Who is the darkhorse for the spoon in 2016?

Chubberson

Cancelled
BeanCoiNFT Investor
Apr 12, 2011
1,721
1,893
radelaide
AFL Club
Hawthorn
I know the chances are remote but the Carlton list looks pretty young now, you just never know with the right mix of people the kids could flourish quickly, confidence, things..... Doubt it with a new game plan and all but it would be good to see them just cut loose. Matty Wright is a decent pick up for the Blues, will get much more mid time there you would think. Bring on footy season already.
 

CHIMP MAGNET

Premiership Player
May 23, 2011
3,395
9,321
man, woman, chimp
AFL Club
Richmond
Other Teams
Eliminationfinalmond
the darkhorse?
3c7ab10be7f7716b995671372acc2c84.jpg

it's collingwood
 
carlton are favourites but i think essendon would be considered the dark horse...
How many of the 34 are still listed at Essendon? 12?

Agreed, if they lose them for a long period of time they'll give the spoon a shake.
 
Sep 14, 2012
14,716
15,185
Broadbeach
AFL Club
Brisbane Lions
Have to agree with most posters here. I think the Pies are the darkhorse for the spoon. Under Buckley they have gone backwards each year and with recent drafting they have managed to land a few spuds which will take them back a few years in the rebuild.

Cloke, Swan, Brown etc are all finished and are shadows of former selves. Pendles might be on the slide as well with a poor season this year by his standards. They sold the farm to nab Aish who is a spud, brought in another spud in Howe to partner up with the spud White up foward. Crisp is probably their best player and he was steak knives in a trade FFS... really shows the lack of talent across the Pies roster when steak knives comes third in their BnF.
 
Have to agree with most posters here. I think the Pies are the darkhorse for the spoon. Under Buckley they have gone backwards each year and with recent drafting they have managed to land a few spuds which will take them back a few years in the rebuild.

Cloke, Swan, Brown etc are all finished and are shadows of former selves. Pendles might be on the slide as well with a poor season this year by his standards. They sold the farm to nab Aish who is a spud, brought in another spud in Howe to partner up with the spud White up foward. Crisp is probably their best player and he was steak knives in a trade FFS... really shows the lack of talent across the Pies roster when steak knives comes third in their BnF.
I haven't read the earlier pages of this thread, but if the majority of posters think that Collingwood will win the spoon bigfooty has hit new lows.
 
Sep 14, 2012
14,716
15,185
Broadbeach
AFL Club
Brisbane Lions
Collingwood. Their list has been so over-hyped by their supporters (one in particular who does phantom drafts) and according to their fans every single one of their younger players is guaranteed to be a superstar, or apparently already is. The reality is that they're unproven, have only showed glimpses of potential and are still a long way off becoming half what their deluded supporters expect them to be.

They're the self-proclaimed trade week champions, but while they spent the whole trade period luring AT's girlfriend to Channel Nine studios, they forgot to address their glaring forward deficiencies. If they think adding Jeremy "Highlight Reel" Howe is going to solve their problems up front then they're in for a rude surprise come 2016.

Additionally, their coach has proven to be incompetent and tactically inept. He is steering them towards the bottom of the ladder at an alarming rate and their fans are happy to dismiss this descending as a 'rebuild', whereas most neutral supporters are aware of the bleeding obvious - Bucks is not a coach's a-hole.

The AFL abandoning the sub rule will also force their younger kids to run out games and they'll be exposed regularly by the big boys with massive endurance and they will have a lot of poor second halves, especially in the latter stages of the season. As they stumbled (or tanked as their supporters claim) towards the tail end of last season, we saw the real Collingwood.

To summarise the Pies in 2016:
- A young side with four promising kids (De Goey, Treloar, Adams, Grundy)
- One elite player (the lowest in the competition) in Scott Pendlebury
- A horrible forward line with a past it Travis Cloke and Dane Swan, as well as a young and unproven Darcy Moore
- A defence that will look serviceable at times, but will cop some large goal onslaughts throughout the season (similar to the Richmond game)
- Some disgruntled under-performing players (Sidebottom, Cloke and Reid) that want out due to the club overpaying unproven kids and poor list management
- Standard C-grade players that may emerge to become B-graders (Aish, Crisp, Langdon, Maynard)
- And the duds: Howe, Brown, Fasolo, Toovey, Broomhead, etc.

Prediction: 14th to 18th
Excellent post. Collingwood to continue to slide and rot under Nathan "I left Brisbane for premierships" Buckley.
 

CollarJazzKnee

All Australian
Mar 17, 2015
851
1,057
AFL Club
Geelong
Other Teams
Green Bay Packers
Cats are an outside chance of this get a couple of injuries.

Had heaps of injuries the last two years (plus phasing out of old blokes). Finished equal top with wins in 2014 and a game outside 8 last year.
Plus we don't bottom out and get draft picks like you guys did in 2004-5 ;)
 
Essendon won't finish last (subject to...), they might not have a top range list after being forced to move on so many but they still have a lot of mature players. Lower interchange will likely see a heap of younger/developing teams struggle to see out the year.

St Kilda
Western Bulldogs
Carlton
Melbourne

The above teams aren't really dark horses IMO, which leaves:

Collingwood - who knows
Essendon - see my first comment
Brisbane - wouldn't really shock anyone
Gold Coast - expansion side wiggle room
GWS - expansion side wiggle room

So basically Collingwood is the only "dark horse".
 

Walter H White

All Australian
Nov 22, 2014
968
1,446
AFL Club
Geelong
Other Teams
Liverpool
Don't forget just how bad Essendon were for much of last year, especially after the early rounds where they started okay. Some of those losses were huge and although I think Carlton will probably take it, this Essendon team could fall fast
 

Walter H White

All Australian
Nov 22, 2014
968
1,446
AFL Club
Geelong
Other Teams
Liverpool
I haven't read the earlier pages of this thread, but if the majority of posters think that Collingwood will win the spoon bigfooty has hit new lows.

Saying that most posters think the pies are the 'darkhorse' for the spoon, not who they think will actually win the spoon - Carlton.
 
Aug 28, 2015
10,857
28,852
AFL Club
Richmond
Other Teams
Chelsea FC
I haven't read the earlier pages of this thread, but if the majority of posters think that Collingwood will win the spoon bigfooty has hit new lows.
Well you should read the thread then because you're mistaken. The majority of supporters think that Collingwood are the dark horse for the spoon, not the favourites. Big difference. A lot of great arguments have been put forward as to why and I recommend reading them because it's not as farfetched as you may first think.
 

beerbandit

Club Legend
Mar 7, 2006
2,284
2,515
AFL Club
Collingwood
If we're talking Dark Horse, as the OP suggests, than Collingwood, Treloar and Aish certainly will hope. But the club has a number of other glaring deficiencies that they didn't address in the draft.


Otherwise its out of Brisbane, Carlton and Gold Coast for the spoon.
A little hard to address deficiencies with only 3 picks , Carlton had 15 picks and 12 in the first round and still couldn't address there deficiencies.
 
Zero chance.
If they lose 12 of their starting 18 for most of the year due to suspension, they're not going to even win a game. They'll be forced to top up with non-drafted, VFL players who haven't had a pre-season together to gel and train, hobbled together at the last moment. As much Carlton sucks and people seem to personally wish them more misery (and please, most people here have this at the back of their mind), there's no way they are going to suck as much based on the above conditions.
 

SterlingArcher

Brownlow Medallist
May 16, 2014
12,163
15,983
AFL Club
Carlton
I haven't read the earlier pages of this thread, but if the majority of posters think that Collingwood will win the spoon bigfooty has hit new lows.

Err, they don't. The thread isn't "who is likely to win the spoon" (because that's 99% Carlton), it's "who is the darkhorse to win the spoon". So, you know, tip an unlikely side that could fall. Hard concept I know.
 
Back