AFL 2015: A year of achievement and unthinkable tragedy

The 2015 AFL season was one of tremendous team and individual achievement, but also one of unthinkable tragedy.

FOOTY CONFRONTS THE UNIMAGINABLE

The AFL had dealt with tragedy before, but never on the scale presented in the early hours of Friday July 3, when news broke of the death of Adelaide coach Phil Walsh.

It wasn't just an untimely passing, but in circumstances horrific enough to create headlines regardless of profile, Walsh's own son Cy charged with murder.

And what would become increasingly apparent in the days and weeks that followed, as the AFL began a period of mourning - abandoning Adelaide's scheduled clash with Geelong, and observing moving silences and gestures at other venues - was the depth of the loss.

While Walsh the long-time assistant coach had never had high visibility in the football world, his short tenure with the Crows had left a profound impression on the psyche of the club.

Flood of emotion: Adelaide players walk from the field after round 16, as a tribute is paid to coach Phil Walsh. Photo: Getty Images

Perhaps that became more evident in Adelaide's remarkable effort in winning six of their last nine games after the tragedy, to reach the finals, then knocking over the Western Bulldogs in the elimination final to finish the season in sixth place.

Sadly, tragedy didn't end there for the football world, with Hawthorn assistant coach Brett Ratten's 16-year-old son Cooper dying on August 16 after a car in which he was a passenger crashed and overturned in Yarra Glen.

The devastated dad would return to work and help steer the Hawks to a premiership hat-trick. But 2015 will be one always remembered for sadness as much as success.
 

NO GOODES FOR ANYONE

On the field in 2015, was there a sadder sight than that of 372-game dual Brownlow medallist Adam Goodes leaving ANZ Stadium in what would clearly be his last game, denied even an appropriate send-off?

Goodes would shun the grand final motorcade for retiring players, lest the occasion be hijacked again by those who had spent most of the season jeering him from the stands.

The reason? Well, if you believed the logic of those justifying such treatment, it was all about "sniping", "diving", "staging". Debate raged as many argued that the booing had a foundation in racism.

Goodes' "war dance" following a goal against Carlton in round nine apparently made it open season, and many made the case that even if the jeering supporters did not boo with racist intent, the way it was received should have had them reconsidering their actions.

Goodes, clearly affected by the booing, took time away from football before returning to finish the season, but his great career ended on a disappointingly tarnished note.

He leaves the game with his head held high. Those who booed him should hang theirs in shame.

Adam Goodes' AFL career ended with little fanfare. Photo: Getty Images

CREAM RISES TO THE TOP

Not always do the players we most love to watch end up also being the ones who bring home the bacon. But season 2015 proved to be a very happy exception.

In the biggest week of the football year, two fan favourites delivered the goods in exceptional fashion, Fremantle's Nat Fyfe taking out the Brownlow Medal, and, five days later, Hawthorn star Cyril Rioli winning the Norm Smith Medal in the Hawks' crushing grand final win over West Coast.

Fyfe polled 31 votes to win the Brownlow despite missing four games during the season, only one player in the medal's history missing more matches and still taking "Charlie" home. His win came on the back of nine best-on-grounds and an incredible start to the season in which he polled 29 votes in his first 13 games.

Brownlow Medal winner Nat Fyfe. Photo: Getty Images

While Rioli's game-breaking cameos had become standard, he reached a new level of consistency in 2015, best reflected on grand final day, when his 18 disposals and 12 marks were more than backed up with two early goals, four goals assists and a decisive tackle which led to another Hawthorn score.

When Rioli's name was read out as the Hawks' premiership celebrations began, grand final day had one of its most popular Norm Smith Medal winners.

Cyril Rioli celebrates with his premiership medal and the Norm Smith Medal. Photo: Scott Barbour

JAMES HIRD DEPARTS ESSENDON

It was a resignation for which some had been calling for three seasons as a result of the long-running supplements saga. But when James Hird announced his time as Essendon coach was up three rounds before the end of the season, it was performance, not principle, which proved the trigger.

The Bombers had maintained decent results right through the saga, reaching finals in 2014, and on Hird's return from a 12-month suspension, began 2015 with a bang, too, narrowly losing to grand finalists Sydney before upsetting reigning premiers Hawthorn.

But it all fell apart for the Dons after that, particularly once WADA announced its intention to appeal against the AFL anti-doping tribunal's not guilty finding on 34 past and present Essendon players in May.

The Bombers would win just three of their last 16 games, the letdown of the appeal and three years of constant psychological toll reducing most players to shells of their former selves.

The pressure rose on Hird, too, after a 110-point belting at the hands of St Kilda in round 14, and again after an abysmal 112-point loss to Adelaide in round 20. And just two days after that humiliation, on August 17, Hird, in an emotional and occasionally teary press conference, told the world he'd had enough.

James Hird sheds a tear at his farewell press conference. Photo: Jason South

FROM RECORD-BREAKER TO RETRENCHED

This was supposed to be a stellar year for coaching veteran Mick Malthouse, the three-time premiership coach poised to break Jock McHale's all-time coaching record of 714 games five rounds into the new season. To say things didn't go according to plan would be considerable understatement.

The Blues were already 1-3 when the big moment came against one of Malthouse's old sides, Collingwood. Far from rise to the occasion, his players served up a shocker, thrashed by 75 points without giving so much as a yelp. And incredibly, just three games later, Malthouse had joined the sacked coaches club.

Increasingly agitated and public brawling between coach and club over a new contract, not to mention three humiliating losses to Brisbane, GWS and Geelong, pushed officials to breaking point.

And an explosive Malthouse interview on radio station SEN was the final straw. Malthouse, believing he had already effectively been shunted as coach for next season, fired more than a few salvos the Blues' way. He was gone within hours.

It was a sad end to a coaching career that spanned four decades, four clubs and 31 seasons, and had Malthouse-coached sides competing in seven grand finals. His winning percentage of 57.03 remained impressive. Carlton were the only one of his four clubs where he returned less than 50 per cent, the Blues winning only 20 of 54 games while he was in charge.

Mick Malthouse. Photo: Getty Images

THE STRONG GETTING STRONGER?

It was a question rightly asked after Hawthorn completed a premiership hat-trick with an emphatic grand final win over West Coast, the first AFL "threepeat" since Brisbane of 2001-03.

And it was a query worth asking again after the trade period and draft, which saw Geelong, having just missed out on a ninth successive finals appearance, load up on senior experience via the trading in of Patrick Dangerfield, Lachie Henderson, Scott Selwood and Zac Smith.

The Cats had already picked off Mitch Clark and Rhys Stanley 12 months previously, and the big boost to the player stocks already has Geelong at short odds to be back in flag contention in 2016.

Geelong will go into next season a shorter flag price than five teams that actually did make the finals. Hawthorn, meanwhile, are favourite with every betting agency to achieve what hasn't been done since Collingwood made it a premiership quadrella back in 1930.

Brian Lake and David Hale have retired, and Matt Suckling has departed for the Western Bulldogs, but the Hawks' penchant for pick-ups from rivals continued with the addition of a ruck replacement for Hale in Jack Fitzpatrick from Melbourne.

Free agency has had a flow-on effect in other forms of player movement, which may well make it harder for lower-ladder rivals to draft and hang on to a generation for future flag success. That has to be music to the ears of the likes of Hawthorn, who don't look like going anywhere for a while yet.

Threepeat: Hawks skipper Luke Hodge. Photo: Getty Images

WHAT'S NEXT?

The neutral may be developing a little bit of Hawthorn fatigue, but you can't overstate how monumental a feat four straight flags would be in the modern era. Given today's professionalism surely the greatest achievement the game will have seen.

There's no end of potential big improvers in 2016 to challenge them, though. Port Adelaide and Geelong lead the list, while the boom teams of last season, West Coast and Western Bulldogs, will be desperate not to concede their hard-won ground.

But at a more fundamental level, 2016 already stands to be a better football year than the one just gone.

Whatever the findings of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the Essendon supplements saga and football's longest-running controversy will finally be resolved. And, touch wood, surely the game couldn't be rocked by the extent of human tragedy we witnessed in 2015, from which we're still recovering.