In the recent past teams such as Geelong, Collingwood, St Kilda and the Bulldogs were almost guaranteed to fill up the top four spots, with the odd exception thrown in here and there. There was always a couple of stand-out teams who were flag favourites from early on in the season, and usually one of those took out the Grand Final at season’s end. Everything pretty much went according to plan.
2012 has a completely different feel about it though. Whilst Collingwood, West Coast, Adelaide and Hawthorn seem to be the front runners, there are at least another 6 teams who legitimately feel that have a crack at the title this year, depending on how the remainder of the year pans out.