This Week In Football is a collection of some of the best in football currently outside the walls of AFL clubs or broadcasters. Each week a curated grab bag from regular contributors and special guests will provide insight into and beyond the game on subjects of their choosing. For more about our contributors, click here.
Got an idea or want to contribute? Email thisweekinaustralianfootball at gmail dot com
Banner images by Polly Porridge of the True Bloods Podcast. Check out her other design work.
Before the Bounce
Sometimes it’s just fun to see something joyous.
The Mid-Season Rookie Draft has been with us for a few years now, and has evolved into a last chance saloon of hopes and dreams of young-ish footballers everywhere. By its nature it’s made up of players that have been passed over several times already, but have kept their dreams alive.
There have been some really solid finds through the short time it has been around (again), including Jai Newcombe and Ned Long. Mostly, thought, it has been used for fliers and filling gaps.
But this long journey often creates some of the most joyous off-field celebrations
Tom McCarthy waited a while for his name to be called by a league club, but the celebration was well worth it. There was no shock in the announcement – to the degree that a club polo was on hand.
And that his mate was in an Eagles mascot costume.
Will Bravo narrowly missed out selection in the 2020 AFL Draft, and has been battling it out for the Tigers’ VFL side for the past few years. He knows the journey, and how hard it is to get to that final level.
We don’t know how Bravo got his hands on a costume, but it was worth it.
Congratulations Tom, and Will.
This week in football we have:
Multiskilled Midfielders – The Value of Tackling and Clearing
Jack Turner / TheBackPocketAU.com
The concept of a defensive midfielder – not a tagger – is becoming a more well known and widespread concept recently. But the real value is in a defensive midfielder who can prevent the opposition from getting out the back while helping their team get the ball forward.
So who does the best job of preventing the ball being cleared by the opposition or creating stoppages around the ground, meanwhile also getting the ball in the hands of their teammates at subsequent stoppages?
After the final round before the byes, there are just 18 players in the competition who average more than 5 tackles and more than 5 clearances per game (5+ games).
These 18 players come from just 12 sides. Adelaide, Collingwood, Essendon, Fremantle, GWS and West Coast are the only teams without a current representative.
North Melbourne and Tristan Xerri being the only outliers with the only ruck in a list of inside midfielders.
Despite these players seemingly having similar skillsets in regards to being able to clear the footy and clamp down on opposition mids, they usually specialise in one major skillset while being good at covering in the other. Effectively they give their team one and a half players in and around stoppages.
For example – as seen in the chart below – Tom Atkins and Jack Steele aren’t doing a huge amount to move the ball long post-clearance. Instead they are utilised more to get it out to the other guys in the midfield group.
Meanwhile players like Bailey Smith, Zac Butters, and – perhaps somewhat surprisingly – Tom Liberatore are used to get the ball moving forward as much as possible and as deep as possible.
There is also a significant split when it comes to the amount of contested vs uncontested ball these players are getting. That’s despite that split being something that you would think would be pretty consistent since clearances and tackles are both indicative of a contested mid.
This comes partly from a misunderstanding of what a “Contested Possession” really is, as well as how little of some players’ games are made of stoppages.
A contested possession, by definition, is “a possession which has been won when the ball is in dispute. Includes looseball-gets, hardball-gets, contested marks, gathers from a hitout and frees for,” which does not necessarily mean the ball was won in a contest, a stat better covered by “Hard Ball Gets”.
Instead, contested possessions are an indicator of how often a player wins their own ball vs how often their teammates look for them post clearance or turnover.
Of our list of dual-skilled mids, what makes some of these players able to play these “inside-outside” roles is the fact that they get the bulk of their clearances at stoppage around the ground rather than at centre bounce attendances.
While players like Liberatore, Newcombe and Rowell get a larger percentage of their clearances in the middle of the ground at restart, players like Butters, Taranto, and Patrick Cripps are more skilled at clearing the ball from stoppages around the ground, where they are able to lose their player in the chaos. Jack Macrae is somewhat of a unicorn here, winning St Kilda clearances from all types of stoppage as well or better than most (he is the second highest clearance winning player in the competition currently).
The final test of a midfielder’s mettle in the eyes of many (especially those who aren’t blinded by the glow of the confusing and popular contested possession stat) is the amount of score involvements they are able to generate. Score involvements are a skill relevant to clearance midfielders and outside midfielders alike.
The more inside players like Atkins, Bontempelli, Liberatore, and (mostly due to him being a ruck) Xerri have a larger number of score launches because they get more of the ball initially. Players who get the first possession less than others, but are still able create scoring opportunities later down the chain, are just as valuable. Seven of our seventeen midfielders are in the top 20 for score involvements amongst midfielders in the competition.
Top 5 vs bottom 5: The definitive answer to ‘the poll’
On Tuesday, I posted a poll on X that caused some intentional and some unintentional heated debate about whether your top 5 players or bottom 5 players have a greater impact on your team’s performance.
The unintentional parts are largely due to my poor wording. My intention was to pose whether it’s better to have a better top 5 and lesser bottom 5 compared to your opposition, or visa-versa.
Let’s use an example using some methodology I’ll refer to later.
In the Round 9, Fremantle vs Collingwood clash, Fremantle had the stronger top 5 players leading into the game according to AFL Player Ratings.
*I have used a rolling 8-game average to determine the top and bottom five players leading into each game
Top 5 Player Ratings
| Player Name | Rating |
| Andrew Brayshaw (Fre) | 19.2 |
| Caleb Serong (Fre) | 15.2 |
| Nick Daicos (Col) | 14.3 |
| Steele Sidebottom (Col) | 13.6 |
| Luke Jackson (Fre) | 15.1 |
| Darcy Cameron (Col) | 11.8 |
| Alex Pearce (Fre) | 11.3 |
| Ned Long (Col) | 11.7 |
| Dan Houston (Col) | 9.5 |
| Sean Darcy (Fre) | 9.0 |
Accumulative Total
Fremantle = 69.8
Collingwood = 60.9
Bottom 5 Player Ratings
| Player Name | Player Rating |
| Tim Membrey (Col) | 6.0 |
| Isaac Quaynor (Col) | 5.9 |
| Karl Worner (Fre) | 5.8 |
| Lachlan Sullivan (Col) | 5.6 |
| Oleg Markov (Col) | 5.3 |
| Will Hoskin-Elliott (Col) | 5.2 |
| Jye Amiss (Fre) | 4.0 |
| Patrick Voss (Fre) | 3.6 |
| Cooper Simpson (Fre) | 3.3 |
| Neil Erasmus (Fre) | 3.2 |
Accumulative Total
Fremantle = 19.9
Collingwood = 28.0
Now consider the question, which top 5, and bottom 5 players would you rather have? How important is Collingwood’s depth compared to Fremantle’s in-form stars? This question sits at the heart of the poll.
*Interestingly, Collingwood won this game by 14 points, yet only had one of their top 5 players feature in the top 5 on gameday (Cameron), compared to three of Fremantle’s (Brayshaw, Serong and Jackson).
Using this methodology, I’ve expanded the analysis to each game back to 2016 to try and understand what’s more important.
Here are the results based on the winners of each game.
All games
Key takeaways
- 25.2% of games are won by teams with the better top 5 and lesser bottom 5 compared to 20.8% who have the lesser top 5 and better bottom 5 – indicating it’s better to have a stronger top 5 compared to a stronger bottom 5.
- 9% of games are won by the team that didn’t have the better top 5 and the better bottom 5.
- Only 44.9% of games are won by the team that have the best top 5 and best bottom 5 players.
Finals
- Looking at just finals, we see that most winners have better top 5 and better bottom 5.
Close games (under 12 points)
- In close games, we get a bit more randomness. Possibly because a close game will naturally promote a more even distribution of ratings points across both teams.
Lastly, before we declare a definitive answer, let’s look at each club’s top 5 and bottom 5 player ratings average across the 2025 season.
Collingwood’s depth, through recruitment and system, show that you don’t need to rely on a small number of elite players to win. Gold Coast on the other hand, appear to have a contrasting profile, relying more heavily on the likes of Rowell, Anderson, Collins and Witts, while their young forwards find their way.
*Sidenote – the player ratings love the Bulldogs
So, amongst all the confusion, maybe the poll was right… Across nearly a decade of games, an outperforming top 5 gives you a slight edge — especially in finals, where the margins for error shrink.
But the data also reminds us that depth matters, particularly in close games where every moment matters.
A modest proposal for upending the fabric of Australian Rules Football
Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois.com
Something different from me this week, brought on partly by *waves vaguely towards the entirety of human knowledge of head trauma* but more specifically two recent things.
Firstly, Paul Seedsman’s confronting interview on the ABC about his ongoing battles with symptoms from concussion. There are numerous write-ups available, but I think it’s best to hear it directly from him.
Secondly, the collision between Darcy Byrne-Jones and Alex Pearce, and the subsequent tribunal hearing which saw Pearce’s three-match suspension overturned.
Contested marks where one player is running back with the flight of the ball are one of the most dangerous situations in the modern game. Some of the most celebrated moments in 21st century football, Nick Riewoldt and Jonathan Brown launching themselves with no sense of self preservation, are deeply uncomfortable to watch today with what we know about concussion.
Even had Pearce’s suspension stood, his evidence suggests he doesn’t feel he could or should have acted any differently. His coach, probably correctly, stated after the game that he would have faced fierce criticism if he did not contest the ball with everything he had.
To date the AFL has attempted to address this through punitive measure. Suspend the player (or pay a free kick) where they get it wrong, and hope it influences their decision in the moment.
The problem isn’t a lack of punishment, it’s that the punishment runs contrary to the incentive provided within the game (winning or negating a mark) How do we change that?
There’s a bunch of proposals that could work:
- Only award a mark if, at the time of contact with the ball, the marking player is stationary or moving towards or lateral to the flight of the ball. Clarification would be needed around movement after engaging physically with an opponent, because I don’t think you need to prevent marks in the case of a push-off or jostle.
- Make any front-on contact in a marking contest result in a free kick (currently you are allowed to make front-on contact if your sole objective is to mark or spoil).
The intended outcome? Players stop going for all-or-nothing marking attempts. This is not intended to victim blame, but I would argue that the actions of the player running back with the flight contribute more to the potential for injury than those of the player coming towards the ball.
Under these proposed changes, If you’re coming back with the flight of the ball you’ll effectively treat it as a ground ball. Your priority isn’t just winning the ball but instead keeping yourself in a position to contest. You’ll take a bit of speed off, and you are unlikely to leave your feet. This is amplified by penalising any front-on contact. If the defence is set up it creates almost a “fair catch” situation you see in Rugby League or American Football.
You could make an argument that a mark should be allowed if the player is in space. There are a couple of problems –
- Running back with the flight you often won’t know how much space you have, because you’re not looking ahead of you
- Players will continue to overestimate their ability to get to the ball in space – either because of their speed, their opponents speed, or the misjudging the flight of the ball.
Allowing marks in space still provides the incentive for players to go hell for leather with the flight.
Where a player does catch it in space with the flight, they also don’t necessarily need the mark as much. If they’ve got space ahead of them they can use that to play on. If they’re in a lot of space, a really clever kick to them will be placed to give them time to stop and turn, and effect a mark if they want to.
This would be a radical change to the rules of the game but I simply don’t see a viable alternative.
Sydney’s long term free kick deficit: a product of club philosophy?
Sean Lawson
Free kick balances are a perennial topic of conversation. Rational people know free kicks broadly reflect a combination of game style and player attributes in general and luck in particular games, but they regularly get usually brought up by upset fans and provide regular grist for the content mill via “free kick ladders”.
Recently, Cench Footy circulated the following long term free kick differential table:
My initial facetious take was that this table is clear evidence that umpires are favouring blue uniforms and biased against red, yellow or orange teams. I’m about 20% serious about this – there’s famously some evidence that black uniforms earn more penalties in the NHL.
But what I want to do is investigate the team at the bottom here, the Swans, who for a quarter of a century have conceded the worst free kick differential in the league by some distance. The Swans have a differential of -638 free kicks or about 25 a season, or 1 per game against their opponents. It’s a comparable tally to the average edge in free kicks per game provided by many teams’ home ground advantage.
So, what gives?
I think the persistence across generations may be evidence of something systemic about how this very stable club builds itself.
Let’s dig into where the discrepancy is coming from on an individual player basis. Broadly speaking, the Swans players with notably negative free kick counts fall into three groups – defenders, rucks and a secret third group.
Defenders
Let’s start with the defenders – here’s a chart of something resembling a who’s who of Sydney defenders since 2000, identified mostly by career rebound 50 counts (excluding obvious exceptions or edge cases like Adam Goodes, Luke Parker and Callum Mills).
Collectively this group of 20 defenders has a combined free kick difference of -467, and just like that we’re over halfway to explaining the differential.
One might suspect that defenders in general may give a lot of free kicks away, but here’s a scatter of defender free kick differentials since 2000:
It’s not the case that defenders all have negative free kick differentials. There’s even been plenty of Swans defenders that don’t infringe as often. It’s just that a group of long-term mainstays have given away a heap for them over this century, in the pursuit of their generally miserly work.
Rucks
If Sydney’s defensive history is characterised by the stable procession of long term mainstays, its ruck stocks have been altogether the contrary.
Only two specialist rucks have played 100 games for the Swans this century – Darren Jolly on 118 and Mike Pyke 110 games, which leaves by far a majority of Sydney games rucked by a shorter-term journeyman. The club has chopped and changed every few seasons, rarely if ever developing a ruck from the national draft through to a stable long-term career at the club.
Here’s the free kick balance of every specialist ruck for the Swans with more hitouts to their name since 2000 than the 182cm Jude Bolton:
Almost every Swans ruck this century has been prone to giving away free kicks. A lot of these names have been either undersized, or very physical in their craft, and quite a few were overmatched in many battles.
Not since the retirement of Mark Seaby have the Swans even had a ruck push into positive double figures, and collectively this grouping is -237 in free kicks.
The big names up forward
Finally, there’s a few big names we need to talk about who have collectively kicked about 18% of Sydney’s goals since 2000 while registering a combined free kick differential of -218.
| Top 5 Sydney goalkickers since 2000 | Free kick differential | Goals |
| Lance Franklin | -54 | 486 |
| Barry Hall | -124 | 467 |
| Adam Goodes | -40 | 445 |
| Michael O’Loughlin | -7 | 396 |
| Tom Papley | 2 | 295 |
These are Barry Hall (-124 free kicks), Lance Franklin (-54) and Adam Goodes (-40). These three singular talents each had their own peculiarities.
Hall was known for onfield violence, and also conceded frees in part time ruck duties. Franklin regularly infringed in his battles with defenders.
Goodes played such a long career, spanning stints in defence, ruck, midfield and forward, and his free kicks differential ebbed and flowed. It was most negative during his Brownlow-era midfield work, but rarely pushed very positive.
Midfielders
Speaking of Adam Goodes, we can also just note the key area where Sydney have not been free kick merchants. Sydney’s midfields have generally earned free kicks more than given them.
Here’s a collection of Sydney’s biggest clearance-getting players since 2000, a mix of midfielders and more forward types. It excludes rucks and also a couple of guys classed as defenders above (Florent, McVeigh, Lloyd):
The midfield has been characterised by plenty of players earning their share of holding and high free kicks, as well as a few who haven’t.
Broadly, though, it’s positive in free kicks to the tune of 258, noting that there’s a little positional overlap with the defenders above.
Bringing it together
So there we have it, we can now assign that -638 free kick count for the Swans using our counts for different onfield roles:
The four categories shown above add up to -624, pretty much netting out to explain the imbalance.
Now if I can get a little subjective, I would suggest that some of this reflects the sustained long-term characteristics of the Swans as a club.
The negative differential was at its greatest during the Paul Roos era, but we can see it persisted through most of the Longmire years. It’s pretty negative in 2025, but it’s way too soon to judge the Cox era.
What we can say though is that, more than most clubs, we can assume the existence of some long term list and gamestyle philosophies thanks to the back office continuity they’ve enjoyed since 2003.
The Paul Roos and John Longmire coaching era covers nearly the entire period and was a smooth handover with no regime change. Kinnear Beatson ran list management and recruiting for most of the era, between 2006 and his recent step back. The Swans worked through a succession of football managers, each served for at least half a decade and a couple going straight on to executive positions at the club afterwards.
One persistent feature of this emergent Swans list philosophy has been a steady rotation of ready-made ruck journeymen, rarely lasting more than 3 or 4 seasons and never threatening, say, an All-Australian squad posting.
Another has been stalwart defenders, often a bit undersized, often found in the recruiting bargain bin. These free kicks never seem to have hurt Sydney’s defence all that much, with the Swans being a below average defence precisely once this century.
Evidently, both the rucks and the defenders are expected to compete in such a way that they are going to give away a lot of free kicks in the pursuit of the priorities expected of them. Experience for the Swans has been that these players can concede free kicks mostly without damaging the prospects of the team.
Throw in a couple of undisciplined spearheads, and it’s a recipe for a long term persistently negative free kick record.
Either that, or it’s all a giant conspiracy.
Around the Grounds
- Gemma Bastiani produces some of the best work on AFLW tactics and gamestyles, and is taking a multi-part look at the tactical evolution of the AFLW in its first decade. Here’s her coverage of the forward approaches and the defensive setups
- Sydney Swans VFL listed player Jordan Endemann hits a 100m torpedo goal against Coburg
- A public acknowledgement by Brandon Gale that the Tasmanian team remains conditional on uncertain politics doesn’t change anything ahead of a key parliamentary vote, but it’s good to keep the footy world reminded of the real situation
- This week on Shinboner, Ricky Mangidis breaks down the tweaks Melbourne and Sydney have made that have impacted their fortunes this season
Leave a Reply