Hoops

Mildura win Big V Div 1

It really depended on the conference.

In general the "west" conference was a more uptempo this year. Whittlesea have played that way for the last few years and certainly Geelong, Mildura and Werribee in particular played that way.

In terms of playing rosters, the west was also much younger, more home grown and deeper. Geelong were all locals, likewise with werribee. Whittlesea lost a lot of veterans at the end of 2011 so were younger, got an import half way through the season, which is the first time they've had an import. With the exception of the country teams, the rest were locals.

The rosters from the eastern conference on the other hand were not as deep, older, slower and pretty reliant on outside players. Camberwell as an example only really played 6 deep and relied upon Anstey, Anstey 2, Canovan, Smith (import) for almost all their production.

La Trobe relied heavily on their import and again, were not deep at all.

Much the same at McKinnon where if Dench and Timmons didn't play/didn't perform they really had nothing else.

Warrandyte were good on paper, but a "purchased" team.

The only team in that side of things that were any good, didn't have an import, and were reasonably home grown were Hawthorn. Again, Jay Allen had a huge year for them and seems to carry that side on his shoulders at time.

Was quite interesting because each conference was the opposite in terms of style of play.

As somebody who has played in the league for the last 5 years I can tell you that the league was pretty much the same as previous years.

Geelong may not have had as many stars as in the past, but they were younger, faster, and a more cohesive unit than the team of 2011. The 2011 team were heavily reliant on the likes of Jason Reardon and, if you look at the stats from that year, you realise that if Reardon didn't play that team struggled to win. That was not the case with the 2012 team and they certainly didn't rely upon 1-2 players to get the W.

I don't think anybody within the league expected them to make it to the GF series, but the results went there way and they hit some good form in the latter part of the year.

In terms of talent, the quality of the imports was up. You only need to look at the imports from Southern Pen, Mildura and Mildura to see that. You also had the addition numerous ex Champ players to the league.

The league itself was also much tighter than previous years. ALMOST anybody could be anyone on any given day. This is of course with the except of probably Sunbury & Southern Pen.

Div 1 was arguably the toughest it has ever been this past season...