We’ll be bringing you a closer look, over the next few weeks as the anticipation grows for the start of the season, at the men who are in the running for the Brownlow Medal – the guys who will be looking to follow Matthew Priddis into the record books. The man with the shortest odds would likely have to make extra room in the trophy cabinet – if Gary Ablett Jr. can claim another Brownlow Medal, it will be his third, which will equal the best effort of any AFL player in the history of the medal. A third Brownlow would make Ablett one of the modern greats – the last time a third Medal was picked up was back in the seventies!

So we’ll be taking a closer look at Ablett going into the 2015 season, to see if he’s going to offer value at $5.00 to make history, and also in the following weeks we’ll be looking at the men who will be thinking of denying him the pleasure. Plus we’ll have all the AFL odds and more, as usual…

The list of past Coleman Medal winners reads like a who’s who of AFL super-stars. Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin has three on his mantelpiece, and he’s the man with the shortest odds to win it in 2015, $4.25 as of right now. With this being one of the most interesting markets going for the coming AFL season (and one of our favourites to bet on and to keep track of, by the way), we’re going to be devoting some time and some space to looking at the key contenders in a bit more detail. And the 2015 season could be a compelling contest in store for the Coleman Medal, too. Before a ball has been kicked, there are three guys with odds shorter than $10 next to their names on Sportsbet. Franklin we’ve mentioned, but Roughead, Riewoldt and Kennedy aren’t going to let him just have it by any means!

So make sure you check back in with us over the next few weeks for all the usual AFL odds (which you can get just by hitting the link there), plus a closer look at those Coleman Medal contenders and more…

First up is arguably the most exciting of them, the medal that showcases the best and brightest young talent emerging onto the AFL scene: the players who will have to be taken into account in future seasons when you’re assessing those AFL odds, and whose coaches and teammates will be hoping can make immediate impact. A vintage rookie year is a difficult thing to put together, but the Rising Star medal recognises the players who manage it – and it can truly be a stepping stone to great things, both in their prospects and in their trophy cabinets.

Obviously it’s quite a difficult market to judge, the Rising Star, as, pretty much by definition, we haven’t seen all that much of these young guns before the start of the season. That’s where we have to rely a little bit on the buzz coming from the training camps, and gather all the info we can in advance of the season kicking off. We’ll be doing just that, and looking at the most exciting Rising Star prospects in closer detail in the coming days and weeks, so watch this space!

So today we’re talking about Steve Johnson, who emphatically will be appearing for the Cats in their 2015 campaign, even in spite of a potentially lucrative offer of a move to GWS in the off season. Rather brilliantly, we think, he happened to overlook the offer from the Giants whilst he was on holiday, but it sounds like he’s a committed Geelong man, and not out of loyalty alone, but because he’s in search of another flag win with them: ‘I really didn’t get a good chance to consider it because I was overseas on a golf trip and I think it was a day or two before the (trade) deadline finished. At the end of the day, my initial reaction was that I believed I had a really good opportunity to play in a premiership again next season at Geelong and that’s pretty much as far as I considered it. I was flattered by the offer from GWS to come up there for however long it was, but I’m certainly happy where I am at the moment. It probably wasn’t the time for me to really look at that sort of thing.’

What he will be looking at is getting himself ready for the new season, and that will mean managing his fitness quite carefully – especially a foot injury that is a risk of a recurrence, and that has been troubling him in recent weeks: ‘it was just a little bit of bone stress, it’s not even really stress. I had bone stress beforehand and it healed up pretty well over the off-season. I’ve been doing a lot of running (this pre-season) and I came in one morning and my foot was a tiny bit sore and they took the precautionary approach by saying ‘stay off it for a week’ and sent me to the Gold Coast.’

Which gives you an idea of how the management at Geelong are going to handle Johnson, who brings valuable experience to their roster, and who could be a key man in helping them overcome AFL odds of $14.00 to win the 2015 premiership. They’re going to handle him with lots of holidays, it sounds like. Nice work if you can get it…

And you can see that approach taking shape in the new leadership group at the Bulldogs for the 2015 season. New skipper Robert Murphy will be assisted by Dale Morris, Matthew Boyd, Tom Liberatore and new addition Jordan Roughead, who brings youth and ambition in spades. He’s made up to be in the group, too: ‘I do see myself as a leader. I’ve had some great leaders at this footy club who I’ve learnt from and footy clubs I’ve been involved with in the past. It’s something I’ve never looked upon lightly and it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. It’s a great honour to be selected in the group and be up there to not only help Murph on game day but off the field as well.’

They’ve got a challenge on their hands to make a success of the 2015 season, mind you, so it’s positive to see the young, developing players growing into the roles that they will be hoping to make their own for a few years at least. With AFL odds of $10.00 beside the Bulldogs on Sportsbet right now just to finish the regular season in the top eight, there’s lots of work to do, but Bulldogs fans will be hoping their fresh young leaders can put it in.

And judging by what he’s been saying to the press around the Collingwood training camp this week, Taylor Adams is a man who wants to be in the mix, too. There’s a feeling that there are positions up for grabs in the Collingwood midfield, and Taylor feels that he’s done enough to at least be given a shot at making one of those places his for the long term: ‘I’d be pissed off if he (Buckley) didn’t. There’s a handful of guys there that can do it and if I wasn’t in that handful I’d be pretty angry and disappointed. I think I’ve done enough developing to certainly step up.’

And he fancies a little bit more of a leadership role, too: ‘it comes with confidence. I’ve had a pretty good pre-season and I know the game-plan and I know where I want the club to go. If I think something’s wrong, then I’m not afraid to speak up and say something. I felt a fair bit of pressure last year playing in front of big crowds and once I played a couple of bad games in a row my confidence dropped and I started to doubt myself. I hadn’t been put under the microscope like that and it took a bit of getting used to.’

Pies fans will be hoping that the 2015 campaign sees Taylor – amongst others – growing into their roles. If they can, then Collingwood might represent value in the AFL odds that we’re seeing ahead of the season opener…

The news we’re talking about is a report this week on AFL players’ salaries, and it’s showing an interesting trend – there were only two million-dollar salaries in the AFL in 2014 (and Buddy Franklin wasn’t one of them!). That figure is down from five the year before, and eight in 2012 – but the average wage of an AFL player has climbed each year in the same period. The salary cap is a massive influence there, of course, and these figures give a good indication of the way in which the franchises go about arranging their affairs. The reality of a long, hard AFL season is that there will be injuries, and a big squad of players is needed if you’re going to be competitive throughout the year, and, vitally, in the final few weeks of the season. What’s needed is quality in depth, and the clubs are all on the look-out for it – and working hard to develop players and keep them fit and firing for the whole campaign…

We’ll be here through the 2015 season to bring you all news as we get it on those poor, under-paid players – their injuries, their ambitions and all the AFL odds for the clubs who will be hoping they can deliver on an average investment per player of $283,029. Still seems like a decent wage, we reckon – plus they get all that great kit for free!

So it’s vital to get a good, strong pre-season in to build towards each new season. What you absolutely don’t want to see, as a fan or as a coach, is players picking up injuries or breaking down in pre-season training. Spare a thought, then, for Cats coach Chris Scott, who had not one or two pieces of bad news to deal with last week, but three injury reports landing on his desk. Probably the most concerning is to potentially key recruit Mitch Clark, who has long been troubled by foot problems, but who was on a very light training schedule this week, and being very closely watched, no doubt, by a concerned staff.

Elsewhere, there are injury concerns surrounding Nathan Vardy and Steve Johnson – both key men to the Cats’ 2015 campaign. We’re not entirely sure how any of those three injuries will develop, or how long the concerns will last. Certainly, at this stage, the NAB Challenge and the start of the season are in doubt for all three men. We’ll leave it to you to decide how their potential absence affects the AFL odds we’re seeing for the Cats…

They won’t be starting the new season with CEO Simon Garlick at the helm, that’s for sure – he stepped down this month after five years or so in the job, and 13 years at the club in total, as a player, a board member and a manager. He follows coach Brendan McCartney out the door, as well as captain Ryan Griffen, in what you’d definitely put down as a disrupted off-season for the Bulldogs. It doesn’t sound like he leaves with any recriminations chasing him, mind you: ‘the time is right for me to resign and start a new chapter in my life and career, I believe it’s in the best interests of the club, my family and myself at this time given the recent appointment of a new coach, a stable board in place and a new five-year strategic plan for the club ready to be launched. I’m proud of all I have accomplished here at Western Bulldogs during my tenure as the chief executive. It has been a privilege to serve the club in this capacity after representing it as a player. I wish Rob Murphy and all players, Luke Beveridge and his coaches and the entire club all the very best. The football talent is clearly present and foundations are there for future success.’

So he leaves a note of optimism behind him, and we get the impression that he’s been hanging on a little bit to try to make sure things are on an even keel for the new season. He must think things are right enough for him to leave them, but with the Bulldogs seeing AFL odds of $10.00 to feature in 2015 finals footie, do the fans agree with him, and do you?

That key date for the Gold Coast players will be April 4th, when they take on Melbourne to open their account for 2015, and for one young Sun in particular, it could be a huge occasion. 18-year-old Touk Miller has been working hard at Gold Coast to adjust to the demands of the senior team, but he’s got a place in that side firmly in his sights: ‘making the Round One team is the ultimate goal at the moment so fingers crossed I can work hard and get myself in the team. Definitely from junior footy to senior footy, the intensity around the track has been a huge one. You’ve got to be switched on the whole time, even from the get-go in your warm-ups. When we do interviews and reviews of training, they’ve got clips of what you’ve done wrong. They’ve pulled up clips from warm-ups and not being intense enough. I think that’s a massive step up from what you get in junior footy.’

He’s not wrong, obviously, but Miller is definitely going to be one to watch as he makes the transition to the senior side, especially if he makes that transition quickly enough to run out in the first game. The reality is that the Suns already look strong in the middle of the park, and Miller could well just be adding strength over the course of the season. How you see that affecting the Gold Coast AFL odds for the 2015 season is up to you…