Probably not. I’d say Adelaide will be at the top again. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Hawthorn aren’t back up near the top again either.
I’m not so sure what will happen to Richmond next year. Could they win the Premiership one year and then have what happened to the Bulldogs this year and completely miss the finals with a hangover of sorts? Wait and see I guess.
Wow, really?! Maybe you should watch the 2009, 2010 drawn GF, 2012, 2013 or even the 2005-06 GF’s for an intense match? They were recent classics.
This year’s GF (and final series) was a complete letdown for mine as I said. They were mostly blowouts and pretty boring.
Though it didn’t really show on the scoreboard until early in the 3rd quarter after some early inaccurate kicking, Ricmond had Adelaide covered in most of the key areas pretty early on for mine. Even their silly “staredown” failed miserably to unnerve the Tigers.
Overall, I’d probably go as far as saying that the finals series for both of Australia’s biggest football codes was fairly boring this year! But even as someone who isn’t the biggest follower of the AFL around, I knew that Richmond were going for their first VFL/AFL premiership win in 37 years.
Although Lukemovieman will probably disagree, I’d personally call Richmond’s win a “fairytale victory” even if the score of the game wasn’t one of the most competitive ever. Certainly not comparable to the Melbourne Storm in the NRL, who’ve had three (or five if you count those eventually taken away due in the 2010 salary cap scandal) premiership wins in 11 years and have participated in most finals campaigns during that time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Adelaide are at/near the top again next year, along with the Sydney teams.
Without really knowing how well Melbourne or St Kilda have performed in recent years, I’d say the possibility of the AFL having three consecutive years of Grand Final-winning teams breaking long premiership droughts seems fairly unlikely at this stage but isn’t entirely impossible. Especially knowing what happened in the NRL during the 2014-16 era.
I personally think that Richmond’s premiership win will probably be a one-off, similar to what happened with the Western Bulldogs last year.
I don’t know that I’d call the NRL one boring… a lot of close games and a team making the Grand Final from 8th spot… though the GF itself was a blowout.
The Age said Gaudry did not have good relationship with club staff after she started her job. Given the club had an extensive search, did it appoint the wrong person to take the key role?
Adding the news that former Hawthorn premiership captain Luke Hodge is almost certain to play for Brisbane Lions for the next two seasons, it will be a period of upheaval at the club.
I actually tipped the Bulldogs to miss the finals at the start of the year and they did but with Richmond I reckon it’s different. They finished 3rd this year (only having 2 bad losses) and the Bulldogs finished 7th last season with their finals games being the best they’ve played all year. Also, Richmond’s reserves almost won the VFL Grand Final.
I think Richmond will make the top 4 at least in season 2018 and challenge for the premiership again. Martin and Cotchin can turn into Richmond’s ‘Dangerwood’ IMO.
Dustin Martin has capped off his best season ever by winning Richmond’s best and fairest award tonight. That’s in addition to his Brownlow, Norm Smith, MVP of both AFL Players Association and Coaches Association, Player of the Year awards on Herald Sun, ABC Radio and 3AW.
Very few would’ve tipped the Doggies to advance too far through the finals last year considering where they finished in the bottom half of the 8 and none would’ve thought they’d make it to GF day.
Though Richmond finished in the top 4 I doubt many would’ve thought they’d advanced past Geelong with such ease in the first week and end up on the “easier” side of the draw which helped their cause immensely I believe.
Sydney will be thereabouts like they have been for over a decade now. They need to be there so the interest doesn’t wane in NSW.
Though Melbourne and St. Kilda should show considerable improvements off another preseason, I doubt they’d seriously challenge for the top 4. They should make the top 8 next year but they’d probably be making up the numbers.
I’d be surprised if Port weren’t there again next year but not sold on a Ross Lyon Fremantle “resurgence”.
Brisbane should show improvements with the likely addition of Hodge next year but Gold Coast are at least a few more years off I feel. Loosing arguably their best player in Ablett won’t help them in the slightest.
What a week for the Hawks, first their CEO and now their President.
Jeff Kennett has returned to Hawthorn to his former roll as President, following the resignation of Richard Garvey. He says he’ll only do a one three year term as President.
Note: The below links have noting to do with OzTam and RegionalTam and any figure mentioned within is from OzTam only and is already elsewhere on MediaSpy.
A very interesting article from Roy Morgan, conducted research from over 1600 people via an SMS snap poll.
To produce results about the AFL Grand Final viewership.
Whilst it has vastly contrasting data to what OzTam and RegionalTam and could be considered much less accurate and fickle, it’s eye-opening none the less.
The OzTAM + Regional Tam ratings estimate the number of people who watched the whole game at home from kickoff to final siren including half time break and adverts including any visitors to the house. The main difference with the SMS survey is that, while it might add in a more people watching at pubs and at the venue, it counts anyone who says they watched some of the final. Subscribers to OzTam already have access to this “reach” number and sometimes use it in their media releases. It is usually stated as the number of different people who watch more than a certain number of minutes of a program (sometimes 1 minute).
Would’ve been interesting to see a Roy Morgan release last year, considering both Grand Finals rated significantly higher.
Even more so, the Australian Open final in 2005, considering we know how high that went (national average for that match was 500k higher than last year’s national PEAK for the AFL Grand Final )
Given Roy Morgan’s reach is 2.4m higher than the official reach released by Seven for this year’s AFL Grand Final…
Hazard a guess ~12 million (more than HALF of Australia’s population at the time) would’ve tuned-in at some stage, some how, somewhere to that tennis match!
Sorry about the speculation, but research agencies like this are interesting.
Was surprised to see that one of Jeff’s first comments today was that they would not be sent packing from Tasmania and that he would be fighting the AFL over any moves to get rid of them in favour of North Melbourne. I also noticed the other day there was quite an interesting aside on ABC Breakfast where they all said that Tassie deserved their own team too when they were discussing about the North Melbourne/Tassie Women’s AFL side.
From my perspecitve, I just hope with the return of Kennett, there’s the return of the Kennett curse with Geelong!
Maybe you should watch the 2009, 2010 drawn GF, 2012, 2013 or even the 2005-06 GF’s for an intense match? They were recent classics. 
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