AFL pre-season: What your club must improve for 2017
THERE can be only one winner but each club will spend pre-season working on its shortcomings from last season. Here’s what your club needs to work on over summer.
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
ANOTHER year is nearly over which means a new footy season isn’t far away.
Every AFL club is well into pre-season training as they plot another premiership assault.
There can be only one winner but each team is feverishly working on its shortcomings from the previous season to help them take the step to flag glory, finals contention or redemption.
For the Western Bulldogs, it’s how they can stay in front of the chasing pack, while clubs which fell short of the Grand Final — Geelong, Sydney and GWS — may require only a minor adjustment to go another level.
And there are clubs such as Collingwood, Richmond and Port Adelaide which will be under the pump — as well as their coaches — if they don’t get off to a fast start.
With summer starting to heat up, Champion Data pinpoints what your club needs to work on over summer to make or break their hopes in 2017.
YEAR IN REVIEW: ECSTASY, AGONY IN YEAR OF THE DOGS
MAKE-OR-BREAK: 10 FOOTY FIGURES UNDER PRESSURE IN 2017
FUTURE LEADERS: WHO IS YOUR CLUB’S NEXT CAPTAIN
LIST CHANGES: ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES AT YOUR CLUB
FAN SUPPORT: WHO IS LEADING THE MEMBERSHIP RACE?
ADELAIDE
Second-year coach Don Pyke will demand his players put rival teams under more pressure in their defensive zone. While the Crows made it difficult for their opponents to get the ball inside 50, once it was in there they conceded a score from 38.1 per cent of opposition kicks, ranking 15th.
BRISBANE LIONS
The Lions were the worst defensive team last season, conceding the most points — 2872 — at the staggering average of 130.5 per game, which ultimately led to coach Justin Leppitsch’s demise. New coach Chris Fagan will be spending the off-season implementing a new defensive system after Brisbane coughed up a goal from 31.2 per cent of opposition inside 50s, the worst in the league is the eighth-lowest percentage ever recorded.
CARLTON
Brendon Bolton will need to get the Blues’ engine room up and running if they are improve on a 7-15 season that exceeded expectations. They ranked 11th in clearance differential and had the third-worst points differential from stoppages.
COLLINGWOOD
For a team equipped with the best midfield in the competition, the Magpies were mightily disappointing at centre bounces last season. Skipper Scott Pendlebury conceded there was “something wrong” with their midfield set-up, and so the stats proved with the Pies the fifth-worst centre-bounce clearance team and their scoring differential from centre takeaways ranked 15th. With Pendlebury, Adam Treloar and ex-Kangaroo Daniel Wells and back-up from Steele Sidebottom, Taylor Adams and Will Hoskin Elliott, there is enough talent to ameliorate Collingwood’s issues inside the centre square.
ESSENDON
The year was a disaster for the Bombers after 12 of their stars sat out the season because of doping bans. It was no surprise they finished with the wooden spoon with three wins after averaging just 65.3 points per game, the third lowest by any side in a season since 1999. The returns of Dyson Heppell, Cale Hooker, Michael Hurley, Jobe Watson, Brent Stanton, Heath Hocking, Tom Bellchambers, Ben Howlett, David Myers, Travis Coyler will help solve that problem.
FREMANTLE
Ross Lyon’s decision to abandon his defensive philosophies and implement a more attacking game style failed spectacularly last season. Not only did the Dockers concede 24.7 more points a game than in 2015, they still scored 11.5 less points. Freo ranked 17th for offensive ball movement, so does Lyon revert back to type in 2017 or does he stick with the high-scoring ideology?
GEELONG
Cats players will be honing their goalkicking skills after the team ranked 12th for accuracy, converting 50 per cent of all attempts. Geelong rarely lost the inside 50m count in 2016 but didn’t cash in as often as it should have when in attack. Although the Cats defied their wastefulness during the home-and-away season — mainly in wins against Essendon in Round 2, Adelaide in Round 8 and Richmond in Round 21 — there was no coming back in the preliminary final against Sydney when they were 0.5 to the Swans’ 7.2 at quarter-time. At halftime they trailed by 49 points despite just three less scoring shots, 2.8 to 11.3.
GOLD COAST
Injuries hit the Suns in 2016 as they endured a year from hell on and off the field. As a result they finished a disappointing 15th and were the second-worst ranked team for disposals, and contested and uncontested possession differentials. While the departures of Jaegar O’Meara and Dion Prestia don’t help, the Suns will welcome back Gary Ablett and David Swallow and they’ve recruited Jarryd Lyons from Adelaide and drafted tough inside midfielders Will Brodie and Jack Bowes. Put simply, the Suns just need to get their hands dirty.
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY
After finishing one goal short of a Grand Final berth in their first finals appearance, the Giants could be a runaway train in 2017. Leon Cameron has at his disposal potentially the most exciting list of players who formed one of the best attacking teams last season but their defensive ball movement — a measure of a team’s ability to stop the opposition from moving the ball in any part of the ground — was rated the second worst of any finalist.
HAWTHORN
The Hawks ranked last for contested possessions in 2016, losing the count by an average of 19.6 per game — their worst year on record in this stat as they crashed out of the finals in straight sets. During their premiership three-peat the Hawks ranked seventh (2013), fifth (2014) and eighth (2015). The injection of Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara will strengthen the Hawks’ midfield — Mitchell averaged 12 contested possessions last season, and O’Meara average 10 a game when he last played a full season in 2014.
MELBOURNE
New coach Simon Goodwin received plenty of plaudits for implementing an attacking style that helped the Demons to 10 wins last campaign — their most since 2006. But if the Dees are to take the next step to playing finals they must exert more defensive pressure on the opposition. Melbourne ranked third last on Champion Data’s pressure factors — which measures how much pressure a team without possession applies to its opponent through tackling, chasing and corralling.
NORTH MELBOURNE
The Kangaroos were dreadful in defensive one-on-one contests, losing 34 per cent which was the second poorest in the league. Defenders Robbie Tarrant, Scott Thompson and Lachie Hansen will need more help from teammates to stop the opposition’s best tall forwards.
PORT ADELAIDE
Next year is crucial for the Power — and coach Ken Hinley — and the footballs would have been out quite early at the start of pre-season with the team’s kicking efficiency rating poorly in 2016. According to Champion Data’s kick rating — which measures degree of difficulty, pressure and intended target — the Port ranked 16th, and it averaged 23.7 clanger kicks a game, the most in the league.
RICHMOND
They’re the fundamentals that let the Tigers down — pressure and tackling. They recorded the lowest pressure factor of any side and averaged 60.1 tackles per game, ranked 18th. It’s fair to day tackling and contact drills will be high on the agenda this pre-season at Tigerland
ST KILDA
The Saints quickly transformed from bottom-four battlers to finals contenders with a gameplan built on pressure and harassing the opposition when not in possession. But if St Kilda wants to make the jump into the top eight next year it must lift its defensive ball movement rating (a team’s ability to stop the opposition from moving the ball in any part of the ground), which was ranked 15th.
SYDNEY
Surprisingly, one of the Swans’ few weaknesses was their kick rating, which was the fourth worst in the league. Kicking drills and target practice will be high on the agenda.
WEST COAST
The Eagles had an average disposal differential of -23.8 and uncontested possession differential of -22.2 — both ranked 15th — which easily explains their slide from grand finalists in 2015 to being bundled out of the finals at the first hurdle this year. Put simply, they didn’t win enough of the ball and weren’t willing to run hard enough to retain possession.
WESTERN BULLDOGS
The Bulldogs turned convention on its head in so many ways as they celebrated a surprise premiership. For one, they averaged just 86.2 points per game, which was 12th best in the league (16 of the past 17 premiers had averaged 100 points a game). The Dogs converted just 22.7 per cent of inside 50 entries into goals in 2016, which ranked 15th, but the inclusion of Travis Cloke and return of Stewart Crameri will give coach Luke Beveridge more marking options in attack.
— All stats supplied by Champion Data
Originally published as AFL pre-season: What your club must improve for 2017
Midfielder leaving Lions’ den
Desperate for more games in the AFL, a fringe midfielder has left the Brisbane Lions to join the Melbourne Demons.
Celebrity couples dress-up theme antics land Giants in hot water
Several GWS players face the prospect of match bans with the AFL launching an investigation into allegations of player misconduct at their recent post-season gathering.