AFL 2015 season preview: Mark Robinson’s contenders, pretenders and offenders
THERE is nowhere to hide as spotlight zeroes in on contenders, pretenders, banana benders and other offenders — yes, you Tigers — writes Mark Robinson.
Mark Robinson
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WHO is tough enough, hungry enough, tactically good enough, lucky enough — and, perhaps most importantly, offensively good enough — to stifle Hawthorn’s campaign for a third consecutive premiership?
It is a question among a gluttony of others in 2015 and the focus isn’t on the premiership candidates alone.
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There isn’t position called consolidation in football — you’re either pushing north or heading south. It’s why the spotlight on the likes of Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Sydney will be the same as it’s on Collingwood, Essendon and Melbourne.
Who’s contending and who’s pretending and who’s improving and who’s freefalling?
There’s Mick Malthouse in his final year of his contract and his rebuilding Carlton team. He says there is an optimism at Princes Park. The Blues face Richmond (MCG), West Coast (away) and Essendon (MCG) in the first three weeks — three matches which could decide if they play finals.
Optimism will be swapped for pessimism if they drop those first three.
The questions will go from the team’s performance to Malthouse’s future. Do they stick fat with the man who will break Jock McHale’s coaching record in Round 5 against Collingwood, or do they look for the next Ken Hinkley?
Malthouse would have liked a contract extension before the season started. The Blues said they’d wait. Wait for what? Wait to see if the Blues are 5-14?
The Malthouse contract will be talking point at the midway point of the season, just as it will be for Collingwood’s Nathan Buckley. Buckley, more than Malthouse, will be stared down this season.
Half the footy world says he’s under pressure, having taken the side to fourth, eighth and 11th in his three years, and the other half believes he’s made the necessary changes to the list and inconsistency is a byproduct.
By Round 12 last year, the Pies were 8-3. They came home 3-8 and didn’t a score more than 100 points in that period. Injuries killed Buckley, recruits let him down and big names went missing. Still, as we enter 2015, they are yesterday’s excuses.
Buckley will get headlines because he is Buckley. Sometimes you get the feeling people want him to fail. It’s most unfair.
This has been Buckley’s team for quite some time and they need to play finals. Because if the pressure is on him this year, what will it be next year if this year is failure?
Then there’s James Hird and Essendon. By the time you read this, the ASADA saga should be over.
If Hird is still at the club, then top six should be their goal.
The pressure on Hird is absolute. The club has stood by him — for the most part anyway — and they want results. If the Bombers miss the finals, then in 2016 Hird could be entering is final season of coaching.
North Melbourne should have their hands high in the air as the team most likely to challenge the Hawks, Sydney and Port Adelaide.
Inside and outside weapons in the middle, Waite joins Petrie in attack, Tarrant will go back to defence, and North can defend as a group.
History tells us they are following the traditional route: play finals, win finals, make the prelim. It doesn’t get any easier the closer you get to the summit, but that’s where the Kangas are. They are capable of winning the premiership.
Don’t think the Tigers are ready to put up their hand because we still don’t know which Tigers line-up will turn up. Won nine games coming home last season, after winning just three games in their first 13. The faith is not strong.
Still, there has to be a team — or teams — from either the Tigers, Collingwood, Crows, Eagles, Essendon, Suns, Lions and Pies who will elevate in 2015. There simply has to be.
Too many of them have floated mid-table for too long, although the Suns can be excused, and the Lions are beginning their climb.
The Queensland teams are dangerous. The Suns at home, with Gazza in tow, will be a fortress and slowly and surely they are gathering momentum on the road. I have tipped them to make the finals. The Lions will miss because I’m not convinced they have the tall forwards to mark and goal when the game is on the line.
It is foolish to suggest Hawthorn, Sydney and Port Adelaide will collapse, Fremantle has another season of high performance, and North Melbourne cannot be denied.
The Cats are interesting.
Mitch Clark is the most intriguing player in the competition. What will the Cats get? Clearly he has talent, but will that talent get an unfettered run? If yes, then Hawkins and Clark loom large.
The Cats won six games last year by single digits, and another by 11 points. Their resilience cannot waiver because those close games might just go the other way.
Last season’s also-rans need a kick up the butt. Melbourne needs to kick goals and the spotlight will be on coach Paul Roos to supply it.
Greater Western Sydney needs to go from six wins to nine or 10, St Kilda has to be competitive in more games — and then there’s the Western Bulldogs.
They lost their coach, their captain and their chief executive in the off-season, in what was another new dawn.
New coach Luke Beveridge deserves time, as does Phil Walsh in Adelaide. What they already know is they have to aspire to be Hawthorn. The Hawks are an incredible football club. If they were to three-peat, they would follow Brisbane (2001-03), Melbourne (1955-57), Melbourne (1939-41), Collingwood, who won four in succession from 1927 to 1930, and the first team to accomplish it, Carlton (1906-08).
Not even the greatest team in the past 40 years, the Hawks of the 1980s, was able to secure three in a row.
The Hawks say the three-peat is not in their vocabulary, but that is a lie.
When the Lions aimed for their third flag in 2003, coach Leigh Matthews embraced the goal and used it as motivation. The Hawks won’t ignore it and we won’t ignore them.
For what it’s worth, I think the Hawks will win it, Port will push them, Malthouse will survive, the Pies won’t make the eight, Dons will, Cats may stumble, North will threaten, the Tigers won’t, Dangerfield will stay, Gaz will win the medal, Buddy the other medal and, by the end of the year, a kid at the Western Bulldogs named Marcus Bontempelli just might be the best kid we’ve seen since Nathan Fyfe and Jeremy Cameron.
Originally published as AFL 2015 season preview: Mark Robinson’s contenders, pretenders and offenders
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