New coaches, new players, stars returning or rising, others gone or going. Some team bound to surprise us all with an unlikely emergence. Another to shock with us an unforseen demise.
Football seasons take on a distinctly different flavour. Just what changes will give season 2008 its own special aroma?
CHRIS JUDD? Answer: Maybe. He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy. According to West Coast fans, anyway. To the long suffering Carlton hordes, however, Judd represents potential salvation from six long years of misery.
How his troublesome groin stands up through the course of the next six months and Judd’s ability to return to his best without a full pre-season will determine the extent of his influence over Carlton’s engine room.
But at the very least, along with Nick Stevens’ return, and the recruitment of Brisbane Lions premiership player Richard Hadley, Judd gives opposing clubs something to think about in their centre-square planning, youngsters Marc Murphy and Bryce Gibbs perhaps poised to become the chief beneficiaries, Andrew Carrazzo, Kade Simpson and Heath Scotland likewise.
And in pure PR terms, to a downtrodden club, this transfer has already paid off. The last time Princes Park seemed this excited was with the arrival of some other big names – Motley, Bradley and Kernahan – and they worked out quite nicely.
STEVEN KING AND MICHAEL GARDINER? Answer: Yes. At various times in the past couple of years, each of these two ruckman has had their durability, intestinal fortitude and commitment questioned, and their careers all but written off.
Now they loom as the missing piece of a St Kilda jigsaw puzzle, which, put together completely, has that premiership look about it.
And it’s not just the undoubted ruck talents of the 29-year-old former Geelong skipper King or the 28-yearold 129-game former Eagle, finally fit after a season-long false start at Moorabbin last year. It’s as much the flow-on effect.
Clearly the pair will give the legion of quality Saints’ on-ballers better and more prolific opportunities than those to which they’ve been accustomed up till now.
But it also means St Kilda can play a forward line consisting permanently of Fraser Gehrig, Nick Riewoldt and Justin Koschitzke if it chooses. Play athletic big man Michael Rix as a key defender. Use Gardiner as a key forward. King also, for that matter.
That’s the sort of flexibility that coaches dream of and could quite possibly help Ross Lyon and co. land that elusive flag.
NO JUDD, NO COUSINS? Answer: Not as much as some think. It’s convenient to dismiss West Coast as a potential force in 2008 given the basis of no Chris Judd and no Ben Cousins.
Convenient and wrong. While the Brownlow Medal-winning pair were most definitely the cream, they were far from being the Eagles’ whole cake. Does Daniel Kerr, Michael Braun, Tyson Stenglein, Matt Priddis, Matt Rosa, a revived Chad Fletcher and a fitter Andrew Embley not shape as a very handy midfield combination in its own right? Particularly when it’s being supplied by a masterful ruckman in Dean Cox.
Cousins played just seven games for West Coast last year, Judd was severely hampered by his groin injury for at least half the season, yet the Eagles missed out on the all-important second spot by fewer than two percentage points, then lost their first final by three points and were level at full-time of their second.
The defence is rocksolid, the forward set-up capable enough and there’s not a whole lot of tweaking needed to the Eagle midfield machine, either. A couple of superstars down or not.
NEW KIDS ON THE COACHING BLOCK? Answer: Yes. Throw in Brett Ratten and Mark Harvey, who led Carlton and Fremantle in just a handful of games last year, and with Essendon’s Matthew Knights and Melbourne’s Dean Bailey, you have one-quarter of AFL clubs in 2008 being coached by fresh faces.
Already, the evidence is that the stamp they put on their new teams will prove substantially different to the previous brand. Ratten’s Blues are playing a more possession-based, running game.
Harvey is working overtime to make the Dockers a harder, more resilient outfit than their traditionally flaky profile.
Knights has Essendon playing a quicker, more skilful style involving much run and carry, and is actually playing the kids rather than just talking about it, while Bailey, the least known of the quartet, is overseeing Melbourne’s transition to a new generation of leaders and stars.
The biggest difference, of course, needs to be the above quartet’s clubs’ ladder positions. But whatever happens, the Blues, Demons, Dockers and Dons at least won’t be going down whistling the same tired old tune.
A SHEEDY-LESS SEASON? Answer: Is the Pope a Catholic? He’ll still pop up here and there as an ambassador for football’s 150th year, but after 27 incident and quote-filled years as an AFL coach, it’s going to seem pretty damn weird going a couple of days, let alone an entire football weekend, without seeing or hearing Kevin Sheedy’s pearls of wisdom from the training track, the post-match press conference, or any other promotion with even the most tenuous link to the game.
No martians, no marshmallows, no snipers, no dress-ups, no distractions, no stream of consciousness monologues ranging from plumbing to Asian history ... life might be pretty dull at times with coaches now reduced to talking merely about the game.
Just maybe, however, there’s a replacement in the wings. Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams’ recent final 12 concept was certainly an honourable attempt to outwacky the wackiest coach of them all.
