Analysis by Adam
At a glance
Top 5 Scorers
| Player | Games | Average | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dayne Zorko | 23 | 110.3 | 6 |
| Zach Merrett | 23 | 108.8 | 8 |
| Josh Dunkley | 23 | 107.4 | 11 |
| Toby Nankervis | 21 | 100.6 | 29 |
| Tom Green | 23 | 99.9 | 31 |
Season Summary
Almost every coach who completed the pre-season survey had MaherShalalHashBaz as a bottom four side, missing the finals.
Instead they made the Preliminary Finals.
It’s hard not to view their season as anything less than a raging success. Other than the other member of his family who also happens to play in our competition, is there any coach happier with their 2024 performance than Jordie? I’m not sure there is.
MaherShalalHashBaz are firmly in the premiership mix. Zorko is ancient yes, but Merrett and Dunkley are still right in the middle of their prime. As is Houston, Daicos, Cameron, Mills, Rioli, Nankervis and McGrath.
They have a bonafide superstar under 24 in Tom Green, and Chad Warner is probably close enough to be lumped in this tier as well. And they’re still flush with promising players who are contributing most weeks – Callaghan and Darcy, for example. This is a list worthy of envy.
Losing Daniher hurts. But we all have forward line problems, and they at least have Curnow, Cameron and Darcy as reliable providers in that part of the ground. I think a premiership next season should be the aim. Why not? I don’t see a list that is obviously better than this one. I think they can beat anyone. The only thing stopping them is the fact we have several very good teams in the league at the moment, and I could write the same thing about them as well.
Season Grade – A
All-Australians
| Pos | Player | Average | Games |
|---|---|---|---|
| M3 | Josh Dunkley | 109.20 | 20 |
| M4 | Zach Merrett | 107.80 | 20 |
| F1 | Dayne Zorko | 112.05 | 20 |
| F6 | Joe Daniher | 86.00 | 18 |
| BM | Tom Green | 104.05 | 19 |
DangerGawn Votes
| Rank | Player | Votes |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Dayne Zorko | 14 |
| 15 | Josh Dunkley | 12 |
| 16 | Zach Merrett | 11 |
| 18 | Tom Green | 11 |
| 27 | Toby Nankervis | 9 |
| 36 | Dan Houston | 7 |
| 38 | Josh Daicos | 6 |
| 43 | Riley Bonner | 5 |
| 45 | Joe Daniher | 5 |
| 58 | Chad Warner | 3 |
| 59 | Alex Sexton | 3 |
| 81 | Jaeger O’Meara | 2 |
| 123 | Finn Callaghan | 1 |
| 124 | Jeremy Cameron | 1 |
Pre-Season Draft
| Round | Pick | Player | GP | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 14 | Darcy Wilson | 13 | 67.77 |
| 3 | 24 | Arie Schoenmaker | 2 | 63 |
| 3 | 28 | Jase Burgoyne | 14 | 78.43 |
| 4 | 34 | Clay Hall | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 43 | Matt Flynn | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 44 | Hayden McLean | 8 | 61.25 |
| 5 | 49 | Darcy Jones | 5 | 63.2 |
| 6 | 54 | Lachie Weller | 5 | 73 |
| 8 | 74 | Andrew Gaff | 1 | 17 |
| 8 | 77 | Sam Darcy | 17 | 78 |
| 10 | 93 | Toby Conway | 1 | 94 |
| 10 | 94 | Jacob van Rooyen | 3 | 77 |
| 10 | 100 | Kane McAuliffe | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | 104 | Lance Collard | 0 | 0 |
| 12 | 114 | Jai Culley | 0 | 0 |
| 13 | 124 | Bailey Williams | 19 | 79.05 |
| 14 | 134 | Jamaine Jones | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | 144 | Massimo D’Ambrosio | 16 | 80.31 |
| 16 | 154 | Bobby Hill | 1 | 55 |
| 17 | 164 | Josh Fahey | 0 | 0 |
| 18 | 174 | Noah Balta | 14 | 57.93 |
| 19 | 184 | Marty Hore | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | 194 | Rhys Stanley | 0 | 0 |
Most Inspired Selection
Pick 77 – Sam Darcy
With all due respect to both Bailey Williams and Massimo D’Ambrosio, who returned excellent value in the back end of the draft and both have a reasonable claim as the steal of the night, I’m going with Darcy. Because he looks like a long term top 20 forward for the foreseeable future. Those are gold.
I’m reasonably confident I wasn’t the only one to come away from draft night thinking their selections indicated coach Burgess saw another year of rebuilding on the agenda – the pre-season survey results would certainly support my confidence. This is the draft of someone prioritising prospect acquisition.
And on those terms, it was a success. Their first selection, Darcy Wilson, is a justifiable keeper selection. As would be Jase Burgoyne, but he ended up serving another, arguably equally useful function – that being an appealing trade asset. Darcy is the pick of the bunch, and I’d be stunned if he wasn’t a mainstay at MSHB for a while now. But even Schoenmaker showed some flashes. One suspects if he was on one of the rebuilding lists, he’d be a speculative keeper a coach would happily roll the dice on*.
*clearly wrote this before keeper deadline…
Trades
| Date | Teams | Received |
|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2024 |  | – Travis Boak |
 | – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 6 pick – Jake Kelly | |
| 25 June 2024 |  | – Jase Burgoyne – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 17 pick (returned) – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 19 pick |
| – Toby Nankervis – Threat Level Midnight Round 7 pick – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 12 pick | |
| 20 May 2024 | | – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 5 pick |
| – Alex Sexton – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 11 Pick | |
| 29 April 2024 | | – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 1 pick – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 7 pick – Will Ashcroft |
| – Josh Dunkley – Dan Houston – Dayne Zorko – Jeremy Cameron – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 5 pick – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 17 pick | |
| 10 February 2024 | | – Defenestrators Round 5 pick (pick 49) |
 | – Neil Erasmus | |
| 9 February 2024 | | – Threat Level Midnight Round 5 pick (pick 43) |
 | – Matthew Johnson – Jayden Hunt | |
| 6 February 2024 | | – Dan Rioli – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 10 pick (pick 100) |
| – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 5 pick (pick 50) * returned – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 9 pick (Pick 84) | |
| 6 February 2024 | | – Reilly O’Brien – Taxmanian Devils Round 8 Pick (pick 77) |
 | – Dom Sheed – Love Sparkles Round 4 Pick (pick 38) | |
| 30 September 2023 | | – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 1 pick (pick 4) – MaherShalalHashBaz Round 7 pick (pick 64) |
| – Callum Mills – Jade Gresham – Solomon’s Soldiers Round 5 pick (pick 50) – Threat Level Midnight Round 10 pick (pick 93) |
If the draft suggested MSHB were still in rebuild mode, this list of trades reveals something closer to what proved to be the truth. This was a rebuilding team that was extremely well positioned to accelerate that process when the opportunity presented.
And the opportunity presented much earlier than I suspect they had planned. The opportunity was called the Soldiers.
But lets chart this in order. In the off-season MSHB were prolific. Their biggest move was their first, parting with the fourth overall selection to bring in Callum Mills (and Jade Gresham, I suppose). Mills barely featured for the club in 2024, but is a longer term piece for the team nonetheless. It’s early days, but coach Burgess will fancy Mills as a handy contributor over the eventual 4th selection, Zane Duursma.
Then they looked to plug their hole in the ruck by bringing in Reilly O’Brien, who was surplus to requirements at the Devils. This was a neat trade by both teams at the time, though no doubt the Devils were expecting to get a bit more out of Sheed.
The subsequent moves in February all represent a ruthless pragmatism. The club shipped out several players they’d invested significant draft equity in, taking “losses” on those investments, but presumably content to get something rather than risk them becoming difficult to justify holds in the next season or two. This is all a very admirable detachment, in my view.
This all builds to 29 April, when MSHB cashed in many of their rebuild chips to vault straight into contender-dom. This is a masterful deal in my view. Snaring 4 surefire keepers – even if Zorko is getting towards ancient – for a 1st round draft pick and a former number 1 selection in Ashcroft, is selling pretty high. It’s hard to imagine coach Burgess regretting that move any time soon. Dunkley alone is probably more likely than not to outpace Ashcroft’s scoring for the next two seasons, throw in several top ten level players at other positions, and it’s no contest. Watching Ashcroft run around 5 years from now averaging 105 will be a small price to pay if it means MSHB are a legitimate grand final chance every season between now and then, and I believe this trade makes that a distinct possibility.
The moves they made post this giant splash are just further solid moves to solidify the squad’s immediate prospects. Nankervis is a great get – he gives them a likely top 5 ruck for the next few years, for someone they snared in the pre-season draft. Boak was a worthwhile gamble, as was Sexton. They paid small prices for those gambles.
List at end of 2024 season
| Player | G | Avg | Rank | Age |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dayne Zorko | 23 | 110.3 | 6 | 35.06 |
| Zach Merrett | 23 | 108.8 | 8 | 28.10 |
| Josh Dunkley | 23 | 107.4 | 11 | 27.07 |
| Toby Nankervis | 21 | 100.6 | 29 | 30 |
| Tom Green | 23 | 99.9 | 31 | 23.07 |
| Josh Daicos | 23 | 94.8 | 44 | 25.09 |
| Dan Houston | 22 | 94 | 47 | 27.03 |
| Chad Warner | 22 | 93.7 | 48 | 23.03 |
| Reilly O’Brien | 21 | 91 | 56 | 29 |
| Andrew McGrath | 23 | 84.2 | 83 | 26.02 |
| Jeremy Cameron | 22 | 84 | 84 | 31.04 |
| Daniel Rioli | 23 | 83.5 | 87 | 27.04 |
| Joe Daniher | 23 | 83 | 90 | 30.05 |
| Riley Bonner | 19 | 79.4 | 111 | 27.05 |
| Massimo D’Ambrosio | 22 | 77.8 | 125 | 21.02 |
| Finn Callaghan | 22 | 76.9 | 135 | 21.04 |
| Jake Soligo | 23 | 76.9 | 136 | 21.07 |
| Alex Sexton | 15 | 76.3 | 142 | 30.08 |
| Sam Darcy | 20 | 75.9 | 148 | 21.01 |
| Toby Conway | 5 | 75.2 | 151 | 21.04 |
| Darcy Wilmot | 23 | 75.1 | 153 | 20.07 |
| Travis Boak | 20 | 75 | 155 | 36 |
| Charlie Curnow | 21 | 73.9 | 163 | 27.06 |
| Nick Bryan | 5 | 71.4 | 183 | 22.10 |
| Callum Mills | 6 | 69.8 | 195 | 27.04 |
| Logan Evans | 10 | 69.6 | 196 | 18.10 |
| Lachlan Bramble | 23 | 68.7 | 203 | 26.04 |
| Darcy Tucker | 23 | 68.5 | 206 | 27.07 |
| Lachie Weller | 6 | 66.2 | 220 | 28.06 |
| Darcy Wilson | 23 | 65.4 | 230 | 19 |
| Hayden McLean | 23 | 64.8 | 240 | 25.07 |
| Jeremy Howe | 19 | 64.5 | 243 | 34.01 |
| Jaeger O’Meara | 22 | 62 | 278 | 30.06 |
| Arie Schoenmaker | 4 | 58.8 | 328 | 19.07 |
| Brady Hough | 23 | 58.5 | 336 | 21.05 |
| Jacob van Rooyen | 21 | 57.1 | 344 | 21.04 |
| Jack Gunston | 16 | 56.1 | 357 | 32.10 |
| Harrison Jones | 21 | 54.8 | 375 | 23.06 |
| Ben McKay | 23 | 54.2 | 383 | 26.08 |
| Elijah Hewett | 0 | 0 | 768 | 20.03 |
Ages as of 31 August 2024
Averages are AFL H&A season averages (not DangerGawn games played)
Player to watch in 2025
Dayne Zorko
Pretty straightforward here. Zorko, 36, was the 6th best scorer in fantasy last season, and the number one forward. Kiddie Coleman’s round one ACL proved a boon for the ageing Lion, as he moved to halfback and returned the best scoring of his career.
Will we get a repeat next year? Will he get reasonably close at least? Coleman should be back. Does Zorko play the same role again? Or does he move? If he moves, where does he move? His scoring prowess is such that you have to keep him (right?), but there is a possibility we wake up in round 10 next year with Zorko, a year older, averaging in the 80s. Not a disaster by any stretch, but a disappointing outcome all the same.