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.
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Before the Bounce
The back half of the season is underway with the race for finals firmly in train. With the turning of the corner This Week In Football decided to take an internal stocktake of how the the game is going in 2025.
This week we will run through the mid year All Australian team, while next week will week we will go through the teams that have surprised us, disappointed us, who we think will make finals and a whole lot more.
This Week In Football we have:
The TWIF collective mid-season All-Australian team – defence
On Tuesday afternoon, one TWIF contributor summed up the task at hand.
The All Australian selections are hard. I may actually be developing some empathy.
Every year the public and media descend at two times to determine their best team of the year, ahead of the choices by official selectors.
With 18 teams and a range of talented players, selecting the best of the best is tough. To mark the halfway point of the season(ish) we’ve taken a bit of time to poll contributors about various elements of the game, including votes for an all-Australian team at this point.
With 11 entries from contributors and friends of the show, there’s hopefully a good mix of perspectives here and a fairly solid consensus team has emerged.
Let’s run through it line by line with some comments from entrants along the way, and then look at the end result, starting with the defenders.
All up, twenty-eight different players were nominated across 11 writers. Perhaps this is a sign of the depth of defenders across the competition. Maybe it demonstrates of how hard it is to evaluate defence, and who stands out at that end of the ground.
The top eight vote getters ended up quite heavy on talls. But there were two smaller players joing them as leading nominees: a rapidly emerging Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and Bailey Dale.
Meanwhile, nearly unanimous nominations came for Sam Taylor with one note that he’s “still the best pure defender in the comp”.
Defensive balance is quite hard to evaluate these days. Different sides run a different number of options down back, and there are even more permutations when you consider the “plus one”.
Different people said three talls were “a cop out” and “probably a bit much” but like those commenters themselves, our final team will end up with the same mix:
| B | Lachie Ash | Sam Taylor | Callum Wilkie |
| HB | Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera | Darcy Moore | Bailey Dale |
The inclusion of two defenders from the Saints is notable, but probably reflects how Wanganeen-Milera in particular is “the reason the side ranks 6th for scores from the back half”
For partisans of those with less votes, we had comments such as:
- Connor Idun – “underrated from a defensive perspective”
- Sam Wicks – “convinced the entire league that Nick Watson was shit for one (1) round”
- Harris Andrews – “clear number one for keys”
- Jordan Clark – “has been awesome giving Freo some genuine drive off half back and contributing forward of centre” and “is the If He Was In Melbourne pick for 2025”
The TWIF collective mid-season All-Australian team – midfield
While some nominate the defence as the most difficult part of the ground to populate with All-Australians, some also point to the questions at play for the midfield.
A key question with selecting a midfield is one of balance and role. Do you name true wings? Do you pick a group with different roles who can work together? Do you just name all the Western Bulldogs?
Most nominated in midfield group was Ed Richards, who is performing brilliantly in the most effective midfield in the competition. Eye catching territory gainers Bailey Smith and Jordan Dawson also garnered a lot of support.
All up our group of 11 picked 26 different players in their respective lists. This time it’s likely down to how little distance there is between the group.
The overall top five was clear, with the next few thereabouts for bench spots. No true wings were picked, so our consensus lineup stumps for the two most wingish of the five players.
| C | Bailey Smith | Ed Richards | Jordan Dawson |
| R | Max Gawn | Tom Liberatore | Noah Anderson |
It’s also not spoiling anything to also include the unanimously-selected Max Gawn in the consensus midfield lines here. Only two entrants even bothered with a second nomination.
To summarise: “He is #1 for Score Involvements, #1 for Score Launches, #4 for Hit Out Win%, #1 for Disposals, #1 for Marks (and #1 for Contested Marks and #2 for Intercept Marks), as well as being #2 for Clearances and #1 for Post Clearance Contested Possessions.”
Some notable comments on other nominations:
- Matt Rowell – “the best inside midfielder […] His ability to add outside running game this year has been outstanding”
- Touk Miller – “is the only player in the comp to play over 10 games while averaging a goal, 25+ disposals, 10+ contested and 5+ clearances. Quietly putting up an all time year for a midfielder”.
- Chad Warner – “has been as impactful as any attacking midfielder this year in the games I’ve watched, but hasn’t had anyone to kick to. He’ll fit right in at West Coast”.
- The Bonk – “Failing more injuries I struggle to imagine an AA team come September that doesn’t have Bontempelli in it.”
The TWIF collective mid-season All-Australian team – forwards
In contrast to the other two lines, forward nominations were more tightly clustered with only 22 players named. The existence of an objective metric in goalkicking helps here, with one contributor bluntly just picking the players with the most goals.
Alongside Gawn in the ruck, Jeremy Cameron was the only other unanimous nomination across all 11 voters, with Cameron “leading the Coleman medal, most score involvements, disposals and meters gained of any Key Forward with 15+ goals”.
Jesse Hogan sits close behind Cameron. They are the two players meaningfully averaging over three goals per game.
The balance of the top 6 picks worked out two key forwards, two small forwards and two hybrid mid-forwards who both garnered a couple of nominations in the midfield category above but were chosen here.
Pickett and Rankine have moved much more in a midfield direction this season but Rankine in particular drew high praise. TWIFers noted that “he remains one of the league’s best finishers and creative ball users” and “the potential to be the most all round threatening player forward of centre of the second half of the decade”.
| HF | Izak Rankine | Jeremy Cameron | Kysaiah Pickett |
| F | Ben Long | Jesse Hogan | Jamie Elliott |
Jamie Elliott meanwhile was simply called “a must”.
There was also some praise for those who just missed the cut.
- Sam Darcy – “would have been an easy inclusion for me if he had made the games cutoff”
- Jack Gunston – “has been involved in everything – big numbers of shots plus high assists and score involvements as well”
- Tyson Stengle was included in a team picked for “goals, pressure, tackles and retention”.
The TWIF collective mid-season All-Australian team – putting it together
So with the above votes tallied, let’s complete the picture.
First up, the bench is simply filled from the next most voted players with an eye to balance that meant excluding the key defenders Harris Andrews and Sam Collins as a tiebreaker.
| Int | Caleb Serong | Hugh McCluggage | Nick Daicos |
| Riley Thilthorpe |
Riley Thilthorpe was picked by a couple of people who noted his “versatility edges him past the other key forwards” and at least in theory he can take a few ruck contests.
Daicos gets a tonne of discussion about his ratedness, being one of “best mids in the best teams” though for some “he hasn’t shown it in his games so far.”
Caleb Serong was noted as a centre bounce specialist who “attends nearly the most and has a really high rate of winning the centre clearance.”
McLuggage got slightly more support and could probably be replaced with the next most nomianted non-key defenders in Dayne Zorko or Jordan Clark.
In a real team an extra mid/small defender and forward would come in for McCluggage and Daicos – but this team isn’t playing games. If you wanted to do that, drop Zorko and West in, and name one of those two as a sub.
So that’s our consensus team:
Who does your team kick-in to?
Jack Turner | The Back Pocket | TheBackPocketAU
Ever since players have been able to play-on from a kick-in without impediment in 2019, some highly skilled young players began taking their team’s kick-ins. More cynical footy fans have used this as a way to question the value of players’ stats and their overall disposal count.
The value of a kick-in over any other disposal may be debatable but the responsibility is typically given to players deemed to be both skilled enough by foot and also good enough decision makers. These players are backed to pick the best target or to choose the right set play at the appropriate time.
But the next kick – and often mark – can be equally as important. Typically taken anywhere from 40-60m out from defensive goal and sometimes contested, this mark and subsequent kick can be the disposal that sets you up for a fast break or leaves you kicking backwards and scrambling in the back half. Worse, it could be cut off and turned into a repeat entry by the opposition.
In the 312 games since the beginning of the 2024 season, there have been 4,608 successful marks from a kick-in, shared between 587 players. 54 players have been the successful kick-in target on 20 or more occasions, and 179 players have been successful targets on 10 or more occasions.
So who are your clubs’ #1 targets when kicking out from a behind? And who takes the most marks when targeted with the first disposal after an opposition’s minor score?
As you can see, some teams’ number one player is significantly higher than others. There are a few reasons for this; some teams play a less controlled game style, some teams don’t have a standard target, and other teams have had a change of personnel in the last 18 months either due to injuries or list management.
Of these players some have significantly more than others, and some are on the same team as other top targets. The following are the top 10 (well, 11 because 10th is a draw) players league-wide for marks from kick-in since the start of 2024.
But what happens with these kicks afterwards? These players are obviously trusted to find the best option, so how often does this option convert to a score?
The overwhelming majority of kick-ins eventually result in a turnover, and 65% of all chains that begin with a successful mark are turned over to the opposition at some point down the line. Just 13% of these chains become a score, and 22% become a stoppage (or the quarter ends).
So, which players generate the most scoring chains from kick-ins? From the start of 2024, just 14 players have had successful scoring chains the first mark after a kick-in. Unsurprisingly some of the top kick-in targets are amongst these players.
There is a lot of discussion about players taking kick-ins as cheap stats, but there is a reason particular players are trusted to take the first kick, and even the second kick in the chain, as it can be the difference between a turnover and opposition score and a forward 50 entry; or even – as we have seen above – in some rare cases a shot on goal.
Much like every other part of the game, teams are so well drilled these days that every link in the chain is important, and given that many of the top teams score the majority of their points from turnover – the exception being the Bulldogs – having players you can trust not to turn the ball over in your defensive half is crucial to team defence, and the first two kicks in the chain are arguably the most important when clearing the ball from the danger zone.
So next time you see someone online or on a panel show parroting lines about “cheap disposals,” just remember that amongst the top five scoring teams in the AFL, almost half of their scores come from forward half turnovers, and the players most frequently entrusted to prevent this are some of the most important in the team.
A quarter behind the bench
Cody Atkinson and Sean Lawson
About a month ago there was an article published for the ABC on interchanges and sideline signs.
While researching the article we sat behind the benches for a game to observe the patterns with players coming on and off. All of this information is observable, and other sides have similar patterns of movement.
It’s not a complete picture, and we may have missed some shifts. For the period that there were only two KPFs on the ground, it appeared that Toby Greene played taller.
Some of these shifts were well planned, and some seemingly were extended due to ball placement on the ground and opportunity. If you had to watch the Giants this week, the rotation would be different – not least due to changing players.
Still, it’s an interesting look at how teams move, shift and evolve in one part of the ground across a quarter.
AFLW fixture strength of schedule – how unfair is the draw?
Sean Lawson
The AFLW fixture has finally been released for 2025 and it’s…just 12 rounds long. Those missing matches might end up mattering a lot.
Those five missing matchups this season shape the difficulty of the draw. Teams can either miss or make finals or top 4 narrowly, based on those differences in fixture difficulty.
The AFL deliberately makes a virtue out of fixture imbalance by weighting the fixture, with the impact of uneven opponent sets serving as a handicapping measure. The best teams play each other more often, and the weaker teams do likewise.
The process isn’t perfect, as Brisbane benefited from last year, on the way to a grand final berth.
In 2024 the Lions were handed a seemingly rough draw as befit one of the top sides, playing almost every previous finalist and skipping five non-finalists. But then those non-finalists in Hawthorn, Fremantle, Port Adelaide and Richmond all jumped into the AFLW finals, and turned the Lions apparently hard draw into one of the softest schedules in the league.
These shifts are unpredictable and always mean draw strength changes to an extent from preseason projections.
With this caveat in mind, we can take the 2024 results, use Pythagorean Expectation to calculate each team’s true strength adjusted for scoring luck, and see how well the fixture has been weighted and how unfair things might get.
First, here’s how the teams look following 2024:
Adjusting for team strength here mostly serves to highlight that North were really further ahead of the pack than wins and losses on the real ladder suggests. Meanwhile a couple of the bottom sides, especially the two Sydney teams, were probably better than 15th and 16th, while Carlton overperformed.
These strength ratings have consequences for fixture assessment – North and Hawthorn finished top 2, but there’s a gulf in strength making avoiding North Melbourne a big make or break factor for teams’ draws.
The AFL have managed to give last year’s finalists the eight hardest draws, which is commendable. Hawthorn and Brisbane have gotten off relatively lightly as top four sides, but this is mostly by virtue of missing more middling sides and fewer bottom ones. The Lions still play all the top sides from last year.
Down the bottom, we can identify GWS as a potential riser based on probably underperforming last year and also being handed the weakest set of opponents this season. The Giants skip four of the six top sides from last year. The Eagles, while not as strong in 2024, also miss the same top sides as GWS.
The AFLW fixture is more uneven than the AFLM
Overall, it appears that the AFLW fixture contains bigger inequalities than the AFLM draw. Here’s the strength of schedule rating for all 18 fixtures in the two competitions, with the strongest fixtures nearly 1 full expected win
Overall, the expected wins impact of the hardest and easiest draws in the AFLW is a bit higher than the AFLM, but that’s before we consider that the season is around half the length. Here’s the same strength of schedule impacts with the “expected wins” impact expressed as a share of the season’s total games:
Simply put, when there’s only 12 games, a fixture being over 1.5 expected wins harder than the easiest, makes a lot more impact than in a 23 game season.
Beyond the shorter season, though, another reason behind this is just that AFLW teams have a wider spread of strengths. Looking at 2025 preseason Pythagorean expectation, there were four AFLW teams rate stronger than the strongest rated AFLM team, including North Melbourne at a stupid 91% (remember, they won every game except for a draw).
At the other end of the scale, there were three clearly weaker AFLM teams and a group of 7 in the AFLW. The worst rated teams across either comp were the two AFLM laggards in West Coast and North, but there’s a greater spread of relatively struggling teams in from 2024 AFLW season – roughly seven, from Sydney on downwards on the underlying strength chart above.
What the greater extremes in team strengths mean is simply that there’s more variance in strength of schedule, so playing or avoiding the top or bottom groups of AFLW teams moves the dial more.
The most controllable factor, though, is season length. Getting closer to a full 17 game season as quickly as possible is a fairness and integrity imperative.
Around the Grounds
- Gemma Bastiani’s third part of her decade retrospective on AFLW tactical and game style evolution covers the world of the ruck
- Max Barry’s Squiggle Football game, a football management deckbuilder roguelike, releases a demo next week
- Marnie Vinall looks at the question of AFLM/AFLW double headers for the ABC
- The Back Pocket podcast, by our own Jack Turner, is looking for a womens footy show host or co-host
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