At the close of Round 7, the bottom three clubs on the AFL ladder have combined for seven of the last 10 premierships.
It may read to some as stunning falls from grace, but for others it’s proof the AFL’s quest for equalisation is – barring the reigning premiers at least – bearing fruit.
Richmond, Hawthorn and West Coast occupy 16th, 17th and 18th spot on the ladder respectively, with the Tigers perhaps the most surprising.
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Many had Damien Hardwick’s side pegged as contenders for at least the finals and potentially even the top four, but one win from the opening seven games has flipped the script dramatically.
The Tigers made big trade moves last year, bringing in Giants midfielders Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper on seven-year contracts at the expense of draft capital.
It was a bid to bolster their midfield brigade and perhaps bridge the gap between a seventh-placed finish in 2022 and a higher one in 2023.
Instead, questions will now begin to circle over whether the Tigers have over-estimated their hand and their ability to defy the equalisation cycle, much like Hawthorn several years earlier.
Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara arrived at the Hawks at the end of 2016, just one year after the side completed a premiership three-peat, signalling a desire to charge back to the promised land in rapid time and make 2015’s straight-sets finals loss a distant memory.
Instead, the side fell down the ladder, missing the finals in all but one year (2018) during Mitchell and O’Meara’s tenure, which ended at the end of 2022.
Their departures were part of a 2022 off-season that saw Hawthorn lose or part ways with more than 1000 AFL games worth of experience, as new coach Sam Mitchell did what his predecessor had not in his final years: Take several steps back to take several steps forward.
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Implicit in those moves was an acknowledgment Hawthorn’s rebuild-on-the-run attempt was unsuccessful.
While Richmond is still some way off any sort of similar call just seven games into the 2023 season, the Hawks are a warning sign of the danger inherent in trying to defy the odds.
So too is West Coast.
The Eagles failed to defend their 2018 premiership title, bowing out in a semi-final to Geelong, but brought in Cats midfielder Tim Kelly for what was essentially two first-round picks and pick No.24.
Kelly was brought across on a six-year deal worth upwards of $800,000 a season, with the hope he would bolster the side’s midfield brigade and bridge the gap between a fifth-placed finish in 2019 and a higher one in 2020.
Sound familiar?
Fast forward nearly four years from that deal and the Eagles are in No Man’s Land, blooding a number of youngsters but still led (in theory at least) by a heavy contingent of veterans, many of whom have been unable to string consistent football together due to injury.
Virtually the only side that’s been able to buck the equalisation trend is reigning premiers Geelong, with the Cats’ bold moves at the trade table (headlined by the acquisition of Jeremy Cameron) paying off with a flag in 2022.
Even then, while the Cats did finally break through for a premiership, the club’s sustained success in regular seasons was still not truly franked until last year’s flag, emphasising just how high-risk, high-reward the strategy can be.
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The positive for Richmond is that, while things seem dire at Round 7, it’s far too early to write off the side given the extent of their injuries and the fact they have shown signs of their potential in matches this year, something Damien Hardwick alluded to in his most recent post-match press conference.
Richmond may very well still be a ‘good’ side going through a bad rut, but the risks in this particular list strategy are so far being laid bare.
Geelong may well be the only exception to the rule in terms of sustained success, while expansion side Gold Coast presents a fascinating study given it has remained middle-to-bottom of the AFL ladder since it joined the competition.
Ironically, of the bottom-three clubs on the ladder, it is the senior coach without a premiership who is most likely to remain in his current role at his current club for longer, that being Sam Mitchell.
While judgments made after seven rounds are always fraught with danger, the struggles of the bottom three sides on the ladder this year indicate that, so far at least, the Cats are the exception, rather than the rule of rebuilds on the run.
