3 minute read
A poll of AFL captains has found Hawthorn are the team to beat for this year's premiership, but Hawks skipper Luke Hodge thinks otherwise.
The AFL's 18 club captains have voted Hawthorn as the team to beat for the 2012 premiership, but Hawks skipper Luke Hodge doesn't quite see it.
Hawthorn were nominated by 11 of 17 possible skippers as the club most likely to contest the grand final.
Hodge, a part of the Hawks' side that lost last year's dramatic preliminary final to Collingwood, wasn't quite so sure.
"As far as we're concerned, the two most consistent teams over the last three or four years have been Geelong and Collingwood and they're the ones you have to try to knock of if you're going to be any good," Hodge said.
"You've also got Carlton coming up, St Kilda's still got a lot of their players and West Coast have improved."
West Coast (four votes), Geelong (two) and Collingwood (one) polled the remaining votes from those skippers who didn't rate Hawthorn as their likely grand final opponents.
Despite the majority of his counterparts voicing the same expectation of the Hawks, Hodge said he wouldn't be listening.
"Once you get into a footy club they teach you very early to block out the external opinions and pressures and stuff like that.
"As far as the pressure on us, we'll have a better assessment of where we're at after our first two games."
Hodge suggested his side would use testing clashes with Collingwood (round one) and Geelong (round two) as benchmarks to determine how they're actually tracking in 2012.
"We know we've prepared ourselves as well as we could. Most of our guys have got through the majority of the pre-season, which is always handy.
"We've got 40-odd players to pick from for the first game which is always great.
"We'll have more of an opinion on how we're going after the first couple of games and go from there."
One skipper polled in the league's annual survey thought Hawthorn would actually miss the finals, while just two believed Essendon and North Melbourne would be there.
There were 13 different clubs that received at least one vote to make the finals, with Brisbane, Gold Coast, Port Adelaide, Melbourne and Greater Western Sydney all written off.
Hawthorn's star forward Lance Franklin was an overwhelming favourite to again win the Coleman Medal as leading goalkicker, as he did last season.
Collingwood's Scott Pendlebury was rated the favourite to take out the Brownlow Medal.
GWS No.2 draft selection Stephen Coniglio was picked by most skippers to win the Ron Evans medal as the NAB AFL Rising Star.