Hope springs eternal for every club at this time of year but there are no guarantees ahead of a massive 2025, writes Damian Barrett
THE DRAFTS and exchange periods are complete. Every club has added multiple superstars, just ask them. And the future, as always at this time of year, is glaringly bright.
The 2025 season is five months away, but preparation, focus and anticipation for it is already in full-swing mode – for the clubs and the AFL.
There is lots to ponder, lots to get excited about, lots to worry over, and lots to fix before the next game is played.
The AFL’s issues are many and varied. It has an unnecessarily unwieldy judiciary system which requires attention. It needs to “own” decisions made at the Match Review stage, not outsource that role to an outside consultant. Its Appeal Tribunal needs to go.
Only one tribunal should be instituted. If there is a Match Review Office, the first tribunal is, indeed, an appeals mechanism. If clubs want to threaten to take matters to the federal courts over a perceived injustice, then let them. The courts would almost certainly rule every time that two different sets – the MRO and a tribunal – of legal-based judgment on incidents and actions was sufficient enough.
Another fix for the AFL would be to make the 2025 season the last one where a 33-year-old playing a 15th year can carry official status as a “rookie”. For too long now and over many regimes, the AFL has allowed the clubs to rort the initial intent of the rookie list. There is nothing about Jack Gunston in 2025 which fits the definition of rookie, just as there was nothing about premiership player Ryan Lester in 2024.
Also, the AFL should ban the umpire-bounce, continue to crack down – hard – on players who pretend they can’t dispose of the ball when tackled, and install properly-functioning goal-line technology at each ground.
Oh, and two more for headquarters – realise that you can’t have an Opening Round AND a round one, and ban clubs from holding dress-ups at “Mad Monday” style events.
Fremantle and Adelaide both must view the 2025 season as one in which the Grand Final can be reached. Respective coaches Justin Longmuir and Matthew Nicks are both entering their sixth years in charge. There is one finals win between them. Their time is an overdue ‘now’.
And for the Crows, the challenge extends to controlling the physical fitness and aggression of Izak Rankine. I’d love to see what a fully-fit and suspension-free Rankine could do. He may just emerge as the game’s most damaging player.
West Coast will again struggle under new coach Andrew McQualter. But the next 12 months will determine the speed of recovery. The Chad has been vigorously pursued for two seasons already. Imagine Warner standing alongside Harley Reid in round one 2026. Look out.
Weirdly, the heavily winning Sydney will enter 2025 under as much darkness as any club. Having been humiliated in two of the past three Grand Finals – and also living with another Grand Final mauling in 2016, as well as the 2014 Grand Final loss – it finds itself with a near-impossible challenge, knowing that a Grand Final win is the only way to overcome the desolation. Good luck with that.
Charlie Curnow should seek to establish himself, by some distance, as the game’s best key forward. Sure, he’s won two Coleman Medals already, and was badly banged-up in 2024, but he’s got a heap more to offer than what he’s shown.
Two clubs, for vastly different reasons, simply need to stop talking, and start acting. Gold Coast and Melbourne. For 10 years, the Suns have been telling us they’re going to make finals. Last year, they even told us there was no ceiling on outcome. They have never made finals and only once have reached 11 wins in 14 years of AFL life.
For the Demons, a starting point would be to refrain from using the word “culture”, for the only culture at this joint for the past three years has been highly questionable. Gary Pert, the main user of that word, has exited as CEO, Kate Roffey as chair. Clarry and ‘Trac’ wanted out but were forced to stay. The Petracca saga cost the Demons any chance they had of securing Dan Houston, who understandably didn’t want to go near such a toxic organisation.
Houston looked elsewhere and then zeroed in on Collingwood. His arrival there could be massive. The two-time All-Australian may just take the Pies back to a Grand Final. Don’t underestimate Collingwood in 2025. It missed the 2024 finals by percentage only, and was smashed by injury. Off-field, the Pies look to be a mess following football boss Graham Wright’s departure and president Jeff Browne’s decision to stand down, but on-field, they should be thereabouts again.
With the luxury of a premiership coming after six consecutive finals series, Brisbane is beautifully positioned in the big picture, even when the Joe Daniher absence is factored in. He may well be a player who cannot be replaced, but Kai Lohmann may well be a player who takes the footy world by storm. There are now two Ashcrofts on the Lions’ list, and Harris Andrews, pound for pound, may be the best defender in the comp.
Richmond will hopefully soon stop patting itself on the back over the decisions it made to off-load in-contract star players in return for access to a heap of high-end kids in the national draft. And now that the teenage talent in those kids has been identified, the senior development phase must begin immediately.
North Melbourne needs to realise it can’t change history, that Wayne Carey played for it and that without him it wouldn’t have won the 1996 and 1999 premierships. It also needs to do something it hasn’t bothered with for way too long – win matches of football. There have been just 15 such occasions in the past five seasons. Hawthorn won 15 games after round five this year.
Pressure will be on every coach, as always, and in Luke Beveridge’s case it is already at nine out of 10 levels. Out of contract at the end of 2025, it will be intriguing to see whether the Bulldogs’ board blinks before the first game and extends him. Also of big Dogs interest will be how Marcus Bontempelli approaches his looming free agent status.
Port Adelaide’s movements with Ken Hinkley are always interesting. Josh Carr is ready, waiting. There’s a nudge-nudge, wink-wink arrangement for him to take over. It is just a matter of when. Jason Horne-Francis completing a meaningful pre-season would go a long way to Port repeating its 2024 feat of a preliminary final appearance.
Of course, Geelong will be near the top of the ladder again. That’s what it does. It may still be cursing itself for relinquishing a 25-point lead in a preliminary final against eventual premier Brisbane, but for a long time it has cottoned on to the positive effects of targeting established players from other clubs, and dramatically went down that path again. Bailey Smith, if able to fully recover from a ruptured ACL, will be a massive inclusion. And I’m fascinated by the Jack Martin acquisition. It would be sooooo Geelong to get his body right and have him kick 50 goals.
Imagine that. A fit and firing Martin playing alongside Jezza and Ollie and Stengle in the forward line. And for Sam De Koning to get his body right. And for Smith to be streaming through the midfield.
Essendon doesn’t know what it is nor wants to be. President David Barham humiliated in-contract coach Ben Rutten at the end of 2022 when, despite being a board member at that stage for seven seasons, he suddenly became impatient for success and sacked him. Two years on, there is no obvious positive change. And the Bombers got spooked this week at the national draft and unnecessarily traded picks around the securing of Next Generation Academy player Isaac Kako.
Like Brad Scott at Essendon, Ross Lyon at St Kilda will be entering his third year as coach, in his second stint in charge of the Saints. It was a nothing year for St Kilda in 2024. No guarantees of positive change for 2025 there, either.
GWS was fortunate the AFL didn’t suspend its captain Toby Greene for the start of 2025, after his attendance at a post-season private gathering where players performed despicable acts as part of a themed party.
If the Swans had a lot to process out of the 2024 season, so too did the Giants. That party was a disgrace. Also, they led eventual premier Brisbane by 44 points in a semi-final, a week after leading eventual Grand Finalist Sydney by 28 points in a qualifying final. Opportunities like that don’t present themselves every season.
Which gets us to Hawthorn. In so many ways, its 2024 season was one for the ages, where a 0-5 start finished with a three-point loss in the second week of finals, and yet it was also a missed opportunity for the most unlikely of flags.
Significant additions next year are Tom Barrass and Josh Battle. Another addition will be expectation. And that, sometimes, can suffocate even the most talented of line-ups. Whatever happens with Hokball in 2025 is guaranteed to be one of the most compelling AFL storylines, just as it was in 2024.
