Why Every Finals Contender Can Win It All

Why Every Finals Contender Can Win It All

GuyWhoLikesSport

This has very possibly been the most even season in recent AFL history.

Three out of the four teams that were in the top-4 heading into Round 20 of the AFL season lost this week.

Carlton went into Round 20 in the top-4 and left it half a game inside the top-8.

There is virtually no team that is currently sitting in the top-8 that has not had a low point, or some reason to think that they can’t be the team that gets to raise the cup on that last Saturday in September.

After round 9 I wrote a column outlining why every team that was then in the top-8 couldn’t win the premiership, but that kind of negativity won’t play for fans now.

Every fan of every finals contending team has a rolodex of reasons their troops can’t win in September.

Instead of my usual snarky nonsense, I thought I’d George Costanza it and do the opposite.

I decided to write a list of why every team that is either in the top-8, or no more than a game out of the top-8, can win the premiership.

  1. Sydney

It’s understatement day!

Things are not going well for Sydney.

Their 112-point loss to port means that their winning the premiership would be a first.

Despite that loss, and losing 5/6, the Swans were so good early in the year that they’re still half a game clear on top of the ladder and still have the best percentage in footy.

They need this midseason swoon to be what Pulp Fiction was to John Travolta. A revival.

Why can they still win it all? In their run of 5/6 losses, their first three losses were by a combined 5 points. In all of the losses but the loss to the Bulldogs, the opposition team took over 100 marks in the game.

Only the last two losses have been really bad.

The competition has come up with a blueprint to beating Sydney. It’s ball control and uncontested marks getting the ball up the ground, stretching a pretty weak defence.

But there’s time to find a counter.

The good news is that it’s hard to play a ball control, uncontested mark style in finals.

  1. Brisbane

Brisbane can win it because they’re the best team in the AFL at the moment.

Over the last five games, no team has generated more shots per inside 50. They are also second in the AFL in that period at scores from turnover and second at scoring from the forward half.

This is a front half team that has won 9 in a row, and front half teams win premierships.

  1. Port Adelaide

Port Adelaide can win the premiership on the back of one of the most powerful forces in sport.

Nobody believes in us.

It drove the 2004 Red Sox and the 2017 Tigers.

It’s so powerful even the teams that everyone expects to be good try and muster its power.

After Port got smoked by Brisbane and Ken Hinkley was booed at the Adelaide oval in round 15, Port have ripped off a run where they’ve won 5/6 including wins over Sydney, Carlton and the Bulldogs.

In every win in that run, they’ve won the territory battle winning metreage, inside 50s and shots while being the third best front half scoring team in footy.

Port can win because they’re like the Napoleonic Empire with their thirst for territory. Also like Napoleon, they have have a nobody believes in us edge.

  1. GWS

What did Coach Carter have his boys do in his first game in charge? Run.

That’s exactly what GWS do.

No team has more uncontested possessions or handball receives over the last five games than GWS, and no team has been more efficient over the last five games (all wins for GWS) at turning inside 50s into goals.

They play fast break footy, and it works.

But it’s not just the style. GWS play with legitimate dog in them.

Against Hawthorn on the weekend they had no right to win, but they don’t give themselves the right to quit either.

They more than doubled their score in last quarter and chased down a 28 point Hawthorn lead at 3/4 time through run, heart, and the best forward line in the AFL doing what it does best.

  1. Geelong

Geelong can win because they have the best coach, and good enough players.

A couple of weeks ago I called them the Michael Myers Cats because they are unkillable.

They’ve given me no reason to depart from that.

  1. Fremantle

While Geelong has the best coach in football I genuinely think no team better blends talent and coaching than Fremantle, notwithstanding Essendon walking out the front of a stoppage in a tied game last week (this is a bit of an “other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?” I accept).

It’s so easy for them to get the ball from inside to out in stoppage situations with their superstars like Serong, Andy Brayshaw and Hayden Young.

Critically, they also turn that stoppage dominance into scoring.

No team has been better over the last five weeks at scoring from stoppage and only GWS have been more efficient at turning inside 50s into goals.

Freo can win because they make the hard stuff look easy, by meshing coaching and talent so perfectly.

  1. Western Bulldogs

On June 3, after they beat Collingwood, I wrote that the Bulldogs were contenders.

Since then, they are 6-2 and have won score from turnover and score from stoppage five times.

They’ve also added Rory Lobb to the backline and he’s turned into the best defender the Bulldogs have and has made them a top-6 scoring defence.

All the reasons I wrote on June 3 apply even more now.

  1. Carlton

Carlton is what would happen if Fremantle had worse coaching.

I wrote about it last week.

The reason that they can win is that they have good players, particularly Patty Cripps who was astonishing against Collingwood on Saturday night.

But this is not a well-drilled football team. They tried to do what Geelong did Collingwood and dominate the ball with uncontested marks but just couldn’t pull it off.

The Blues can win because they have good players, but they are not serious people.

  1. Essendon

If we’re in the trust-tree, reader.

I did a top-11 because I genuinely think Hawthorn and Collingwood might accidentally jag the premiership if they make it.

There is no convoluted multiverse where I see Essendon doing the same.

But I am committed to the bit and Essendon are within the parameters I outlined so here we are.

Essendon can win because their uncontested, ball control game style seems to be the way footy is going as the tonic to the manic pressure that has defined the last 8 years.

They’re the second highest disposal team in the AFL this season and the fifth highest mark team.

They might be playing the way to beat the pressure sides better than anybody.

Did you buy that? I wrote it and I didn’t.

I feel like the guy in Thank You For Smoking trying to argue that cigarettes aren’t that bad.

  1. Hawthorn

Since Round 8, Hawthorn is 8-3.

Two of their losses have been by a combined 3 points and the other was a demolition to Geelong in Geelong.

Also since Round 8, they have lost the expected score just three times, never by more than 9 points (other than the Geelong demolition).

You could argue that Hawthorn is the form team.

I said in the Essendon portion that the Bombers are playing the style that footy seems to be pivoting to, but Hawthorn is doing it better.

They’re one of the most expansive kicking teams in the league and have one of the most varied forward lines in footy with names like Chol, Dear, Ginnivan, Watson, Moore, Gunston all liable to bob up and kick a goal.

If they make it, I wouldn’t want to play them.

  1. Collingwood

Remember when 37-year-old Shane Mosley beat the snot out of Antonio Margarito in 2009?

That was one of the all-time “the old guy’s still got it performances”.

Collingwood reminds me of that Shane Mosley.

Their pressure and intensity was full on against Carlton and it dulled Carlton’s attempt to dominate the ball and win the game by taking the sting out of it.

The Pies are like a bowl of pistachios.

There always might be one more in there, and the game against Carlton convinced me to keep looking.

 

If too long – can remove 9-11 and just make it all the finals teams