MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 04: Alastair Clarkson the coach and Luke Hodge the captian of the Hawks pose with the 2013, 2014 and 2015 premiership trophies during the Hawthorn Hawks AFL Grand Final fan day at Glenferrie Oval on October 4, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Regrets are an inevitable part of life. They come with the territory of breathing and are a part of the unwritten deal we all sign for the right to exist.
Although some contrition can feel enormous – such as the misery born when a relationship breaks down or after committing a far more criminal act – others are forgotten in the blink of an eye.
In terms of the unpredictable game of football, there are a plethora of scenarios that have made or broken careers.
What if your side picked a different player from a certain draft?
What if your star spearhead had kicked straight when it mattered?
What if sacking your coach led to your premiership drought continuing?
Well, for fans of every creed we have sought to answer the question that has rankled you for years and kept you up at nights for far too long.
We can't promise that we won't open old wounds, as let's face it, that is the entire point of the exercise.
PART ONE: Adelaide, Brisbane Bears, Brisbane Lions, Carlton
PART TWO: Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Fremantle
PART FOUR: Melbourne, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Richmond
PART FIVE: Sydney, St Kilda, West Coast, Western Bulldogs
However, if we can help you find closure by looking at the facts and asking what if the doors slid the other way, then we have done our job.
As always, feel free to critique our non-linear traipses, as we are tipping some of you are unlikely to enjoy some of the conclusions we have drawn.
With the first two instalments in this series behind us, here is part three of the game's greatest ‘what ifs' since 1990.
Often in life, it is the moves we don't make the leave us racked with regret. Some may be as small as rising late and finding yourself as the last in line for a share house shower, whilst others can have far more life altering ends.
However, in Geelong's case, their decision to sit on their hands at the end of an underwhelming 2006 season saw them breathing lengthy sighs of relief just 12-months later.
Although the aforementioned season would end in disappointment, it was the Hoop's fast start that year that had punters and pundits scratching to head as to why it all fell apart at the seams well before September.
After claiming the 2006 NAB Cup – remember, this was a time when clubs actually cared about pre-season results – against the Crows on enemy soil, the Cats continued their rampant form across the first fortnight of the home and away season by destroying Brisbane and North Melbourne by a combined total of 24-goals.
With a 2-0 record, and a gargantuan percentage of 236.4, The felines were purring.
Still, if you fast forwarded past their next 20 appearances, the Kardinia Park club could be found in 10th position with a percentage of 99 by the regular season's cessation.
But how could this be for a side that not only started brighter than one of those precocious spelling be kids, but also made finals runs in the two seasons prior?
The starting point for Geelong's annus horribilis of the mid-2000s came between Rounds 3 and 6, when they dropped four games in a row and slid out of the eight – a position they would never reclaim at any stage throughout the year.
Following the curtains closing on a 10-1-11 season that a devout Christian – ironically named Gary – had the Cats breaking their then 43-year premiership drought in, the heat, both internally and externally, was directed at one man – the head coach, Mark Thompson.
At the end of 2006, ‘Bomber' may have held a 48.75% win-rate across his 160-games at the helm of the pivot city side, but with a star-studded squad underperforming, there was a view that a head needed to roll for the Cats to finally break their ceiling.
To truly gain an appreciation for this impasse, we need to wind the clock hands back a further seven years to the end of last millennium.
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In 1999, the Cats were a mess. With the club both mired in mediocrity on the field and up to their neck in debt off it, the writing was on the wall for the league's second oldest side.
According to Fairfax journalist, Jake Niall, Geelong were upwards of $9 million dollars in the red, with six of that owed to the bank.
With the view that both of these aforementioned issues needed rectifying immediately, club president Frank Costa appointed former Eagles powerbroker Brian Cook as CEO and Thompson was hired to replace the out-going Gary Ayres.
As the suits sorted the finances in due course, the remainder of this newly formed trinity was still yet to uphold his end of the bargain, but prior to the 2003 season, Thompson dialed the thermostat up on himself by claiming that Geelong would enter their premiership at the commencement of 2006.
For this reason, it was understandable that many were ushering in the winds of change following the disappointing campaign.
Nevertheless, history will show that following Geelong's decision to employ consultants ‘Leading Teams' and Costa's choice to stick with ‘Bomber' saw the bone-dry soil of Corio finally feel a taste of rain after nearly half a century of waiting.
Still, one wonders what would have happened if Costa and his board had itchy trigger fingers ahead of 2007.
Would the Cats have gone on to become one of the greatest teams of the modern era without Thompson or would have the status quo of disappointment and cobwebs in the trophy case continued?
When analysing this hypothetical scenario, a pair of factors must be considered.
Firstly, was the club's roster heading into the 2007 strong enough to claim a flag?
And secondly, who were the name's most likely to fill the vacant role, and were they up to the task of leading a list of strong personalities such as Mooney, Chapman, Johnson and Scarlett?
The first of these queries appears incredibly easy to answer, with the Cats claiming the '07 flag by a record margin of 119-points over Port Adelaide.
Yet, would the past have played out as it did without the club backing ‘Bomber'?
If the band was broken up at the end of the previous year, there is a very real possibility that the players would have gone into their shells.
But as mentioned, it is hard to imagine that this would have hampered their cause too much considering how far above the rest of the competition that Cats truly were just 14 short years ago.
When pondering the second factor, another question needs to be raised – would Costa and Cook have promoted from within to fill Thompson's seat, or would they have looked further afield?
Should the former possibility have been acted upon, then the eligible candidates were Andy Lovell, Brendon McCartney, Leigh Tudor and Ken Hinkley.
If the later was selected, then Ross Lyon - a man whose name is still being linked with head coaching roles – could have been seen as the preferred hiring prior to his start with the Saints in 2007.
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However, if the Cats had elevated a name that already prowled within their four-walls, then a quick power ranking from least to most likely to earn the job would have likely read the exact same as already listed.
As Lovell departed the Cattery at the end of '06, his name was an early scratching from the race, and as Brendan McCartney had minimal coaching credits in the bank at that stage, he would have certainly been considered the short field's roughie.
Hindsight also tells us that McCartney's head coaching ability was debatable at best due to his tumultuous tenure at the Kennel between 2012 and 2014.
With the lead runners left in this theoretical contest down to two, it would be prudent to explore their credentials to truly get to the end of this alternative reality.
Having played 60-games with the club between 1993 and 1996, Leigh Tudor was surely familiar with the importance of the Cats within the city, as well as the status of the head coaching role.
A brief look across Tudor's coaching posts show that aside from the 2007 VFL premiership he led the Cats to, the now 51-year-old also spent time with the Saints and Swans when they were roaring successes.
As nobody is in the right place at the right time that often, it is clear that the Doutta Stars product had more than just a bit of ability.
For these reasons, it is apparent that Tudor would have made a fine coach had he been given the opportunity.
Hinkley, another member of the Cats' mid-90s alumni, has also gone on to carve out a successful coaching career after departing the Cats, with his current win-rate sitting at an impressive 59.02% with the Power.
Still, would either of this pair that tasted Grand Final defeat a collective five times in hooped jumpers have been able to get the job done after changing into a polo shirt?
As reductionist as it sounds, I am of the belief that either Tudor or Hinkley could have achieved what Thompson did in 2007, simply because the players they would have been leading were borderline unstoppable - as evidenced by their averaging winning margin of more than 54-points across their 21-wins.
Coaches roles are often embellished when they shouldn't be and diminished out of turn as well, but as mentioned on a myriad of occasions already, any list that contained Ablett, Bartel and others previously mentioned would have broken the Cats' drought at the precise moment they did in reality.
However, whether they would have gone on to create one of the game's greatest modern dynasties is another question all together.
If the Mogs did manage to claim a further fleet of flags within this substitute timeline, then Mark Thompson would be owed more than just a modicum of praise, as it is clear that his efforts in constructing the empire loosened the jar lid for any one of his potential successors.
With over 40 names on every club's playing list each year, 23 in their game day squads and 18 on the ground and any one time, football is without doubt a team game.
Yet, for the Gold Coast Suns' first seven years of existence, you could be forgiven for believing the opposite to be true, as once they paid the proverbial king's ransom to take the greatest player of the modern era from his familiar stomping round of Kardinia Park, all eyes were on one man only.
Across the more than 150 years of organized football, injuries derail several team's seasons every year, with the team that eventually earns the right to hold the premiership trophy aloft often the team that has not only proven themselves as superior during playing time, but also the group that has been hit least with ailments.
Now, it may be a stretch to say that the Carrara side would have claimed the 2014 flag, but had Gary Ablett's shoulder not required surgery after an impact injury suffered in Round 16, then they would have at least been in the running.
Although some cynics may believe that this ‘one man team' notion that I am perpetuating is a simplistic and inaccurate one, if this is your believe, you only need look at how badly the Suns fell away after ‘The Little Master' was forced to trade his boots and socks for a sling nearly seven full years ago.
After 15 weeks of the 2014 AFL season, the Suns – then in their fourth season of existence - were on track to make history. With their 8-6 record, percentage of 101.2 and as the owners of the ladder's eighth rung, the new kids on the league block were trended towards a maiden finals berth.
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Of all of the expansion teams that have entered the league since 1897, only the West Coast Eagles in their second year and the Adelaide Crows in their third would have played September football earlier than the newest Queensland club.
However, as can be seen from this barely dusty archival footage, the Suns dreams went up in smoke after their king was ‘checkmated' in a Brent Macaffer tackle with plenty of time still on the clock in the third term.
Despite the fact that Gold Coast held a four-point lead that they wouldn't relinquish on their way to claiming the four-points over the Pies, history tells us that this altercation on the outer wing side was the moment that their cue was forcibly removed from their grasp and placed back in the rack for another season.
In Ablett's absence, the Suns would only manage to rise for one more win from their remaining seven outings, with their season finally setting as they sat in 12th spot.
There are a myriad of queries that come from this one-on-one contest gone wrong, and as I have tried to do for the bulk of the last month, I will try and help you get to the bottom of any you may have.
Firstly, the question of where the Suns would have finished the 2014 season had Ablett's wing not been clipped hurtles to the front of many minds on a regular basis.
Well, of the eight teams that played finals that year – Sydney, Hawthorn, Geelong, Fremantle, Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, Essendon and Richmond – the Suns held a 3-8 record in their contests with them prior to Ablett's sidelining.
Although this may seem an unimpressive ledger, if Ablett's shoulder never popped out, and the Suns were able to maintain this 37.5% win-rate against fellow finals contenders, then it would have almost certainly have seen them finish inside the eight.
In addition to this, if the Guy McKenna led side also proved adept at beating sides below them on the table to round out the regular season, then a 14-win season would not have been beyond them – especially when you consider their relatively simple run home.
With this record in mind, the Suns could well have found themselves on the verge of a double chance.
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Now, this may all seem fanciful, but as I have stressed on a pair of previous occasions, Ablett – like Bradman in Paul Kelly's 1987 tribute track – was more than just one man, and he could take on any side.
If you're still on the fence about ‘The Moriac Master's single-handed influence in 2014, it is obvious that you need reminding of the fact that despite only playing 14 full games that season, Ablett still manage to poll 22 Brownlow votes and finish just four behind the eventual winner, Matthew Priddis.
So, if simple addition is not your strong suit – don't worry you're not on your own here, as I still need to take both of my shoes off to count to twenty – it is obvious that had Macaffer's grip been compromised on the Sunshine coast, then ‘GAJ' would almost certainly have a third ‘Charlie' to his name.
Whether or not the Gold Coast Suns would have done any damage in the 2014 finals series is a borderline unanswerable question, but even if they had simply just played off in September, the entire contemporary complexion of the club could well have been different.
Within this alternate reality in which the Suns aren't seen as perennial easy beats and perpetual rebuilders, there is a very real possibility that with Ablett fit and firing and their appetites whet by their inaugural finish in the eight, some of the talented names that departed Carrara could well have stayed on – including Ablett himself.
I can't profess to know who would have still left and who would have in fact stayed, as I was never a key powerbroker in any of these deals, but what I can say with at least a modicum of certainty is that had Gary Ablett's shoulder never been crunched and surgically re-set, the expansion club's brief history would likely appear a lot less turgid.
Whether any silverware – apart from the honours Ablett claimed – would have actually been won is something that even Nostradamus would have lost sleep over.
For fans of teams that are old enough to walk into a bottle shop and not raise the suspicions of the clerk behind the counter, the Greater Western Sydney Giants have often been looked at disdainfully.
With a plethora of draft and salary cap concessions gifted to the fledgling franchise in their start up years leading to chagrin being foisted upon them from the vast majority of the footballing public, there has always been a notion that it is only a matter of time before the Breakfast Pointers break through and claim their inaugural flag.
Still, nearly a decade after the garish Giants clomped onto the scene, the league's youngest club, and their band of 30,000 paid members, are still waiting for this previously conceded flag to fly in Sydney's west.
Obviously with a young team, the club's opening years saw waves that wouldn't have toppled a toddler rather than that of a tsunami.
The side, comprised mainly of top end talent from around the nation, consistently played in front of paltry crowds and routinely had cricket scores tallied against them.
However, after claiming their second successive spoon in as many seasons at the level, their rise to prominence could have been nitrous oxide boosted like one of Vin Diesel's hot rods had they secured the signature of the contemporary game's greatest offensive talent.
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At the completion of the 2013 season, Lance Franklin had done it all. The Western Australian spearhead had claimed two Colemans, topped the tonne in 2008 and collected a pair of premiership medallions.
Despite the fact that the Hawks would go on to create history by completing the league's most recent three-peat, the then 26-year-old dynamo had just become a free-agent and was eyeing his options.
Originally, the rumour mill had ‘Buddy' joining the Giants on a six-year deal worth $1.2 million a season, however, this deal was usurped by a richer deal from the harbour city's east instead.
On October 1, 2013, the Greater Western Sydney Football Club officially pulled out of the running for Franklin's ink on their parchment and instead decided to go fishing through the schools of much smaller fish that remained in the sea.
Although the current eight-time All Australian would eventually prefer a home amongst Sydney's latte set, one can't help but wonder what would have been had Franklin chosen to shift from the league's penthouse to the outhouse following the new years eve fireworks that rung in 2014 anno domini.
This mooted move from the premiers to the wooden spooners would have almost certainly fueled his competitiveness and satisfied his hunger for a challenge, but could it also have worked out better than our shared reality?
Would ‘Buddy' have added to his pair of premiership medallions had he joined the Giants?
How would the club's forward line have functioned?
Would he still be on the precipice of becoming the sixth man to kick more than 1,000 AFL/VFL goals?
If you're still with me after my several thousand words and string of unprovable hypotheses, then strap yourself in, as we're going back to the past with the irregular aim of getting as many butterflies to flap their wings at once.
Between the start of 2014 – the year that Franklin would have made his debut with GWS – and the beginning of 2016 – the season that the Giants first made the finals – the orange and charcoal clad kids scored a grand total of 524-goals across 44-games, after entering the forward 50 on 2,116 occasions and taking 460 grabs within said arc.
If you run these raw statistics through a battery powered bean counter, you will find that the Leon Cameron led side averaged 48 inside 50s, 10.45 marks inside the semi-circle for just shy of 12-goals per game.
These numbers tell us that the Giants averaged a major on every four trips inside 50 and a mark every 4.6 journeys.
With Franklin tallying means of 3.23-goals and 3.07-offensive marks across his 39-games within the same period of time, it would be fair – and exceedingly obvious – to suggest that had he plied his trade at the Showgrounds, and not the SCG, during this two-year stint, the Giants' offensive strike rate would have been much stronger.
It would also be logical to suggest that by inserting Franklin into a youthful forward line, any possible heat on their three other forward options would have become secondary.
During the 2014 and 2015 seasons, Jeremy Cameron, Jonathon Patton and Toby Greene recorded 27.1% of their club's total goals, as well as 32.83% of their marks within the arc.
Now, if ‘Buddy' were acting as the lightening rod from 2014 onwards, this trio's share of the scoreboard may have fluctuated, but you can be certain that they would have been marked by lesser defenders.
Another quick aside is that Cameron – the pedagogue, not the spearhead – would have deployed a trio of talls in his forward line well before currently successful sides led by Luke Beveridge and Simon Goodwin.
Despite these aforementioned reasons, it is a challenge to truly pin the tail on exactly how many majors Franklin would have across his career had he joined the Giants, but if this attacking band was still slotting the sticks and cranking tunes together today, it is no stretch to suggest that Leon Cameron would own a career coaching win-rate of higher than 54.66% and the club's barren trophy case could well be displaying something.
But when exactly would these theoretical premierships have been plucked?
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Between the start of 2016 and the end of 2019, the Giants fell at the Preliminary Final hurdle twice, in the Semis once and of course, at the very final jump in the Grand Final just two short years ago.
Even though Franklin's injection would have made little difference against the Tigers in 2017 and 2019, had ‘Bud' been involved in the involved in the remaining pair of GWS losses in September, then the results could well have been reversed.
In the 2016 Prelim' against the Bulldogs, Leon Cameron's percussion went down to the premiership Pups by one straight kick. When you consider that Franklin averaged more than three goals against the Dogs that season, this meagre deficit could well have been erased.
Two years later in the Semi-Final against the ‘Pies, the Giants went down by 10-points at the MCG, and as the former Hawk bagged a haul of 6.4 against the same side just a month before the finals kicked off, banking on the scoreboard reading positively for the Giants had he worn one of their guernseys is not outside the realms of possibility.
Whether or not the competition's babies would have grown up and graduated in these seasons is hard to say, but with these factors in mind, interesting cases can certainly be tabled.
As we all know, Franklin didn't sign with the Giants nearly eight years ago, but had he chosen Parramatta over Double Bay, his current abode and goal tally may have been negligibly smaller, however, these aforesaid arguments suggest that the real estate on his alternative mantel would have been a lot more cramped.
Since he first arrived at the tight confines of Glenferrie Oval from sunny Coorparoo ahead of the 1985 VFL season, there have been few names that have influenced Hawthorn's modern history more than Jason Hadfield Dunstall.
Although ‘The Chief' conspicuously contributed 1,254 goals across an era in which the Hawks won four flags, perhaps the Queenslander's greatest gift to his club came at the end of 2004 when he made a bold call six years after hanging up his well-worn Puma boots.
Following Peter Schwab's calamitous final campaign at the helm of the Hawks in '04, a subcommittee was formed to find the next name to fill the pedagogical hot seat and become embossed on an honour board that already included legends like Kennedy, Parkin and Jeans.
The aforementioned team that was tasked with finding Hawthorn's 32nd senior coach included two of their favourite sons – Dunstall and his former offensive partner in crime, Dermott Brereton.
Across an off-season that would see Hawthorn enter the draft with a swathe of early draft picks, upwards of a dozen names were interviewed for the vacant position, including John Longmire, Daryn Creswell and Shaun Rehn. The shortlist also included a trio of former Hawks in Gary Ayres, Terry Wallace and Rodney Eade.
Still, as the makeshift brown and gold board dragged their feet on naming Schwab's successor, several of these names – including Eade and Wallace – became unavailable.
After an arduous interview process, Brereton and Dunstall were split on their preferred choice.
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The more flamboyant of the pair held his premiership teammate Ayres in high esteem, whilst Dunstall's eye was caught by a Port Adelaide assistant coach who supposedly zigged in his presentation when the others zagged.
Prior to eventually claiming the top job at Hawthorn, Alastair Clarkson had cut his coaching teeth at St Kilda, Werribee, Central Districts and finally Alberton. It was at this final destination that the former Roo and Demon gained an appreciation for analytics and the process of drafting and developing a premiership winning list.
Even though Brereton would eventually stand down from the subcommittee, as he didn't want to be seen to be favoring his good mate Ayres, his opinion still held considerable weight behind the closed doors of the art deco Michael Tuck Stand.
However, Dunstall – by that stage the club's acting chief executive – pulled the trigger on a man that was originally not on Hawthorn's short list for the role.
Despite Clarkson's alternative path to the position, and his differing views from his peers, just how different would Hawthorn have looked across the last decade and change had Dunstall been swayed by his permed mullet wearing centre-half forward?
According to recollections from those involved in the selection process, after the Hawks took their lumps in 2004, their modus operandi was to head to the draft at the end of the year.
Having finished the aforementioned season as the league's second worst team with a 4-0-18 record, the club invested in the nucleus of his three-peat team by using his trifecta of top 10 picks on Jarryd Roughead, Lance Franklin and Jordan Lewis respectively.
History will show that Clarkson ruthlessly culled veterans from his list at the end of his first season in 2005, with the man often labelled as a mastermind also showed several of his assistants the door and brought in hard-nosed and hungry replacements in Damien Hardwick, Todd Viney and Ross Smith.
It was also at this point that former biomechanist and analytics guru David Rath first made his way to Glenferrie.
Although the proof is in the premiership trophies, so to speak, for Clarkson and the Hawks, would Gary Ayres have made these same moves if given the opportunity or would he have preferred to run to the beat of his own ‘win now' drum?
Prior to his meeting with Dunstall and Brereton, Ayres – a two-time Norm Smith medalist in his playing days at Hawthorn – had coached the Cats and Crows for a combined 10-seasons for a 116-1-94 record and a 55.21% win-rate.
These numbers show that the man affectionately referred to as ‘Conan' had the ability to coach, but may have also been far less willing to commit to a hard rebuild.
If the latter point had proven to be true, then names like Mark Graham, Nathan Thompson, Rayden Tallis and Kris Barlow may well have been afforded another season under his guidance, and the previously mentioned trio of contemporary Hawthorn legends in ‘Roughy', ‘Bud' and ‘Lewy' could well have been asked to bide their time in the twos.
Alternatively, their names may not have been called at all, and the trio could have slipped through the club's feathers entirely.
Despite the fact that Ayres had shown the footballing world his ability as a tactician by taking the Cats back to the Grand Final in his first season (1995), cynics will suggest that this feat not only failed to bear fruit, but that is was done with a list compiled by his predecessor, Malcolm Blight.
As I have never set foot inside the four-walls of Hawthorn's headquarters, let alone been privy to any pitches and meetings, I can't profess to know the path that Ayres had planned if he landed his third AFL coaching post. However, if the 269-game Hawk had returned to the nest, a more conservative approach to the role could well have been on the menu.
Across his 16-seasons as a player, Ayres was coached by a pair of men that both shaped the club's image following the departure of John Kennedy Snr.
Ayres' first coach David Parkin was a Kennedy disciple, so although he was never coached by ‘Kanga' directly, Ayres likely received the same scripture from Parkin across his first three-seasons in the VFL.
SEE ALSO: What if the Dockers had kicked straight in the 2013 Grand Final?
Under Allan Jeans, Ayres also helped construct the values that remained at Hawthorn until Clarkson's broom swept clean.
With this in mind, as well as the fact that he had played a role in more than half of the Hawks' premierships up until the start of 2005, if Ayres were appointed, it would have likely just re-entrenched these potentially tired values at a club that was dying for fresh air.
However, as Ayres has proven himself more than adept at recruiting and nurturing young talent in his 14-seasons as head coach of Port Melbourne, perhaps he could have been the man to help shape the future after all.
Even though there is much ambiguity involved in shaping this revised narrative, there are two things that remain certainties.
Firstly, with his knowledge of the game and his thirst for changing it, Alastair Clarkson would have eventually found a head coaching role elsewhere had the Hawks snubbed him.
And finally, with Clarkson's record of success evident, Hawthorn fans will definitely be thankful that Jason Dunstall put his foot down when he did.