The official practice matches are done and dusted and we now look ahead to Round 1.
Here are three biggest winners and losers from the weekend.
WINNERS
1 - The Dinosaur Dogs
Any skepticism that the Dinosaur Dogs couldn’t play together was put to bed on Saturday.
Somehow it just worked, granted it was against North Melbourne who were not that strong. The chemistry and synergy they had and the positioning of the forwards worked.
Jamarra Ugle-Hagan and Aaron Naughton roamed freely and presented to the logos and used their athleticism and speed, while Rory Lobb and Sam Darcy can play closer to goal. Rarely did they get in each other's way.
Darcy's courage in the air is something we're going to be talking about this year. He's perhaps the most unique player in AFL history. Has there ever been a 208cm forward or swing position player like him? I can't think of one.
The bonus is Lobb doing the forward-half ruck work allowing Tim English to play behind the ball. It looked scary.
2 - The Tap Brothers
Melbourne won’t get six goals between The Tap Brothers very often but the flexibility Max Gawn and Brodie Grundy give them is a luxury, particularly as a target for a long kick in or the vital contest down the line.
Gawn may be the most selfless player in the game, to put his ego aside and let Grundy share the responsibilities.
Gawn took four contested marks and had 11 score involvements!
“Did we just become best friends?”
3 - Crows - The Contest Kings
Adelaide are better than most people think.
Pound for pound they might be the best team in the competition. What do I mean by that? Talent and star power-wise they are a bottom six team. They won't finish bottom six, they’ll challenge for the eight.
They win contest, tackle and pressure as good as any team. They play tough.
Even Izak Rankine laid six tackles on Friday night, in a practice game! He’s never laid six tackles before, ever. It was infectious.
Adelaide aren’t the easy beats anymore and they will surprise many this year.
LOSERS
1 - Woeful Weagles
The chip chip rubbish ball movement is back
On Thursday Adam Simpson said, "Look, we've underperformed at home. We want to get the fans back and give them something to cheer about. That's a priority for us."
No Eagles fan will turn up for that junk. They had 351 disposals and took 116 marks for a score of 51 points. The registered five inside 50s in the entirety of the first quarter.
Massive money players Andrew Gaff and Tim Kelly had six and seven kicks respectively.
Adam Simpson has an absolute mess on his hands. Round 1 against North Melbourne might just be the wooden spoon playoff.
2 - The Essendon Echo
Have a read of this from Andrew McGrath.
"I think just to stick the course, we're improving every day and working really hard in the four walls every day at training," McGrath said.
"Our best football is not going to come straight away, we're going to improve every game. We've got a very young list that's only going to get better with experience and games together.
"So just be a little bit patient and we'll bring the results hopefully."
I’ve heard that exact clip from that exact player so many times before.
Less talk, more action from Essendon, please.
3 - Heavy Handed Holding The Ball
Why is the league disincentivising players from winning the ball?
Some of the decisions we've seen the last two weeks have been laughable. If you win the footy, you need reasonable time to be able to dispose of it.
That’s of course unless the AFL is wanting players to ignore the ball, sweat on their opponent to win the ball and then tackle them to get a quick holding the ball.
