Wreck it Ralph: What your club needs to focus on to take next step in 2022
Ross Lyon’s hard nosed approach is no secret, with many claiming he was too harsh. Could this be the beginning of the end for some underperforming Blues?
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Twelve clubs have bowed out of the 2021 finals race and the players are hanging up their boots for a well-earned rest.
But the hard work just begins for their list managers, who will be busy planning for next season.
Here are the big names that the beaten brigade need to make their biggest off-season priorities
Adelaide
Re-sign Matthew Nicks past 2022, which is a certainty. He is the man to take your club forward, as we have seen from his coaching in 2021 to his response in the wake of Taylor Walker’s disgraceful racist comments.
Taylor Walker needs to make genuine change and fans need to see it as well.
The Crows don’t need any reminders of how a crisis can fester and eventually suck everyone from the senior coach to the football boss to the chief executive into a black hole.
That is easy to write and hard for him to live, but at least the education process has started.
He can’t afford too many more false steps like refusing to front the media and having to be browbeaten into it, but he does deserve a second chance if Adelaide’s Indigenous players are willing to hand him that chance.
Carlton
Ross Lyon will likely coach the club as the “hard bastard” club legend John Nicholls called for, and there is no doubt he has a vast amount of admirers and players low on his priority list who believed he was too tough on them.
What will really matter next year won’t be how he coaches Sam Walsh, it will be the definitive roles he can hand Mitch McGovern and Jack Martin and Sam Petrevski-Seton if he stays on the list.
Players will get a fresh start but Lyon’s best coaching asset has always been his capacity to get role players to buy in to make his entire 22 (plus sub) better.
Is Zac Fisher really a midfielder after all this time as he showed in glimpses in the last fortnight?
If Liam Stocker really is a midfielder can he can get Petracca fit over the summer to show Lyon he is more than a much-hyped small defender with a lovely right foot?
Collingwood
Pies fans will be legitimately excited to bring in some Richmond DNA into the side in Craig McRae and hope the game style can prioritise defence without giving up the attacking flair they saw in particular in their 45-point Round 20 win over West Coast.
But given all their draft points will be munched by Nick Daicos, can they find a couple like Essendon did with Nick Hind and Peter Wright?
Essendon gave up 67 and 74 for Hind and 77, and secured Wright for a future fourth.
Could they secure Sam Weideman for a future second-rounder and bring a famous name back to the club?
They offered Geelong swingman Nathan Kreuger a three-year deal last season and will surely ask again.
Essendon
Essendon’s options to establish a key position tall aren’t as limited as they seem.
Harry Jones’ 20-goal, 16-game, 17-contested mark season was exceptional and he doesn’t turn 21 until March.
Re-signed key tall Kaine Baldwyn has vast talent despite two ACL tears, he will hope to have the summer of his life and doesn’t turn 20 until May.
Number 10 draft pick Zac Reid probably has to play forward to get a game next year given the welter of defensive options, and Essendon still hopes he could be the best of the lot despite the exposed form of Archie Perkins and Nik Cox. He doesn’t turn 20 until March.
Sam Draper (13 AFL games) and Nick Bryant (one AFL game, nine VFL games) kicked three goals between them in those 23 games.
But Essendon has such high hopes for Bryant that could Ben Rutten allow Draper to train with the forward group for much of the summer to develop that side of his game then play a 50-50 split?
If Ben King remains unsigned until August next year Essendon would be his most likely landing spot but until then given a lack of interest in Sam Weideman it’s hard to see how key forward reinforcements won’t come from within.
Fremantle
Justin Longmuir, who himself will get a new contract over summer, has already identified outside run as a priority for a club stacked with midfield talent even after Adam Cerra departs.
Geelong’s Jordan Clark clearly fits the ball as a 20-year-old former pick 15, although haggling over him might be as complicated as the eventual Adam Cerra deal.
Geelong will say they have vast plans for him, Fremantle will counter that the Cats never play him, and eventually if he is desperate to get home he will.
Fremantle’s interest in Sam Petrevski-Seton is described as lukewarm, but if he can’t get a contract at the Blues they might be able to secure him for very little anyway as a high-upside player.
The biggest priority of all requires luck and good management and is likely elusive — keeping Nat Fyfe, Sean Darcy, Matt Taberner and Alex Pearce on the ground for 18-plus games each.
Gold Coast
Work out what you are doing with your coach and do it quick-smart.
Every week the Suns delay they give off the message to their playing group they are not quite sure if Stuart Dew isn’t the man.
It’s not that they shouldn’t deeply analyse that decision, but Mark Evans and Tony Cochrane cannot afford to dither.
Just as they did in the summer of 2019-20, when they re-signed Ben King in October and Jack Lukosius in November, if they can sign up that pair the 2022 season is one of an urgent pressure to perform.
If they cannot get those signatures tucked away early every loss will become a referendum on their futures as crazy rival offers with lots of zeroes attached will become an endless distraction.
Hawthorn
The Hawks ended up with picks five, 21 and 24 in the draft, with their next pick 56 after a handful of pick swaps last off-season.
It’s a good hand, but not great.
So the Hawks will say they aren’t trading Jack Gunston or Jaeger O’Meara or Tom Mitchell, all the while aware no player is safe if the right offer presents.
But right now, which Melbourne club has the money, picks and need for a player about to turn 28 like O’Meara, Mitchell or Chad Wingard?
Not North Melbourne, not Essendon, probably not St Kilda, not Richmond, not Collingwood.
So can the Hawks wind back the clock to secure another exciting young talent and jag a player in the pre-season draft?
With pick five and the right front-ended contract that scares off rivals and club that secured Jai Newcombe on a four-year mid-season can surely attempt that kind of audacious heist.
The one certainty is the Hawks don’t have enough A-grade young talent on their list and they know it, so bold decisions are needed that might upset the fanbase.
North Melbourne
The Roos have picks one, 20 and 38 and will surely add SANFL star Jason Horne to a group that has elite inside talent — Ben Cunnington, Jed Anderson, Jy Simpkin, Luke Davies-Uniacke and Tarryn Thomas.
Given Thomas and Jaidyn Stephenson can both play outside roles, the midfield isn’t too unbalanced but the Roos might eventually need more outside speed.
They have been linked to Jack Billings but are very keen to be strategic in their recruiting and not spend cash for the sake of it.
Sam Weideman is a person of interest as it becomes clear he is too far back in the pecking order to stay at Melbourne, and could be the kind of ruck-forward that can play alongside Nick Larkey, Todd Goldstein and Cam Zurhaar.
In one of only five VFL games this year he had 10 hit-outs and five to advantage and while he wasn’t Polly Farmer, it showed he can ruck in the centre square.
At only 24 he would get the opportunity he is after at the Roos and the chance to build alongside a team.
Richmond
If Eddie McGuire had remained Collingwood president and Nathan Buckley had ended up moving on, there is no doubt the Pies would have had a huge crack at Damien Hardwick this year.
Hardwick seemed unsettled early on after his marriage reak-up in a year where that drama was only one of the many issues that contributed to a poor year.
Richmond insiders are adamant Hardwick, contracted to 2024, is up for the fight and ready to reinvigorate a team that looked lethargic and out of energy this year.
The long break will help but how does “Dimma” change a game style effective for four years but neutered by AFL tweaks in this year?
How does he eke out 40 more excellent games out of skipper Trent Cotchin, how does he more effectively use Tom Lynch after two so-so seasons?
His capacity to bring through the next band of kids after 12 seasons all depends on his enthusiasm after a long off-season to recharge his batteries.
The Tigers say he is up for the fight.
St Kilda
St Kilda has enough talent on its list, with Brett Ratten asking “Why not us?” of the players in his message before sending them away.
But would Saints fans be especially shattered if they lost free agent Jack Billings (probably likely to stay) and even Josh Battle (who rivals are considering) if it allowed them the trade collateral to secure a ruckman younger than Paddy Ryder?
Ryder will sign a new one-year deal or he will retire, but as of last week he wasn’t absolutely 100 per cent certain to go on.
Jon Ceglar seems likely to stay at Hawthorn, Peter Ladhams now seems happy at the Power and Rory Lobb has considered a move to Melbourne but probably wants to play forward instead of ruck.
But you can be sure by the end of the trade period the Saints will have found another partner for Rowan Marshall, even if Paddy Ryder plays for one more year.
Sydney
If Sydney has salary cap issues that rival Collingwood’s dramas of last summer, it already knows the road ahead.
Don’t talk BS to your members when every rival knows your predicament and ensure the players you do lose are not going to tear at the fabric of your club.
It means surely they need to secure free agent Luke Parker at all costs.
His age — 29 in October — is offset by remarkable durability that has seen him miss a single game in the past six seasons and only five games in his past eight years.
Would rivals be scared off if they knew Sydney would match any free agency bid for a player wanting a four-year deal, knowing they would have to roll up their sleeves for a trade scrap involving multiple first-round picks?
Losing George Hewett and even the wonderfully gifted Jordan Dawson won’t rip the club apart, but Parker is the essence of the Bloods spirit.
West Coast
Bring your mouthguards, boys.
In their off-season reviews the Eagles will assess the reality that they have many of their stars either out injured or still on the field but carrying niggles that never allowed them to thrive.
But Adam Simpson is also honest enough to know too many Eagles padded their stats with cheap kicks (with Andrew Gaff at the front of the queue) and were emboldened to corral and fall back instead of summoning all-out assault on their opponents.
The Eagles have picks 10 and 29 and their cap space tied up on long term deals but their improvement will come from a fitter squad prepared to give 100 per cent effort every week.
Originally published as Wreck it Ralph: What your club needs to focus on to take next step in 2022
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