Expectation can be a blessing or burden for AFL clubs, writes Mick Malthouse

It requires hunger and a lot of luck to win an AFL premiership. Mick Malthouse looks at the clubs who might be in the mix, and the ones who will face hurdles if they’re to climb that mountain.

Art for Mick Malthouse column

Expectation. An 11-letter word with so much volume. Especially when you are part of a football club, where you can’t escape it.

Expectation is supporters’ tongues wagging about what if and when, its boards murmuring behind closed doors, and its media reciting stats based on the previous year’s performances and current talent.

All of them pencil in wins and ladder positions as though they can see into a crystal ball.

It’s fun to try to predict the outcome of a season, but it doesn’t take into account injuries, suspensions and plain bad luck.

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The truth is, reality is often very different to expectation.

Nevertheless, expectation exists in every facet of football and the tangible form of the word is pressure.

In the last few years we have seen the Western Bulldogs win its second ever premiership, Richmond break a 37-year drought, and West Coast win its fourth cup.

Each one of those clubs, plus Hawthorn, Sydney, Geelong and Collingwood, after winning a flag, has endured increased pressure to win back-to-back titles.

Because expectation is never dimmed — if you do well, next year you have to do better — I never felt safe at any football club. Ever. There is no respite after a premiership win, just an expectation to do it again,

It’s hard to make the Grand Final, let alone win it. Hawthorn was the last club to win back-to-back, achieving a three-peat in 2013-15. Before that it was the Brisbane Lions, more than 10 years previously.

Hunger is an intangible aspect of expectation. Sustainable hunger.

It’s not like speed or skill or accuracy or endurance. Things that can be worked on at training. Hunger comes and goes, at a team level and for the individual, and it all comes down to mindset. Am I satisfied? Do I want more?

Young forward Aaron Naughton can help get the Bulldogs back on track. Picture: AAP

The Bulldogs have ridden one of the bigger falls from grace after a premiership triumph.

It seemed that winning the cup affected the whole club, from the president to the supporters. It’s difficult to keep that in check.

Jubilation and celebration can create a monster within a football club, especially if it fuels unrealistic expectations.

The Bulldogs came from seventh to win the 2016 flag. It took considerable effort, discipline and some good luck to do so. It was never going to be easy for the Dogs to back it up.

The Dogs faltered to finish 10th and 13th in the following two years.

This year will tell if they are back on track.

They have young talent like Aaron Naughton, who is still relatively a baby, but as his body fills out and with more experience he will be a very important target for the Dogs.

He has the potential to be one of the league’s most dangerous forwards.

As West Coast and Collingwood will discover this season, when the hunter becomes the hunted it’s a whole new ball game.

Players who have stood up previously suddenly can’t cope with the heat.

The weight of having to perform at a certain standard week in and week out sits too heavily on their shoulders.

An injury here or there, the opposition poking holes in your game plan, supporter joy turning to anger, and media scrutinising every angle of your performance, can feel like a blowtorch on you.

Tom Lynch now has to carry the Tigers’ forward line. Picture: AFL Photos

It only takes a couple of players to falter in the glare and it can throw out the whole balance of the team. That is when the cracks appear.

After the Bulldogs, Richmond — from third — won its first premiership since 1980 and buttered up last year amid all the hype and expectation to finish top of the ladder after the home-and- away rounds.

The Tigers handled the pressure very well … until finals, when they lost their momentum spectacularly against Collingwood in the preliminary final.

Was it just a blip on the radar? An aberration?

High expectations still remain for Richmond, but its capitulation to the Magpies on Thursday night will feed the doubters.

The Tigers barely put up a fight against the Pies.

The injury to the league’s best defender, Alex Rance, leaves them with a huge hole to fill, and recruit Tom Lynch will need to step up immediately as Jack Riewoldt recovers from a fractured wrist.

West Coast will be under the spotlight in Perth this season, and on paper, with its depth of talent, it looks the goods.

But long-haul travel is a factor very few clubs have to deal with. In my experience, in 1993 — the year between the Eagles’ first two premierships — there was genuine fatigue felt at the club.

Darcy Moore has been a revelation in defence for the Magpies this season. Picture: AAP

Perhaps the only upside to being a non-Victorian team it is that they are often “forgotten” in the Melbourne press and the scrutiny on them is less.

Far less than what Collingwood will have to deal with.

If you want to know what expectation feels like, mix with the Magpie Army for a while and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

A Grand Final loss is entree for them, they want the main dish this year, and dessert.

Collingwood, in theory, should be better.

Prodigal son Dayne Beams has returned, a fit Jamie Elliott and Darcy Moore, and the highly anticipated return of Daniel Wells paints a lovely picture for the Magpie faithful, and a potential headache for Nathan Buckley if he has to balance expectation with reality.

Sustenance is going to be the key for Collingwood.

Buckley’s coaching style, where he learned to lean more heavily on his assistants last year, must be maintained.

Depth won’t be an issue, but taming talent might be, unless every player is prepared to sacrifice his own game for the team game. And hunger needs to be used to full effect. Hunger to win and hunger to avenge are two different things.

If there are two clubs who handle expectation well, it’s Hawthorn and Geelong. Each organisation has the fantastic ability to recruit from outside its ranks to not only replenish the list, but also replenish the appetite of the whole team.

Perhaps because of this, these two clubs have a bona fide reason to believe they are always a genuine contender, and although it’s early, this season is no exception.

Jaeger O'Meara will be Hawthorn’s go-to midfielder. Picture: Getty Images

Big bodied Jaeger O’Meara will be Hawthorn’s go-to player.

He won’t have the possession rate of injured Brownlow medallist Tom Mitchell, but he is all quality.

And James Worpel is an exciting up and comer, certainly one to keep an eye on.

It’s been 55 years since Melbourne won a premiership but its supporters seem to think this is the year for the Demons to do it again, perhaps due to a stat from Champion Data that suggests their midfield is ranked the best in the league.

People read this and believe it, but opposition coaches know better that impressive numbers don’t always equate to on-field success.

Melbourne supporters are desperate, but are the players desperate enough to meet those expectations?

Yes, expectation is a funny word. For some it’s motivation, for others a curse.

No one escapes it entirely in football and the temperature in the oven is at varying degrees.

As the old saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.

Because it’s not the expectation that is the issue, it’s the way you handle it that is.