this is my annual afl review now that yesterdays grand final is over with brisban doing a 3 peat it is the same 5 sections as last year.
home and away season review
a crazy season with till a couple of weeks to go before finals the wooden spoon favourite melbourne were all but certain top 6 and then dropped to 7th with a supprise loss to the bulldogs (8th) freo were the other supprise topping the ladder with 19 wins sydney (18 wins) looked dangerous but had looked like they had peaked brisbane (16 wins) hawthorn (15 wins 2 draws both against collingwood a record) geelong (15 wins) also looked dangerous with adelaide (15 wins) rounding out the 6 ahead of melbourne on percentage with bulldogs (13 wins and a draw) collingwood (12 wins and 2 draws) and carlton (12 wins and a draw) rounding out the wild card spots despite all the potentional st kilda gws (10 wins each but the later lost to west coast and essendon but beat 3 top 4 sides) and gold coast (9 wins) all failed to make the 10 with only the giants injuries a sort of excuse north improved to 9 wins while port (7 wins) west coast (4 wins) richmond (3 wins 2 of them against west coast) and essendon (2 wins against dees and gws) round out the ladder props to carlton who despite sitting 1-8 and knowing they would lose easy access to one of the best draft prospects went on a run to finish 10th.
finals review
just before the finals the swans had a scandal take their best players out and then smashed the lions in the qual final after hawks beat freo it became a mess with the wildcard rounds ending dees and pies chances but there was no further for dogs and blues going out to crows and cats respecitvely who lost to freo and lions the next week just when we thought finals were all going to be predictable (although blues wouldn’t beat dees on that logic) the prelims had a come from behind freo again againt sydney winning just their 3rd final outside of perth (and first not against geelong) and lions doing the brisbane thing winning last minute against the hawks in a back and forth game. so it was lions v freo with only a few non-lions supporters (mostly some eagles and maybe a few swans) supporters wanting the outcome and while it was a great game the lions became the 2nd team ever (first being melbourne) to do a 2nd 3 peat not in record time (dees had 16 years between theres lions was 23) but a very impressive run as only the hawks did a 3 peat in between that time (and like the lions are unlucky not to do a 4 peat already) although richmond probably should have at the start of this decade done the 4 peat. will they equal the pies 97 year old record of a 4 peat time will tell but lets hope not.
hawthorn season in review.
well the best run in a decade fell just short in an insane year which started losing to gws in opeing round (glad thats not returning in its format) to a 6 game winning streak including the 2nd best easter monday win over the cats before drawing with pies and losing to freo and dees. a rare bulldogs loss came inbetween 4 wins and one of the craziest dees losses in a game where they nearly won from 16 goals down !. before getting a slightly easier run before another pies draw and a big loss in brisbane costing the hawks 3rd but 4th was still good and played really well in the finals beating freo and just falling short to the premiers brisbane.
interesting season freo
had half a dozen teams to choose from for this section and until yesterday was likely to pick carlton over gws gold coast melbourne and freo but in respect for their effort they get this interesting sesaon and what a year after a close loss at geelong they got hot winning close games in adelaide (including gather round against pies that has to stop). and the premiers at the gabba freo didn’t lose again till round 17 to gws of all teams but late loses to dees and blues would have people worried and the qualifing loss to the hawks meant they had to make the grand the hard way and neither the semi or the prelim against cats and swans were easy but leading till the last few minutes in a grand final closest they’ve ever come to a flag is worth celebrating.
premiers brisbane
started 0-2 again losing to bulldogs and swans and looked a bit more dicy after the dees loss (who had just lost to the wooden spooners the week before insane) they lost the rematch to geelong and then got smashed by gws and freo so at this stage people made the mistake of writing them off but only losing twice more for the year to the blues in round 21 and to the swans in the finals the later might have worried some teams but not the 3 peaters and while there defence was lacking at the end of the year concending 96 141 91 122 and 89 in the last 5 games they were still the bench mark.
that is it for my afl write ups this year will be back in march with a round 1 preview. also forgot to mention in the last post there won’t be an nrl review next week after their grand final if you want to know who won and can’t find out another way it will be in monday weeks todays news.
