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Find your Sport Nation frequencyBuild the bridge: The crucial stretch ahead for clubs in no-man's land
Jaiden Sciberras • July 17th, 2025 4:47 pm
As the beginning of the end commences across the AFL, a number of clubs face an almighty decision for the future of their franchise.
With nine teams (and the Swans on a knife’s edge) battling it out for a spot in the eight, the remainder are left to look beyond the season that was, having failed to contend throughout 2025.
Approaching the final six weeks of the season, the bottom nine sides will begin to regroup and commence their plan of attack for the weeks and year to come.
For the bottom three sides in West Coast, Richmond and North Melbourne, the direction is clear, and the result is somewhere near expectation; full rebuild, play the kids and build the scaffolding for the future of the club. Throw in Essendon with their glut of young talent, and the four clubs have an identity to develop over the weeks and seasons to come.
For the Swans, a horror year of injury concerns has left them short of the heights reached in 2024, however as seen across their recent form, the talent and ability remain, and with a healthy list under coach Dean Cox, there is no doubt that a strong off-season will have them primed and ready to attack in 2026.
That leaves four teams: Port Adelaide, Carlton, Melbourne and St Kilda, hovering within the bottom half, too good to bottom out yet not good enough to contend.
With six games to play, these four clubs have hit a crossroad regarding their respective futures. Do they bottom out and start with fresh talent, or do they attack the off-season, recruit and look to charge up the table in years to come?
As former West Coast Eagles coach Adam Simpson describes, the final six weeks are as important as any, despite having little to play for in the grand scheme of this season.
Looking back at his own time and decision making within his time in a similar space, Simpson explained exactly why the clubs must stand firm on their direction from this point, beginning to build the bridge required to cross over into the future.
What are you chasing?
“The hardest spot is last on the ladder,” Simpson told SEN’s Whateley.
“When you’re planning footy trips at Round 10 at any league, even in a local comp when you’ve lost the first seven out of eight, there’s a bit of despair there, that’s the difficult one to be in. But at least you’ve got reality, you know where you’re at.
“There are three clubs that – maybe they know where they are at – but from the outside we’re all asking; where is Carlton at, where is Melbourne at, and where is Port Adelaide at.
“They are sitting in 11th, 12th and 13th. This time last year, Carlton was second, Port were ninth and Melbourne were eighth, and they finished outside the eight.
“Where are they at this year, and what’s going to happen in the next six weeks? They can’t play finals; they can’t really bottom out. I’m assuming they know internally what reality looks like, but from the outside, I think we’re all asking that question… what are you chasing for the rest of the year?
“(It may be), ‘we’re good enough to play finals next year, let’s start now’, so building a bridge or some sort of metaphor that they start for the next six weeks, but I’m not quite sure if that’s a reality for next year for all of those three clubs, they could be going the other way.
“If you think next season is the bridge you’re heading towards. The bridge could be heading the other way.
“By the end of the season, for the three teams last year, Port finished second, Carlton finished eighth and Melbourne were 14th.
“This is the second year in a row that Melbourne are going to finish between 11th and 15, which is dangerous. I’m sure there’s a plan there, I’m sure there’s a clear reality of what they are chasing, and they won’t want to potentially dip below that and hoping to rise.
“Carlton is interesting. We’ve all gone through Carlton a million times, and Port Adelaide have got this weird season where there’s been a transition piece of coach – does that have anything to do with where they’re finishing, or is that just the evolution of their list? The messaging is important.”
The journey back
“My first year (as coach at the Eagles), we were like this. We were just out of contention, and we said, ‘let’s have a crack at top six in six’.
“Six rounds to go, let’s start at zero, and if we did the ladder from Round 19, let’s try to be in the top six. It gave us a bit of a goal each week, and it took away the individual performances and made it more about the collective.
“We got to the last round, and suddenly some teams above us had lost some games. We needed to win the last round (to make the eight), and Sydney were on top of the ladder and they couldn’t lose top two unless they lost by more than 100 points.
“(Sydney) rested Buddy (Franklin), (Jarrad) McVeigh, (Josh) Kennedy, a lot of their top five players - they played Richmond who needed to win to finish eighth, and we thought they’re playing Richmond in Sydney, top of the ladder, we just have to win, and we’ll play finals.
“Of course, Richmond beat Sydney by three points. We didn’t play until the next day, and we had a good win, but that carried through until the next meetings, to the list management, to the pre-season planning, to the new journey in ‘15 which we were lucky enough to play a Grand Final.
“I have no doubt we wouldn’t have done that without the last six rounds. There are some things to chase if you think you’re heading towards the top half of the ladder, now.
“You can get going now, but there’s also the other bridge, which is going the other way.”
The importance of decision making
“I’ll compare West Coast to Melbourne, with no criticism of Melbourne because I don’t know their direction.
“We thought, ‘we’ll get out senior players back, we’ll draft, we have a couple of good draft picks here, let’s get the band back together and we’re going to have a tilt this year.’
“That was the wrong decision in the end, history tells you that we couldn’t get the band back together, and when they got back, they weren’t the same players and suddenly I’m doing interviews on Thursday mornings on the Whateley show.
“There’s definitely swings and roundabouts in the decisions you make as a club right now, if you’re in the bottom half of the eight that could define your next decade. The bottom three teams have got direction.
“St Kilda is another one. I know they’re trying to declare their hand very early in the year that they’re going to take a few steps backwards but what’s an expectation for St Kilda next year? If they lose (Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera) chasing other players, they won’t be forgiven.
“It’s an interesting situation for all these clubs, and it takes good leadership. There’s one alpha male at every club, and it’s either your president, your CEO, your footy manager or your coach.
“Whoever that guy is, has got some big decisions to make.”
