2015 Wooden Spoon Predictions

[Slax]

I would say yes because the AFL has already issued its penalty

No, the AFL has only issued a penalty over the governance breaches, which were pretty hard for even Essendon to try and argue against seeing that they admitted to failing to keep any records of the injection program (legal or illegal). This therefore leaves the door open for the AFL to inflict a penalty for doping breaches.

Assuming Essendon drag it out until the end of the season through various appeals, can't see how anyone else can finish below St Kilda, as much as I try and look elsewhere I just can't find anything to like about St Kilda's team to make believe that they can win a handful of games so they finish 17th.

Their closest competition, Carlton.

 

[Martyn_30_]

I think the bulldogs will win the spoon, I can't see how the team can replace the elite kicking and gut running of Higgins and the consistency and two way running of Cooney.

 

[QuietB]

Why are Carlton suddenly spoon contenders when they were very close to beating some pretty good teams, and with a bit of luck, would have had 4-5 more wins last year?

Where is St. Kilda's sudden improvement going to come from? Carlton is going to have to play significantly worse to even have a chance of getting it. They had some injury concerns last year too, so far touch wood the list isn't too affected by injury. A full pre-season for most of the players, uninterrupted, is going to help a lot. Especially with Kruezer back in the side.

If Carlton win the spoon this year, I'll eat Andrew Walker's hat.

Carlton have lost another 3 senior players in Robinson, Garlett and Waite. None of those guys are world beaters, but they are solid senior players. And they will be replaced by Liam Jones and kids. This follows losing more senior players the year before. Carlton may be rebuilding, but I don't think they have hit the bottom yet.

Saints on the other hand have got games into their kids. I think they have hit bottom. So the only question is will the saints improve this year? And will they improve enough to go past Carlton who are still falling IMO?

 

[Chilli Con Incarnate]

Bulldogs, St. Kilda, and the Melbourne for a three way race.

I really doubt any of Collingwood, Carlton, or Essendon (bans pending) would be that bad. They all have reasonable systems in place and various levels of young talent which is supported by decent veterans.

I really don't know how to read GWS. They could improve, but they could produce exactly the same again. I haven't seen any startling evidence to suggest they are going to take the world apart just yet.

 

[TN25]

Carlton

 

[PartTimeZombie]

I think it'll be Melbourne.
They avoided the spoon last year by percentage only and kicked the fewest points in an 18 team AFL season ever. I don't see who will kick goals for them this year, and if you can't score, you don't win games.
Chris Dawes was their best goal kicker with 20.

 

[Jimmy Yamazaki]

While not the biggest of possibilities, there is a chance that Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon all finish bottom 4 next year.

Unfortunately, think Bullies, Saints and Melbourne will occupy the bottom 3 spots instead.

 

[Jimmy Yamazaki]

Carlton have lost another 3 senior players in Robinson, Garlett and Waite. None of those guys are world beaters, but they are solid senior players. And they will be replaced by Liam Jones and kids. This follows losing more senior players the year before. Carlton may be rebuilding, but I don't think they have hit the bottom yet.

Saints on the other hand have got games into their kids. I think they have hit bottom. So the only question is will the saints improve this year? And will they improve enough to go past Carlton who are still falling IMO?

Don't forget McLean

 

[Stevi_Tigers]

Essendon,Carlton or the saints

 

[bresker]

I think the Bulldogs may win the spoon, though I can't see why anyone thinks that Melbourne and St Kilda are ahead of us in development/rebuild. There must have been some off-season changes I'm unaware off.

Also, Bontempelli isn't just training the house down, he's flattening entire suburbs.

 

[TedDougChris]

I think the bulldogs will win the spoon, I can't see how the team can replace the elite kicking and gut running of Higgins and the consistency and two way running of Cooney.

Entirely too subtle....

 

[Happy Mastenator]

Sure. To be fair those three teams were just three of what I considered more 'vulnerable' than the rest, but my point stands, just like an unexpected rise from the bottom unexpected falls can happen.

Happened to Melbourne in 2007 (who, at the end of 2006 were touted to be the only Victorian team capable of ending the interstate dominance of the 2000's) West Coast, and Port in 2008 (granted the Eagles had lost their two best players the year before but a fall from grace of 3-15 was not really forseen) and Brisbane in 2010.

It just happens, people don't expect it and it never really makes sense until hindsight.

Don't see the Eagles as that team. We could well end up crap this year, but to get the Spoon, i don't think so. One of our problems as a team is that we don't have many A graders (especially through the midfield), which may limit our ceiling, but also makes us fairly resilient to injuries as we don't rely on a couple of players to carry us.

 

[Rod Stroker]

Well, if you take a look at the Wikipedia page, you'd see that Port's never won a spoon either. You can draw your own conclusions out of the fact that neither of the South Australian teams have finished last...

Interesting. I thought Port won a spoon during the Primus era, obviously not.

 

[Andre]

Interesting. I thought Port won a spoon during the Primus era, obviously not.

Nope. It took ALL of having a shit coach, no fans turning up to a stadium they hated to support the team AND the SANFL gutting money left and right with the worst stadium in the deal in country (pushing our footy department spending to abysmal levels) to get 16th with 17 teams. Outside of extraordinary circumstances like that it should be borderline impossible for a non-Victorian side to finish bottom these days (GWS/GC during start up excluded) given the advantage a decent home ground has.

 

[Bluelegs]

Way overdue then.

Is Adelaide the only team never to have won a spoon?

I don't think Essendon have either.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

I don't think Essendon have either.

Adelaide and Port Adelaide are the only remaining two left.

 

[Scholz Supremacy]

Interesting. I thought Port won a spoon during the Primus era, obviously not.

Narrowly edged out Gold Coast on percentage in their first ever season in the AFL in 2011.

 

[Bluelegs]

Adelaide and Port Adelaide are the only remaining two left.

You are correct, Essendon got a few in the early 20th century.

 

[Adam H]

I think the bulldogs will win the spoon, I can't see how the team can replace the elite kicking and gut running of Higgins and the consistency and two way running of Cooney.

Can be smart but the turmoil of losing your captain and best player along with your coach will hurt.

 

[TBOW]

Can be smart but the turmoil of losing your captain and best player along with your coach will hurt.

By all accounts it has been more cathartic than tumultuous, but losing a player like Griffen & to a smaller extent Cooney & Higgins will no doubt hurt onfield. Can't replace experience.

 

[aussierulesrules]

Bulldogs are the darkhorse for the spoon IMO.
They went backwards last year, lost Griffen, etc.
They might have to take two steps backwards to move forward.

Exactly. It's probably going to come down to injuries for them, given how much AFL hardened and experienced talent they have lost, not to mention how much speed and skill, areas they were not exactly flush with to begin with (they look to have addressed these areas to a fair degree in the latest draft, but they aren't necessarily the types who will make a significant difference in their first year).

They will probably go OK (similar to last year- around 7 wins) if they get almost no injuries of note, but if they get any significant ones they could be a lot of trouble, given how inexperienced their depth is, just like what happened to us last year. Last year we won 3 of our first 5 games (and were super-competitive in Perth against top-of-the-ladder West Coast in R3 and then had opportunity after opportunity late in the game to win in round 6 as well (lost by 2 points), but then injuries started to hit really hard and our season fell off a cliff, largely because of how young and/or inexperienced our depth was.

Losing the likes of Griffen and Cooney will also guarantee that the tags will be heading straight to the likes of Macrae, possibly every single game, which I expect will make it harder for them to do as well as they have been the last year or so.

Where is St. Kilda's sudden improvement going to come from?

Not saying it's going to happen, but as per my post above, if we are to improve this year I expect it will largely be on the back of a much better year as far as injuries go. They poleaxed us last season, so if we have a better run with them this year (and in particular have most of our pretty good backline out on the park most of the time, as opposed to the last couple of years) it could make a big difference, as will another (or first) preseason into the 30 we have on our list who are under 24yo, especially the 23 now going into their 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th seasons. If some of them really start to blossom, then that could make a real difference to our performances. A full preseason into the likes of Billings and Acres for instance could do wonders.

We'll also have had a 2nd preseason to really work on the way Richardson wants us to play, which I hear is starting to really sink in for the younger ones in particular now and show in the way we are training.

Yeah think we could be in for a rough year but St.Kilda will be hard to beat.

They are that year or two behind us in the rebuild, & I don't think Nick will produce what he did last year as regularly.

We were probably two years behind you on the climb back up the ladder, but you guys losing so much in the offseason (Griffen, Cooney, Higgins and Gia all played at least 17 games and to a much lesser degree Jones and Tutt) has probably set you back a year on your climb back up the ladder, unless Tom Boyd turns around his form/performances of last year pretty dramatically and you have almost no injuries.

 

[jim boy]

Any team that has a bad run of luck can do it.

I'll throw Gold Coast in the mix, thought they stagnated a little last year and went completely to pieces once Gazza was gone. I know he is back on track, but if some complication was to occur and he went out again for an extended period plus the new coach doesn't get it right, it could be a dark season for the Suns.

 

[aussierulesrules]

All that said, we are still the most likely to get the spoon though, IMO. I think it might be a battle between us and WB. Carlton could finish anywhere between 18th and around 8th, I reckon and I fully expect Melbourne to improve this year and be out of the spoon "race" (unless whoever comes last has say 6 wins, then it could be really up for grabs). Their offseason list changes look to have strengthened their list considerably in both the short and long term and the big joker they have up their sleeve is Jesse Hogan, who has now had 3 AFL preseasons and already looked ready to play two years ago. He could explode from the get-go and have a 40+ goal season and make them a much better team just by himself.

 

[Happy Mastenator]

Any team that has a bad run of luck can do it.

I'll throw Gold Coast in the mix, thought they stagnated a little last year and went completely to pieces once Gazza was gone. I know he is back on track, but if some complication was to occur and he went out again for an extended period plus the new coach doesn't get it right, it could be a dark season for the Suns.

They'll be fine, even without GAJ, last year they were missing a lot of players. Would need to lose half their team to get the spoon.

 

[Thrawn]

Carlton have lost another 3 senior players in Robinson, Garlett and Waite. None of those guys are world beaters, but they are solid senior players. And they will be replaced by Liam Jones and kids. This follows losing more senior players the year before. Carlton may be rebuilding, but I don't think they have hit the bottom yet.

Garlett was in the reserves for most of the time because he was lazy and didn't follow team rules. Robinson missed games due to suspension and injury, and wasn't getting along with the players and the club. Waite was incredibly inconsistent, he'd be the only one out of the three that we'll miss but then again who knows what Waite will be like this year.