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.

Banner images by Polly Porridge of the True Bloods Podcast. Check out her other design work.

Changes to the board

A quick note before This Year in Football begins.

Last year we had the idea to bring together This Week in Football to collate a lot of disparate analysis. It was fun to put together – highs, lows and bits in-between.

But all good things have to come to an end. We (Sean Lawson and Cody Atkinson) are stepping away from the editorial side of the site/newsletter, and handing it off to a group who will make themselves familiar to you throughout the year. We will pop in from time to time as the season goes, but it’s time for fresh blood to pump some life into this place.

We can’t wait to see what the team does across the year.

Before the Bounce

The pre-season has culminated, the rules are being interpreted, injury lists are growing (with varying degrees of specificity and truthfulness), and if you’re thirsty for men’s football we’ve got good news for you because it’s back earlier than ever.

Provided you’re not wanting to see one of the eight teams who start their year with a bye that is.

There’s also the outside chance of a tropical storm disrupting the Queensland-based games (again).

Other than that though, we’re back in business!

This Week in Football we have:

• One Percenters Season Previews
• Lousy Smarch Football
• Football on March 5? Tell ‘em they’re dreaming
• Homegrown or Headhunted
• Around the Grounds

One Percenters Season Previews

Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo / OnePercenters

These are excerpts from the season previews I publish on One Percenters. Writing these is my favourite project each year. I try to go beyond just an expected win-loss range and look at what each club is actually trying to do with the year and how.

For the first time I’ve also compiled the full previews into an e-book. You can download it here for whatever price you deem fair, in either epub or pdf format.

Each slide below also contains a link to the full preview on my site.

[Editorial note from Emlyn: For length, I’ve sliced up the game style summaries to what I thought were the most salient points. Any shortcomings are almost certainly a case of poor editing on my part rather than Mateo’s analysis. I can’t encourage you enough to click on through to the full previews.]

Lousy Smarch Football

Jack Turner / TheBackPocketAU.com / TheBackPocketAU

Football for premiership points in the first week of March, how did we get here?

Last week it was reported on multiple media outlets that the AFL was facing a “major scheduling headache” ahead of the 2027 fixture, thanks to the Sesquicentenary (that’s a fancy word that means 150 year anniversary) Test Match against England.

Naturally this test match between two of sport’s oldest and fiercest rivals is going to be scheduled at the MCG – much like the Centenary Test was back in 1977 – as the MCG is seen as one of the two major homes of cricket, and the weather in Lords is far from reliable in early March.

But the issue is that the second weekend of March is now seen as the AFL’s window. A window that spans from the first week of March to the last week of September (or on a rare year, the first week of October). So how did this happen? And why do we feel increasingly unprepared for the football season to begin with each passing year?

The last time that Test Cricket hosted a Centenary Test between its two founding nations was in 1977. A simpler time for Australian sport, but notably the year that Australian Rules football began its invasion into summer sports territory. 

In 1977 the Centenary Test began on the 12th of March – 99 years and 362 Days from the starting date of the first ever test match – and wrapped up on the 17th of March. At the time, there were still a little over two weeks between the 17th of March and the first game of VFL footy to be played at the MCG between Melbourne and South Melbourne in front of just 22,049 fans. Plenty of safe room between the summer of cricket and the football season.

But also in 1977 the AFL introduced the Night Series, what would eventually become the pre-season competition, starting a few weeks before the real season and giving clubs a chance at practice matches and fans a nice warm up to sink their teeth into.

In 1985 football crept back with the introduction of Friday Night Football, but was still traditionally beginning in the last weekend of March or first weekend of April. But now that the VFL was played across three days, it was clear that the Football Commission was becoming more flexible with their scheduling. 

This became even more clear the following year when it was announced that West Coast and Brisbane would be joining the competition in 1987, closely followed by the Adelaide Crows joining the newly renamed “Australian Football League” in 1991.

This coincided with many clubs abandoning their suburban home grounds in favour of the MCG and later the purpose built Docklands Stadium, starting with Essendon in 1991 until eventually all Victorian clubs bar Geelong would play their home games at one of the two major stadiums. With anywhere between two to four games played at the MCG on any given weekend, this makes it more difficult to relocate matches if the stadium is unavailable.

While the Pre-Season Competition would continue in some format – Wizard, NAB, Ansett – from 1977 to 2013, it was never seen as the main event, and was eventually abandoned altogether due to neither fans nor teams taking it particularly seriously.

In 2016, thanks to what some might refer to as a knee jerk reaction, the AFL introduced a pre-finals bye. This one week without football in late August/Early September was the first sign we saw of the AFL season moving towards the Summer without the influence of an Olympic or Commonwealth Games.

In 2023, the AFL introduced Gather Round; a football festival to be held in South Australia with all eighteen teams playing on one weekend in the one state. To avoid fixture imbalance, this round was included as an additional neutral round, pushing the season one week earlier. 

With the introduction of Gather Round, the AFL was now firmly cemented as starting its season in “Early March,” but they weren’t done yet. That same year, the NRL announced that in 2024 they would be playing the first two games of their season in Vegas, leaving a one weekend opening where League would not be played in New South Wales or Queensland – now just one week before the AFL happened to schedule its first round.

So now here we are in 2026 – much like we found ourselves in 2024 and 2025 – with five (previously four) games of football in the first weekend in March. This time for the first time with the last of those games to be played at the MCG. A stadium named and known world wide for a totally different sport to the one that now dominates it locally.

So we do find ourselves in a conundrum of sorts, but one of the AFL’s – and the MCG’s – own making. Were the Centenary Test held this year and starting on the second Friday in March the AFL would have to reschedule a minimum of four games. Likely another two if the centre square wasn’t up to scratch by round two. 

It is of course very likely that the MCG would be back in perfect condition by the last weekend of March, just in time for the once traditional start date of the V/AFL season.

Football on March 5? Tell ‘em they’re dreaming

Lincoln Tracy | lincolntracy.substack.com

If you feel like it’s too early for “real” football to be back, then you’re not wrong.

As Swamp posted on X over the weekend, 2026 is the first season in V/AFL history where matches will be played on March 5 and 6, making tonight’s game between Sydney and Carlton the earliest day of the year that teams have played for premiership points.

The previous earliest day was March 7 in 2024 and 2025, when the Swans played Melbourne and Hawthorn, respectively. The old record would have been March 6, had Cyclone Alfred not forced last year’s match between the Brisbane Lions and Geelong to be postponed to Round 23.Provided there are no unforeseen interruptions for the Swans/Blues and Gold Coast/Geelong games over the next two days (note: I wrote this before I saw reports of another topical cyclone heading towards Brisbane and the Gold Coast), we can now say that 228 different days of the year – ranging from March 5 to October 24 – have seen at least one game of football over the years. April 25 has seen more games of football than any other day on the calendar (141, which will jump to 145 after the four Round 7 games next month).

We can see from the figure above that May through to August have hosted the majority of V/AFL matches over the life of the league. The season started in late April or early May from 1896 through to the 1950s. But clearly not satisfied with this four-month window, the start of the season started creeping earlier and earlier in the year shortly after that.

The first taste of March football occurred in 1979, when the VFL played the Round 3 game between Carlton and Essendon on March 31, a week before the rest of the season started. Rohan Connolly has previously reported that there was no real reason as to why the VFL – in their (in)finite  wisdom – decided to go ahead with this.

But the people who run the game have never needed anything resembling common sense or logic to justify their actions (see executive general manager of football performance Greg Swann’s comments on AFL360 about the consequences of the new ruck rule for an example of this). So, we push on.

All but two seasons since the strange decision of 1979 have started in March, once again getting progressively earlier into the season, to the point where competitive games now occur in the first week of March.

Games in March accounted for 4-5% of all games each decade between 1990 and 2019. That figure has essentially doubled from 2020 onwards, sitting a shade under 10% for the current decade (excluding 2026 matches). The last five years have seen 18, 19, 20, 28, and 27 matches played in the third month of the year. There are another 28 slated for March this year (cyclones permitting).

There has been a growing chorus of voices over the past decade – fans, players, coaches, and the media – protesting that the season is too long.

And it’s hard to disagree with that sentiment when you think back to 2025, where Opening Round, Gather Round, staggered byes, and a divergence in competitiveness between the top and bottom teams all combined to give us (what felt like) a never-ending season.

I can’t see 2026 being any better, given we had the State of Origin game last month and have the wildcard matches (which simultaneously are and aren’t finals, depending on how the boys and girls at AFL HQ are feeling).

Don’t get me wrong – I love footy and everything that comes with it. But we all need a little break from time to time. And at the rate things are going, perhaps we’ll be playing for premiership points in February before I shuffle off this earth.

Homegrown or Headhunted

Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois

For the start of the season I’ve prepared some charts on how each club’s list has been assembled. For the main split I’ve simply gone with whether a player was on an AFL list prior to arriving at their current club.

There’s a surprising number of ways players come into the AFL system, and I’ve compiled this across three different sources trying to match as best I can. It’s possible a couple of errors have slipped through, if you spot one let me know about it.

The faded bars indicate where a player had not yet debuted for the club. The years labelled indicate the player’s first season on the list. So someone drafted at the end of 2024 would show as 2025, as would someone who joined in the 2025 mid-season draft.

A couple of things jump out to me:

• GWS and Carlton sit at polar opposites. GWS has just five headhunted players compared to Carlton’s 19.
• Richmond only have 6, but that makes more sense for where they’re at in the cycle. They’ve clearly set out to get a critical mass of young talent to develop together.
• Collingwood’s homegrown recruits from 2023 onwards have just 58 games between them. The next lowest are Port Adelaide (75) and Fremantle (78).
• West Coast are way in front with 353 games already from those three draft classes (and another 7 new players coming in this year, as well as 5 more arrivals previously on a list elsewhere). St Kilda, North, and Brisbane all break 250.

Around the Grounds

• How Dockers players are supporting draftee through Ramadan
• FIFO workers keep football leagues alive in Pilbara towns with transient populations
• [content warning for sexual assault] The town that turned its back on a rape victim
• Comettiisms
• Ladder Predictor using win % rather than absolute win/loss predictions
  
  

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.

Banner images by Polly Porridge of the True Bloods Podcast. Check out her other design work.

Before the Bounce

It’s finally here.

After a long and grueling season the final men’s AFL game for 2025 is at our doorstep.

While there’s still a lot of great AFLW games left this year, a granny is special regardless of the level.

The match-up is a mouth watering one. In one corner stands the reigning premiers, the other the best team across the course of the year.

Just four quarters to sort out who will be crowned the champions of the year. Just four quarters of the most important footy of the year left to enjoy.

So make sure you are around the people you like watching the game with, in the place you like doing it the most (except if that place is the MCG if you don’t have tickets). Let’s hope we have a classic like 2018 or 2023 on our hands.

This week in football we have:

This will likely be the second last edition of TWIF this year. Closer to the end of the year there will likely be a TWIF Year In Review edition compiling the best of 2025.

Thank you sincerely to all those who subscribed, read, share and most importantly wrote for TWIF.

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Grand final preview

Images – James Ives. Words – Cody Atkinson and Sean Lawson

This preview will contain excerpts of items Cody and Sean have written about

Similarities present themselves between the two sides. Both have a kick preference, and work best in the kick-mark game. Both press high for intercepts, and like to try to dominate territory to instead of maximizing efficiency.

A Lions game sees them controlling play by executing kicks to uncontested marks around the ground. No side takes more uncontested marks than the Lions, and only two prefer to kick rather than handpass more (Geelong and Adelaide).

There are differences however. The Cats play noticeably quicker than the Lions – with a few important caveats.

“They are certainly a team that can shift the ball, they’re also a very powerful go-forward team with speed, so you know they can do it multiple ways,” Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin said after his side’s round-four loss to Geelong earlier this year.

…This malleability is at the heart of the Cats’ success this year.

They switch up the speed at which they move the ball on a week-to-week basis as much as any other team.

The Cats can shift modes with ease and possess several core elements designed to put opposition sides off their game.

The Lions also try to establish the corridor as a cornerstone of their success.

In their two wins against the Cats earlier this year, Brisbane forced the game through the middle about 50% more than an ordinary game. This opened the Cats defence up in a way that few other sides have been able to do this year. It’s also noteworthy that the Cats have struggled against the Giants, another side to target the middle of the ground.

In the qualifying final, the Cats went to a lot of effort to not only stop the Lions going through the middle, but to avoid the corridor themselves. When a side uses the guts of the ground it can also open you up for a quick counter attack the other way.

In every game of modern footy the turnover game is critical. About two thirds of scores come via turnovers. And no team is better at playing that game than the Cats.

No team is better at winning the ball and using it effectively than Geelong.

The Cats lead the league from scoring from intercepts across the course of the season. 

Teams that have finished top three in total intercept scoring differential have won the flag in 18 of the past 19 seasons. 

While the Cats lead the league in that number (by some way), Brisbane are only ranked fifth across the year.

The Lions need to get their clearance game working to get an edge.

Across the course of the year getting first possession — and the territory from it — has been key to how the Lions have succeeded. The Lions sit second throughout the season for clearance differential behind only the Western Bulldogs. Almost all of this advantage comes around the ground, with the Lions deep midfield group benefited by being able to deploy additional numbers around the ball.

In addition, getting reward from clearances is critical to their success.

Zac Bailey leads the league in scoring out of forward stoppages, but is far from the only contributor. Brisbane runs deep up forward, with a wide variety of first receivers and deeper targets.

Both sides have players that step up in the big moments.

For the Lions their captain stands tallest of all, anchoring the side to (usual) victory. There are quite a lot of names prominent in the front half of the ground alongside the attacking Zorko. If the Lions are to win, one of these six will have a large part in the result.

Mark Blicavs still doesn’t get the credit he deserves much of the time. The Cats are a much more even team against both good and bad sides. Noteworthy in this list is the presence of Tom Stewart who will miss the Grand Final with injury.

Now all that’s done, bring on the big game!

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A Brief History of 129 years of the Cats and Lions

Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois.com

Given the upcoming Grand Final this week it’s worth taking a look at the cumulative results of our two grand finalists over the last 129 years of A/VFL competition. Instead of breaking down every match, this is a look at the result of ever game.

Think of it as a score worm like you’d see on the AFL Match Centre, but one that uses the endpoint of one match as the starting point for the next.

The Lions have been represented as a continuation from Fitzroy to the Brisbane Lions for the purpose of the main chart, but there’s a supplementary Brisbane Bears v Cats chart as well in the carousel below.

The history of the match-up has been broken into four eras with a very brief summary of each. To see each you can scroll through the interactive graphic to follow the history, or you can access at a separate standalone page here.

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How the Grand Final lists were built

Sean Lawson

Brisbane and Geelong have been perennial contenders in recent years, but there’s a strong contrast in how the two grand finalists have built their lists.

There are broadly three ways clubs can acquire players.

The national draft is the primary conduit, where the most well regarded players must be selected in an orderly competitive process in their 18th year or later (overlooked players from previous drafts can be selected as well as some other caveats).

The second method is recruitment from other clubs. These are trades and free agency moves where there are conditions and reciprocal agreements required for a player to move are met. This is, again, a competitive process among clubs, who generally don’t like losing many of the players who request moves.

The third method is the various “freebies” pathways. These are for players who were basically available without much external cost having already been discarded or passed over. This includes the rookie draft, delisted free agency, international players and players “not from a football background”. These players could have been taken by anyone, with the challenge for clubs usually just identifying who is worth taking.

List formation is always a combination of recruiting pathways, but the Cats and Lions have done it very differently.

Geelong

If we can answer why Geelong have stayed in contention for two decades in a phrase, it is talent identification.

Geelong only have four native high draft picks in their grand final team, and only Jhye Clark was taken in the top ten.

They’ve also got a high quality trio of players pinched from other clubs in Patrick Dangerfield, Jeremy Cameron and Bailey Smith. All were arguably recruited partly for lifestyle reasons as well as due to the club’s sterling reputation. Rhys Stanley and Jack Bowes also came via trades – with the Bowes one particularly controversial as a generous Gold Coast salary cap dump.

But a few stars don’t make a team, and much of the Cats list, and much of their success, is filled out by players taken from obscure places. They have ten players who anyone could have recruited – six from rookie drafts, two delisted free agents in Stengle and Martin, and the two Irish imports.

Throw in relatively late picks like Miers and Humphries and we can say that nearly two thirds of this Cats team were recruited from savvy recruitment and talent identification that must have list managers across the league looking on with envy.

Brisbane

Before their current period of contention, the Lions languished at the foot of the ladder for most of the 2010s. During that time they stocked up on high draft picks.

The bulk of their team was built from the national draft, including six high draft picks. Rayner and McCluggage in particular are the sort of blue chip selections that paid off handsomely, essential to any good list rebuild.

They Lions have also been lucky enough to have three premium level father-sons, and several later selections came out of their academy in Andrews, Gallop and Marshall.

The balance of the Lions team has been made up of traded players, including Neale, Cameron and Dunkley who cost first round picks in their own right.

Only two Lions players came from “freebie” pathways, with both Reville and McInerney coming via the rookie draft. Reville isn’t strictly a “freebie” – he’s an academy pick who was prelisted by the Lions, but he was still overlooked at the National Draft.

The Lions have tapped many years of premium draft picks, and converted those selections into a formidable team.

Battle of the local talent

This year’s match-up features a number of hometown heroes on both sides, but also players who have crossed the borders too play for the other team.

Nine Queenslanders feature for the Lions, ranging from heavy hitters like Will Ashcroft, Dayne Zorko Harris Andrews to the fringe pair of Ty Gallop and Bruce Reville. Geelong are also fielding Jack Bowes, a Queenslander who began his career at the Suns.

On the flipside, Geelong have managed to secure a few quality local talents through the open draft, principally Jhye Clark and Gryan Miers, as well as rookie selections Tom Atkins and Jack Henry.

There’s surprisingly only one player lured “home” from another club, but Patrick Dangerfield is such a mammoth presence he is emblematic of the “go home” set by himself. Jeremy Cameron is a country boy too, but being from far flung Dartmoor, it’s a stretch to count him as a local.

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Tackling the Brownlow

Joe Cordy

Matt Rowell’s Brownlow Medal win came out of nowhere, but with the power of hindsight it was also wholly in line with how the award has been trending.

The Suns’ defensively-minded inside midfielder doesn’t jump off the page in any of the typical metrics people use to predict how the votes are going to fall.

Rowell doesn’t regularly rack up massive disposal counts and he doesn’t make immediate obvious impact by foot with the disposal he does win. Even his highlights packages are pretty sparse for his standing in the game. These things are the domain of the pre-count favourite Nick Daicos, and his teammate Noah Anderson who was widely tipped to be the only Suns player with an outside chance of topping the vote tally. 

What Matt Rowell does have is something that isn’t considered much by punters, or even the predictive models that have emerged in the last few years: he is constantly, visually, in front of the umpires. 

With 61 free kicks paid against him and 53 paid to him, good for 1st and =4th across the league, Rowell was the only player to be directly involved in over 100 free kicks across the season with a final total of 114. 

Australian Football is a physically exhausting sport to adjudicate, with field umpires running approximately 14km per game and boundary umpires 16km. Everybody knows this, but few people take into account the mental exhaustion.

The PGMOL – who are responsible for referees across English professional football – estimate their referees will make 245 decisions per game. In the NRL the estimate has been put around 400 decisions per game, and the NBA quote a range of 500-550.

In 2021 the-then umpires boss Hayden Kennedy estimated that in the 30 seconds of play around a stoppage, where possible infractions are at their densest, an umpire might have to make 10 to 20 decisions.

With a league average of 97.7 stoppages per game, that would put the decision count in a range of 977 to 1,954 decisions just around stoppages before even considering the rest of the game. Even with this mental load split between four field umpires, it’s a total that dwarfs most of their colleagues in other sports.

It makes total sense that when put in the position of having to decide who they thought the best three players were immediately following that gauntlet, while also being put in a Rawlsian veil of ignorance about the statistics of the game just played, the umpires continuously fall back on two main factors:

• who did I see a lot of, and
• who do I usually give votes to. 

In the AFL era this burden has massively increased, even as the system stayed untouched since the early 1980s. Six votes split amongst three players for each game, decided on by the group of umpires on the day.

In 2025 there are more games, teams, players and therefore votes to be spread around the league than at any point in the AFL era. Despite that, the spread of distinct vote winners in a given season has trended consistently downwards over the last 35 years.

2025 had the narrowest field since 1990, with just 181 players receiving at least one vote. The previous record of 196 was set in 2024.

If you took a poll of every fan’s opinion of who the best player in the league was at the end of each season since 2020, I’d expect the most popular answers would be overwhelmingly Marcus Bontempelli and more recently Nick Daicos. Bontempelli’s window might well be closed, and despite having won an individual award every year of his career so far, Daicos was visibly frustrated with the reality of a third consecutive second place finish. 

This isn’t because the umpires think either of these players are terrible despite the consensus of the wider footy community, Daicos’ 38 votes in 2024 would have won almost any other year in the award’s history. They’re just not the kind of players whose profile puts them at the front of the umpires’ mind week after week. 

There’s been a lot of discussion in light of this and other controversial calls like Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera’s BoG snub to take the votes off the umpires, which I think is completely wrongheaded. Awards are only worth the importance the footy community puts on them, but that importance is built up over decades of history.

What makes it special is that it’s been awarded for over a century, and has been largely unchanged across that time. Even though the voting system has changed (albeit not in the last 46 years) it has always been determined by the umpires; taking it completely off them would effectively end that history, and even an award with the same name would have no real basis for comparison to anything in the 100 years previous to it. 

There’s absolutely room for more Player of the Year style awards as the AFLPA and AFLCA have shown, and I believe there’s even room for another American-style MVP voted on by members of the football community from the media, clubs, and elsewhere.

The answer for how to move forward with the Brownlow however isn’t to completely kill it and give something else its name, it just needs to evolve with the sport. Give umpires time to recover from and digest the game they just saw, give them access to statistics and footage, and then ask for their votes in the cool light of day. The Brownlow is the most prestigious award in Australian Football and likely always will be, so there’s no reason to artificially constrain the people voting on it.

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Poor Nick Daicos, polling exactly as expected

Liam Crowhurst

The Brownlow Medal is one of my favourite puzzles. The arcane voting methods and the lopsided sample sizes create a data science challenge that I’ve been enamoured with for the last couple years, and the 2025 certainly threw up some curveballs.

There’s a lot of different ways you can work out who will win the Brownlow. Some rely on their eyes, some on their gut and some on the best data available.

My chosen method of modelling the Brownlow is as follows:

• Train a XGBoost model on player based statistics. This includes Coaches Votes, SuperCoach, Fantasy, AFL Player Ratings, along with more basic stats like game margin, goals kicked, disposals etc. The model is a classification problem, using the training data from 2015 to 2024 to predict the likelihood of a player getting 3, 2 or 1 Brownlow Votes.
• From these outputs, a simulation is used to select players for each vote category per game. Once a player has been picked for 3 votes, they are excluded from the sample. This process is then repeated for the 2 and 1 vote. The entire process is then repeated for every game in every season 10,000 times. This should give us a good sample size for predictions, as each simulation will be independent, but weighted towards the higher expected vote getters.

So how does the model compare to the actual results on the night?

Let’s look at the favourite Nick Daicos as a demonstrative example.

As you can see above Daicos polled exactly as predicted. His actual vote trajectory as the tally went on was well within the simulated range of votes. Across 10,000 simulations the model expected an average of 33 votes against a total of 32. In summary, the model was in the ball park of expectations for Daicos.

However, there was one player that smashed it out of the ballpark. Matt Rowell polled over expectation early and never looked back. The model predicted 25.8, but he polled 39 votes. That’s a whopping 13 votes above expectation.

The highest simulation that the model predicted was 37, outlined in black below. I reckon with another 10,000 or so simulations we could find one with 39 votes.

Two other Brownlow fancies fell within their simulated ranges, Geelong’s Bailey Smith and Adelaide’s Jordan Dawson couldn’t repeat the Rowell effort to overcome Daicos’s implied pre-poll lead.

The big loser of the pre-poll favourites was Rowell’s teammate Noah Anderson with predicted and actual votes of 29.5 and 25. Anderson got a slow start to the count and couldn’t quite make up the difference to crack the top 5.

Notable mention should go to Fremantle’s Andrew Brayshaw, who polled 26 votes from an expected 20.1.

So what are the lessons we can take out of the Brownlow, and trying to work out who will win in advance?

It’s an absolute crapshoot, and in my humble opinion, that’s what makes it great.

I’ve seen people lamenting online that Rowell is a worthy winner, but simultaneously annoyed that he polled 3 votes in outlier games. The thing is, he doesn’t go on to win the Brownlow unless games like that happen!

I’d rather the tradition be kept alive with the current voting format, rather than changing it at the whims of a noisy social media contingent. Or, if you’d prefer, you can go to Wheeloratings dot com and sort by average AFL Player Ratings if you want the “True” best and fairest, but where’s the whimsy in that?

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Which umpire put their foot in it when it came to Brownlow voting?

Lincoln Tracy / lincolntracy.substack.com

In February this year the AFL attracted scrutiny after giving veteran field umpire Nick Foot permission to appear on a racing program for Sportsbet, the league’s gambling partner.

Foot was one of the four field umpires who officiated the 20204 decider between Brisbane and Sydney. In addition he has been named as the emergency umpire for this weekend’s clash between Brisbane and Geelong.

The AFL claimed they were happy with the arrangement as they felt the role had nothing to do with his umpiring duties.

“He has nothing to do with football, he is not working at or around (football) with Sportsbet. He is doing content on racing, and nothing to do with football. If it (his role) had anything to do with football in any capacity, it wouldn’t have been approved,” a league spokesperson told The Age at the time.

The matter reared its head again this week during the Brownlow Medal count, where multiple group chats that I belong to wondered whether umpire Foot had anything to do with some of the “interesting” voting decisions announced on the night.

But an exploratory analysis reveals that the votes awarded in matches officiated by Mr Foot were reasonably well aligned with the consensus of 20 different predictive models collated by X account QuantPunter. Sixteen matches saw the consensus’ #1 ranked player receive the three votes (indicated by the darker blue squares), with the best on ground in the remaining five matches going to a player ranked in the top three.

And while there was only one match where the votes awarded by the umpires matched the consensus of the predictions, for the most part the umpires in these games were reasonably consistent with the consensus in terms of the top three players – save for a six-week stretch in the middle of the season.

The performance of Foot and his fellow umpires appears to be more “accurate” than that of other umpires, such as Nick Brown.

The quartet of umpires involving Brown awarded the three votes to a player who was not ranked in the top three among the QuantPunter consensus data on three separate occasions, and there were many more misses with respect to the player receiving one vote.

There was even one match where none of the players who received Brownlow votes appeared in the top three among the various models (the Round 7 clash between Greater Western Sydney and the Western Bulldogs). Brown was also part of the umpiring crew that gave the three votes to Jack Viney ahead of Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera when the Saints came from nowhere to beat the Demons at Marvel Stadium in Round 20.

Select examples such as these make me wonder whether there has been a shift in recent years with how umpires determine which players have the greatest impact on a game – a line of conversation that I know has been happening in some circles – which suggests that even the most sophisticated modelling approaches will need more time and data to account for these changes.

But on the other hand, it could also be that the models are already highly accurate, and that there are some umpires who are more reliable at awarding votes than others. This inevitably leads to one of the other major conversations that has been happening this week – whether the umpires should have access to statistics when it comes time to hand out the votes.

Regardless of the underlying cause or reason, and no matter what happens in the future, there will always be arguments about who was robbed of votes and medals for years to come after football’s night of nights. But in this case, it seems that some criticisms might be more warranted than others.

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.

Banner images by Polly Porridge of the True Bloods Podcast. Check out her other design work.

Before the Bounce

And then there were four.

The 2025 AFL season stands on the cusp of conclusion with Geelong, Hawthorn, Brisbane and Collingwood on the precipice of another flag. In an extremely compelling season four well matched sides are set to excite and engage for just two more weeks before top level men’s football goes away for half a year (the Dub is still there however).

One might think that this week would filled be wall to wall coverage about the teams left and how they will win the flag. About the aging Collingwood and Geelong, the resurgent Hawks and the reigning premiers. There’s storylines all over the shop, and plenty of intriguing on field wrinkles to break down.

Unfortunately one would be wrong. Instead the obsession has been on moves for next season and beyond, all delivered from a cloak of official secrecy. Rumours and hearsay are reported with the factual seriousness of match reports. Zach Merrett may not have publicly said anything this week, but everyone else seemingly has.

There’s room to discuss multiple things at once – people can walk and chew gum. But when the attention of the footy media has so incessantly focused on the mouth closing in and out on that gum, we’ve sort of missed that the legs have carried us to the end of the journey.

Enjoy the last three games of the year.

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Geelong v Hawthorn

Geelong

Jack Turner/The Back Pocket

Geelong came into the season as one of the stronger fancies for the flag, but a mixed run of form heading into the byes paired with some incredible runs of form from Collingwood and Adelaide, paired with a soft run home for Geelong saw them drop back in a lot of peoples’ estimations – right up until their dominant performance against Brisbane in their qualifying final, where they completely flipped the script on their past two meetings.

The Cats have proven to be one of the most dangerous sides this year with ball in hand, moving the ball quickly and by foot, using their elite runners and strong contested marks both in front of and behind the ball to cut teams apart on the turnover.

Geelong are ranked #1 for Marks Inside 50 and #2 for Intercept Marks and Contested Marks respectively, the only team ranked in the top three for all three categories. Once they obtain possession, their run and carry sees them as the hardest team in the game to stop with ball in hand. They are the most effective team in 2025 at scoring from turnover, as well as the most efficient at turning D50 chains into scores, which has resulted in the Cats having more shots on goal than any other side.

Their ability to create an extra behind the ball – something Brisbane prevented back in round 15 – be it Guthrie, Henry, Stewart or even O’Sullivan makes it extremely hard for teams to score, and the hard running of their half forwards who function as pseudo wings mean they almost always have someone over the top. Most of the time that someone is Shannon Neale or Oliver Dempsey. The numbers show that in order to beat the Cats you have to prevent their uncontested and intercept marking game, as well as scoring quickly from stoppages in the middle of the ground.

The last time these two sides met was all the way back on Easter Monday where the two sides played another classic, with Hawthorn winning both the marking game and centre stoppage matchups thanks to a career best performance from Lloyd Meek. A brutal concussion to Gryan Miers slowed Geelong’s run somewhat, and Hawthorn did everything they could to peg back the Cats early four-and-a-bit goal lead.

Where Geelong will likely look to win this game is through their Irish weapons, with Mullin and O’Connor doing vital shutdown jobs all year. It is likely one of the two will head to September Specialist Jai Newcombe, and the other will follow Dylan Moore or Nick Watson. Another crucial match-up is Brad Close heading to James Sicily – Ollie Henry has done this job in the past, but has slipped out of Geelong’s best 22 in favour of Jack Martin. 

Keep an eye out for the big men in Geelong’s forward half, as first-time All Australian Josh Battle will likely match up on the Coleman Medal winner in Jeremy Cameron, meaning Shannon Neale will look to exploit Tom Barrass’ lack of mobility and get out the back for some crucial goals from turnover.

Hawthorn

Sean Lawson

Hawthorn come into this as at least a modest underdog in the face of a Geelong side who are statistically near the top of the league in most measures for the year.

Hawthorn’s most notable strengths this year have centred around their potent forward line mix, and some sturdy defenders behind the ball, but their ability to deploy both of those things is downstream of an ability to win enough territory to do so.

That means gaining ascendency through stoppages to avoid giving away too much terrritory in the first place, and it means somehow beating the Geelong high press when they do end up in defence.

Around the ball, Hawthorn’s coalface mix minus Will Day are hardly world-beaters but Jai Newcombe has had some eye-catching form so far in finals, bursting out of packs to set them up to score. The Hawks are near the top of the tree for post-clearance ground ball and handball receives, and feeding the likes of Josh Ward and Massimo D’Ambrosio running into space should prove crucial to Hawthorn’s chances.

Coming out of defence, Hawthorn will surely look to improve on their ability to transition past a high line, having experienced getting trapped in their defensive zone at times through the season, especially in their biggest losses.

There’s not necessarily an easy answer here – that’s why so many teams have drifted towards the “front half team”meta to begin with. Fully scoring from transition in these situations is one thing, but it’s difficult to do consistently and many opponents are content just to make it a territory battle – kick to a lower risk situation, play for a stoppage, work from there.

The Hawks have some forward-line marking power to compete with the Cats’ press in the air, and some elite users if they can find the space to make the right kicks through traffic. However in the end, the heat of a final a lot of the Hawthorn defensive escape plan will likely end up built on halving contests on those escape kicks and then either securing the upfield stoppage or, if possible, finding some ground ball speed and handball receives to launch off the pack before everything resets.

If Hawthorn are to win, the likely word on observers’ lips will be “speed”, both out of contests and coming off the Geelong setup behind the ball.

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Collingwood v Brisbane

Collingwood

Cody Atkinson

In many senses Collingwood and Brisbane are polar opposites. Chaos and control, talls v smalls. It’s what makes the matchup so compelling, and often so close.

Since Craig McRae has been in charge at the Pies they have often been the gold standard. They’ve manipulated late game situations better than any other side, and finessed space like few other teams before. They flow into space super effectively – it can be quite hard to follow if you don’t know what you are watching for. They often throw their high forwards on the edge of contest and get them flowing into space, and protect behind the ball with a spare. They run in spaced lines, spreading the defence across the ground and creating space.

If you aren’t prepared, they can really tear you up.

For Collingwood this year it’s all about defence. Early in the year Collingwood flashed some attacking improvements before injuries and opposition adjustment tempered expectations. Jamie Elliott probably deserved an All Australian nod, but it’s a forward set up that works to maximise its talent instead of having it carried by a small group of stars. 

Let’s talk about that defence for a second. They’ve been the best at defending across the year in both a per possession chain and inside 50 entry basis. It’s a “bend not break” approach, one that has slightly hurt their transition game as a result. The Pies like to push their running defenders high and hard, banking on a floating spare tall (think Darcy Cameron) can effectively protect space to slow down counter attacks and enable recovery. The return of Jeremy Howe further boosts this unit.

This defence will be particularly critical considering how ball focused their midfield unit can get at contest at times. Brisbane’s midfield is particularly well balanced between attack and defence, and often leaves little room for easy escapes. If the Pies don’t protect space at stoppage effectively it could lead to a long night for everyone in black and white.

Brisbane

Joe Cordy

Brisbane are the consummate professionals of this finals period. With at least one game to go, they’ve conceded the second fewest free kicks this season (17.7/gm) and controlled possession of the footy as well as any side in the competition.

Theirs is a game of keeping off and moving by foot. Their elite fitness and running capacity allows them to play the ground like an accordion, spreading wide to pull apart holes in the opponent’s defensive structure before squeezing back in as they lead up to the kicker.

This makes them unique to other kick-first teams such as Geelong and Adelaide, is their indirectness towards goal. Despite kicking nearly two in every three disposals, they’re well below the league average for metres gained from those. 

A typical Brisbane chain of possession involves scanning the field, waiting for a teammate to lead into space, that teammate plucking the ball out of the air and repeating, all while using the full width of the ground.

This patience and execution has significantly lifted the floor on their performances, but combined with factors like figuring out how to play without star key forward Joe Daniher, has significantly lowered their ceiling. They are the only finals side this year to not record a 10-goal victory against any side, and their 54-point win against their local rivals was only the second margin above 45 they’ve recorded this season. 

This comparative lack of firepower has hung over the Lions all year, and was doubtlessly the key motivator behind pursuing West Coast captain Oscar Allen for 2026 and beyond, but it’s been compensated for by exerting unparalleled control over their games. Part of that foundation has been effectively ruled out for the season however, with captain and hybrid inside ball winner/first receiver at stoppages Lachie Neale battling calf issues. Combined with the absence of their most veteran key forward in Hipwood, and the season may prove to have gone four quarters too long for the Lions on Saturday.

There’s still a path to back to back premierships and a third grand final in as many years for the Lions, but it will rely on playing outside of their comfort zone and on the dynamism of players like Cam Rayner than the structure they’ve leant on so far.

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Not going down with the ship

Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois.com

Oscar Allen is set to leave West Coast, Zach Merrett looks increasingly likely to find a new club, and there are now rumours around Jy Simpkin as well. Three current captains all leaving for greener pastures would be significant, but how does it stack up historically?

All in all, across VFL/AFL and AFLW there have been 50 instances where a player has departed a club as captain for a rival in the same league (including a few instances of mid-year transfers as captain).

V/AFL captain departures

The 1982/83 off-season was the most active with four captains jumping ship – Bruce Duperouze from St Kilda to Footscray, David Cloke from Richmond to Collingwood, and Kelvin Templeton and Peter Moore to Melbourne from Footscray and Collingwood respectively.

Two other occasions have seen three moves. In 2018/19 three captains left from Queensland to Melbourne. Dayne Beams returned from Brisbane to Collingwood, while Gold Coast co-captains Steven May and Tom Lynch both left, for Melbourne and Richmond respectively.

In 2019/20 the AFLW saw Carlton skipper Brianna Davey join arch-rivals Collingwood, Brisbane captain Leah Kaslar move to new league entrant Gold Coast, with Bulldogs captain Katie Brennan joining Richmond’s inaugural list.

The 1970s (9 captains moving) and 1980s (8) were the highpoint historically, however if all three touted moves happen this year it will already place the 2020s in the lead with seven moves already.

AFL and AFLW captain departures and their new homes

These have been some of the most famous player movements in history. The iconic Roy Cazaly moved from St Kilda to South Melbourne and Ron Barassi’s move to Carlton (and the closely connected sacking of Norm Smith as Melbourne coach) is arguably still the biggest news story in the games history.

In 1972-73 Geelong captain Doug Wade and John Rantall (South Melbourne) both moved to North Melbourne and were among six players to exercise an early form of free agency under the short-lived “10 year rule”. It was introduced as a precaution against restraint of trade claims, but rescinded prior to the next off-season.

Under previous transfer regimes, players didn’t even have to wait to the off-season to don a new guernsey. North’s inaugural VFL captain-coach Wels Eicke, Fitzroy’s Jack Casham, Footscray’s Stan Penberthy, Carlton’s Ansell Clarke, and Carlton’s Robert Walls are among captains to have left their clubs for a rival mid-season.

Captains leaving rarely do so on good terms and contract disputes are a common theme. As Collingwood Vice Captain, Len Thompson would join Captain Des Tuddenham in a player’s strike in 1970. After being stripped of leadership roles, Thompson would eventually become captain in 1978 and hoped to become Collingwood’s first 15-year player since Lou Richards. Instead, he was pushed out by coach Tom Hafey and joined South Melbourne. Two of the next three Collingwood skippers, Peter Moore and Mark Williams would also leave as captain, both acrimoniously.

North Melbourne’s Dick Taylor resigned during the 1934 season, disgusted with the team’s performance. He offered to stay on as a non-playing coach so long as he didn’t have to wear the jumper again, but North’s policy at the time was exclusively to use captain-coaches and so his resignation was accepted, returning to prior club Melbourne the following year. His replacement, Tom Fitzmaurice, would resign in similar circumstances the following year, having previously quit Essendon in the belief they tanked a game against VFA premiers Footscray in 1924.

There have been a few instances of players eventually returning to the club they captained, such as John Rantall returning to South Melbourne after winning a premiership with North Melbourne. The oddest of these has to be Tim Watson. Watson announced his retirement following the 1991 season. This didn’t stop West Coast from selecting him in the pre-season draft. The closest to playing a game for the Eagles Watson got was as boundary rider during their grand final win. He would be drafted again by Essendon in the following pre-season draft and lend his experience to the Baby Bombers premiership side.

The captaincy itself, much like the concept of one-club players, is heavily romanticised and possibly held in higher esteem by fans than those inside a club. While the captain may be an external figurehead, leadership is a joint effort. 

However, captains have been selected by those within the club (and today generally by playing groups). Having a player in such a position either decide to leave or be forced out can hardly be a good thing. For want of a better word, the vibe stinks, even if it provides interesting list management opportunities (as I think is the case for most of the current touted moves).

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Around the Grounds

• Marnie Vinall on ABC looked at the true cost of injuries, including some interesting observations about the soft cap limitations on preventative medical spending being a false economy.
• Kaitlyn Ferber at the AFL website looks at North’s AFLW unbeaten streak in global context as they charge towards all time records
• Jonathan Horn talks wily old veteran players at Collingwood at the Guardian

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.

Banner images by Polly Porridge of the True Bloods Podcast. Check out her other design work.

Before the Bounce

Eight finalists have become six just like that. Every game now is an elimination battle as the premiership cup draws closer for each club.

This week James, Cody and Sean will look at what each team will be looking to do – and avoid – in their upcoming Semi Finals.

Brisbane v GC

Image – James Ives. Words – Sean Lawson and Cody Atkinson

Gold Coast Suns preview

Stepping into the Suns shoes is a bit hard. They’ve already achieved more than they ever have before, and they’ll be going up against a side they’ve already beaten this year.

The Suns really want to take away Brisbane’s kick-mark game by getting in their face. That means controlling ground ball and stoppage exits. Gold Coast are a dominant ground ball side and beat Brisbane handily when they were able to turn the game chaotic this year, but were beaten by the Lions’ controlled possession game at the Gabba earlier in the year.

If I’m Hardwick, I’m looking to go head-to-head around the ball. With Lachie Neale out, the Suns will expect to have the edge in gathering and feeding the ball out. The Lions have depth in the middle, but throwing an extra number at the contest could be spreading the Suns too thin in transition down back.

Even with a dominant midfield we probably can’t score 7 goals from centre bounce again like last time, but that would be the easiest way to win.

Otherwise, I’m hoping for raw speed, especially by hand, to work out of contests and get deep forward before Brisbane can fully get back. If the game turns into kick-to-kick, the Suns will be in trouble.

The Suns will hopefully feed it deep to Ben King on his island effectively, getting a few clean marks and otherwise letting Long, Humphries and co go to work in the space he creates.

Brisbane preview

If stepping into the Suns shoes is hard, the Lions are in an even tougher spot. The reigning premier from last year is missing their captain and one of their forward focal points. At some level the personnel is what it is – at this time of year it has to be next player up to get the job done.

The most important thing for the Lions is to effectively control how the Suns use the ball at clearance. If having Neale missing means that we will lose a few more hard balls, we need to be ready defensively to protect the exits. I might want to throw an extra number around the contest and following the ball to clog up the contest – sacrificing a high forward to protect space a little better.

The next most important thing is to get the game on our terms. That means taking the pace out of play, and preventing the surges through the ground from the Suns. Moving the ball carefully by foot will be critical, as will be establishing the contested marking game. Playing Fort and OMac together is a risk from a speed perspective, but it might just stretch the defence and open easier avenues to goal.

Working out how to replace Hipwood is at the front of mind as well. The Suns defence is solid, and are willing to back themselves in without a bunch of extra numbers down back. Making space with smalls deep is key, but also making targets up the ground will be critical.

Creating mismatches for Logan Morris and Charlie Cameron might be key as well – the Lions might try to force some switches and to deploy their unit in different ways to before.

Adelaide v Hawthorn

Image – James Ives. Words – Sean Lawson and Cody Atkinson

Adelaide preview

Last week wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either. If I am the Crows it’s about staying the course about what worked this year.

That means I’m looking first to defence in all parts of the ground as the primary route to victory. A 10 goal to 8 grind sounds like a fine way to win a final and I’m setting up for a lot of stoppage contests. I’m also trying to find spares in defence and protect as much as I can from damaging attacks.

The Hawks get a lot of good ball up forward when given the chance – second in marks per inside 50 – and we really need to limit that given our own difficulties scoring. That means blanketing them in all phases of play, which luckily we’ve done well all season.

The Hawks are a middling deep transition team so in going forward, I’m confident in our strong defence of against transition against me. Two middling transition teams means contest and territory is going to matter a lot and we can lean on our usual kick-first possession profile. I’m probably content leaning on a lot of quick long kicking, with any sort of dirty ball enough to set up to go again.

The Hawks are going to want to move the ball by hand so we need to prevent forward handballs from contest and flowing through the middle of the ground. Jumping lanes is critical, as is holding space and not overcommitting to the player with the ball. If needed, make them use the ball one too many times rather than one too few.

With this contest focus, the quality of the entry inside 50 will likely suffer. The hope is that the weight of numbers will brute force enough decent kicks inside 50 to get to get the chances to score needed.

Hawthorn’s height in defence makes me think there’s a chance to beat them for pace at ground level with my non-key forwards, though it does make me think Thilthorpe and Walker have their work cut out halving contests.

If the Crows lose the territory battle it could be game over – so getting first possessions at stoppage will be critical.

Hawthorn preview

Last week looked great until it didn’t. If I’m the Hawks I’d be starting to get a bit worried about how streaky the play has been against good sides. Resilience is one thing, but consistency is key.

The message for the Hawks would be simple – split the territory battle and trust the forwards to execute. That’s why Lewis has come in – to space the forward line further. Finding chests inside 50 is the pathway to victory. Giving Gunston the room to operate will be crucial – if we can get the Crows to over-adjust the game could be over.

The Crows love to kick the ball, so making sure they can’t find targets is critical. They’ve also got a lot of mobile talls that can move up the ground. Making sure that we are protected deep at all times with a deep spare will be critical to stopping forward thrusts.

They might try to suck us into a number of repeat stoppages, so making sure we can execute blocks for Newcombe and co will be critical. Getting the stoppage set up right will be key.

The Hawks also need to effectively get the ball to at least halfway when rebounding from 50. The Crows kill teams by trapping them up the ground. Everything beyond halfway is a win – because that means their defence will be at breaking point.

Sitting wide might be key to exploiting their high press. Making sure the fat side wing stays wide could make the ground big, and make it easier to counter attack. Rewarding leads will also be critical to making this space.

Age and Experience in AFLW 2025

Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois.com

There’s been some commentary in the public about AFLW squad ages this season. Usually, the rule of thumb is that older teams tend to do better than younger sides, but is that stacking up so far this year?

There’s some difference between the age of a squad and the age of sides selected week-to-week can vary a lot so I wanted to have a dive into that.

Three of the four undefeated teams are amongst the youngest sides selected so far this year (Hawthorn – youngest, Sydney – 4^th youngest, Melbourne – 5^th youngest). Sitting just behind the undefeated sides is the 3-1 West Coast. They happen to be the 2^nd youngest selected side this year.

The undefeated Roos are unsurprising as the oldest team so far this year, but the winless Richmond being the second oldest is potentially cause for concern.

The ideal for a future outlook is to be both young and have game experience. The only teams that are both below the median age and above the median experience this season are Melbourne and the Dogs. 

On the chart above the teams above the diagonal line have more games of experience than you’d expect for a team at that age profile (based on league average).

For a bit more context, how does this stack up against previous seasons?

Note: Some pre-2024 data may not be 100% correct, but it should be directionally correct due to the use of median instead of mean.

As we’d expect, the experience of selected sides has gone up as the competition has advanced. But, we can see the same isn’t the case for age.

Another note: We’re looking at sides selected from rounds 1-4 compared to sides selected over a full season. Take the same side in Round 1 and play them through the season and the median age will have increased by three months and the median experience by 10+ games.

At the start of the competition the best players were typically either those with extensive footy experience through amateurs, or those with professional experience at the elite level of other sports. We’re now getting players come through who have had elite pathways through footy. I think that’s probably driving the median age staying low – we’re getting draftees who are pushing from selection from the moment they walk in the door.

The same data source I draw on for ages also has heights, so I thought it would be fun to take a look at the tallest teams selected.

Of the 11 tallest teams across a season, 4 of them are from this year, and Gold Coast from Season 7-10 also occupy 4 of those 11 slots including a monopoly on the top 3.

At the other end of things the shortest teams this year are St Kilda, Richmond, and Brisbane, each clocking in at 169 cm, putting them equal 21^st shortest (alongside a further 17 teams from previous seasons).