It’s time for Part 1 of this year’s Look Ahead.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, every team gets a set up question about a key for their 2025 dreams…
But it has a pure on-field focus. Nothing about potential player movement, off-field gossip; it’s strictly about what happens on the grass.
The goal here isn’t necessarily to lay down the law, as such. It’s more of a plan to introduce topics to watch, creating a space where we’re all watching and learning, as mentioned in this year’s introduction piece laying out 2025 plans.
This year the Look Ahead is divided into three parts with six teams each day. Except for Part 2, which doesn’t have North Melbourne for obvious name-of-the-blog related reasons.
Today’s starts with Adelaide and goes through to Fremantle.
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The Patreon is up and running once again for 2025, which you can find right here. The three tiers are much the same as previous years, with refined features for the top two.
In addition to Patreon, you can find me on Twitter – and also Bluesky, where vibes are much more pleasant and there’s much less hate. It’s nice.
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Adelaide: How will their midfield operate?
This is the most common of common ground, but (very) early signs in pre-season indicate the penny may have dropped.
Aided by the acquisition of James Peatling, their most recent match sim had the former Giant alongside Jordan Dawson and Jake Soligo as the first choice on-ball unit.
Izak Rankine, absent due to the Indigenous All-Stars game, will come back to bolster that mix. There’ll also be minutes from the high half forwards to round it out.
Combine it with Rory Laird officially out of the midfield mix, Sam Berry down the queue, and Matt Crouch in a lower priority role – with pressure coming from the likes of Sid Draper to take his spot and allow Adelaide to evolve again – what’s left is a much better group for current game trends.
Because if the midfield can combine with a forward line which should be able to hit the scoreboard regularly – Riley Thilthorpe breakout season – enough is there to make a September return for the first time since 2017.
Brisbane: How much stress will Joe Daniher’s retirement place on the system?
I recently stumbled across an article talking about the concept of system stability in teams.
The piece, which you can read here, was largely focused on soccer teams and Manchester City specifically, but one line in particular stood out: “Many systems may seem stable not because of design but because of lack of testing.”
Some parts of an AFL team’s system can be covered with a wider range of options. For example, Keidean Coleman goes down with a season ending injury, give Dayne Zorko more minutes as a rebounding half back. There’s a need for a floating third tall forward to get up and down with grunt work, throw a younger player in there to get their feet wet.
But one key part of Brisbane’s system has barely been tested in the last four years: Joe Daniher’s. After moving north, he played 96 of a possible 102 games, and all 53 in the last two seasons. There is nothing close to a like for like replacement on Brisbane’s list, which makes for a fascinating year ahead as they adjust.
Ball movement will have to shift, different angles explored, different personnel prioritised in build-up. It’ll all be new for this group of Lions.
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For those who missed the start of season announcement, you can find it here. And the schedule between now and the start of the season, with an extra North Melbourne piece in there at some point, is…
| Post | Patreon access | Public access |
| General 2025 announcement | Live | Live |
| Over/under win total | Live | Live |
| Look Ahead, Part 1 | Live | 19th Feb |
| Look Ahead, Part 2 | 19th Feb | 20th Feb |
| Look Ahead, Part 3 | 20th Feb | 21st Feb |
| NMFC Match Sim Analysis | 23rd Feb | |
| The Notebook, Match Sim | 24th Feb | 25th Feb |
| Continuity Rankings | 26th Feb | 27th Feb |
| NMFC v West Coast Analysis | 2nd Mar | |
| The Notebook, Pre-Season | 3rd Mar | 4th Mar |
| Team Tiers, Version 1 | 5th Mar | 6th Mar |
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Carlton: What change will they make to their style?
Last year, up until the injury bug bit, Carlton had improved their turnover game – on both sides of the ball – in a way that eliminated one of their major flaws from 2023.
Their stoppage game dipped slightly as a result, more so defensively than offensively, but it felt like a worthy trade off given results and how important the turnover game is.
Which leads into wondering what change will be prioritised in 2025. Given their reported interest in Dan Houston before the Magpies swooped, putting two and two together seems to indicate a focus on improving their rebound from half back.
To successfully do that, it’ll require a system tweak rather than personnel change. Up until now they’ve favoured stability from the back half over the extra element of risk the better ball movement teams are willing to take on.
Can they add some back-half rebound without sacrificing too much elsewhere?
(Or I’ve completely misread all of this, and the game style change will focus on something else entirely. It’s possible!)
Collingwood: Will the three ‘tall’ forward setup work?
‘Tall’ in inverted commas for the rest of this section given Dan McStay, Brody Mihocek, and Tim Membrey aren’t traditional key forwards.
Last year, when looking at the Team Structures, Collingwood only set up with three keys* on three occasions after Round 4.
(*not including mid-match and/or scoreboard forced changes)
So it wasn’t a look they enjoyed going to often, but the recruitment of Membrey wasn’t to provide depth. It was to play in the senior side.
And given all three of McStay, Membrey, and Mihocek alongside Mason Cox feels a bit too tall, for a team that prides itself on ground level movement, perhaps Cox becomes the odd man out to start.
Either way, it will lead to a slight change in the forward group. Three ‘talls’ plus Jamie Elliott, Bobby Hill, Beau McCreery and Lachie Schultz is a seven that’s nearly locked already pending fitness. It’ll have a flow on effect to midfield rotations and then half backs as well.
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The Create Your Own Depth Chart feature is now part of the List Management suite, all on the $5 tier for Patreon subscribers:
You can subscribe to the Patreon for 2025 right here. The three tiers are much the same as previous years, with refined features for the top two.
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Essendon: Will team defence or team offence take priority in development?
Through the first half of 2024, Essendon’s team defence was the fuel behind their 8-1-2 start.
What it hid was an offence struggling, so when the team defence couldn’t sustain there was a dramatic slippage. Then there were a few tweaks here and there to try and get offence rolling, but that came at the cost of defence, and the year meekly petered out.
Given the personnel available forward, and the changes within existing players – e.g. Nate Caddy taking a more prominent role in Year 2 – the natural inclination is to lean towards team offence taking priority in 2025’s development.
The counter is if team defence can stand up, in theory it allows room for the younger brigade to just go out and play without the pressure to deliver substantial scoreboard impact week after week.
In a perfect world both sides of the ball take equal responsibility and grow (quickly) at the same pace, but that requires everything and anything to click in sync.
Fremantle: Can they introduce enough risk into their game?
For a moment I’ll pretend Justin Longmuir’s comments about playing ‘vanilla’ against the Indigenous All-Stars didn’t exist, because I can’t decide whether it’s laudable to be so open or sprint towards the emergency alarm button.
In the meantime, a theory about how most good teams should approach the risk v reward conundrum:
You can’t run from variance – it inevitably will get a team at various points. Inaccuracy on your end, supreme accuracy from the opposition, 50-50 calls not going your way, all those things that can change week to week.
What you can do is minimise variance, to a certain extent, through one of two things:
1) Become an otherworldly defensive team to minimise opposition chances
2) Create enough chances yourself so the volume outweighs variance
Fremantle have strayed too far to point 1 at times recently, when their personnel is arguably more suited to trend to point 2 – especially this year with the addition of Shai Bolton.
Bolton, at the feet of Jye Amiss and Josh Treacy, Luke Jackson in the ruck until Sean Darcy gets back and then playing the hybrid role, Hayden Young, Caleb Serong, and Andrew Brayshaw in the midfield, get Jordan Clark to continue taking the game on from half-back, Luke Ryan using his kicking to gain aggressive metres instead of Fantasy points – the tools are there to hit the scoreboard regularly.
The messaging last year along the lines of, ‘we handball lots, so we’re not defensive’ didn’t really hold up under scrutiny either, considering they were second for total handballs in the home and away season, but 11th for average metres gained per handball.
Their mindset doesn’t have to be 1990s Geelong under Malcolm Blight, but whether they can release the handbrake just enough in the attacking direction will define their year.