AFL 2012 Season Preview – North Melbourne, Essendon and St Kilda

Filed in AFL by on March 18, 2012

The 2012 AFL season looms large on the horizon – new coaches, new structures and once again this year, a new entrant to the competition. How will it all shake out? In part four of our season preview, Greg Oberscheidt and Cliff Bingham look at three teams who were on either side of the finals cut-off point last year – North Melbourne, Essendon and St Kilda.

 

Previous Instalments

Part 1: Introduction, Greater Western Sydney, Gold Coast and Port Adelaide

Part 2: Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne

Part 3: Richmond, Fremantle and Western Bulldogs

 

 

NORTH MELBOURNE

2011 record: 10-12 (ninth place)

Home and away season – average points for/ against: 95.7 points for, 94.6 points against (101.2 per cent)

Home and away season – record against top-8 teams: 1-9 (played two teams twice)

Home and away season – record against bottom-8 teams: 9-3 (played four teams twice)

Home and away season – record in games decided by two goals or less: 0-4

Teams played twice in 2012: Gold Coast, West Coast, Western Bulldogs, Essendon, GWS (combined 2011 record of 40-47-1)

 

GO

You have to love the way North Melbourne go about it. Every week they give it all for the jumper and their fans but continually seem to come up agonisingly short.

They’ve got plenty of talent. Wells has been superb for a couple of years now and seems to be recovering from a lung issue that threatened his career. Swallow is brilliant. Boomer still has some tricks. Petrie is big and strong and versatile. Goldstein and McIntosh make for as good a 1-2 punch in the ruck as anyone. Bastinac, Zeibell, Cunnington, Greenwood, Adams. There is so much to like.

They lack a couple of quality defenders, with Thompson being solid and Firrito doing a job, but tend to struggle against the sides with two power forwards.

I’d love to see the Kangas make the eight but their recent record against top eight sides speaks volumes and I just can’t see them winning enough to break through. 2012 outlook – 11 wins.

CB

The Kangas are done some serious regenerating over the past few years – Andrew Swallow is now their fifth most experienced senior footballer with only 106 senior matches to his name.

When you consider that they lost by four points to West Coast in Perth, a point to Sydney and nine points to St Kilda (in Round 15), they did an excellent job to still be in the race for a finals berth before an insipid performance in the second-to-last round. In the end, a 2-7 start proved too much to overcome, as did a very poor record against finalists (only defeating eighth-placed Essendon).

I’m expecting more of the same from North this year – not up to the standard of the elite teams but too strong for the mediocre to poor teams. Their finals fate will be dictated by how they fare against the other teams on the cusp of seeing September action. 2012 outlook – 12 wins.

 

 

ESSENDON

2011 record:11-10-1 (eighth place on ladder, eliminated in first week of finals)

Home and away season – average points for/ against: 100.8 points for, 100.8 points against (100.0 per cent)

Home and away season – record against top-8 teams: 4-6-1 (played four teams twice)

Home and away season – record against bottom-8 teams: 7-4 (played two teams twice)

Home and away season – record in games decided by two goals or less: 4-1-1

Teams played twice in 2012: Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, Carlton, Richmond, Collingwood (combined 2011 record of 55-53-2)

 

GO

The Bombers were great last year and exceeded all expectations making it through to the Finals. They had some telling injuries (I am not including Winderlich in this list as he is a muppet) at crucial times but they weren’t alone there.

Jobe Watson is a phenomenal player. His ability to win the ball in traffic is elite and his skills are solid. He needs more consistent support from Stanton and Hocking and plenty of outside run from Jetta and Zaharakis for the Bombers to be competitive every week.

They have an issue with their ruck division; Bellchamber, Hille and Ryder are all good players but none seem to be able to get it done up forward, which is a necessity in the modern game. Hurley is their great white hope but with a lack of quality defenders (13th in points conceded in 2011) he may have to split his time at either end of the ground.

The Bombers will struggle to maintain the rage this year and I think they find themselves lacking in some of the harder contests. 2012 outlook – 10 wins.

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No team was more difficult to assess for me than the Bombers, not least because of the never-ending battle between heart and head.

Their 2011 was a really season of two parts. The first eight rounds brought a 5-2-1 record, average points scored of 112.9 per game and average points conceded of just 80 per game. Including a finals thrashing at the hands of Carlton, the last 15 games les to a 6-9 record, average points scored of 93.4 per game and average points conceded of 115.1 per game. It goes without saying that if you concede 115 per game, you’ll lose a lot more matches than you win.

What went wrong in the second half of 2011 and will it happen again? Season-ending injuries to Winderlich and Dempsey struck at around that time, as did shorter term injuries to Hocking and Watson, the two best ‘inside’ midfielders at the club. Their timing may have been off as well – a big 2011 NAB Cup campaign may have seen the petrol tank reading empty too far out from the end.

At any rate, maybe this is my heart talking, but I believe in the Hird/ Thompson coaching duo, I believe in the depth of a list where 25 players have at least 36 senior matches to their name, and I believe that the first eight weeks of 2011 weren’t a fluke. 2012 outlook – 12 wins.

 

 

ST KILDA

2011 record:12-9-1 (sixth place on ladder, eliminated in first week of finals)

Home and away season – average points for/ against: 86.0 points for, 76.2 points against (112.8 per cent)

Home and away season – record against top-8 teams: 2-8 (played three teams twice)

Home and away season – record against bottom-8 teams: 10-1-1 (played three teams twice)

Home and away season – record in games decided by two goals or less: 1-2-1

Teams played twice in 2012: Gold Coast, Sydney, Western Bulldogs, Melbourne, Carlton (combined 2011 record of 46-61-3)

 

GO

Scott Watters will be desperate to get some games into his kids this year with 21 listed players having played less than 10 senior games, he needs to start playing for the future.

The Saints still have a great core group of players with Reiwoldt and Goddard as well as Fisher, Milne and Montagna. Hayes on the way back from and ACL will be interesting. Everyone loves Lenny and we are hoping he will get back, but at the age of 31, questions must be asked.

I never thought I’d say this, but Zac Dawson might actually be a loss for the Saints with their already thin defence being stretched a bit further. They have some quality kids coming through in Siposs (watch this kid kick a Sherrin…WOW-WEE), Cripps and Ledger, but the question must be asked whether the senior group has the collective desire given that their premiership window now seems to have closed. Goddard will go to the GWS at seasons’ end so even as half-chances go, this is their last for a while.

To many questions and not enough answers with the Saints this year and I think they’ll struggle to get it done. 2012 outlook – 8 wins (‘snake’ side in 2012).

 

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This might not be the best time for Scott Watters to be inheriting the squad. With 10 players over 160 senior games, 18 players over 80 senior games but only six players between 20 and 80 games, it’s difficult to see where any upswing can come from.

Lenny Hayes returning from a knee reconstruction will warm the hearts of Saints fans, but it’s hard to enthuse about the prospects for a man with over 240 senior games on the clock already coming off such an injury. Time and patience will be needed. The ruck division also looks a little thin unless Koschitzke can offer significant support to McEvoy in the role.

More importantly, windows of time to legitimately compete for a premiership don’t last forever. The modern-era Saints first arrived on the scene in 2004 when they won 16 games and reached the preliminary final. They’ve won more games than they’ve lost every year hence, only missing the finals once (in 2007, when an 11-10-1 record was only good enough for ninth place). Not even Geelong, the competition yardstick, can boast a current streak of eight winning seasons.  I think the streak ends at eight though. 2012 outlook – 11 wins.

 

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