Preliminary final weekend is the best weekend of the year for my money. It’s the four best teams duking it out. The crowds aren’t corporate drones like we often have at the Grand Final, particularly if it’s being played by non-Victorian teams.
More than anything, it’s the weekend where the most stories emerge. You have four teams, four possibly divergent paths, four distinct sets of storylines.
For this column, as a little amuse bouche for the games, I’m going to predict what I think is going to be the leading story coming out of each game.
Now, granted, all the fun teams are out makes this game a little more interesting and this weekend a little less interesting. But what are you going to do? We’ve only got three games left. Drink them in.
Sydney v Port Adelaide
Isaac Heeney is Football in 2024
Port Adelaide and Sydney are two sides of the same coin, at least in terms of game style.
They both are heavily reliant on dominant midfields and play the territory game well, both sitting top 5 in metres gained differential and top 7 in inside 50 differential.
The quality of their respective midfields effectively make up for a lack of high-end personnel at either end of the ball.
To use a crude term, both teams are prawns. Good body, shit head.
Even if they play very differently, with Sydney reliant on more intricate ball movement while Port lives on momentum above all else, the core idea is basically the same.
So, why am I picking Sydney? Isaac Heeney.
His game against GWS was gargantuan but not isolated this season.
In each of Heeney’s last three games, Sydney’s wins against Collingwood, Essendon and GWS he has polled 10 coaches votes. In two of them, GWS and Collingwood, when the going got tough, Heeney got going. He won the game for his side off his own boot.
ISAAC HEENEY ABOUT TO BREAK THE INTERNET!!! 🤯🤯🤯
WHAT A GRAB!!#SCTop10 #AFLpic.twitter.com/vwiAvfaFdr
— ESPN Australia & NZ (@ESPNAusNZ) September 7, 2024
He’s having one of those mythical seasons. You could see people talking with the same awe and fear about Heeney’s second half against GWS as they did in John Wick when they talked about John killing three guys with a pencil.
Heeney has that thing about him this year. That ability to elevate when he senses that his team needs it. That ability to make a moment all his own.
He’s been so good that if Sydney wins the premiership, he’ll make the season all his own. Season 2024 will be The Isaac Heeney Season.
He has that much magic about him this year, I reckon his quality can get the Swans into The Big Dance.
Port Adelaide Headline:
Port Adelaide played their Grand Final Last Week
Geelong v Brisbane
Great Scott!
It’s Time to Talk put Chris Scott in the Conversation for the Greatest Coach of the Modern Era
Geelong is too fast for Brisbane, and I think they will run the Lions off their feet.
Can you believe that sentence?
The Cats won the premiership just two short years ago off the back of bully football. They were bigger and stronger than other teams and they fed one of the most potent forward lines in footy.
This year, they have totally reinvented themselves into this speedy, malleable, unkillable team and will make another Grand Final under Chris Scott.
Beyond the speed, Scott is tactically on a different level.
He will recognise that Dayne Zorko is the key to the Brisbane kicking game and will probably play Brad Close, Gryan Miers or even Ollie Henry on him and force Zorko to be accountable, which is like forcing him to be faithful to his wife: impossible.
Stengle X Miers: It's some combo 😮💨 #WeAreGeelong pic.twitter.com/ohYznertQd
— Geelong Cats (@GeelongCats) September 8, 2024
Brisbane is a good to great side led by a really good coach who trusts his system through hell or high water.
Geelong is just a good side with an outrageously good coach, and who has a system but will depart from it if he thinks there’s a better way to win.
If he does it, that will be his fourth Grand Final appearance in fifteen years with three different cores.
The first one was the last premiership of the Gary Ablett, Jimmy Bartel, Stevie Johnson, Matt Scarlett etc. nucleus.
The second and third ones were the teams built around Tom Hawkins, Patty Dangerfield, Joel Selwood, Tom Stewart and Jeremy Cameron.
In each of 2020 and 2022, the Grand Final appearances for that nucleus, they were the oldest team in football.
This year in 2024 it’s a different core again. While they’re still the second oldest team with Dangerfield, Cameron and Stewart still critical to the club’s infrastructure.
However, now the load is gradually falling off those guys as players like Gryan Miers, Max Holmes, Ollie Dempsey, and Jack Henry to pick up the slack and become the key cogs.
Made for the big stage 👊 #WeAreGeelong pic.twitter.com/c4ZsdAQ5wX
— Geelong Cats (@GeelongCats) September 6, 2024
Can you say that about Alastair Clarkson? Damien Hardwick? I’m not sure that you can.
More than the premierships can see the genius of this club and coach with a player like Max Holmes.
Holmes was a handy player in 2022, adding a rare speed element to a slow Geelong side. However, Scott decided on Grand Final day that with his minor injury he wasn’t worth risking on Grand Final day because, frankly, he wasn’t important enough.
They got 50 games into him as a peripheral player, often hanging out on the wing and filling the role Ollie Dempsey currently plays.
This year, though, their midfield depth was depleted and they asked him to play a more critical role as a hard-running on-baller. He now attends twice as many centre bounces as he did in 2022, averages nine more possessions, three more handball receives, and 200 more metres gained as he has become one of the game’s best runners through the midfield.
They do this constantly. They did it with Gryan Miers. They’re doing it now with Ollie Dempsey.
There’s always money in the banana stand for the Cats.
If they make it, the Chris Scott conversation will be had.
Brisbane Headline:
Chris Fa-gone
Why Chris Fagan’s Stubborness has cost them a premiership
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