So nobody predicted the premier. Or the Grand Final matchup. Or the winner of the wooden spoon.
And it didn’t get much better from there. I think it’s worse than last year, and in last year’s review, I started by saying “So I think we did even worse than last year”.
In fairness, the answers provided in March also inspired me to write the coaches were predicting a ‘much more open competition’, which I think held true. You can read that article here.
The Chiefs winning the minor premiership and Brodie Grundy being the highest scoring ruck were popular selections that proved true, and Alex went one further by selecting Grundy as the Dangergawn Medalist.
The answer sheet is predominately a sea of red though. Buzz, Alex and Nelson pegged Whitfield as the highest scoring defender, but nobody saw the Travis Boak resurgency up forward. Nobody had Coniglio or Treloar as the midfielders of choice either.
A few other tidbits that stood out as the results were compiled:
- Only two coaches (Alex & Paul) saw the 2nd place Soliders even making the finals. Both also pegged the Scourers to make way for them.
- Alex was the best pre-season predictor this go round. His Angus Brayshaw for highest scorer and best midfielder selections made me smile though.
- This is the second straight year nobody has correctly identified the highest scoring forward.
- Greg wins the award for ‘most faith in one’s own cattle’, riding the Tom Rockliff train wherever possible yet again (but didn’t pick Jake Lloyd for best defender). Also pegged himself for the flag.
- Max and Nelson both went all-in on the Clayton Oliver 2019 experience for both highest scorer & Dangergawn Medalist.
- Paul’s nomination of Seb Ross for the Dangergawn was a sneaky good shout. The Devil polled 8 votes, which is two more than fellow nominee Adam Treloar.
- The years of the Soldiers, Roughnecks, and Lethal Vipers were the hardest to predict, with no coach successfully identifying where they’d finish come the end of the season.
- Paul being the only one to predict where Greg’s side would finish, and Greg being the only one to predict the Defenestrators finishing 4th, is a nice touch.
This year we also asked coaches to nominate a break-out player for season 2019 – and 8 different players were named.
All but one of these players improved their average in 2019 (Neal-Bullen, mate). But most of them sorta hovered around their 18 mark. Tom Papley and Tim English made double digit improvements.
| Team (as of end of ’19 season) | 18 Avg | 19 Avg | |
| Tim English | Roughnecks | 67.6 | 78.5 |
| Wayne Milera | Solomon’s Soldiers | 75.3 | 76.5 |
| Alex Neal-Bullen | Roughnecks | 77.9 | 61.6 |
| Andrew McGrath | MaherShalalHashBaz | 71.4 | 75.8 |
| Brayden Fiorini | Roughnecks | 91.6 | 99.7 |
| Jack Steele | Love Sparkles | 94.4 | 96 |
| Trent Dumont | Taxmanian Devils | 82.4 | 88.1 |
| Tom Papley | Lethal Vipers | 63.2 | 77.3 |