery as the latest longhaired blonde specimen to join Geelong’s scraggly headband committee.
Smith’s deal with Cotton On and Chris Scott’s new side gig with Morris Finance have salary cap cynics squinting down the highway at what they’re cookin up at Geelong.
It’s sometimes hard to know if coaches are any good, but you’d be foolish to bet against Scott on getting his side to the top four.
Gold Coast
We’re willing to wager there’ll be human life on Mars before a Gold Coast team wins an AFL or NRL premiership. It’s truly the Bermuda Triangle of Aussie sport where hopes and dreams go to die.
The Suns have never made finals since joining the AFL in 2011. This is the year surely … isn’t it?
Oh, and there are already whispers Geelong are sneaking around trying to recruit tackling machine Matt Rowell. Have mercy.
Damien Hardwick said the Suns need to “grow the f*** up” last season. He’s not far away from throwing away his training visor and tucking his surfboard under his arm.
GWS Giants
Esteemed Australian author Helen Garner wrote this about GWS captain Toby Greene in her recent book The Season: “Something about the shape of his head, like a tilted olive, and his vain little walk undermines my admiration for his dazzling play.
“And I don’t know how to forgive or forget his past brutality. Personally, I will always hate his guts for gouging Bont’s eyes and kicking Luke Dahlhaus in the jaw, but what a player he is.”
That’s a bit harsh from Helen, although it does capture the mood about Greene.
The Giants’ brutal straight sets exit from last year’s finals was as 7-6 7-6 as it gets.
Jesse Hogan is the best redemption story in the AFL. The Giants have less depth than a 0.8m pool after the trade period, but with the best group of gun players in the comp, they’ll want to prove expansion teams can actually go all the way.
Hawthorn
Hokball. Skibidi. TikTok goal celebrations. Jack Ginnivan with a pre-season buzz cut. It’s another language at Hawthorn but their Gen Z squad is the hottest team heading into this season after flying up the ladder to make finals last year.
Sam Mitchell is whispering in Harley Reid’s ear at weddings about making the move to the Hawks. Nothing to see here!
Why can’t Hawthorn just be bad for a few years! They three-peated a decade ago for goodness sake.
Their club colours are that of urine and faeces, but the Hawks have been shooting gold for decades.
History suggests young teams fall back to earth after a breakout season. Hawks fans don’t know what it’s like to be bad, will they get a taste this season?
Melbourne
Christian Petracca has had his spleen, lung and ribs patched up and his rig is looking insane after another of his famous Red Bull training camps in Austria.
Clayton Oliver is done bending windscreen wipers and is back on the straight and narrow, and Max Gawn is chasing a record equalling eighth All Australian gong.
So what could go wrong? Well … their forward line could fall apart and Kozzie Pickett could request a trade to Freo.
North Melbourne
The Roos have finished wooden spooners or second last in the last five seasons. With gun midfielders and veteran recruits, surely they’re due to bounce up the ladder.
Has Clarko lost his magic touch? The jury is out. Hopefully North don’t have him punching holes in walls this year.
Port Adelaide
Port have gone down the succession plan route, so get ready for plenty of cutaway shots between Ken Hinkley on the boundary and his replacement Josh Carr up in the box. We’ve seen this story before and it usually doesn’t end well.
As media mogul Logan Roy tells his kids in Succession, “you are not serious people”. Many fans would feel the same about Port in preliminary finals.
Richmond
Four, yes four premiership players, fled Richmond in the trade period like the Titanic was at Punt Road.
Their No. 1 pick Sam Lalor getting kneed in the head in a pre-season game is a slightly grim start to the year.
By all reports, the Tigers nailed the draft, filling positional needs across the field.
But the cement hasn’t even started pouring on this rebuild job. Supply chain issues delaying construction until 2031.
St Kilda
Undoubtedly the most cursed team in Aussie Rules. The Dogs, Richmond and Melbourne all broke long premiership droughts in the past decade, so that leaves St Kilda, who last won in 1966. Genuinely don’t have anything funny to say about this team. Rowan Marshall is a gun, Jack Macrae is a decent pick up, see you at 13th on the ladder.
Sydney Swans
New coach Dean Cox said the review of the grand final loss took more than seven hours. Geez. Surely Chad Warner would have dozed off and started daydreaming about the rental income on his new Perth property he bought in the offseason.
Sure, after losing their past four grand finals, Swans fans won’t be satisfied with anything until they finally win the one game that matters most.
Soak in those $13.50 Stone and Wood ales at the SCG and enjoy Chad running around while he’s still in red and white.
West Coast
Nothing quite gets the heart of a footy nuffy fluttering more than a Harley Reid fend-off. He’s palming off teammates in pre-season games like they’re offers of less than $2 million per season from a Victorian club.
How does their team song go again? Oh “we’re the Eagles, we’re flying high” … to 16th on the ladder.
Western Bulldogs
The Dogs lost Bailey Smith, Jack Macrae and Caleb Daniel to rival clubs in the offseason. Five first choice players are injured to start the season. Yikes.
Just when you thought the pre-season injury toll couldn’t get any worse, Marcus Bontempelli’s calf strain means the season might be over before it’s even started.
Even worse, he’s probably out of the running to win the Brownlow that he richly deserves. Unless Jamarra Ugle-Hagan turns into prime Buddy Franklin, hard to see the Dogs finishing above ninth.
Originally published as AFL season preview: Why your team has absolutely no chance
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