Six Things We Learned from the 2024 Community Series
Let's wildly extrapolate on the basis of individual games!
Now that the Wizard Cup and AFLX have been (sadly) consigned to the dustbin of history, footy fans don’t really get much in the way of a pre-season beyond updates from the track. But we still get something. Across the last five nights, all 18 clubs have taken part in the AAMI Community Series, semi-serious practice games mostly played at suburban venues. Some coaches used the games as one final rehearsal of a well-grooved game plan before the real stuff starts. For others, they were the unofficial debut of something completely different. But each game yielded something new: new players, new plans, new methods in and out of possession. Here, then are the six things which jumped out at me from watching the final round of pre-season games.
(A caveat, before we get into the list: these are, of course, just single games – and practice games, at that. I’m not suggesting they necessarily have any kind of predictive power. But they probably mean something.)
Better inside 50 entries
Few things drive fans further up the wall than when their teams bomb it mindlessly inside attacking 50. Whether it’s a shallow entry from the back of the centre square, or pumping it to the goal line for a defender to rush it through for a behind, it’s immensely frustrating. And it’s not just a waste of a scoring opportunity – these days, it’s basically an invitation for the opposition to cycle through their intricately crafted rebound chains. So it would have been a relief for fans of clubs like Melbourne (in particular), Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs to see their players take more care when moving the ball. In most cases, that started from defensive positions. Better player spacing and more run and carry resulted in more options upfield, and more precision kicks delivered on the run to forwards who didn’t have to face massed defensive zones. Caleb Windsor and Ryley Sanders (for the Dees and Dogs respectively) stood out for their eagerness to carry the ball and deliver it deliberately.
The Pies are kicking – and marking – it more
Last season, the most kicks Collingwood recorded in any of their 26 games was 231 in their 78-point demolition of the Gold Coast Suns in Round 16. Against the Tigers on Tuesday, the Pies kicked it 259 times. Those 259 kicks resulted in 130 marks, significantly above their 2023 season average of 90. What’s more, the Pies handballed it just 119 times against the Tigers, less than every game in 2023 except the Qualifying Final. Perhaps Craig McRae was just trying something. Or perhaps he’s tweaking the game plan in anticipation of opposition coaches trying to counter the Pies’ devastating handball chains. Ah, the nip and tuck of elite sport.
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The Suns shun the contest
In 2023, Gold Coast were ranked #1 in the AFL for contested possession share, with an average of 41.9%. They even had two games where they recorded more contested than uncontested possessions – a black swan in the modern AFL. But on Thursday night against Greater Western Sydney, the Suns recorded a contested possession share of just 34.2%. That was lower than all but one of their games and, extrapolated over a whole season, would have seen them rank #18 in the league. Richmond’s contested possession share under Damien Hardwick veered all over the place – from first in 2017 to #15 just two years later. The Suns are clearly a work in progress. But don’t be surprised to see them try to play more of an outside game in 2024.
Essendon’s pressure
When he was first appointed, Brad Scott talked about his desire to improve the team’s shoddy defensive pressure. Early progress ebbed away until the Bombers’ defensive standards completely collapsed. They laid just 12 tackles inside 50 in their final two games combined. The Bombers didn’t win at the Cattery on Friday evening, but Brad Scott would have been very happy with one statistic in particular: 17 tackles inside 50. Only once did the Bombers beat that mark last season (in Round 13, against an abject Carlton). And across the entire season, they averaged 10.3, 14th in the AFL. It’s just one game. But the Bombers put the Cats under pressure.
The Big Four
Footy fans do ladder predictors. Smart (aka risk-averse) footy fans put teams in tiers. On the evidence of most of last season, and the final pre-season hitouts, it’s increasingly clear which four teams belong to the top tier. Collingwood, Brisbane, GWS and Melbourne all recorded comfortable victories which either showed (in the case of the first three) that Plan A is still bloody effective, or (in the Dees’ case) that they’ve been working hard on Plan B over the summer. To the fans of other clubs: of course [your team here] can win the flag this year. But a few more things will need to go right for it to happen.
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New midfield rotations
What do Izak Rankine, Elliot Yeo, Christian Salem, Ollie Wines, Hayden Young*, Sam Durham, Jhye Clark, Cam Rayner and Ollie Hollands all have in common? All of them attended more centre bounces in their team’s final pre-season game than in any Home & Away game of 2023. For some players, like Yeo and Wines, it was about getting back to fitness after a disrupted year. For others, like Rayner and Hollands, it might have just been their coaches trying something in a game where the score didn’t matter. But in several cases, it looked like a window into the future. Rankine, Clark and Salem in particular look like moves that reflect their coaches’ desires to inject some more speed and creativity into midfield rotations that at times looked predictable. (*Hayden Young attended marginally more centre bounces in two games last year, but I still included him because it suggested that Longmuir has made his move to the midfield permanent.)
Agree? Disagree? Have something to add based on what you saw in pre-season? Have your say in the comments below.