What to watch in the JLT Community Series
AFL clubs will play three games over four weeks in the JLT Community Series and there are plenty of hot topics for fans to keep an eye on.
Fresh forward lines
Nearly half the league will roll out refreshed forward lines this year after off-season movement around the country. Nothing is guaranteed before or even during the pre-season, but players will be given increased opportunities to nail down a spot while coaches trial strategies in short runs.
The Western Bulldogs won the premiership but their forward-line struggles weren't a myth, having averaged just 84.4 points per game - 12th in the league - through the home-and-away season. It took the extra games in the finals for Jake Stringer and Tory Dickson to reach 40 goals, and the pair is now joined by the returning Stewart Crameri and recruit Travis Cloke.
Grand final hero Tom Boyd has already said he expects to continue his ruck-forward role, which suggests Cloke is locked in to play out of the goal square. But after rotating so many midfielders through last year, are the Dogs looking unbalanced? If Cloke and Boyd (or Jordan Roughead) are the two tall timbers, it's too big an ask for Stringer, Crameri and Dickson to play off them. If the Bulldogs choose to play all five, keep an eye on the medium forwards being pushed up the ground.
Geelong haven't been quiet about Harry Taylor's apparent move to the forward line, a shift that comes on the back of total dominance out of the centre and the third best scoring average in the AFL. There's a line of thought that suggests Taylor is being kicked out less to help Tom Hawkins and more to free up the back six, though it's expected that they will still need the 30-year-old at times. Nobody is relying on Aaron Black to make the step up after two years in the wilderness but it certainly wouldn't hurt if he offered early returns.
Hawthorn and Fremantle are two clubs looking to integrate new players into their forward lines, yet their situations couldn't be further apart. The Dockers are at ground zero after a wretched 2016 season that saw Michael Walters top the charts with just 36 goals. Matthew Pavlich's retirement is an opportunity for Matt Taberner to build on his goal-a-game campaign, if he can stand up as the No.1 option ahead of Cam McCarthy, who is no silver bullet despite Freo's long chase to get him to the club, and Shane Kersten. Even taking into account Nat Fyfe, the Hill brothers and other midfielders, the Dockers max out as an average attacking team at their peak. Strong quarters will be the aim here, not games.
The Hawks, unlike the rest of the league, don't really have any serious worries about their forward line. The high-functioning unit will, however, see significant change through Ty Vickery and Jarryd Roughead. Vickery is a better fit for Hawthorn's ruck-forward role than Ben McEvoy or the injured Jonathan Ceglar, while Roughead was set for more time up the ground before he missed all of 2016. If that plan remains, the ruck split between McEvoy and Vickery will be something to watch as the rotations evolve throughout the early games.
Rule changes
Ah, the pre-season competition and rule changes. They go together like peas in a pod. The biggest adjustments for this year, however, aren't trials. Third man up is gone for good, deliberate rushed behinds have been clarified and so, too, have high tackles and the protected area. The early pre-season games will also see a ball-up after deliberate rushed behinds, where the normal rule is a free kick in front of goal.
Third man up, really, is the call that matters most. The data says hitouts by third men don't produce more clearances than a regular ruck contest, but that implies that the singular aim is to win the clearance. That's not necessarily the case. It's to disrupt the partnership between the opposition's No.1 ruck and his midfielders, to force the opposition to play you. With that gone, who does it affect most?
Geelong, St Kilda, the Bulldogs and Fremantle were the top clubs for deploying a third man, while Port Adelaide weren't far behind as they looked for solutions to their ruck woes without Matthew Lobbe and Patrick Ryder. The Cats pushed higher than all through Mark Blicavs, whose 154 hitouts as third man accounted for 16.1 per cent of Geelong's total hitouts in 2016. Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood are good enough to get the ball regardless of which team wins the tap - the Cats lost the hitouts in more than half of their home-and-away games - but it spells trouble for Zac Smith and Rhys Stanley.
Ross Lyon will be glad that a fit-again Aaron Sandilands won't need to worry about an opposition third man but the Dockers coach has used a number of his own players in the role in the past. On the flip side things have been made a lot easier for new Demons coach Simon Goodwin and his assistants. While Melbourne rarely deployed a third man last year, opponents won the hitout in roughly 10 per cent of Max Gawn's ruck contests. His tap dominance around the ground will likely take another leap this year.
Players to study
Callum Mills: He torched the field last year as a rookie half-back flanker and now he'll step into the midfield, where the Swans need a serious boost after Tom Mitchell left the club. Mills was a midfielder as a junior but he's now had more than a year to adjust to the pace of league football. The blond brigade of Mills and Isaac Heeney is coming.
Jayden Hunt: The 21-year-old made Melbourne keep selecting him last year after he debuted in round four and grew in strength with some eye-catching pace. He now has to play for a sport with Jake Melksham and Michael Hibberd coming in after their doping bans, but the Dees will be worse off if they leave him to stagnate in the VFL.
Connor Blakely: If you tuned out of Fremantle games once their injuries hit - and who could blame you? - there are reasons to watch from the start now. Blakely is one of them, but not for what he did last year. The 20-year-old averaged 11.7 handballs to his 8.6 kicks, and with Nat Fyfe back in play there's now the opportunity for Blakely to do a little bit more of his own running.
Maverick Weller: An old head compared to some of his teammates, Weller is now 25 and nearing 100 games. He goaled in 17 of his 22 games last year but his pressure as a defensive forward was also a highlight. With some added polish he'll contribute even more than the 24 goals he kicked last year but there is the possibility for the 182-centimetre man to run through the midfield.