With the 2022 season and trade period in the rear-view mirror, and teams back training in the coming weeks, we’re well on our way towards the 2023 campaign.
And if there’s anything we know, it’s that we don’t know everything.
When it gets to the pre-season you’ll see plenty of predicted ladders and they’ll all be wrong, because it’s always impossible to tip every riser and every slider correctly.
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So let’s play it a little bit safer and use some broad buckets – who’ll be in contention for the top six (and the flag), the middle six (and the bottom slots in the top eight) and the bottom six (and the spoon)?
Remember, there’s always more movement than we think. In the top eight era, at least two teams move in and out of the finals places each year, and it’s usually three.
Plus there’s almost always a 2022 Collingwood that leaps from outside the eight all the way into the top four – who could that be in 2023?
Foxfooty.com.au assesses all 18 clubs and predicts whether they’ll be in the top-eight race in 2023 or experience a dip in fortunes.
THE FLAG CONTENDERS
Let’s start with the obvious one: Geelong won’t be relinquishing its crown easily.
The oldest team in VFL-AFL history showed why experience matters so much, and while they’ll be without talismanic skipper Joel Selwood (retirement), they return both a deep, talented core of veteran stars and a promising bunch of young guns who proved the difference in 2022, such as Sam De Koning, Tyson Stengle and Brad Close.
Are the Cats 81 points better than every other team as the Grand Final result suggests? Of course not. That was one of those freak results that happens when everything comes together perfectly for one side, and falls apart on the other.
And there’s always that nebulous question of desire – after a (mini-)drought breaking flag, how badly will the Cats want it in 2023? Sure, Max Holmes missing the Grand Final due to conservative injury treatment is something, but it’s not quite as motivating as proving a decade of doubters wrong, you know?
But they’ve finished in the top four in six of the last seven seasons and ended 2022 on a 16-game winning streak; when the season resumes, the Cats will be 10 months unbeaten, and in Round 8 could break the all-time VFL-AFL record for consecutive victories.
That is to say, they were crazy good last year and there’s no reason to think they won’t at least be pretty good in 2023.
The only real reason to think Sydney will take a step back would be the Grand Final itself.
After all the Swans won nine straight games to make the decider earlier than many expected, given how much of their list is still young and developing – with perhaps the exception of the forward line, where Buddy Franklin is set for what should be one last year, and Sam Reid proved critical in his age-30 season.
They’re talented but also hurting after being belted off the MCG on the last Saturday in September – and this century no team has lost a Grand Final by 40 points or more and then even won one final the next year.
Five big Grand Final losers (Melbourne 2000, Collingwood 2003, Brisbane 2004, Port Adelaide 2007, Adelaide 2017) missed the finals altogether the next year; the ‘best’ performance was Sydney in 2015, who made the top-four but went out in straight sets the year after being belted by Hawthorn in the flag decider.
So it’s certainly a bad omen, but many of the big Grand Final losers weren’t expected to get there in the first place. The 2021 Western Bulldogs (lost by 74 points) had finished fifth in the home and away season; the 2019 Giants (lost by 89 points) had finished sixth.
The Swans were pretty clearly the second-best team in the comp by Grand Final day, and while they were made to look terrible, we’re still big believers in them for 2023.
Lions land home Prelim in finals triumph | 01:54
How quickly things turned once the calendar hit September for Brisbane, a trend that continued into October.
They finished a disappointing sixth on the ladder after a woeful last-round loss to Melbourne, looking for all the world like they’d blown yet another season with this uber-talented list. Yet two finals wins later, including brilliant revenge over the Demons, saw the Lions claw their way in to a preliminary final which was at least an acceptable mark.
But things only got better after arguably winning the trade period, adding Bulldogs best-and-fairest winner Josh Dunkley to bolster a midfield that slid backwards in 2022, while keeping enough draft points to ensure they’ll obtain the top prospect in the draft, father-son gun Will Ashcroft.
Both should slot into the Round 1 side and make an already great group even better; as long as Fagan can fix the team’s leaky defence – and if he’s clear to coach amid the ongoing Hawthorn racism probe – the Lions should be finishing in the top four for the fourth time in five years.
The aforementioned Melbourne is a tricky case to crack.
On paper they still had an excellent year, finishing second with the second-best percentage (130.5%), winning 16 games including that incredible 10-0 start to the season.
But after that burst out of the blocks, they went 6-8. It’s worth noting all eight of those losses came against eventual finalists, and thumping away wins over Fremantle and Brisbane in the home and away season’s final month showed them at their best. But still – from Round 11 onwards, the Demons lost more games than they won.
Replacing Luke Jackson with Brodie Grundy is arguably the most intriguing move of the whole off-season. Will the ex-Magpie make a great midfield even greater, allowing Max Gawn to swing back and forward as required? Or will having two ruckmen who need to ruck just mean they’re down a key forward option and trouble them structurally?
As always happens with premiership teams, they’ve been picked apart at the fringes by rivals, but while their depth has taken some hits their best-22 talent is still among the AFL’s best. And you would back Simon Goodwin to use the summer to figure out what went wrong in the back half of 2022 – given it’s so hard to make changes during the weekly hustle-and-bustle of the season.
But they were not a top-four level team after Round 11 and so a fifth-sixth place finish in 2023 would not be a shock.
Demons beat Crows to book Prelim spot | 02:09
Now for the climbers, starting with Richmond, who very clearly believe they’ve still got enough talent from their premiership era – and a couple of drafts – that it’s worth sacrificing a bit of their future for the present.
Damien Hardwick’s men didn’t lose a game by more than a goal after Round 6, and in fact only lost four home and away games from that point onwards – to Grand Finalists Sydney and Geelong, and bizarrely to Gold Coast and North Melbourne.
The latter two losses, combined with the draw against Fremantle, all saw the Tigers waste late chances to win; that forced them into an elimination final against Brisbane, which they lost in agonising fashion.
From an analytical perspective, close losses are coin flips, and so you could argue the Tigers simply had a lot of bad luck. They have tried to arrest that bad luck by fixing the one hole in their side, which they were able to work around for three flags but not in the last two seasons – the midfield.
The long-term contracts handed out to Jacob Hopper and Tim Taranto are risks in the same way any long-term contract is a risk, but they are both potential A-grade midfielders in the right age bracket. They allow Hardwick to no longer rely on the ailing bodies of Dion Prestia, Trent Cotchin and Dustin Martin; the trio of Hopper, Taranto and Shai Bolton can now be the equivalent.
Most will be tipping a Richmond surge back into the top four in 2023 and we see no reason to be the exceptions.
THE DARK HORSES FOR TOP FOUR
The aforementioned five are the betting market favourites for the flag, but as we know there’s always a bolter from the blue.
Collingwood would not quite fit that description but where you rate them really depends on who you ask – and which games you value most.
By the end of their thrilling preliminary final against Sydney, a game they certainly could’ve – and arguably should’ve – won, they looked like the third best team in the league. They dominated Fremantle, were by far the closest to beating Geelong in September, and you couldn’t swing a Magpie in Melbourne post-Grand Final without hearing someone of a black and white persuasion claiming the game would’ve been more entertaining (and closer) if their boys had been there instead.
So nobody, not even the most strident ‘close games are luck’ stats fans, is arguing the Magpies weren’t very good by the end of the season.
…but there’s still the ‘close games are luck’ thing. And while plenty of Collingwood fans complained every time we wrote about it – heck, the players all waved it off as well – the facts remain. The Magpies’ home and away record of 11-1 in games decided by less than two goals is, by far, the greatest outlier in VFL-AFL history when it comes to this statistic.
We saw it in the finals series itself, where in the most important games of the season, the Magpies lost by a combined seven points. Suddenly the fact they were training close game scenarios, a defence cited all season – a defence always cited by supporters of teams that do very well in this stat: see Port Adelaide after 2021 – was not the difference.
In the 2022 home and away season, the Magpies were lucky, and because of this we expect them to win fewer games in the 2023 home and away season. If they’d won one fewer game this past season, they’d have finished sixth not fourth on the ladder; that’s the sort of minor slide we’re talking about here.
But if Collingwood teaches us anything it’s that a pure win-loss total does not define a team anyway; there’s a legitimate chance the 2023 team will be better yet win fewer games, perhaps because of a harder fixture or just a bit less luck.
Roos, Bombers and Suns hold early picks | 04:33
At the other end of the 2022 luck spectrum is Port Adelaide – who were in effect Collingwood before Collingwood were Collingwood (and we don’t mean the prison bar thing).
The Power were 7-1 across the 2020 and 2021 seasons in games decided by two goals or less – the only loss coming when it mattered, by a goal to Richmond in the 2020 prelim, which in itself is very reminiscent of the Magpies’ 2022 run of fortune.
Heading into 2022 some commentators talked about Port Adelaide’s veteran nous and ability to win the close ones because they trained those scenarios. Sound familiar?
Then the Power started 0-5, including losses by 11, 4 and 3 points, and they eventually finished an AFL-worst 2-7 in games decided by two goals or less. They were a prime example of regression to the mean – the expectation that a team which does ridiculously well in close games will come back to earth.
An assumption Port Adelaide will do better in close games in 2023 is one of the reasons they’re being tipped to rebound; the other is their busy trade period.
Jason Horne-Francis and Junior Rioli’s inclusions are considerable and will only bolster Ken Hinkley’s hopes the side will bounce back in what will be a defining year given his contract situation.
Fremantle could also make a case for being in the premiership contenders, but the side’s inability to consistently score is a huge flaw that simply needs to be addressed before they can be a genuine flag threat.
Luke Jackson is a big inclusion, but he’s not a pure forward and they’ve lost tall and more developed timber in Rory Lobb while bringing Jackson in. It’s a side with several weapons and one that could be taken to the next level by a fit and firing Nat Fyfe, but that is simply too much of a question mark to back them in as genuine flag contenders just yet.
A team often tends to jump from outside the top eight into the top four the following year and if one side was to do it in 2023, you get the feeling it will be Carlton.
It’s hard for the Blues to get any closer to the finals than they did this year – missing out by just 0.6 per cent to the Bulldogs, and you get the feeling they could’ve beaten a less-than-impressive Fremantle side in that elimination final. The burn of missing out may well help give them an extra nudge heading into next season.
They’ve also got a list that should only get better next season, while the addition of Blake Acres helps address a need on the wing. Any team that has both the Brownlow Medal winner and the Coleman Medal winner in its squad has to be considered.
Don’t think we’ve forgotten the Western Bulldogs, who with the addition of Liam Jones and Rory Lobb should be an even more imposing force to deal with when up and running.
Losing Josh Dunkley will no doubt hurt, but their midfield continues to bat deep and the pieces are in place for the side to fare far better than this year, when the Dogs only just snuck into eighth spot.
Despite the disappointing year, the fact remains they made a grand final in 2021 and should be right in the mix come 2023 – there’s just too much talent for them to fall off completely.
But having said that the fact remains Luke Beveridge has never led his team to a top-four finish and, if they keep underachieving in the home and away season, at some point you have to ask whether he is the problem.
Ex-Bombers CEO to sue the club | 00:40
FIGHTING FOR THE LAST SPOTS IN THE EIGHT
The stage is set for the Gold Coast Suns to finally seal a debut finals berth, with Stuart Dew’s side in great touch and set to get back Ben King from an ACL injury.
It has been a long and at times painful journey for the Suns so far but they finally look to be on the right track and could reap the rewards of their list build next season with a finals appearance, even if they don’t go deep.
Tougher clubs to read are the likes of St Kilda and Essendon – clubs both coming off disappointing seasons but with a new senior coach and the promise of more stability moving forward.
Promises are rarely worth much in the AFL world, so both sides could well fail to deliver, but in any case – particularly in Essendon’s given its list – an improvement should be expected in 2023.
Both have played finals in recent seasons and the cores of those groups remain. Clearly both clubs have high expectations, based on the shocking ways they axed their coaches. The risk is they’re projecting too much from groups that aren’t talented enough to live up to the internal expectations.
We’ll throw in Adelaide as our final potential finalist because it’s about time to ask when the breakthrough is going to come under Matthew Nicks.
Adelaide will host AFL ‘magic round’ | 00:37
They’ve been extremely gradual improvers, from three wins in 2020 to seven in 2021 and then eight in 2022, but it took a late run of three consecutive wins (against Carlton, West Coast and North Melbourne) to ensure a higher total this past season.
They keep making impressive trade period moves, first adding Jordan Dawson relatively cheaply and now Izak Rankine effectively in a straight swap for Pick 5, which is a heck of a deal after his breakout 2022 campaign. They are the type of potential A-graders this group needs because the Crows have had quite a few big misses at the draft, which has set this rebuild back.
But in more recent seasons they’ve found a few gems – Jake Soligo and Josh Rachele come to mind – and while Nicks isn’t in a finals-or-bust scenario, it’d be a disappointment if the Crows didn’t at least remain in the September mix deep into the season.
THE REST
There’s at least a few clubs that shouldn’t be expecting anything incredible in 2023.
That list is headlined by North Melbourne, which now has Alastair Clarkson at the helm but realistically is still some time away from contending for a finals spot.
It’s a comprehensive rebuild that has been taking place and still has at least a couple of years to go before any huge rises up the ladder come. The key for them, like it is with a lot of sides in this bracket, is to avoid anything catastrophically bad.
Quite clearly losing the 2021 No.1 pick in Jason Horne-Francis, even if it means getting high picks in the 2022 and 2023 drafts, sets their timeline back somewhat.
Clarkson arrives for first day at Nth | 03:20
Conversely, the likes of West Coast and Greater Western Sydney are sides that fell off a cliff in 2022 and should do somewhat better in 2023, even if finals are a bridge too far.
For the Eagles, they’ll be navigating life after Josh Kennedy and trying to get the best out of their established stars following a year of injury woes, while the Giants have lost several of their best 22 to trades and will want to fast track the development of the younger group throughout 2023.
The Adam Simpson question is an intriguing one – he keeps saying he’s committed to the club, but it sure seems like he’d need to stick around for another half-decade if he wants to be the man that leads this group to another Grand Final. And that’d be a very long time.
In GWS’ case, Adam Kingsley will be given plenty of leeway after the club tried to reset its bloated salary cap by letting Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper go. The bigger problem for the Giants is arguably off-field where they risk becoming even more irrelevant in the tricky Sydney market.
We’ll conclude with Hawthorn, who are smack-bang in the midst of their rebuild. Sweeping cuts made this off-season open the door for another decline in 2023, but could make for a faster charge up the ladder once things finally click.
It’s a tight rope to walk. We would argue letting Jack Gunston, Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara go is a good thing, because they weren’t going to be part of the next great Hawks side and this is a club that under Alastair Clarkson avoided the draft like the plague.
The problem is they’ve done it quite a bit later than they arguably should’ve. Cheap hits in the draft like Mitch Lewis and Jai Newcombe are worth praising, but you can’t rely on getting potential stars with pick 76 and a mid-season selection – at some point you need to add bulk, early picks, where the best players are more often found.
Sam Mitchell is going to be given plenty of time to figure things out, because they dumped the team’s greatest modern coach for him and he’s a great of the club himself. He’s going to need it.
