How do you catch the frontrunners?
In the second of the Greek philosopher Zeno’s paradoxes, a tortoise and Achilles are in a footrace. In the race, Achilles gives the tortoise a head start, because he runs at a faster rate and will presumably catch up sooner or later.
It’s a bit like the chase for the teams at the top of the ladder, being squeezed by the salary cap and the draft picks earned by lesser clubs.
The tortoise may be premiers, but there’s a bunch of Achilles chasing — with the jet pack of equalisation strapped to their respective backs.
Zeno thought that Achilles never actually caught the tortoise. In modern footy the elite always get caught sooner or later. Hawthorn, who won three straight flags from 2013-15 will be picking fourth this year.
Instead of all clubs meeting at Docklands to bash the deals out in person, clubs had to resort to Zoom to get players and picks across to new clubs.
As the 2020 trade period wound up, the dust has only barely settled on what went down.
What we know so far: seven free agents moved to new clubs, and 28 trades were made involving 26 players.
That’s one fewer player traded than last year — not a flurry, but not this dead.
It appears that some teams are sprinting to chase down back-to-back premiers Richmond, while other clubs are playing the long game.
Cheating Father Time
Another old saying in sporting parlance is that Father Time is undefeated. No player can keep doing what they do forever — Shaun Burgoyne aside — and eventually a star team will fall back to Earth.
By the end of the 2020 season, Geelong were naming some of the oldest teams in the history of the game.
In theory, the Cats are reaching the end of their window.
Their best two players, Patrick Dangerfield and Tom Hawkins, turn 31 and 32 years old respectively.
Their captain will also turn 32 during the season. They have a host of over 30s in their best 22.
Despite losing club (and league) legends Gary Ablett and Harry Taylor after the grand final, Geelong shapes to be even older in 2021. And perhaps even better.
The Cats have added former All Australians Shaun Higgins and Jeremy Cameron, and three-time Hawthorn premiership player Isaac Smith.
Cameron is the spring chicken at 28; Higgins and Smith are both older than 32 next year.
Each had concerns over their form in 2020, representing down years in otherwise stellar careers.
The arrival of Smith should free up Mark Blicavs to return to defence to cover the loss of Taylor.
Higgins will likely slot into the midfield-forward role of Ablett, with a bit more grunt and a tiny bit less polish.
Cameron next to Hawkins in a forward line is a fever dream for defences, with the dominant leading forwards dragging the gravity of zones and spare men away from the other, creating easy potential targets inside 50.
The goal for Geelong is to maximise the potential for this crop of Cats. No other team is as committed to the here and now, and the future doesn’t really matter at this stage.
The rebuild may get ugly, but if they win a flag (or two) in the meantime it will be worth it.
Flipping the switch to ‘win now’
After a long, slow rebuild and a change of coaches in 2019, Carlton appears to be following the lead of St Kilda last year and going all in.
The Saints were rewarded with their first finals birth since 2011; Carlton will be looking to break a seven-year drought — or nine if you exclude their year as a late September call up due to ASADA related-reasons.
The acquisition of Zac Williams and Adam Saad, and abandonment of this draft, means that the finals focus of the club has shifted firmly to next year.
Even after a big 2019 trade period, St Kilda decided that they weren’t quite done yet.
The Saints, with the acquisitions of Jack Higgins and Brad Crouch, have worked to address some of their remaining questions at a low cost — and improve further.
The Saints gave up very little for Higgins and Crouch, and both project as players providing both immediate and long term impact.
Cap shedding at Collingwood
Meanwhile, no club took a larger step backwards than Collingwood.
Fresh off a finals berth and only two years removed from losing a grand final by a mere kick, numerous Collingwood players were shopped to any club that could take in their contracts.
The AFL trade period is notoriously cruel, with players sometimes finding out they are being shopped via the media first.
Jaidyn Stephenson was lucky enough to find out via his manager, but was surprised nonetheless.
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All in all, Collingwood lost Adam Treloar, Stephenson, Tom Phillips and promising youngster Atu Bosenavulagi with no ready-made replacements in their wake.
The question for Collingwood is whether they have enough depth to cover their losses — especially up forward, where they have struggled in recent years.
Meanwhile, Hawthorn has shaped themselves as a welcome dumping ground for players that other clubs need to get out the door, after recently acquiring Jonathon Patton, Tom Scully and Jack Scrimshaw before adding Phillips this year.
It’s a potentially smart move for clubs moving forward, and one that the Bulldogs and Kangaroos were able to exploit with their cheap acquisitions of Treloar and Stephenson respectively.
Betting on the draft
Some sides have been scared off the 2020 draft due to the lack of in-person scouting for most games, and the lack of any games for much of the Victorian talent pool.
Coming into the year, the 2020 draft crop was generally considered to be a deep class — perhaps not of the 2018 level but stronger than last year across the board.
Complicating matters is the sheer number of players already tied to clubs through various forms of draft concessions — from various academies to the father-son rule.
As many as five of the best 25 talents have their homes largely determined before a single name is read out on draft night.
Despite this, GWS, Essendon and Melbourne have bucked the trend by accumulating a number of extra draft picks for this year.
Given the uncertainty of the draft, the loose order of the draft may be even harder to unravel than normal.
Clubs with multiple selections in the middle parts of the draft may have a better chance than normal at snagging a top talent who slips through the net.
By the same token, doubt around the process may produce a couple of high-profile busts.
The three clubs got their draft value in different ways.
For the Giants, much of their value came after matching the offer sheet on restricted free agent Jeremy Cameron — a first in the nine-year history of modern AFL Free Agency. Instead of accepting pick 11, the Giants ended up with picks 13, 15 and 20.
Essendon used free agency compensation for Joe Daniher and the trade of Adam Saad to acquire three consecutive picks inside the top 10 — an extremely attractive position for any club.
Finally, Melbourne traded away their future first round pick for the second year in a row for more shots in this year’s draft.
More significantly, the Demons do not have any of their own first four draft picks next year, instead three picks tied to other clubs.
Draft picks can still be traded until the players are selected, so these teams may change their holdings before any players are tabbed by list managers.
It’s really a draft for the gamblers, and these teams are more than willing to take a chance.
