I like to post the premiership odds from time-to-time, to cut through the Essendon bias:
Richmond $5
West Coast $6
Collingwood $8
GWS $9
Brisbane $11
Western Bulldogs $11
Geelong $12
Hawthorn $15
Melbourne $26
Essendon $29
St Kilda $29
North Melbourne $34
Port Adelaide $34
Adelaide $41
Sydney $41
Carlton $51
Fremantle $51
GC $251
So we’re expected to come 10th…bang on the middle of the ladder.
My gut feel is that we will finish slightly lower than that, maybe 12th.
Our oldest players, our KPD heroes, are fading physically.
Our mid 20s cohort, particularly our best players in this age group, have accumulated a bit of scar tissue, and I think they are unreliable (JD, Fantasia, Heppell, Smith, maybe Merrett). JD doesn’t even want to be here.
Our youngsters, coming through the pipeline, are nothing special. We’ve given up too many draft picks in trading for this to be a strong demographic on our list.
So, in summary, I expect us to miss finals in 2020, and then drift further down the ladder over 2021-2023 as well.