This Week In Football

Author: Emlyn Breese

  • Round 5, 2026

    Round 5, 2026

    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

    Carlton understood Good Friday far better than North Melbourne (it’s the crucifixion, you save the resurrection to Sunday).

    Christian Petracca dodged the dees as they put a dint in the Suns record, while the dogs limped to a disappointing 5 goal win.

    The less said about the bird battle the better. Adelaide was robbed by Fremantle not receiving a warning with 7 minutes to play.

    Oh yeah and on Monday the Hawks and Cats put on yet another one of *those* games to pretty much everyone’s amazement yet noone’s surprise.

    We’ve got figures reported at face value that are, quite literally, too bad to be believed.

    And we’re all auctioning off our kidneys to fill the tank up and make the road trip to Adelaide.

    This week in football we have:

    Quality & Execution

    Joe Cordy

    Right on the stroke of halftime on Saturday night Isaac Heeney slotted a set shot for his second of what would become a bag of four goals, to push the scoreline out to 2.8.20 – 13.5.83 at the midway point. It’s just one aspect of a complete shellacking for the Eagles, but eyes are immediately drawn to the 1:4 ratio of goals to behinds. Even though it’s a pie in the sky, fans can’t help but picture what the game would feel like if they’d somehow managed 10 straight.

    What gets lost when each score is stripped of its context however is that the Eagles weren’t kicking terribly from gettable shots, they were being forced into bad positions by the Swans. Accuracy didn’t move the needle compared to sheer volume of scoring opportunities in this match (if the Swans had missed on every one of their goals they’d still have won 35-41), but it’s often a determining factor between two evenly matched sides. It’s worth considering then who’s taking the most from their opportunities, and who’s creating the best opportunities to be taken. 

    Expected Scores

    Before we get into that it’s worth giving a brief explainer on Expected Scores or xScore, as it’s the foundation I’m going to use to measure accuracy and quality. The simple version is that every shot at goal is given an xScore value based on the average of points scored from all similar shots, grouped by location on the field, whether it’s a set kick or in general play, and in the case of general play what pressure was being applied to the ballcarrier. 

    For example: if there have been 100 shots from the same situation and 50 of them went through the goals, 40 swayed either side, and 10 failed to score entirely the xScore value of that shot would be calculated as (50 x 6 + 40 x 1) / 100 = 3.4 points. 

    Since the start of the 2021 season there have been just shy of 55,000 kicks recorded as deliberate shots at goal. Unsurprisingly, set shots are both more valuable and more sought after by teams.

    If it were easy to live on a diet of set kicks a stone’s throw from the goal line though every team would do it, but you have to take what the opposition offer you. 

    The Value of Accuracy 

    As you might expect from a team with the current Coleman Medal leader, who’s kicked 17.2 from just 21 shots (and only 24 kicks), Gold Coast are so far out ahead in xScore rating (difference between score and xScore) both per shot and per game they’re nearly lapping 2nd place. 

    Accuracy is a hugely volatile skill however, and four games is still a few shy of a healthy sample size. It’s worth comparing teams against their 2025 selves to get a better baseline. With it we can see what a massive jump Gold Coast have made to begin the 2026 campaign, and get a suggestion of how unlikely it is to be sustained through to September. 

    Across a full season, most teams sit within +/- 0.2 points of their expected accuracy per shot…

    …and approximately one goal per game. 

    Knowledge this regression is coming is cold comfort to a team like Geelong who have already been on the receiving end of a combined six-goal swing from xScore in an Opening Round loss to the Suns, but it’s still worth considering that everyone will regress to the mean in time. Who then are keeping that baseline the highest?

    The Value of Quality

    In the continued legacy defining search for success this decade, Beveridge’s Bulldogs and Clarko’s Roos picked up where they left off in 2025 – refusing to settle for anything but the highest quality looks at the big sticks. 

    What sets Beveridge apart from his one time mentor however is that the Dogs have maintained this level while keeping such a high volume of shots. They led the league for shots at goal per game in 2025, continue to do so in 2026, and are adding nearly 10 expected points more than average because of the combined quality of these attempts. 

    On the other end of the spectrum, GWS’ early woes can largely be put down to the expected regression from accuracy and an unexpected regression from quality. Even though it moves the needle less shot to shot and game to game than accuracy, the quality of shots is much more stable a predictor, and their decimated lineup no longer seems able to create the same constant supply for Jesse Hogan that he had been enjoying. 

    Putting it All Together

    So far to start the season, Gold Coast sheer accuracy in front of goal has put them more than three goals ahead of the league average score for their number of shots produced, mirroring their coach’s archrival lagging just as far behind. 

    While there are a glut of teams in the middle of the pack who are dragging themselves in two directions, history tells us these and the Cats’ and Suns’ outliers are irregularities that will be hammered out in the fullness of time.

    While there are close to perfectly average teams last year, none of them were being pulled in both directions to a massively significant degree. Similarly, the best and worst of the group sat at +8.3 and -5.2 points per game respectively.

    When it comes to sustainability, the Bulldogs know there’s no reason they can’t keep scoring at their current extraordinary rate as one of the only teams to not be facing a significant bump up or down to begin the season. Gold coast and Sydney will both be looking to consolidate their gains, even though Brisbane have proved being above the league average isn’t a prerequisite to flag glory.

    Ultimately, nothing will ever be more important in footy than generating scoring opportunities. Kicking 10.0.60 would be impressive and a great bit of trivia, but wouldn’t do you any good against a side putting up 24 goals from 45 shots. Teams are constantly looking for every edge they can get however, in a league where it’s harder than ever for top teams to pull away from the pack. Bad kicking is bad footy, after all. 

    Gather Round for More Fixturing Quirks

    Lincoln Tracy / lincolntracy.substack.com

    We are five rounds into the 2026 AFL season, and one thing that people have not stopped talking about since the ball was thrown up for the first time on March 5th is the uneven nature of the fixture.

    Only one of the completed rounds to date has featured all 18 teams, and it took until the most recent group of games for all the teams to be back on level footing with respect to the number of games they have played.

    And with no further byes scheduled until Round 12 (as well as Rounds 13, 14, 15, and 16), you would think that some of the fixturing chat would die down for the time being – especially with the AFL world descending on Adelaide for the 2026 edition of Gather Round.

    You could think that, but you would be wrong.

    There have been multiple instances this week when the football media (and plenty of fans online) have been vocal about which teams play at the state’s crown jewel, Adelaide Oval, and which teams find themselves heading out to Norwood Oval or Barossa Park in Lyndoch (or Mount Barker, in previous years).

    For example, Jon Ralph opined about how Brisbane, the back-to-back premiers, have been disrespected since the inaugural Gather Round back in 2023 by not getting the opportunity to play at the Adelaide Oval.  

    Ralph goes on to discuss whether the Lions really care about the fixturing for one weekend over the course of a season, which I feel is a completely reasonable view to take.

    “As Leigh Matthews would say, don’t complain and don’t explain,” he wrote.

    These types of conversations can go on forever and ultimately come back to the fact that the AFL knowing they can maximise ticket sales and advertising dollars by playing certain clubs in marquee timeslots at the Adelaide Oval over other clubs.

    Instead of having a slightly different version of this conversation yet again, I want to go in a different direction and really lean into the quirks of the draw over the past few years when all nine games are played in the only state that shares a border with every other mainland state.

    Here’s a breakdown of the unique number of opponents and venues each team has played against and at in Gather Round, including this year.

    Chris Fagan’s side has drawn North Melbourne for the third time in four years, with Barossa Park becoming the third venue these teams have played at during the festival of football after Mount Barker in 2023 and Norwood in 2024.

    These matches, which the Lions won by 75 and 70 points, are a key reason why Brisbane sitting atop the Gather Round ladder with a percentage of 176.85 while North are last, winless with a paltry percentage of 51.36.

    The Lions and the Kangaroos, along with Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, are the only teams not to play at Adelaide Oval during Gather Round.

    Compare this to Collingwood, who play their fourth different Gather Round opponent in as many years when they “host” Fremantle on Friday night, having beaten St Kilda in 2023, Hawthorn in 2024, and Sydney in 2025.

    Craig McRae’s men join Adelaide, Carlton, Essendon, Melbourne, and Port Adelaide as sides that have not had to cross the famous footbridge and play beyond the Adelaide Oval.

    Essendon and Melbourne will also face off for the third time in Gather Round but still both played at the Adelaide Oval in the one year they weren’t drawn to play each other (2024), being fixtured against Port Adelaide and Adelaide respectively.

    Geelong may also be a bit miffed with the draw this year. After three years on the big stage, they will head to Norwood for the first time to play the Eagles, their opponents from the inaugural Gather Round, in the early Sunday game. It’s also the first time the Eagles will run out at the narrow suburban ground, having played at Adelaide Oval in 2023 and 2025 with a trip out to Mount Barker in between.

    The Dockers are one of five sides who have experienced the most variety in terms of who and where they have played, along with the Suns, Giants, Tigers, and Swans.

    But despite all this variety, no side has played at all four of the venues used over the history of Gather Round.

    Six different sides played at Mount Barker in the first two years (Brisbane, North, West Coast, Sydney, Gold Coast, and GWS), yet each of them has a venue they haven’t visited.

    As mentioned before, the Lions, Roos, Suns, and Giants haven’t played at the Adelaide Oval, while Sydney and West Coast are yet to feature at the Barossa.

    Perhaps this will happen next year, when the AFL and the South Australian government agree on terms for an extension to this initiative.

    On a more serious note, I hope everyone who is attending Gather Round has a great time. I attended in 2023, driving over from Melbourne with a carful of mates on the Thursday. Things got off to a rough start when Carlton got rolled by Adelaide, but we still enjoyed ourselves immensely. Travel safe!

    The Footy is Good, Actually

    Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois

    The game has never been in worse shape and people are abandoning it in droves. At least that’s the overall picture you might get if you listen to the vast array of people who are paid to comment on the sport despite appearing to actively despise it and wishing they were back in the 1990s.

    Crowded out

    Crowds are plummeting, even the esteemed AFL Fans Association says so (picture below).

    Some stark numbers, but do they actually add up five rounds in?

    Looking at the raw numbers mean figures are up on last year while median figures are down. Neither reach the 2023 peak but both are still healthy.

    However, attendance is heavily influenced by the teams playing and the venue, so can we get more of a like for like picture?

    For each match occurring in rounds 0-4, I’ve looked to see whether there are matches in other years also occurring in rounds 0-4 at the same venue with the same teams.

    Where there are multiple matches to compare, I’ve calculated the percentage increase of a matchup against the mean attendance for that matchup.

    Across a season I’ve then calculated the median and mean percentage increases across all shared matchups.

    In doing so we can see that comparing like for like matchups the 2026 season is performing extremely well. It has the highest mean and median increases. Crowds are well up for the fixture we have had so far.

    In the Margins

    We’ve got the people, how about the games?

    We currently have the highest recorded final quarter lead changes (score progression data goes back to 2001) and the third highest total lead changes per game.

    You’re more likely than ever to see the lead flip in the final quarter.

    How about margins in general? We’ve never had a higher proportion of games decided by 2 goals or fewer, only one season (2024) where more games have been decided by one goal or fewer, and only one season (2019) where more games have been decided by four goals or fewer.

    If we look at the mean figures we see that margins have climbed over the past couple of seasons but still relatively low, total points continues to grow post-covid (the decline started pre-covid), and the ratio of margin to points scored is in line with figures over the century – the notable exception being consistent low values through 2003-2007. I for one am happy to accept slightly higher margins to avoid the football terrorism waged by Paul Roos and John Worsfold in the mid ‘00s.

    Keep ‘em separated

    Lastly, there’s been a lot of discussion over at Fox Footy about the idea of this being a season of two divisions – a clear bottom 6 and then the rest. The bottom 6 haven’t landed a punch on the top 12, with a record of 0-8 and an average margin that once Sydney had dealt with West Coast sits above 10 goals.

    Sounds pretty bad, right?

    I wanted to at least add a bit of context to it though. I’ve used the 15 seasons with an 18 team competition. For each season I’ve found the group of 6 teams that had the most losses against the other 12 teams before having a single win.

    At the moment we’re not in a historically bad place. The only season that has taken fewer than 8 cross-division games to notch a win for the bottom six was 2020. Gather round will be telling. There are no internal matchups within the bad division so we get six rolls of the dice to notch a win. Port beating St Kilda seems the most likely chance, although Melbourne has horrendously underperformed against Essendon in recent years, particularly at Gather Round.

    If all six of the bad teams lose we’re then starting to get to the upper end of things but would still be a full 7 losses short shy of last year’s performance.

    What if we take the idea of divisions a step further and classify teams using a similar method at the end of each season.

    I’ve first grabbed the group of six teams with the best combined win-loss record against the remaining 12 and called them the top division.

    I’ve then defined the bottom division as the six remaining teams with the worst win-loss record against the remaining 12. Unsurprisingly the middle division is what’s left over.

    The top 6 win around 75-83% of their games against the remaining 12, the bottom win around 13%-22%, and the middle hover around the 50-56% range.

    We can also see there’s more variation within the bottom division than the others. In all but 2021 and 2015 there has been at least one team with an 80% win rate against their fellow bottom sixers. By contrast this has happened only four times in the middle division and three in the top.

    Overall I think there’s a compelling case for footy being in really good health. There are bad games, but there always have been. The good games are as good as ever and being played by more teams.

    Many commentators harken back to the 80s and 90s as a golden age of football. The vast majority of it is absolute unwatchable dross by comparison. The skills are negligible and pressure non-existent.

    In addition to the normal rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, our views on the past are informed by the fact that we simply didn’t see the bad games as much. For many people their exposure to the game was going to your team’s game on Saturday afternoon then catching a curated three quarters on replay and a ten-minute highlights package of the rest of the round. They never even saw the equivalent of Port vs Richmond.

    As for the media landscape that’s a whole different kettle of fish. Maybe we should try something really radical like TWIF’s own Joe Cordy suggested?

    Around the grounds

  • Round 1, 2026

    Round 1, 2026

    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.

    This Week in Football we have:

    Winning and Using the Footy

    Joe Cordy / @JCordy37

    Bill James, the baseball analyst whose data driven approach shaped modern baseball, once said about analytics

    If you have a metric that never matches up with the eye test, it’s probably wrong. And if it never surprises you, it’s probably useless. But if four out of five times it tells you what you know, and one out of five it surprises you, you might have something.

    Despite being the default sort option for the league, AFL Fantasy points leave me completely cold, and most of the basic counting statistics like disposals and metres gained aren’t more revealing than simply watching the game. Equity-based Player Ratings have always intrigued me because of that one time in five however. For 2026, friend of TWIF and in my opinion the greatest resource available to footy fans, Wheelo Ratings, has estimations of each player’s Rating Points gained from equity in both ball winning and ball using actions.

    A Brief Explanation of Equity

    In its simplest terms, equity measures each player’s impact on the game by attempting to extrapolate their actions on the ball to potential points on the board. Inspired by Expected Points Added in American Football, it looks at a given situation on the field and gives it a value based on the average next score, with opposition scoring being assigned negative values. Ball winning is measured by wrangling possession off the opposition, and ball use is measured by both progressing the movement towards goal while retaining possession.

    How the exact numbers are arrived at defies simple explanation, and while a full breakdown can be found in the AFL’s official Player Ratings document, it suffices to say that winning possession and clean use is rewarded more heavily (as well as losing possession or poor disposal punished more severely) at the extreme ends of the ground where scoring is more likely to occur. 

    For an example of what this looks like across a game, we can refer to Wheelo Ratings’ breakdown of Christian Petracca’s Opening Round performance for Gold Coast, which incidentally was his highest rated game on record.

    The vast majority of actions only have an incremental contribution to his running total, most less than one full point of equity per action. His three goals however contributed more to his overall score than all of his ball winning actions combined, because they turned good field position into tangible points on the board. 

    With that in mind we can begin to explore who’s moving the the needle the most for their teams.

    The Winners

    Analysing the best ball winners follows a strong, largely predictable trendline.

    In the top left we find the low volume but high impact key position players, with the standouts being a handful of exceptional aerial-contest winning forwards. Ben King’s propensity to stay firmly within one kick of the goals impacted his ability to get his hands on the ball (6.1 of his 7.5 possessions per game for 2025 were in the attacking 50), but he made his limited opportunities to influence the game count during the Suns’ first ever top-8 season.

    As we look across to the high-volume possession winners the level of impact predictably begins to wane. To be able to get hands on the Sherrin upwards of two dozen times every game, a player has to chase and overlap through the inter-arc sections of the ground where equity values transitioning the footy towards dangerous areas more than just holding onto it. While there are a couple of exceptional players like Fremantle’s Caleb Serong and GWS’ Tom Green who are able to find the ball at a staggeringly high rate both in dispute and from a teammate, the majority of players far to the right on this chart are the outside runners. Players whose key talents are their acceleration and ability to read the play two seconds ahead, so that they can receive the footy in time and space after their teammates have secured it.

    In the middle of the pack we see that scarce group of rucks who show what the position can give at its best. A true hybrid position that provides the aerial duel winning ability of a key position tall, and aerobic capacity and constance presence of on-ball players. Due to the scarcity of athletes who can provide both that football talent while meeting the height requirement, a lot of the names pulling away from the trendline are the same ones you’d expect to see any time this decade; Darcy Cameron leaning more towards the key position marking side, Brodie Grundy playing more like a tall on-baller, and Max Gawn out on his own on his way to an eighth All-Australian Jacket. It’s all well and good to win the footy however, but arguably much more important is how it’s used.

    The Users

    The spread of volume and impact per action is much wider when it comes time to put hand or boot to ball. 

    Per Bill James’ earlier piece of wisdom, you can still easily find the four things you already know to be true: Nick Watson’s ability to tear the game open on less than a dozen disposals is strongly reminiscent of Cyril Rioli at his peak, Marcus Bontempelli is one of the most complete players in the league, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is overdue a reclassification to midfielder, and even the best ball winning rucks aren’t or shouldn’t be trusted to do much more than a lateral handball. 

    The real intrigue of course is in the fifth thing that surprises you. 

    Coming into 2026 Harry Sheezel is in a very similar position to his contemporaries Wanganeen-Milera and Daicos. A high draft pick who first found his way into the senior side on the half-back flank for his kicking and overlap running ability, shifted now not only into the engine room but being trusted with the bulk of responsibility for his team’s ball movement. All three players led their clubs for handballs received and disposals last year, but where the latter two were also club leaders in ball use equity Sheezel was only fourth off the bottom at North Melbourne, narrowly beating an overall negative score.

    Where equity measures can get tricky is trying to disentangle exactly how to distribute responsibility for action and outcome. Sheezel is obviously responsible for his own decision making and skills execution, but equity measures put the full weight of the difference on the disposing player except in the case of marks on the lead where it’s split between teammates. North Melbourne ranked 14th for marks in 2025 and 17th for marks on a lead; when they have the ball they’re not working to create space and keep clean possession like Brisbane, or surging and overlapping like GWS. This is a major contributor to why less than half of Sheezel’s 352 metres gained per game are retained by a teammate. 

    He’s far from the only player in a similar situation – Bailey Smith will need to be more damaging with the possession fed to him if Geelong are going to keep him as the primary first receiver in transition – but he does stand out as having the lowest ball use equity from anyone with at least 25 disposals per game in 2025. While his skills, and hopefully level of talent around him, will continue to develop as North Melbourne climb their way off the bottom of the ladder, something will have to drastically change for him to get to the levels shown by Wanganeen-Milera and Daicos, who’ve both been floated as the possible best player in the competition. 

    What it Means for Teams

    Looking at 2025’s numbers gives a strong profile for each team in attack

    …and defence

    The Bulldogs tore teams, particularly in the bottom half, apart with their possession and movement but were about average running the other way; Carlton were a top four team around the inside layer of stoppages, but couldn’t attack efficiently or put up resistance post-clearance; Brisbane never profiled as more than an above average team until they had to turn it on for September; and West Coast were simply bad at everything. 

    Overall, however, most of the efficacy of the metric is found in identifying those outlying players  for their team or the opposition. If you know it’ll be hard to get around the brick wall Max Gawn builds in defensive midfield, but that he’s liable to give it right back if he tries to kick it, you can spend the week ahead of playing Melbourne focused on your rest defence. 

    There are obvious limitations to equity and what it captures – it’s totally blind to off-ball movement and actions outside of the immediate moment – but it’s extremely good at doing what it’s trying to do, and it’s always helpful to have another tool in the toolbox. 

    Greener Pastures

    Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois

    We’re 5 games into the season so there isn’t a huge amount we can draw on in terms of trends and patterns. As a result I’m zooming in a bit more than usual for the week.

    Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver departed Melbourne in very different ways. Petracca came at a premium for the Suns. They ultimately handed over three first round picks and took on the entirety of his sizable salary.

    The Giants got Clayton Oliver marked down for clearance. Despite being one of only two players to win the AFLCA MVP award multiple times (Gary Ablett the other), Melbourne got just a future third round pick as well as the privilege of paying him a sizeable amount to play against them.

    The on-field context for the two in their debut games for their new clubs was also very different. Petracca entered a team which, while missing the reigning Brownlow medalist Matt Rowell, was still absolutely stacked with powerful and talented midfielders.

    Oliver on the other hand found himself no longer a nice bonus or a speculative trade, but a vital replacement. Tom Green was out for the season with an ACL, while Toby Bedford and Josh Kelly were also set to miss time. Brent Daniels, who potentially would have taken a bigger midfield share given those outs was also missing.

    Oliver had the equal highest centre bounce attendances for the Giants, while Petracca continued a trend that had started at Melbourne of being used increasingly as a forward who rotates through the midfield, rather than the reverse.

    Using some new stats surfaced on WheeloRatings we can dig a bit deeper. Andrew Whelan has recreated the player rating point methodology to be able to separate the value a player creates through winning the ball and using the ball, as well as in pre-clearance and post-clearance situations.

    The main criticism of Petracca has been that while he is excellent at winning the ball, and can have moments of brilliance, he doesn’t always make the best use of it. For every bullet to a forward’s advantage there’s a handful of high forward 50 entries that are easy to counter. For every dribbler from the Perth pocket there’s more than a handful of very gettable set shots that fade wide.

    On the goal kicking front Petracca’s game was his 4th most accurate from 2021 onwards (when we have the data to calculate expected score). He kicked 3 goals from 3 shots, against an expected score of 9.8 – scoring 2.7 points above what the average player would expect to. From 2021 through 2025 he was averaging 0.41 points per shot below the league standard.

    He also generated 72% of his equity from using the ball (as opposed to winning the ball) with only Round 9 2024 against Carlton being higher (84%). This comes back down a little if we exclude his goal kicking but still is the 6th highest of the 111 games we have.

    To put it another way, Petracca generated a total of 24.4 equity points through his ball use. His next highest game is 18.5. He has more games where he generated negative equity from ball use (19) than where he generated 10 or more points from it (18). It’s opening round, it’s a one game sample size, but if this is the new Christian Petracca three first round picks may have been unders for him.

    Who else has gone up a level joining a new club?

    We may be getting slightly ahead of ourselves here. After all, Petracca won’t be fronting up against easy beats like last year’s grand finalists every week. If he continues at this kind of pace though he’d be well in the conversation for end of year awards. What kind of company would he be in?

    Winning individual honours in your first year at a new club is a relatively rare occurrence.

    Only four Brownlow winners have done it. Ian Stewart won his third medal the year he moved to Richmond from St Kilda in 1971. Greg Williams won the first of his two Brownlows in 1986 having moved to Sydney from Geelong. Brian Wilson won was victorious in 1982 with Melbourne having left St Kilda. Finally, Patrick Dangerfield’s first year with the Cats saw him win the 2016 Brownlow.

    The AFL Coaches Association Most Valuable Player Award has only been awarded since 2003. Two players have won it the year they moved to a new club – both with Geelong. Bailey Smith last year and Patrick Dangerfield in 2016.

    The AFL Players Association Most Valuable Player Award was first awarded in 1982. Just once has a new arrival won it and yes, once again, it is that man from Mogg’s Creek.

    Dangerfield’s 2016 debut with the Cats is one of only four seasons that has captured the Brownlow, Coaches Association award, and Players Association award. The other three being Lachie Neale in 2020 (a year after he transferred to the Lions), Martin in 2017 (which also saw him claim the Norm Smith medal), and Ablett in 2009.

    If we lower the bar just a notch we can look at players that achieved their career best season after swapping to a new club. I’m using average rating points across the season as the basis of this and excluded players who debuted prior to 2012 (2012 being the earliest rating point data I have, so the earliest I can be certain it actually was a personal best). I’ve also only considered averages from seasons where a player has played at least 10 games.

    Last year saw James Peatling, John Noble, Jaxon Prior, Matthew Kennedy, Francis Evans, and Bailey Smith all set new PBs for average player rating at a new club. Matthew Kennedy was the most experienced to do so, doing it in his 10th season playing.

    While he’s certainly not old, relatively few players lift the bar again as far into a career as Petracca. This is his 11th season playing (12th in the AFL system if including his first year missed due to an ACL injury). There have only been 8 instances (again in our sample size of careers starting from 2012 and onwards) where a player has set a new season average PB in their 11th season or later – Lachie Neale in 2024, the Bont in 2024 and 2025, Jack Crisp 2022, Aidan Corr 2023, Nick Vlastuin 2023, Patrick Crippps 2024, and Bailey Dale 2025. Christian’s level of professionalism puts him in good stead, but the odds are still against him. Given Melbourne hold the Suns first round pick this year, I’m hoping that whatever success he has isn’t accompanied by team success (at least not this year).

    Looking to the End of the Bench

    Jeremiah Brown / @JeremiahTBrown

    As a bloke who has spent most of his life being pretty unfit and frankly incapable of running out a full match of whatever sport I play, I was very interested in how clubs used the extra spot on the bench this last weekend. To work that out I looked at the players with time on ground below 61%, excluding those who were injured. There were a few different archetypes that teams went with in terms of how they used the final spot(s) on their bench, to varying levels of success. 

    The main grouping was midfielders who played a reduced game time, with Collingwood (Pendlebury), Sydney (Sheldrick), Gold Coast (Davies), Geelong (Clark), the Western Bulldogs (Davidson), St Kilda (Macrae), and GWS (Rowston) all using the spot through the back end of their mid/wing rotations. 

    Despite playing only 55% of game time Pendlebury was a major factor in the Pies win over St Kilda, particularly forward of the ball with 10 score involvements and 5 goal assists (no one else had more than 1 in the game). Most teams don’t have a players with the talent and football IQ of Pendlebury sitting there ready to play in a reduced minutes role, but one wonders if there are more players who could benefit from a less is more approach – either to manage injury risk and load across the season, or because they might be of greater benefit later in quarters as defensive structures start to break down. Will we see Dangerfield in this type of role, with a regular souvlaki on the bench? Much to consider.

    Out of the other approaches, Carlton (Reidy) and Brisbane (Zakostelsky) adopted the tall boy method, using the final spot on an extra ruck and keeping the time on ground for the main ruck down as well. 

    Sadly for the prospects of low gametime big plodders like myself, Carlton didn’t get much out of their second ruck, with Reidy the lowest ranked player in the low TOG% crew. He was ok at the ruck contests, winning 17 out of 32, but only 2 of those 17 went to his teammate’s advantage. Given that Hudson O’Keefe has replaced Reidy this week in Carlton’s squad, they may want more versatility from the second ruck that they are using this week. It will be interesting to see if Brisbane persists with the second ruck option, as Zakostelsky at least managed to hit the scoreboard with an early goal. However, with the Dogs running over the top of Brisbane, the Lions may be wishing they had someone who could have contributed more run to the match post-clearance. 

    The Swans (Papley), and Hawthorn (Maginness) also had a low % spot in their forward rotations. For the Hawks, Finn Maginness only played 56% TOG, which seems to be something of a continuation with how Hawthorn has used the sub in previous years; Maginness was the starting substitute 10 times, including 3 of the last 5 matches he played last season. The result was relatively ineffective – Maginness only managed to have 8 disposals, 6 pressure acts and a single tackle for the match. 

    Another notable usage of the low time on ground player was the way that Sydney brought in an underdone star in Papley, who only played 57% of game time. While he didn’t have a big game overall, he had 5 score involvements for the match and produced a much needed spark when injected into the game late in the first quarter. 

    As we move through the season we might see more of this approach blending with the way Pendlebury was used for Collingwood, and which we may see happening more throughout the season as the inevitable cycle of injuries and return from injuries starts to occur. I will be interested to see if there become players who persist as short (time on ground) kings, and whether some positions end up looking like they are not as viable (like the second ruck only type might be).

    Around the Grounds

  • Round 0, 2026

    Round 0, 2026

    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

    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