Across the season HPN has slowly but surely been trying to profile each team, and their strengths and weaknesses. Due to external events (such as the release of Footballistics) we didn’t get a chance to get to all 18 teams.

But, with the eight finalists locked in, we thought it would be worthwhile to have a look at the 10 teams that missed out, their flaws this year and hopes going forward.

18th – Carlton

Fatal flaw:

Where to start? Probably in the middle of the ground, where they were dominated in clearances and the battle for territory. The Blues gave up five inside 50s for every four that they earned. They only won 47% of their stoppages. With injuries to their entire ruck division, and almost everyone not named “Patrick Cripps” in their midfield, it was a long and uphill battle.

Positive signs:

We wrote about Carlton a few weeks ago, and some of the green shoots that have sprouted from the rotting tree that was the Malthouse era. Things look bad now, but there is a handful of players that might (maybe) be a part of the next Blues finals side. They also looked good in beating the Bombers, and were competitive against ladder leaders Richmond in round 1 before capitulating.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

Unless they get a blessed run with injuries, and pick up 6-8 AFL level players to instantly fill gaps in their list, it is extremely unlikely. And doing that might dent longer term flag ambitions anyway.

17th – Gold Coast

Fatal flaw:

The only side worse than Carlton in terms of midfield strength this year was the Suns, who were often undermanned and injury riddled and leaked a huge amount of inside 50s. But, where Carlton had McKay, Curnow and others to kick to up forward, the Suns were often greeted with double and triple teamed targets or none at all – especially after the injuries to Tom Lynch and Peter Wright. The Suns were stone motherless last for converting inside 50s into points on the board. With or without Lynch, they couldn’t find regular, effective paths to goal, which meant that they were often unable to put pressure on other teams.

Positive signs:

Gold Coast rather dramatically changed the way that they play this year under Dew which at least gives them hope to work towards. They’ve got a handful of players stepping up, and their multiple in-traded picks from last year, Lynch compensation and possible priority pick should leave them in a prime spot to cash in on the upcoming SUPERDRAFT.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

Like Carlton, they’ll need a lot to break their way to get within cooee of finals next year. The long game seems the go here; any quick fixes might condemn them to the dreaded lower middle classes of the league.

16th – St Kilda

Fatal flaw:

Unlike the two sides below them on the ladder, the Saints were beaten less in the middle than at either end of the ground. The Saints couldn’t find an effective path to goal, with all of Bruce, Membrey and McCartin missing parts of the year. At the other end of the ground, Carlisle looked OK in flashes, but the movement out of defence looked lacking without the injured Dylan Roberton and redeployed Newnes.

Positive signs:

The draw against GWS in the middle of the year showed that they could grit it out in tight, low scoring games against good teams. They’ve got a number of decent young players, but desperately need reinforcement across the ground. We wrote about the Saints ongoing rebuild a couple of weeks back, and most of it still holds.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

The Saints seem a cut above both the Suns and Blues, and better luck with injuries – plus a better stylistic identity with respect to the modern game – might see them head up the ladder to the fringe of the eight where they pushed to last year. However, without reinforcements down back and up forward, it’s hard to see them taking the next step.

15th – Brisbane

Fatal flaw:

Close games! Brisbane have lost games by 3, 5, 5, 5, and 7 points this year and only won one game by 4 points. They call that a “learning experience” but we know close games tend to be random and regress to the mean, suggesting the Lions have mostly been better than a five win team. Last year they didn’t get close enough to lose by a kick, after all.

Positive signs:

We’re not the first to note the promising signs of overall improvement at the Lions, but they’re certainly there. The Lions weakest area was still their midfield, with the balance of inside-50 opportunities limiting the effectiveness of their above-average forward line. They play a very risky gamestyle, and seem to have taken a “ball movement first” approach to learning and development rather than a defensive one. The midfield trend is positive, however. They have reduced the rate at which they turn the ball over and concede inside-50s, and if that tcontinues they’ll probably be well on their way to climbing the ladder.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

If we accept that they’re a team on the improve, there’s no reason to say they can’t make finals with a rapid leap forward because those leaps do happen. But we’re also not going to specifically predict it. The sensible median prediction is winning more games than five, or even the seven they’d have with average close game luck. But 12 or 13 wins would be a stretch. Their prognosis is probably somewhat similar to the Bulldogs, and a step above the two teams at the bottom.

14th – Fremantle

Fatal flaw:

This is a case of just generally not being very good. Fremantle were pretty poor across the park, well below average in offence, defence and through the middle. Their inside 50 balance was 86%, meaning they were the third worst team in terms of giving their forward line opportunities, and that forward line then lacked potency when they did get it up there.

Cox, McCarthy, Taberner, Walters, Fyfe and Mundy were their best offensive performers but Fyfe, Mundy and Walters were also among the best midfield contributors. Despite the recruitment of McCarthy and Kersten, the Dockers still critically lack a focal point to their attack.

This “rob Peter to pay Paul” dilemma between midfield and forward arguably defined their season as their small group of veterans, when they were actually fit, could not be used everywhere on the park, leaving exploitable holes and areas of near total ineffectiveness.

Positive signs:

If injury luck improves, we should still see Fremantle find some better performances in 2019. They were among the sides whose best players missed the most footy relative to expected levels, getting a full 10% less games than expected out of their best-22 performers, with only Gold Coast’s best players missing more footy.

That sort of instability, coupled with the aforementioned positional dilemma for their best players, is something that should improve for the Dockers.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

It really depends on the fitness of a couple of their key players, but finals is probably just out of sight unless they get super lucky. The Dockers are 11-10 when Aaron Sandilands has played in the past two years, and just 5-17 in games he has missed. A healthy Nat Fyfe and Brad Hill are also critical to their performance as a side.

It’s possible with a soft draw and a near perfect bill of health, that they could be just a couple of recruits away from pulling a 2018 North (who still missed finals in the end). But that’s not a great best case scenario for a side. This is a developing side and needs to be allowed to develop free of expectations such as finals.

13th – Western Bulldogs

Fatal flaw:

Injuries hurt through the year, but what hurt more was their inability to score for much of the year. The Dogs averaged just 1.32 points per inside 50 – down from a league average of 1.56. For the first half of the season key midfield cog Marcus Bontempelli was deployed as a KPF in spells, and while he did OK it isn’t the best way to deploy such a talented footballer. The emergence of Josh Schache helped as the season progressed, but they still relied mightily on their mids to provide scoreboard pressure.

Positive signs:

If you look at the talent still available to Luke Beveridge from the 2016 premiership team, and the talented players (such as Schache, Richards, Gowers and co) that have emerged in the past two years, there’s hope that they can rebound to the middle of the ladder quite quickly. The forward line remains an issue, but their improved marking power in 2018, Schache’s development, the return of Tom Boyd and potentially another addition this offseason might fix that.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

HPN was optimistic about the Dogs’ chances before the year – rating them as a fringe finals prospected based both on team and player projections. While 2018 was a step back from that, they should have a similar shot to the 35-45% chance we gave them at the start of the year, as long as their young talent continues to develop.

12th – Adelaide

Fatal flaw:

Adelaide declined across the board this year, with a lot of losses from the side that looked like the best team in it for about 90% of the 2017 season. While Tom Doedee has stood up and Seedsman improved greatly, the absence of Jake Lever was never truly covered, and the absence of Brodie Smith for much of the year left them without an extra effective option off half back.

As we wrote previously, their midfield was hit badly by injuries through the year, with only 17 of 42 games played by the Crouch brothers, and another 9 games missed by Rory Sloane*. This uncertainty in the midfield meant that the forward line often faced worse delivery, which hurt their scoring efficiency.

*An early version listed this as Rory Laird. It’s been a busy week in Canberra, and this one slipped through the net. Sorry.

Positive signs:

Despite the absences and poorer quality delivery, the Crows forward line was still one of the most effective in the competition. The equation remains the same – if the mids can win or even somewhat break even in the territory battle, the super effective forward setup should ensure that they win many games.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

Of all the sides who missed finals in 2018, the Crows will likely be the most popular pick to bounce back immediately next year. HPN had them as our predicted best team before the year (this is called extrapolation from known information). The Crows have a lot of talent to come back in 2019, plus three relatively high draft picks in the upcoming draft to either be used on the future or opening their premiership window back up. They should expect to play in September next year.

11th – Essendon

Fatal flaw:

Essendon were one of the most efficient defensive and offensive sides last year, but suffered from a terrible imbalance of opportunities thanks to a poor inside-50 ratio. This year they’ve addressed the midfield weakness and now their biggest headache is in defence, where they were below average in points conceded per inside-50, and well down on 2017.

Their 2018 defensive decline probably comes down to both style and personnel. In personnel they’ve lacked a consistent second key defender. In 2017 Hurley and Hartley held down these posts with support from Goddard and sometimes Ambrose. This year, Hartley has only played 4 games and Ambrose 7. Goddard has declined to the point of delisting (from a Player Approximate Value of 15 down to 10), with Hooker switching back, where last year he was mostly forward.

In terms of game plan, there seems to have been a shift towards less accountable running halfbacks such as Saad and McKenna, which has helped them generate more forward movement and punish turnovers, but left them more vulnerable when defending entries.

Positive signs:

After the 2017 trade period we were skeptical of their need for more “flanker” types but the ability to effectively integrate their recruits in Smith, Stringer, and Saad gave them a much greater ability toattack across the middle of the park compared to a pretty weak midfield performance in 2017.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

They’ll get to plug Daniher back into a side that did well enough to threaten finals this year, one has to assume they will be in the mix again. That’s especially true if they can account for the seeming overcorrection away from their previously high quality defence. The options for adjusting there appear to be at the club already.

10th – North Melbourne

Fatal Flaw:

There’s no smoking gun here. North had a pretty good forward line and effective defence, with the midfield being the slightly weaker area. They did a lot right but their best footy just wasn’t consistent or high quality enough to get them over the line.

That shouldn’t be too worrying given where they were coming from and the expectations placed on them, but in the end, their best wasn’t good enough and it may represent the ceiling of their team as structured now, which is roughly half a side of experienced 26-32 year olds and then a bunch of much younger development and fringe players.

Positive signs:

North turned a “zero expectations year” into a year of stability and impressive tactical coaching. They made the most of their experience with their top performers missing fewer games than pretty much anyone else. Of their top ten performers only Waite (12 games) and Daw (17) missed more than 2 matches.

Keeping their best performers on the park gave them stability and space to work on developing their younger players with a degree of guidance and protection around them. Although they fielded the least players this year (31), North don’t have to worry about “finding room for kids” because even at full strength they have half a team’s worth of space for them, and a number of the experienced core are around 27 rather than, say, over 30 years old.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

North absolutely defied expectations in 2018, but they had a good tail wind in doing so. They had a comparatively easy run with injuries and a fixture containing double-up games against the bottom three sides, the Bulldogs, and the Swans. Even then, they couldn’t quite stretch it. If they enjoy similar stability next year they may be a fringe threat again, but anything short of this will probably expose them as the developing side they still are, beyond the best ten or so players on their list.

9th – Port Adelaide

Fatal flaw:

Not playing a proper backup ruck in games which Patrick Ryder missed. Throwing away a number of tight games at the end of the 4th quarter. Not working out what their best structure was, bar brief parts of the year. Only having one Robbie Grey. Pick one or more.

Port have a list assembled to be full of multitalented, multidimensional moving parts. They had a good injury run compared to nearly everyone above them. There was simply no way that Port should have missed finals this year. But with a lot of utility players that can be deployed in different ways, the right way to play has to be identified first.

In the forward 50, their perceived area of weakness last year, the arrival of Jack Watts, Lindsay Thomas and Steven Motlop didn’t really provide the hoped-for upgrades, with all three having down years by their own standards. Tom Rockliff couldn’t contribute goals or quality entries either. The forward line was still overly reliant on Charlie Dixon and Robbie Gray, and when one (or both) went in the middle to cover for injuries or to win hard ball, they often looked rudderless in attack.

Positive signs:

Given their large overhaul last season, it might be understandable that it takes a couple of years for the coaching staff to work out how to deploy these weapons. Could Watts be used leading higher up the ground in rotation with Dixon, as he was with Hogan in 2016? How about trying Motlop off half back (or even as an accountable small) to screw with opposition matchups? And what will a firing Marshall look like next to Dixon? Port possibly have a larger count of high level AFL level talent than any other side outside the finals this year, which is a good problem to face.

Chance of making finals in 2019:

Like Adelaide, we thought that Port would likely be in the top four at the end of the year, so ending up outside the 8 is a surprise. Unlike some of the other teams in this group of ten also-rans, the issue the Power has is not with talent but instead with how to use it; potentially a much easier problem to solve. At their best, Port were probably a top four side this year, so finals should be likely next year.

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