On Monday last week Brett Ratten couldn’t coach because Carlton had lost to Essendon in round three and Matthew Knights was a genius for the same reason.
Yet on Monday this week Ratten was on top of the world at Carlton after the Blues had beaten the Adelaide Crows, and Knights and his game plan were under the pump following the Bombers’ loss to the West Coast Eagles in Perth.
That’s why we shouldn’t take too much notice of what happens on any one weekend. And while I’m at it let’s end the myth promoted by some ill-informed commentators and perpetuated by a few coaches and swallowed by many fans that ‘game plans’ win and lose games.
A game plan is simply the set of dos and don’ts that provide the framework under which match day decision making is made and in general do not vary that much from club to club.
While a better or worse game plan will make a small difference, it is very minor compared to the combination of effort and execution that is produced during the game. These two factors are, and always will be, the primary reasons why a team wins or loses.
But back to the first month of this season. Given that we’ve now had four rounds of football, it’s not unreasonable to ponder some emerging trends.
Prior to the start of the season I predicted that only five sides could win the flag - St Kilda, Geelong, the Western Bulldogs, the Brisbane Lions and Collingwood.
A month into the season I’m even more convinced of the same fact.
The loss of Nick Riewoldt for an extended period will be a significant downer for the Saints, but while a big setback, it’s not a terminal ailment because St Kilda's main strength has been its ability to stop the opposition scoring, and that’s not going to be overly affected.
Mind you, they wouldn’t want to lose Lenny Hayes, who is the heart of the side, or Sam Gilbert, who is pivotal to the overall effectiveness of their defensive group.
The 4-0 Brisbane Lions are probably ranked more highly than they were four weeks ago.
To look beyond the obvious, the big plus is confirmation that Jared Brennan is now an All-Australian standard player. By my definition, that is a player who will be among the 50 or 60 who will be considered by the selectors for the 22 spots in the All-Australian side.
We can also add Josh Drummond to the same category.
The real bonus has been youngsters Todd Banfield, Jack Redden and Tom Rockliff who have added plenty of ground level life and energy to supplement the obvious Jonathan Brown/Brendan Fevola marking power. A weakness in recent years is now looking like a strength.
Geelong still looks to be the benchmark. At 3-1 even though their early form hasn’t been extraordinary the Cats still look to have an upper level that the rest have yet to reach.
I’m not as confident about a 3-1 Collingwood as I was a month ago because the new recruits in Darren Jolly and Luke Ball have not yet had the positive impact that I expected, but they still warrant a place in the top five.
The 2-2 Bulldogs haven’t exactly set the world on fire. It makes me wonder whether skipper Brad Johnson is even more important than we all thought. Getting him back on the field fit and well will make a big difference.
At the other end of the scale, where Melbourne and Richmond looked like they would finish 15th and 16th, the Tigers have absolutely confirmed their ranking.
The 0-4 Tigers certainly look likely to finish bottom two, and while Melbourne has won two games and generally been quite competitive, Richmond looks a long way off the pace.
Of that big middle group, the big disappointments have been 0-4 Adelaide.
Why the Crows have started so poorly can be put down to a myriad of reasons, but one key statistic stands out clearly.
The two teams at the bottom of the ladder, and with a percentage of barely more than 50, are also the two teams at the bottom of the tackles table on which Melbourne sits at the very top.
The biggest pointer to effort and work rate has always been the tackling stats and clearly Richmond and Adelaide have been very poor in this most basic work ethic category.
Of the remainder, 3-1 Fremantle has been the big improver. Fremantle has its best team on the field and is playing really well, with Aaron Sandilands and Matthew Pavlich at the top of their game.
Also above expectations are the Sydney Swans. The Swans have three wins and a high percentage, and after losing a big chunk of experience and talent via retirements at the end of 2009 they look really solid.
Rarely in football do we get a win-win situation, let alone a win-win-win situation, but I suspect this may be the case in the train of events which sent Brendon Fevola to the Lions and Daniel Bradshaw to the Swans and forced Carlton to adopt a different forward line structure to the Fevola-dominated attack of recent years.
While the benefits of Fevola and Bradshaw are obvious, Carlton has averaged 14 goals a game with an attack much more varied than the ‘Fevola or nothing’ set-up of the past.
The other team further down the ladder than expected is 1-3 Hawthorn.
The Hawks had the toughest draw, with losses to Geelong, the Bulldogs and Collingwood alongside a round one win over Melbourne, but the status quo hasn’t changed - unless Buddy Franklin can recapture the awesome form of 2008 the Hawks will only finish the season around the eight and not as a top four team.
That leaves Port Adelaide, West Coast, Essendon and North Melbourne, currently 10th, 12th, 13th and 14th respectively. I regard these positions as a fair indication of where their early season form entitles these four to be ranked.
While there will be many twists and turns along the way and footy will be a bit different every Monday morning, after the first four rounds last season's top three are still the ones to beat.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
