While you can find our experts' tips for the grand final, wooden spoon and Brownlow in the Footy 2014 liftout in today's paper, below we've asked a few more searching questions. Answer them yourself, write it down and stick it in your sock drawer for comparison and commiseration over drinks come Sunday, September 28.
Questions
1. Last minute of the grand final, who is the hero?
2. The year's tactical talking point ...
3. The year's reality check ...
4. The issue the AFL can't spin is?
5. Surprising headline ...
Answers
Greg Baum - Elder Statesman
1. The goal-line camera umpire.
2. Push in the back.
3. GWS makes no crowds or membership progress.
4. No matter how many equalisation measures it introduces, someone will finish last.
5. Jason Collins inspired me.
Will Brodie - Online Guru
1. Matthew Pavlich, the redemption story demands it.
2. The little league swarm around the ball.
3. Soccer World Cup.
4. Fan dissatisfaction at ticketing, corporatisation.
5. Eddie's vow of silence.
Rohan Connolly - Mr. Football
1. Hayden Ballantyne. Unlike Stephen Milne in 2010, this time the ball does bounce the way of everyone's favourite anti-hero.
2. Handball histrionics. Use of the ball by hand to outnumber kicks as teams attempt to penetrate improved defensive presses, sparking calls for legislation to restrict its use behind centre.
3. Fans continue to agitate about the extent to which football politics dominates discourse ahead of that about the actual game. I'm one of them.
4. Nothing. There is no topic the AFL cannot attempt to spin!
5. Malthouse: AFL media should be shown more respect.
Michael Gleeson - Marathon Man
1. Buddy.
2. Kick-handball ratio.
3. For key defenders when forwards are allowed to move them out the way.
4. People don't want to watch the expansion clubs.
5. Give me five more years: Roos.
Peter Hanlon - Country Connection
1. Hayden Ballantyne.
2. The rise of 'Out – Bloggs [rested]' on teams night.
3. Talking about footy day-in, day-out, all year is actually a bit dull.
4. Banging on about equalisation while there's still an inequitable draw is a joke.
5. No GWS players nominated for rising star award.
Jesse Hogan - Not the Melbourne Guy
1. Ryan Schoenmakers.
2. The increasing importance of the ruckman, despite the sub rule.
3. GWS to be better than most rival supporters assume.
4. The inconsistency around free-kicks paid – and not paid – for holding in marking contests.
5. Sheeds back: AFL boss approves Tasmania team.
Leaping Larry - Comic Relief
1. It's hard to avoid the suspicion that the AFL probably thinks the answer should be “The AFL”.
2. Why the chowder-heads who walk amid the smokers outside the stadiums during game breaks coughing and waving their arms extravagantly don't just stay inside the stadiums.
3. Most people finally admit that with all the sponsored venue names and changes, they've basically lost track of which ground is which.
4. Variable ticket pricing. But it ought to be good, clean wholesome family fun to watch them try.
5. Fan located at night footy who enjoys mid-strength beer – shock!
Samantha Lane - Seven Deadly Ins
1. The Fyfanator (Nathan Fyfe) will make the difference.
2. Use of the words: 'protocols', 'governance', 'structures', 'integrity', 'integrity unit', 'due diligence', 'due process', 'due anything'. How much is too much?
3. See below.
4. Anti-doping related.
5. Read all the good ones in The Sunday Age.
Matthew Lloyd - Can Play
1. Hayden Ballantyne kicks the sealer after last year's GF blunders and jumps on Sandilands' shoulders to celebrate.
2. How each coach uses the cap on the interchange to ensure that their side runs out the game well.
3. Carlton Football Club missing the eight again but this time it won't get to play finals.
4. Why the runners' colours clashed with a team jumper.
5. GWS decides it's time to stop asking retired players to come out of retirement.
Matt Murnane - Kicking On
1. Lance Franklin launching a 55-metre bomb from the boundary line two minutes before the final siren.
2. Key forwards taking advantage of the new rules for contact in marking contests.
3. The St Kilda re-build.
4. Illicit drug use.
5. Essendon not being in the headlines.
Jake Nial - Columbo
1. Adam Goodes, in his last minute of league football and held together by tape, sprints and runs down Hayden Ballantyne, who coughs up a crucial ball.
2. Kick the bloody ball!
3. The umpires and Saints can change coaches, they can change cultures, they can change team rules, but they can't change the results.
4. Sleeve tattoos interfering with sponsorship
5. Dank gives Pep talk to ASADA
Jon Pierik - In and Under Type
1. Matthew Pavlich with a roost from 50.
2. The benefits of losing a stoppage but setting up to counter-attack from winning the next possession.
3. Cold Pies – a step back for long-term benefit.
4. Impact of concussions a growing concern.
5. NRL: Buddy a bonanza for AFL.
Emma Quayle - Drafted In
1. After a horrendous run with injury, Scott Gumbleton slots the winning goal from the pocket for Fremantle.
2. How hard it will soon become to stop Jeremy Cameron, Joe Daniher, Tom Boyd, Jon Patton and Tom Lynch – the next generation of superstar forwards.
3. Just how hard the GWS and Gold Coast concessions have made it for clubs like Melbourne and St Kilda to quickly rebuild.
4. That the free agency compensation pick system is working. There shouldn't be any.
5. Demetriou: actually, I might stick around.
Scott Spits - Joe Blogs
1. Matthew Pavlich. Just super reliable when it counts.
2. Re-emergence of powerful key forwards.
3. Radical improvement of expansion clubs.
4. Fans locked out of big games at the Docklands.
5. I prefer Manly to Bondi, says new Swan Buddy.
Andrew Tate - Sunday Too Far Away
1. Finally, Ross Lyon.
2. Finding space for Buddy on the SCG.
3. GWS v Carlton is not Australia v Spain.
4. Too many games that mean nothing.
5. Fans weigh facts, react reasonably.
Caroline Wilson - Footy's First Lady
1. Hayden Ballantyne.
2. The swingmen. Can backs be trusted to kick goals up forward?
3. Corporate sponsorship crisis as big companies shed more jobs.
4. Greater Western Sydney's struggles.
5. Buddy tells: My arthritic knee.
