The AFL competition is over for another year with Hawthorn providing a devastating demonstration of the axiom about champion teams playing teams of champions. And the value of simply being hardened.
The NRL provides and intriguing competition between one team who had to battle to be allowed to stay in the competition and haven’t won a title in 43 years and another team who are in the grand final after finishing the regular season in seventh place.
It’s more than sentiment that makes Souths my pick. If they’re on it may be a blowout, but league grand finals are usually tight.
As a year it’s been interesting. The AFL have a class of teams who are apart, a class who struggle and a number who waver between the two. It will be interesting to see if some of the waverers can go forward next year or whether they’ll continue in mediocrity.
The NRL has been wildly inconsistent, with State Of Origin actually magnifying that trend, particularly with many NSW players struggling after the highs of their series win. Cronulla’s drug scandal woes and the usual players behaving badly incidents didn’t help either. Some form of internal profession discipline needs to become part of NRL culture.
With that, see you next year.
NRL (last round 1/2; season tally 116/202)
Souths
AFL (last round 1/1; season tally 144/207)
