Every AFL season is somewhat unpredictable, but 2020 could be the wildest so far.
The two most recent premieres, Richmond and West Coast, struggle with just one win each.
But four of the teams that missed last year’s final are in the top eight. Last year’s wooden spoon Gold Coast in particular is in second place.
Is this the beginning of the new suns?
Everyone knows who Matt Rowell is now
There is always a lot going on about the new top conscripts. This hype can very often stall.
The best young players can usually dominate against other juniors, but few can outperform experienced professionals right away.
Matt Rowell is one of those few.
It’s easy to get carried away, but Rowell enters an unprecedented area for a first-year player.
“He’s never played a bad game – it’s basically just him every week, it’s amazing,” a club employee told ABC.
“Sam Walsh was the sure choice in his design, but Rowell was the only choice last year.”
Rowell is 178 cm shorter than most modern midfielders. He fights a bit overhead and averages only one brand per game. He still has to take a competitive brand or a single brand within 50.
But what he lacks in size, he more than makes up for in his heart. He hunts hard and applies his will to competition.
Rowell has scored six goals from his four games, most of which were shot from a distance.
That is probably not sustainable. In last year’s UAC-TAC Cup under 18, he scored less than one goal every two games.
But its strength will not go away.
However, The Suns are not a one-man band.
Rowell achieved a good one-two with the former crow Hugh Greenwood, whose physicality also worries the opponents.
The recently hired colleague Lachie Weller has steadily improved and relieved Touk Miller, Will Brodie and David Swallow.
So far this year, the Suns are the second best in terms of the difference between the stops – after 14th place last season.
While in the AFL more points are scored by interception than by interruptions, it made a real difference for the suns to get their hands on the ball first.
The strong foundation
When Stuart Dew was appointed Gold Coast coach, he wasn’t the only change in the club’s football administration. List manager Scott Clayton and football operations manager Marcus Ashcroft left the company, replaced by former GWS list managers Craig Cameron and Jon Haines.
It was almost a complete reset for the franchise.
In the past three seasons, the Suns have won 38 new players, about 13 a year. This is almost an entire AFL list.
Most analyzes have focused on the outgoing suns, which included stars like Tom Lynch and Steven May.
But that was only part of the story.
A large part of the new harvest are deep draft picks.
The Suns have seven top 5 picks and 15 top 20 picks on their current list. Not all conscripts are successful, but the chances are much better for players who were chosen at the start of the draft.
Having multiple bites of the cherry is a solid strategy.
The Suns focused on many youngsters when they first entered the league, with just a few established stars like Gary Ablett. They recently turned to fellows like Greenwood, Brandon Ellis and Sam Collins to build a stable backbone.
The players recruited under the new regime have surpassed their predecessors.
The squad is now a mix of long-term suns like Swallow and Alex Sexton, Eade era holdovers like Miller and Jarrod Witts and the new crop led by Rowell.
Ellis and Collins have provided stability and played roles similar to those of Daniel Cross in Melbourne and Luke Hodge in Brisbane in recent years.
Ben King’s arrival apparently rejuvenated the first Sun Sam Day, which performed very well in individual competitions. They complement each other well and make room for the little strikers of the sun to bypass them.
In just two years, the least observable team in the league has become one of the most observable.
A wrong dawn?
This is not the first time that Dew’s Suns have a quick start. After the fifth round, they set a victory record in the last two seasons – an achievement that they are guaranteed to achieve this year.
The challenge now is to keep it going.
Last year, they lost 18 games in a row after winning three of the first four. These early wins were against relatively weak teams. Is the same happening this year? The crows, dockers and eagles have all been poor so far.
To reach the final, the Suns will likely have to win at least six of their last 13 games against some much tougher teams. But even if they don’t, they look better now than at any point in their short history.
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