While sitting at a Grand
Final, back when I was much younger, I made a bet with my uncle that the
hapless Brisbane Bears would not make the finals for their first 30 years. My
uncle wisely took the other side of the bet. I was thinking back to Hawthorn
and North Melbourne, and how they each took 25-30 years to make the finals
after they entered the league.
That Grand Final was the 1994
Grand Final, and the Brisbane Bears made the finals next year. (Although just barely …)
Luckily, my uncle never made me pay up.
The Gold Coast Suns are in
their sixth season, and Greater Western Sydney are in their fifth. On early
season form both look like some chance to make their first finals series. In
reality, long droughts such as Hawthorn’s and North Melbourne’s are the
exception rather than the rule. Footscray took 14 seasons. Richmond took 12
seasons, if you ignore the four-team competition in 1916. Fremantle took nine
seasons. Port Adelaide only took five seasons to make the finals. Adelaide took
three seasons, and West Coast took two. (And none of those latter teams
finished seventh or eighth when they first got in; that is, it wasn’t really
the expanded number of finals places that got them across the line.)
Gold Coast and Greater Western
Sydney will probably make the finals soon, if not this year, then within the
next few. It is, no matter how bad your team is, difficult to reach Hawthorn’s
initial level of ineptitude. (Remember when Hawthorn were inept? Of course you
don’t.)
For the first time since Round
3 last season we have a change in the number one ranking this week. West Coast
take the top spot after their big win against Richmond, while Hawthorn barely
beat St. Kilda. With Adelaide and Sydney not far behind, the rankings suggest
we could be in for a close premiership race this season. At the least, between these four
clubs, we could be in for some good matches next week.
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