It has been an incredible season in the AFL. We have seen some good performances from teams like Hawthorn, Sydney and Adelaide in the regular season, and have been left with some carnage and unanswered questions by many other teams.
Essendon appeared to be world beaters at the start of 2012, but by the end of the season they looked like a rabble that were lucky to avoid getting demolished by one of the worst teams in the competition. Nothing would be sweeter than to see the fickle supporters of the red and black turn on two of their favorite sons, Hird and Thompson.
Carlton have missed out on their flag aspirations. They didn’t even make it to the finals series let alone the Grand Final. Brett Ratten can’t coach. Yes, he was a great player and a great servant to the Navy Blues but that résumé means nothing when it comes to being a top level AFL coach. It’s time for Carlton to get the checkbook out and buy the best coach available on the open market.
As a yellow and black man myself I can safely say the Tigers have had another heartbreaking season. Their crushing victories over Hawthorn and Essendon were great but the three week stretch when they lost games against the Gold Coast, North Melbourne and Carlton saw all of us down at Tigerland wondering what may have been. Damien Hardwick was the right man for the job at Richmond. He is a proven winner in an environment where most people know as much about winning as a race horse with three legs. Damien, we still love you but unless you deliver us finals football next year, that love could easily manifest itself as hate.
Port Adelaide and Melbourne are teams in crisis and the AFL will have to do something to save these pimples on the backside of the competition. The Bulldogs and Brisbane are not far behind and need to make drastic improvements or face drifting into very dark times.
Kevin Sheedy celebrated his 1000th AFL game as a player or coach in 2012. This statistic will go down in the history books, so it’s time to hang up your boots Kev. The AFL will give you some meaningless position and pay you plenty of cash for doing next to nothing for as long as you want. So say “so long, farewell” and let Greater Western Sydney get on with playing football. They showed some spark this year and will get better, but they don’t need your outdated techniques any longer.
The Gold Coast showed slow signs of improvement and ended quite well. Thankfully, God sent his son Gary to the Coast – if he didn’t, Mr McKenna would have made his way to a mental asylum well before now.
Well, there’s plenty to look forward to with the finals coming up in September, and as always the offseason will bring its fair share of controversy as those who have missed out will be struggling for recognition of their own next year.
