Reading

Books

Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)

Partly in anticipation of the film – which I’ve not actually watched yet – I read Wuthering Heights. I knew of its reputation as a tragedy and anti-romance. I didn’t know that revenge drove so much of the plot. The themes, settings, and characters are all justly famous (Heathcliff truly is one of the great jerks in the history of literature), but I was most impressed by the power and vivacity of Brontë’s writing. Her depictions of carnal obsession – the desire to completely subordinate the self and absorb another – feel prurient and provocative today. Reading them in 1847 must have felt like a shock on par with hearing a Chuck Berry riff for the first time or seeing Dorothy step into Technicolor. I can’t help but like the world is poorer for Brontë dying so young. Wuthering Heights was the only book she ever wrote.

Hyperpolitics (Anton Jäger, 2026)

If, like me, you’ve been searching for an understanding of why it feels like we’re constantly careening from crisis to crisis without actually creating durable political or social movements, then you might appreciate this book by Belgian political theorist, Anton Jäger. According to Jager, the West has passed through four distinct political ages. The first was mass politics, where mediating social institutions – churches, unions, parties, social clubs – grounded political identity. The end of the Cold War and triumph of liberalism gave rise to what Jäger calls postpolitics, “a world both depoliticized and desocialized, in which citizens retreat[ed] from collective life into the private sphere”. After the rupture of the Global Financial Crisis came antipolitics, “a type of moral indignation and rebellion on the part of a growing number of fringe groups who seek to free themselves from the old politics”.

Jäger’s hypothesis is that we now live in an era of hyperpolitics, a state of affairs characterised by extreme politicisation (everyone is furious about everything, seemingly all the time), high atomisation (people’s social circles are shrinking), low-cost (why join a movement when you can sign an email petition?), and low-commitment (our employers and situationships don’t commit, so why should we?). Jäger does talk about causes – the declining influence of those stabilising institutions like unions and the church, the economic precarity created by financialisation and neoliberalism, social media – but he’s more interested in discussing the effects: volatility without progress.

Hyperpolitics is a short book, impressionistic in places, dense but not overwhelming, and clarifying. I highlighted lots of passages – here’s one of my favourites.

In September 1957, a shipwreck southwest of the Azores kept the German reading public in suspense for days. On August 11, the Pamir—a four-masted barque usually deployed as a trainee ship—set sail from Buenos Aires with almost 4,000 tons of barley on board, bound for Hamburg. On the morning of September 21, the ship sent out its SOS calls, but contact was lost around midday. No trace of its eighty-six crew members could be found, including several young cadets. Two days later, as part of an international search operation, an American steamer retrieved a damaged lifeboat with five survivors; within forty-eight hours, another sailor was rescued alive. Investigations revealed that a severe hurricane had crossed the Atlantic at the time of the disaster—a ship with the Pamir’s design should have been able to withstand such a storm, yet a fatal mistake had been made when loading the vessel due to time pressure: instead of stowing the barley in sacks in the barque’s hull as usual, the grain had been poured in without prior packaging. As barley has a particularly high flow velocity, the cargo shifted uncontrollably from side to side when the Pamir was caught in the storm in front of the Azores. Incapable of reequilibrating, the ship capsized and eventually sank. No other survivors were located.

Returning to Sloterdijk’s nautical metaphors, it is the Pamir, rather than the superferry, that offers a fitting emblem for the hyperpolitical present. In earlier times, individuals were embedded in dense social networks and participated in a wide array of intermediate associations. Today’s societies are composed of increasingly atomized and isolated individuals. As long as history moves along smoothly and predictably, this need not necessarily be a problem. But when societies enter choppier waters, atomization amplifies their volatility—and the collective incapacity to respond to today’s political and ecological crises.

The essay which introduced me to Jäger’s book is also well worth reading.

Blogs/articles/essays

What will be scarce? (Ghosts of Electricity, April 2026)

Probably the most thoughtful essay I’ve read to date about AI’s possible effects on work. Alex Imas, a rising star in economics, argues that AI-driven automation is less likely to eliminate work as it is to relocate it to areas which AI diffusion makes more valuable. His central insight is that, as the production of commodities becomes automated, an increasing share of employment and expenditure in developed economies will shift towards what he calls the “relational sector”: care, education, hospitality, craft, therapy – any domain where the human element is intrinsic to the product’s value. Drawing from French theorist Rene Girard’s concept of mimetic desire (the unquenchable thirst for things other people want and we can’t have), Imas argues that as material abundance increases as a result of AI, the goods which denote status will become more desirable.

The argument strikes me as largely true and empirically valid. You only need to look at the widespread revulsion at any product which has the slightest whiff of AI to know that many people will pay a premium for goods and services which can’t be “faked” (and/or those where the creator is outspokenly anti-AI). Imas opens the essay with the example of Starbucks. Starbucks tried automation, found that it undermined the product, and reversed course. This won’t happen in every economy, or every part or every economy, but it’s an intelligent middle ground between glib techno-utopianism and hyperbolic AI doomerism.

Infinite Midwit (Experimental History, April 2026)

I could easily recommend most things I read from Adam Mastroianni’s Substack. His writing tickles my brain in a particular way. He’s clever, he asks provocative questions, and teases out interesting conclusions. In this essay, he tries to articulate what AI will be good at and what he suspects it will never master. The fundamental distinction, Mastroianni says, lies in the difference between objective and subjective intelligence. LLMs score highly on the former, and terribly on the latter.

There are two characters you can find in most academic departments. One of them we can call Madame Stats: she knows everything about crunching numbers. The other we can call Mr. Encyclopedia: he’s read every paper and he can recite them to you from memory. Right now, AI feels like having unlimited access to very friendly versions of Madame Stats and Mr. Encyclopedia. LLMs are pretty good at finding papers; they are very good at writing code. So shouldn’t they make research projects go way faster?

Well, once you get access to an infinite Madame Stats and Mr. Encyclopedia, you realize they can’t get you very far. For one thing, you can’t rely on Madame Stats and Mr. Encyclopedia entirely, because if you can’t do any stats and you never read any papers, you’re probably not going to have many interesting ideas yourself.5 Plus, while the Stats/Encyclopedia duo can tell you whether your experiment has been done before and whether you’ve run the numbers correctly, they can’t give you the single most important piece of feedback: they can’t tell you whether your idea is boring.

There are parts of the essay I disagree with. Without claiming an expertise in cognition that I don’t possess, it seems to me that although the question “how do I live a good life?” is ultimately a question of values, it’s also one that can be made more intelligible by breaking it down into smaller chunks and reasoning from there. As a lively, intelligent writer, I suppose Mastroianni would say that AI writing can never have that extra, hard-to-define juju (although I happen to agree with him). But whether he’s “right” or “wrong” seems secondary to me. The point is that he’s posing interesting questions and reasoning through his beliefs and experiences in a way that’s both interesting and – not coincidentally – completely human.

Is Mike Wazowski Jewish or Polish? (Sproutstack, November 2025)

Finally, this important subject gets the serious consideration it deserves. My only quibble is that, having weighed up all the evidence, I think it renders the wrong verdict. Read it and make up your own mind.

Watching

The Studio (Apple TV, 2025)

The Studio wears its influences on its sleeve. It’s a workplace comedy, like The Office or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Much like Curb Your Enthusiasm, it’s lightly scripted and uses mutual misunderstanding as a plot engine. And it draws from a rich tradition of shows that send up the business of Hollywood while wholeheartedly believing in its capacity to create magic. Yet despite risking pastiche, The Studio feels fresh. Seth Rogen, who directs, writes, and stars, is Matt Remick, the newly appointed head of the film production company Continental Studios. He has to deal with capricious stars, unreliable colleagues, and the challenge of wanting to make real art while needing to make the studio commercially viable.

The Studio is affectionately satirical, not bitingly critical. That might disappoint some. But given the people involved, it was probably unlikely to be anything else. It’s beautifully-made light entertainment, with enough formal innovation – it makes extensive use of single-take shots – to keep it interesting. And I have a real weakness for films and TV shows where the cast is clearly having a ball.

Oh, and I’d like to thank Sal Saperstein!

Listening

Emily Remler

The jazz guitar tradition has usually rewarded the ostentatious. There’s something about the instrument – this is by no means an issue confined to just jazz! – which seems to invite a certain kind of peacocking: speed, volume, gratuitous body movements and facial contortions. Emily Remler refused all of it. What she offered instead was economy: the right note in the right spot. Her restraint was a kind of mastery in itself. Remler always had the discipline to leave space where a more insecure player would have filled it with something.

That security was even more remarkable given how much of an anomaly she was. Jazz in the 1980s was overwhelmingly male-dominated, the guitar especially so. Larry Coryell, a jazz guitarist whose work I’m not familiar with (but who seems very highly regarded) wrote in his memoir that Remler was “creative, smart, swung like crazy and had a time feel that was just about the best I had ever heard from any guitarist, male or female.” That feels right.

Unfortunately, like so many jazz musicians, Remler struggled immensely with substance use. Her last-ever concert was in Adelaide, in May 1990. The full show is on YouTube. Before she began playing, she spoke about spending part of her day at the Cleland Wildlife Sanctuary, the same place I had a cherished childhood memory of hand-feeding kangaroos just a few years later. Remler passed away from heart failure, widely believed to be related to opioid use, just a few hours later. She was only 32.

This essay about her life and music is well worth the read.

Angine de Poitrine – Live on KEXP (February, 2026)

Now that I’m too old to read Pitchfork (which apparently has a paywall now???) I rely a lot on the concerts uploaded to the YouTube channel of KEXP, a Seattle-based indie station, for my new music recommendations. It was how I learnt about Mdou Moctar. And it was how I learnt about Angine de Poitrine. Maybe I haven’t listened to enough King Gizz or math rock. But these French Canadians blew my socks off. Part of what makes them so arresting is the visuals: in this performance, both members – as a long-time White Stripes superfan, I’m partial to two-piece bands – are decked out in monochrome polka dots and wear masks with proboscis-style noses. But there’s clearly an astonishing level of creativity and originality on show here. Angine de Poitrine make extensive use of “microtonality”, which Google tells me utilises “tuning systems and intervals smaller than the standard 12-note semitone system used in Western music” and “allows for pitches between conventional keys, enabling unique harmonies and melodies.” That’s a neat trick – but it’s the fact that they use that as a starting point to create mesmeric grooves that makes it work. You can hear traces of krautrock, desert blues, and new wave in their music. The Swedish group Goat try for a similar brand of weirdness. But Angine de Poitrine sound new. As one of the best comments on the video puts it: “I can’t believe I was alive to witness the release of Music 2.”

This video, which is already the 12th-most popular video on KEXP’s YouTube channel, helped create considerable buzz around the band. They released an EP a few weeks ago. It’s very good, but without the visual element, doesn’t quite have the impact of this extraordinary performance.

Playing

Slay the Spire 2 (2026)

Regular readers won’t be surprised to see this; I mentioned Slay the Spire 2 in the lead of my polemic about the AFL’s meddling with the rules. I described it in general terms there, but I’ll happily go into more detail here. I had faith that Mega Crit, the developers, would deliver an excellent sequel because the original game was brilliant in a specific way which suggested a sophisticated understanding of the mechanics that make these types of games work. The challenge was to do more of it – more characters, more cards, more strategies – while maintaining balance and that addictive feeling that almost any game is winnable if you make the right choices

It’s an almost-total triumph. I love both the new characters. The Necrobinder employs a skeletal sidekick called Osty which can fight on its behalf. The Regent, meanwhile, draws from an entirely parallel energy source to play its cards. They’re interesting and they’re different. The existing characters have been refurbished with new cards and new “build” archetypes. There is more of everything: enemies, events, relics, lore. It still feels recognisably like Slay the Spire. And there’s so much more to go. The sequel has only been in early access for a few weeks. There will be new playable characters and new biomes. Balance is being tweaked so there are many different ways to play because the developers – unlike the AFL – understand that it’s infinitely more satisfying to choose your own path than be led to it.

On a related subject, I highly recommend this essay on shopping like you’re playing Slay the Spire. It explores the concept, frequently used by one of the game’s most prominent streamers, of “archetypes and jobs”:

Over time, most people gravitate toward particular archetypes or builds. For instance, you might seek to design a deck around dealing poison damage. The problem with the archetype approach is that it requires betting you will find particular cards or other resources later. Maybe the game won’t give you the best poison cards in a given run. By waiting for them, you pass up good opportunities to deal damage and block enemy attacks in different ways. In the worst-case scenario, you might even take an ability that empowers poison and never come across the base poison-inflicting cards you need for it to work. Similarly, in real life, people often acquire objects—craft and hobby tools being the worst offenders—that are of no use without other objects, or without the most precious resource of all, an uninterrupted block of time.

A better strategy is to divide the game into a series of fine-grained jobs that your cards need to accomplish at different stages of the game: blocking a 45-damage attack, taking down a boss that inflicts status effects, helping you draw the specific card you want, and so on. You also know that later-game challenges will be more difficult, and you need solutions that scale—ways to deal or block increasing amounts of damage with the same cards. When you have a list of top-priority jobs in your head, it becomes much easier to evaluate any given opportunity. Does a card solve an immediate or upcoming problem for you, while also having enough scaling potential to meet later challenges? If so, grab it. If not, let it go.

The piece is nominally about shopping, but I think you can apply it to a whole bunch of different activities.

Doing

Joining YIMBY Melbourne

I’m officially a paid-up member of YIMBY Melbourne – a group dedicated to research-based advocacy for reforms that alleviate Australia’s profound housing crisis. YIMBY is a play on words of “NIMBY” (not in my backyard), the pejorative acronym for people who oppose new development near them. YIMBY Melbourne believes (as I do) that the only way to durably make housing more affordable in Australia is to build more – much more – of it, and that the best way to enable that is by arguing for broader reforms to a moribund planning system that systematically privileges incumbency and heritage over growth and progress. I admire their work and support their mission.

Turning internet friends into real-life friends

One of the loveliest things that’s happened as a result of starting this newsletter is joining a community of friendly, like-minded footy nerds – people I can chat to about even the most niche fascinations and preoccupations. It’s nice to log into Twitter or Substack and see a familiar cast of digital faces. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to move a couple of those digital friendships into the physical realm. This is hardly a novel insight, but making new friendships in one’s thirties isn’t easy. People tend to already have well-defined life paths by that age – partners, careers, children, existing friendship groups. Breaking into that, and breaking out of the complacency that can creep in when you have enough of those things to fill your day, is worth the investment. It’s really cool to go to the footy with people you met online; I encourage everyone to do the same.

In addition to restarting paid subscriptions, I’ve also created a “Buy Me a Coffee” page. Here’s the link.

Social preview photo courtesy of the Adelaide website.

At some point during Brisbane’s imperious victory over Adelaide on Sunday afternoon – probably when Will Ashcroft strolled into an open goal to make the margin 41 points midway through the third quarter – I posted a tweet that might have passed for a disinterested observation, but was actually the frustrated lament of a disappointed supporter.

It’s very possible that this is overstating things. Being 3-4 after an opening run of fixtures that included games against Brisbane, Fremantle, the Western Bulldogs (when they still had fit players), and Geelong isn’t terminal. There’s lots of runway left in the season and the Crows have some good players to come back. But the trend is clear: they currently look a very long way from the confident, powerful side that finished a game clear on top of the ladder last season (ignore what happened after that!). They have regressed – possibly past the mean. I think it’s worth understanding why, what it says about how fine the margins are in today’s AFL, and the value of different coaching skillsets at different points in a club’s cycle.

The naive form of Crows pessimism is to point at the win-loss record. It doesn’t make for great reading, particularly when paired with the ignominious finals failures. That naive form of Crows optimism is to point out that all four of this season’s defeats have come against good sides (but then, aren’t the Crows meant to be a good side?). The slightly more sophisticated form of pessimism involves looking under the hood and recognising that the side’s regression is most apparent in the areas that enabled their surprising rise up the ladder last season.

Here is what I wrote about Adelaide’s style of play in my 2026 season preview:

Few sides could match Adelaide’s array of one-on-one weapons. Dan Curtin, Jordan Dawson, Riley Thilthorpe, Josh Worrell, and Izak Rankine gave the Crows elite aerial, ground-level and hybrid contest capability across the ground. Adelaide ranked top-three for offensive one-on-ones because they actively sought them out. Rather than stretching defences laterally, they compressed them vertically and trusted their athletes to win contests in high-value parts of the field. This helps to explain the apparent contradiction at the heart of their numbers. Adelaide were a great contested team without being good at winning clearances. Their dominance came in secondary and tertiary contests, where pressure, physicality, and endurance compounded. The Crows coaches tracked tackles laid and tackles broken during the game because it was a proxy for physical superiority. In my preview ahead of last season, I borrowed the concept “low block” from soccer to explain the Crows’ willingness to adopt conservative defensive positioning to facilitate counterattacks. In 2025, the trendy soccer term that best explained what the Crows were cooking was “duels” (i.e. direct one-on-one contests). The Crows sought them and won them at a league-leading clip.

Last season, the Crows depended on their superior post-clearance contest winning ability, not sophisticated overlap and handball receive patterns, to generate transition. That made them hard to get a handle on but, because contested footy is so sensitive to form and fitness, was always going to be difficult to maintain. Regression was likely – especially for a side that, while not especially young, had little institutional memory of finals success. Over the first seven games of this season, the Crows’ weaknesses have remained. They still bleed clearances and, as a result, concede territory. That’s compounded by their recurrent struggles to move the ball from defensive 50 – a problem itself exacerbated by the absences of Mark Keane and Mitch Hinge. Their kick-heavy ball movement patterns have become predictable and easy to plan for. While the rest of the AFL has zigged towards gaining territory via handball, the Crows have zagged. That isn’t necessarily a problem. There’s merit in tactical contrarianism. What’s more concerning for Matthew Nicks is that his side’s traditional strengths have gone missing. Adelaide’s press has lost its bite. While the Crows remain steadfast inside defensive 50, they have frequently looked too open on defensive transition. Their opponents are gaining too much territory without needing to incur the sorts of risks they were last season.

As I wrote above, it’s possible that the Crows’ fortunes will change enough to make my anxieties seem premature. The additions of Curtin, Keane, and Hinge could add the contested marking and back-half drive they’ve been missing. Variance could swing in their favour. But three pieces of evidence point towards 2026 being a more accurate reflection of the Crows than 2025. The first is that all their best players played the vast majority of games last season. Between them, Jordan Dawson, Riley Thilthorpe, and Izak Rankine played 72 of a possible 75 games. Eight of the Crows’ 10 highest-rated players last season played virtually complete seasons. That was unlikely to repeat. Second is that variance was already in their favour in 2025. Only GWS overperformed their “expected wins” by more than Adelaide did. The Crows won five games where they generated a lower expected score than their opponent. They could have been as healthy to start 2026 and normal variance would have made them a worse side. The third piece of evidence which suggests this season was always going to be trickier is that the AFL’s recent rule changes, designed to accelerate the pace of the game and create more uncontested possessions, work against what the Crows are trying to do. Matthew Nicks wants more of the game to be in dispute. The AFL wants faster, more free-flowing footy. The house tends to win. You might not think that tightening the stand rule and awarding a free kick for last disposal would disrupt a side. But when the margins are fine, marginal changes matter.

The Crows finishing top last season was the product of a set of circumstances that were always unlikely to repeat. I don’t think that means it was a fluke. They were genuinely good! But Sunday’s loss to Brisbane revealed a real gap to the best sides. Perhaps suggesting, as I did in my tweet, that it was the kind of loss which fatally undermines the belief needed to sustain a flag tilt, was overdoing it. Instead, a fairer question is: what is the evidence that Matthew Nicks can become a Premiership coach? Extrapolated more broadly: how do decision-makers at clubs form and act on beliefs about senior coaches? I touched on some of these ideas in a series of tweets from earlier this month, when Michael Voss Discourse was at its peak. Clubs often publicly talk about the importance of giving a coach time. Often that’s because it’s the easiest thing to say in public. Usually it’s because they sincerely believe the incumbent is the right guy or that they don’t think they have enough data to form an opinion yet. What you don’t hear about as much is the opportunity cost of giving that time – a very scarce resource for any club – to the wrong coach.

The evidence is almost never as clear-cut as it is with Voss. Carlton – perhaps partly out of a desire to challenge the perception that they sack coaches too quickly – have given him far more time than his output has merited, especially as Carlton’s list was entering what, demographically, ought to have been its peak years. Nicks is an example of a different, largely under-explored dilemma: how much political capital should a coach receive for steering a club through a rebuild when the evidence they can deliver a Premiership is thin? Regular readers of this newsletter will know that I believe list strength is the principal factor in team success. But I also believe that coaching talent is real. The challenging thing is that ‘coaching talent’ is a slippery thing. Coaches are evaluated for different skills at different points of a club’s cycle. When you’re in the open ocean of a rebuild, the job is broad and remedial: developing a resilient game model, establishing healthy cultural norms, optimising for player development. In other words, it’s about creating the conditions for flourishing. That part of the job accounts for 90% of the progress. The closer you get to success, the more the KPIs change. Coaches of contending sides are judged on their ability to effect in-game changes, to adapt game plans when opposition coaches devise bespoke plans, to identify the individual players who can drive improvement – to traverse the last mile. Coaches of rebuilding sides who fail at the first part don’t get a chance to show if they’re any good at the second bit.

Only Matthew Nicks’ sternest critics would deny that he was good at the first part of the job. He inherited a club in disarray. Less than two months before Nicks was appointed, Mark Ricciuto was forced to apologise after suggesting that fans who didn’t like the decisions the Adelaide Football Club was making should consider taking their support elsewhere. Nicks made the Crows competitive. His navigation of challenging political problems like Taylor Walker’s racist slur wasn’t to everyone’s liking, but it helped keep a brittle club together. The Crows appear united. He added attacking layers when the talent permitted it. It’s the second part of the job – a shorter distance, but a rockier path – where he’s failed to convince. The rigidity of the game plan despite rapid tactical evolution elsewhere. Conservatism in selection. Persistent struggles in close games. Continuity is an asset when you’re rebuilding. It can be a liability when you’re trying to win. The thing that got you here won’t necessarily get you there.

The counterargument, of course, is that despite the difficulty of finding a coach that can do both parts of the job, there are clubs that manage it. Cast your eye across the coaching record of the 21st century and apply a simple filter: coaches who survived at least two consecutive seasons finishing in the bottom six of the ladder. Under that definition, the genuine rebuild architects of the modern era are: Alastair Clarkson, who finished 14th and 11th in his first two seasons at Hawthorn before winning four flags; Damien Hardwick at Richmond, who finished 15th and 12th before constructing a dynasty; Chris Fagan at Brisbane, who spent 2017 and 2018 in the bottom six before shooting up the ladder and staying there; Ken Hinkley at Port Adelaide, who inherited a club that had finished 16th and 14th in consecutive seasons and turned them into perennial finalists; Alan Richardson at St Kilda, who oversaw three consecutive bottom-six finishes, never made the finals across seven seasons, and was sacked in 2019; Brendon Bolton at Carlton, who oversaw four consecutive bottom-six finishes before being sacked; Stuart Dew at Gold Coast, who never made finals across six seasons; and Matthew Nicks, who finished 18th, 15th, and 14th in his first three seasons at West Lakes. A further category worth acknowledging separately is coaches who did the hard yakka of the rebuild but handed over, not always voluntarily, before the window opened. This cohort includes Brendan McCartney at the Bulldogs, who finished 15th, 15th, and 14th before resigning at the end of the 2014 (Luke Beveridge famously won the flag two seasons later), and Paul Roos at Melbourne, who finished 17th and 13th before leaving Simon Goodwin with an improving club. These cases are instructive in their own right: the opportunity cost of misjudging the handover cuts both ways.

Of the eight coaches who satisfy the threshold and stayed long enough to be judged on it, three – Clarkson, Hardwick, and Fagan – have won flags. Dew, Bolton, and Richardson never made finals. That leaves Hinkley and Nicks. Hinkley is perhaps the canonical example in modern footy of a coach who was very good at the first part of the job and not good enough at the second. He got Port into the conversation. But in 13 years, he couldn’t even get Port to the final Saturday in September. There is a version of this story in which Adelaide, having avoided the Bolton/Dew/Richardson worst-case outcome, is instead heading for the Hinkley outcome: a decade of competitiveness without genuine contention.

The truth is that the base rate is low. Three out of eight coaches who met that threshold and stayed to be tested won flags. It’s hard to reason cleanly from a sample that small. Looking at finals performances doesn’t entirely clarify things, either. Clarkson and Hardwick got their sides competitive in finals almost immediately – Clarkson’s Hawthorn lost a preliminary final in its third season and won the flag in its fourth; Hardwick’s Richmond were competitive in every final they played before finally breaking the drought in 2017, the year after the club agonised over whether to sack him or not. Fagan is a more complicated case: he won just one of his first five finals, a run that included two straight sets exits. But Brisbane’s early finals losses were close – they lost the 2019 Semi Final by three points and the corresponding fixture in 2021 by one. They looked like a team that belonged and was learning. Adelaide’s 2025 finals campaign – two home games, cumulative losing margin of 58 points, zero quarters won – told a different story. Those were not the margins of a team on the cusp of glory. They were the margins of a side found wanting when it mattered most. Brisbane didn’t blink after slumping to 1-3 in 2021. The question for Adelaide is whether the 2025 finals calamity represents the same kind of instructive setback or something more diagnostic. Nicks’ supporters would argue he deserves the chance to find out.

It’s not simple. That’s why the Adelaide hierarchy has observed the correct process – it’s asked for more data. The club signed Nicks to a two-year extension on the eve of what was ultimately a hugely disappointing 2024. It extended him until the end of 2027 last December. These are the moves of a club hierarchy that clearly isn’t fully convinced that he’s the guy, but believes giving him the opportunity to prove it is the most prudent choice. You can disagree with that choice. (Many, many Crows fans do.) But it’s harder to fault the logic – and irresponsible, I think, to pretend the choice is obvious. You don’t get counterfactuals in footy. Clubs can’t run A/B trials to see which choice – keep the coach vs. sack the coach – yields better returns. What sort of “proof” does Adelaide’s finals failure constitute? If it’s not enough, how much more proof is required? Nicks’ critics argue that, given the 2025 finals performances and the club’s start to 2026, the burden of proof belongs to those who believe he can deliver that long-awaited flag — not the other way around.

The risk is clear and the risk is real: some clubs systematically underweight the evidence that the coach isn’t the guy because they are too eager to reward them for steering them out of the wilderness. They choose the known over the unknown. One of the main reasons underperforming clubs underperform is by conflating that loyalty – that gratitude – with confidence in the coach’s ability to finish the job. That conflation can close Premiership windows. Carlton with Voss is the prime example. Hinkley and Brad Scott (at North Melbourne) are others. The point of this essay isn’t to call for Nicks’ head, despite my growing suspicions (in my private capacity as an Adelaide supporter) that he’s not the guy. It’s to recognise that the datasets clubs use to reason from are thin, while the decisions they make are tremendously impactful. Punters on Bigfooty can afford to make assertions without evidence – it doesn’t matter. CEOs and club presidents can’t. But what counts as evidence in this game isn’t always clear.

Straight from the chart

As footy becomes faster, a side’s ability to move the ball and prevent its opposition from doing the same has become increasingly predictive of winning. Good sides need to move it quickly enough to avoid becoming trapped in their defensive half, patiently enough to structure up behind the ball, and precisely enough to avoid conceding devastating turnovers.

Seven games in, it is becoming clear which sides are handling this challenge most effectively. The graph below shows the differential of how well sides move the ball from defensive 50 to attacking 50 (basically: transition vs. denial of transition). Everything here is a percentage.

To repeat what I write here each week: it’s not perfect or definitive. This chart doesn’t account for fixture strength or capture the overall amount of in-game transition allowed by a side. Three sides – Adelaide, Fremantle, and Richmond – have a sum of D50 to F50 transition rate (their own success rate plus success rate allowed) below 40%. Six sides, meanwhile, have a total transition success rate of more than 50%. It is, however, an unorthodox measure of quality of structure. Transition and transition denial is one of the sternest and purest tests of coaching there is. Zones and pressing schemes are so sophisticated these days that you don’t luck into being good at it. All of which is to say: Sydney, Gold Coast, GWS, and Port (!) supporters should be very happy, Geelong, Hawthorn, and Brisbane supporters should be confident there’s room for improvement, and Carlton, West Coast, and Essendon fans… well.

Just as understanding how effectively teams generate and deny transition (and how much they embrace it in the first place) provides an insight into how teams play, so does looking at the distribution of their scoring.

Again, caveats: for reasons of convenience, this chart looks only at goals, not total scores, so it is influenced by finishing variance. And the borders between player types are porous. I’ve used the classifications found on Wheelo Ratings, but made some captain’s calls – e.g. including players like Josh Rachele and Sam Lalor as “mid-forwards” rather than midfielders. Kysaiah Pickett is classified as a pure midfielder (as he should be given his centre ball-up attendances) but spends most of time forward of centre. I’ve also excluded key defenders because the chart was becoming too noisy.

However, I still think this has real explanatory value. Melbourne’s midfielders are making massive contributions to their side’s scoring. St Kilda and Collingwood’s key forwards could be doing more. Brisbane’s brigade of small and medium forwards continue to present asymmetric threats for opposition defenders. Does it match the eye test for your side?

Round 7 was one of the first weekends of footy this season where sides generated fewer possession chains than the 2025 season average. Given that every game across the weekend was played in more-or-less perfect conditions (all else being equal, weather-affected games are choppier), this could be evidence that coaches are beginning to adjust their defensive systems to the increased speed of the game. Or it could be variance!

I think these numbers should provide a small measure of comfort to West Coast and (particularly) Richmond supporters. Your sides are generating chains with reasonable efficiency. The problems are concentrated elsewhere. Next week, I’ll look at how many possession chains each side fashioned over the first eight rounds of the season, and consider how closely correlated that is with success.

In a tweet previewing the Anzac Eve clash between Melbourne and Richmond, I highlighted both sides’ fragility at defending clearance losses. I’ll claim vindication on that front merely because it doesn’t happen very often. Elsewhere in Round 7, Collingwood and St Kilda’s ability to punish their opposition’s turnovers was a significant factor in their big wins, while North Melbourne’s inability to do the same in Canberra on Sunday night was probably the key reason they couldn’t quite get over the line.

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Footnotes

• From Useless AFL Stats: this Saturday’s game between West Coast (55.8%) v Richmond (54.2%) will be the first time since Round 19, 2013 that two sides with a percentage below 60% will face off.

• Inspired by another Useless AFL Stats post, which showed that the Western Bulldogs have registered the most posters since 2021, Tom O’Neil has run the numbers (courtesy of Wheelo Ratings) and confirmed that, yes, even controlling for shots, the Dogs hit the post more often than any other side – 5.13 times per 100 shots. Richmond hit the post the least – just 3.98 times per 100 shots.

• Scores from centre bounce were very frisky over the four completed rounds of April. All four rounds saw centre bounce scoring exceed the 2025 season average, often by a lot. It means that, overall, teams are scoring 12.8 points from centre bounce per game compared to 11.4 last season. Not big, but real. Here are the April numbers:

  • Round 4: 265 points, 16.56 per team

  • Round 5: 221 points, 12.27 per team

  • Round 6: 265 points, 14.72 per team

  • Round 7: 255 points, 14.16 per team

Recommended reading

• Jonathan Walsh checks in with how his beloved Essendon is travelling over at Don the Stat.

• I enjoyed the section in this piece on the Fox Sports website by Courtney Walsh (!) about how wily old forwards like Jack Gunston and Taylor Walker are enjoying Indian summers.

• Seb Morrison, over at his great new Changing Angles substack, writes about Fremantle’s start to the season.

• Nat Martin dives into the nuts and bolts of how Sam Mitchell has added speed to Hawthorn’s ball movement, which has had the effect of making them a much more dangerous attacking force. This one’s behind a paywall, so your best bet is to subscribe or ask Nat very nicely for access.

In addition to restarting paid subscriptions, I’ve also created a “Buy Me a Coffee” page so you can give me even more money. Here’s the link.

Social preview photo courtesy of the Richmond website.

Times are tough in Tigerland. Richmond’s scorched earth rebuild isn’t yet yielding enough of the green shoots that all fans crave and many expected. Despite the underlying metrics being better than a 75-point loss to North Melbourne on Sunday suggested, the result injected a little more black into yellow and black moods. Coach Adem Yze has won just seven of his first 45 games in charge.

The current state of affairs at Punt Road isn’t wholly unexpected. Richmond’s list is both callow and injury-riddled. Senior players, like Toby Nankervis and Tom Lynch, whose backups can’t shoulder the demands of senior footy have succumbed to injuries that might benefit player development in the long run but certainly hurt results in the short run. Losing almost every week sucks, and the pain isn’t necessarily dulled by the lingering glow of a recent dynasty or the tantalising prospect of future glory. But I’ve still been surprised, and slightly perplexed, by the depth of frustration and despair I’ve encountered among some pockets of the Richmond fan base. If you’re anything like me, you’re interested in what that discontent might suggest about living with uncertainty, the difficulty of rebuilding in the modern AFL, and how a media ecosystem that rewards hyperbole has distorted supporters’ expectations.

A key factor which doesn’t necessarily make rebuilding tougher, but makes the subjective experience of rebuilding more fraught, is the modern footy media landscape. Today, there are more mainstream footy media shows than ever before. And because most are determined to talk about anything other than what actually happens on the field during games (I’m aware I’m doing something similar in this post), that means more airtime than ever is spent dissecting and criticising. Just in the past week, Caroline Wilson has delivered a withering monologue about the current state of the club while Matthew Lloyd, on an AFL-produced program (I’ll leave the strange ethics and incentives of the AFL effectively criticising one of its own clubs for another time), labelled the Tigers an uncompetitive mess.

The extra layer that didn’t exist 15 years ago is fan media. Club-specific podcasts, social media pages, newsletters and Discord servers are made by and cater for very specific types of supporters. Whether you call them nuffs, tragics, or obsessives, they’re bound by a single common factor: they have strong opinions about what their club does. And when a team is losing, it’s easy to claim that their specific counterfactual – picking Player X over Player Y, the coach’s stubborn refusal to develop a Plan B, whatever it is – is the main obstacle to success. The algorithm rewards that kind of conviction. Measured takes don’t travel.

There’s another layer to excavate here: new media that isn’t dedicated to single clubs, but uses humour to drive engagement. I’m talking here about the Dan Gorringes of the footy world: creators who make shareable content that’s fun to send to mates smarting over their useless footy team’s latest loss, and rather harder to stomach when it’s your useless footy team that’s the subject of banter. It’s worth pausing for a moment to consider the incentive structure here. Content about losing clubs – their haplessness, their dysfunction, their beleaguered supporters – generates clicks, shares, and laughs in a way that content about winning clubs simply doesn’t. Joy doesn’t travel through space with the same fluidity as humiliation. Happy fanbases are all alike, but every unhappy fanbase is unhappy in its own way. Creators like Gorringe are, by now, a permanent and, for many, a genuinely enjoyable feature of the footy media landscape. But the asymmetry is real: the ecosystem has a structural bias toward making losing feel worse, and no equivalent mechanism for making winning feel better.

The modern footy media amplifies the emotional experience of fandom. But those feelings have to come from somewhere. The discontent of Richmond supporters comes from three distinct sources. The first is injuries to recent draftees – in particular Josh Smillie, Taj Hotton, and Sam Cumming. Tigers fans have invested lots of hope in this trio, all of whom were taken in the first round of their respective drafts. But, as I write this, they’ve only played seven of 64 eligible games since entering the AFL. All seven of those games belong to Hotton, who impressed when he made his debut in the back half of 2025. The news that he would be out for an indeterminate time after bone stress was discovered in his hip on the eve of the season was a big blow to the morale of supporters who just wanted to see a bright prospect realise his potential. Hotton is one of four Tigers currently listed as TBC. Those are scary letters to see on an injury report.

The plight of Josh Smillie is just as troubling. The tall midfielder, taken with Pick 7 in the 2024 draft, hasn’t yet played a single game due to a raft of soft-tissue injuries. I can count five discrete injuries and setbacks. The worst-case scenario – that so many injuries, sustained at such a key point in his development, will permanently diminish him as a player – is now live. Injuries don’t just create pessimism. They also create uncertainty. To return to a sentiment I’ve expressed in past pieces: data is one of a club’s most valuable resources. How young players get on in training and around the club generally can tell you a lot about their work ethic and their demeanour. But there’s simply no substitute for real reps. Had Smillie or Hotton played more senior games, Richmond and its supporters would have a clearer sense of whether they were future stars (Hotton does look like one, albeit on a minuscule sample size). Their ongoing absence is both disappointing on a personal level and creates the kind of doubt that can be corrosive to the positivity supporters need to get through the early days of a major rebuild. An important caveat: Sam Cumming, along with SSP pick Tom Burton, are making their senior debuts tonight. They could both contribute to a win over a talented but brittle Melbourne side. It’s a reminder that the picture can shift quickly, and that the week-to-week emotional boom and bust cycle is usually a poor guide to a club’s actual trajectory.

It’s not just injuries to young players causing discontent among some of the Tiger faithful. Injuries to senior players have had a pernicious concertina effect. Consider the case of Nick Vlastuin. He had a great year in 2025 before he broke his leg in the second-last game. His entire pre-season was basically ruined. And he hasn’t come back at the same level as he was before the injury. Just five players in the entire AFL averaged more intercept possessions than Vlastuin in 2025. His experience and composure provided the perfect platform for the likes of Luke Trainor, Tom Brown, and Sam Banks to hone their craft. It’s no surprise that, as Vlastuin tries to rediscover his form, his younger defensive peers are battling to improve theirs.

Rebuilds succeed and fail for many reasons, but the best ones thread the needle of surrounding talented youth with reliable veterans. The performance of core senior players matters a lot in the early days of a rebuild. When the old pros play at a high level, they buy wins in the short term while delivering invaluable experience to the next generation. I’m old enough to remember when many pundits predicted that Richmond might not win a single game in 2025. In the end, the Tigers won five games, despite having lost Shai Bolton, Liam Baker, Daniel Rioli, and Jack Graham over the 2024 trade period. Many neutrals and supporters interpreted that as a sign that the rebuild was well on its way to success. I saw it a little differently. Seth Campbell’s backflip after kicking the sealer against Carlton in Round 1 and Sam Lalor’s breathtaking introduction to senior footy notwithstanding, Richmond’s veterans did most of the heavy lifting last year. The list of Richmond players who recorded the highest average player rating for 2025 from a minimum of 10 games, in descending order: Nankervis, Taranto, Prestia, Vlastuin, Hopper, Campbell, Ross, Lalor, Ralphsmith, Miller. A couple of future stars, yes. But mostly established players with mature bodies and temperaments. Early in a rebuild, if the output of that senior cohort declines (for whatever reason) before the next generation is ready to assume the mantle, performances will decline, results will suffer, and the developmental path of young players becomes more complicated. There are few clearer examples than Richmond’s start to 2026.

Injuries to exciting draftees and the pain of regression after a promising 2025 are two of the reasons for the long faces at Punt Road. The third is the, thus far, underwhelming output of the two key forwards Richmond drafted in 2024: Jonty Faull and Harry Armstrong. Comparison is the thief of joy. And you can’t draft in hindsight. But those aphorisms are easy to forget when you look West and see Murphy Reid (taken three picks after Faull) and Jobe Shanahan (taken seven picks after Armstrong) tearing it up for their respective sides. Both are succeeding in different contexts: Shanahan is showing more flashes in an approximately equally bad West Coast side, while Reid has settled well into a strong Fremantle team. Both players so far look like better prospects than the Richmond pair. But even here, there are meaningful caveats: Armstrong has also been whacked with the injury stick. He played only eight senior games in his debut season and is currently sidelined with a bone stress issue in his foot. Faull, meanwhile, has had to play more games than he or Adem Yze would have liked against seasoned opponents due to repeated absences of older forward line colleagues Tom Lynch and Mykelti Lefau. Even the best prospects would struggle with the service Faull has received and the direct opponents he has faced.

None of this is to say that there aren’t grounds for concern – with Richmond’s drafting, Yze’s coaching acumen, or the club’s strength and conditioning program. Yze himself admitted, with surprising candour, on last Tuesday’s episode of AFL 360 that, in an ideal world, Faull would be sent to the VFL to rediscover form and confidence. Yze’s sceptics claim the Tigers play with no identity, no character, no dare. But guess what? This is what life is like down the bottom of the ladder. By definition, it involves residing in a world that’s far less than ideal. You don’t get “dare”. You mostly get what you get. It could be that every anxiety felt by Richmond supporters eventually comes to pass. The good kids could be injury prone. The healthy kids could be busts. Yze himself might not be the guy. The whole rebuild, or meaningful chunks of it, might need to be redone. Right now, the discovery process is much less fun than Tigers fans thought it would be. But one of the main points I’ve tried to make throughout this piece is that the current footy media landscape creates too many incentives to proclaim that a player or coach is bad, or that a rebuild is busted, and not enough to say the boring truth: it’s too early to say. Catastrophism and doom-mongering are more likely to go viral than calls for patience.

There’s one more cause I’ll advance for the current pessimism of Tigers fans: perhaps there’s a section of supporters that attained footy consciousness circa 2017 and thinks this footy lark should all be a bit easier? And perhaps the views of those disappointed supporters are overrepresented on social media and fancasts? I don’t mean entitlement. But there were Richmond supporters who were really excited by the return their club was able to get for Bolton, Rioli, and Baker in 2024, enamoured with the players those draft picks turned into, and convinced themselves that a big chunk of the rebuild had already been done. Again, it’s important to stress that the excitement of Richmond supporters – and envy of many opposition fans – could yet be vindicated in the long run. Fitness permitting, Lalor looks like he’ll become one of the game’s best players. He might be Richmond’s best player already. Trainor has looked good, as has Sam Grlj, Pick 8 in 2025. There really isn’t enough data yet in either direction. On some individual players, yes. On the overall status of the rebuild – no way.

The ability of some clubs to defy gravity for years at a time has probably blinded some supporters to how unusual and difficult indefinite contention really is. A look at Richmond’s historical ladder position confirms this.

Since 1950, the Tigers have won eight flags and six spoons (number seven is in the post). The club’s average finishing position in those 76 completed seasons? 8.51. Pretty much smack bang in the middle. Almost everyone wants to be Geelong, Hawthorn or Sydney. But that wasn’t an option available to Richmond this time around. That door shut as soon as the club committed Picks 12, 19, and 31, along with its 2023 first-rounder, for Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper. The bigger the swing you take, the more it hurts when you miss.

Sunday’s game against North Melbourne serves as both a cautionary tale and a hopeful one when it comes to rebuilding. It’s bloody hard. And, as I showed in my recent piece about the Father-Son rule, it’s getting harder. The top four and bottom four spots on the ladder have become more entrenched over time: harder to rise, harder to fall. Sides at the top enjoy advantages in unobstructed access to club-tied players and desirability as a free agent destination that the AFL’s equalisation methods are struggling to overcome. Even miserable, years-long rebuilds aren’t guaranteed to succeed. Ange Postecoglou was talking about Tottenham when he said that sometimes the approaching light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train. But he could well have been talking about his beloved Carlton. Looking at North Melbourne, however, is also a source of some comfort: accumulate enough talent and results will eventually begin to turn. North Melbourne should be good – or at least much better than Richmond is in 2026. That’s the way the competition is designed to operate.

The questions Richmond’s football department must answer are when the inflection point of the rebuild will arrive, and what to do once it does. A few days before I first had the idea for this piece, news emerged that Richmond had thrown its hat in the ring for Zak Butters. I hadn’t considered the idea before the news broke. My immediate thought was that, given the likely cost any club will need to play (unless they offer Butters a contract so lavish that Port can’t match it), the opportunity has arrived a year or two too soon. There’s still so much uncertainty about Richmond’s list. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. You draft players in the hope they become as good as Butters. He’d take attention off the kids in the midfield, he’d make the team more competitive, and he’d set an example to every young player on Richmond’s list.

They’re fascinating questions, condensed into the form of one pugnacious superstar, and they’re the same ones this piece has ultimately been interrogating all along. How much do clubs actually know, and when do they know enough to act on that knowledge? For supporters, commentators, and writers, “not yet” is sometimes the best and usually the most honest answer. For a football department, it’s a luxury. The Tigers chose to go a different way when they were building the list that delivered their recent dynasty: the club knew it had acquired proven talent through the draft and chose to supplement it with the likes of Toby Nankervis and Dion Prestia. Tom Lynch – the superstar free agent – joined after the first flag. Richmond are operating under a very different and much less certain set of conditions this time around. Bringing in Butters would be an admission that Richmond believes the foundation is solid enough to build on; that the uncertainty has narrowed enough to justify hitting the accelerator, even if it means forgoing some premium draft prospects in the years to come. Not trading for him would be a statement that it hasn’t.

Nobody outside or, frankly, inside Punt Road knows which of those judgments is correct. That’s the uncomfortable truth at the heart of any rebuild – and, really, the reason the frustration of Richmond supporters is understandable even when it isn’t quite warranted. (I’d like to believe I’d be more sanguine if my team was still less than a decade removed from a dynasty, but who knows.) At the end of the day, all of us – supporters, pundits, writers – are just guessing, with different amounts of information and different incentives to pretend otherwise. Clubs will make their choices. Fans will have their feelings. And reality, slowly and without sentiment, will eventually render its verdict.

Straight from the chart

Last week, I posted a chart of how efficiently sides are converting clearance wins into points this season. It’s by no means perfect – it doesn’t take into account accuracy, opponent quality, or a side’s quality on other lines. But as a single proxy for clearance quality, I think it works. This week, I thought it would be worth exploring the inverse statistic: how many points sides are conceding for each opposition clearance win.

Again, this is by no means perfect. It is also a proxy measure for the quality of a team’s defensive structures outside of the contest bubble (or, even more basically, a measure of how efficiently teams create spares in defence). But I think that, beyond saying something about midfield personnel quality (and age), it also tells you a bit about clubs’ risk tolerance. All else being equal, weaker midfields – and more conservative coaches – set up to minimise variance. Neither Justin Longmuir nor Matthew Nicks are universally beloved by their supporters, but they (and their midfield coaches) know how to set up to avoid leaking big numbers from clearances.

Last week, I also shared a chart showing how well teams are converting the turnovers they generate into points. Let’s look at the inverse.

The early-season performance of four teams surprises me here. Given how defensively secure Hawthorn look most of the time, the fact they’re currently conceding the fifth-most points from opposition turnovers – caveat: they’ve played GWS, Sydney, Geelong, and the Bulldogs, – would be a cause of mild concern for Sam Mitchell. Port Adelaide and North Melbourne, two sides usually regarded (justly) regarded as defensively flimsy, are both faring much better to start 2026. North’s defensive numbers have significantly improved through their first six games of the season: the real test will come over the next month, when they face a tougher slate of opponents. Then there’s Sydney. We know about the attacking power. I’m not sure we all knew they could put up those sorts of defensive numbers. For those keeping score: Sydney are second for points per clearance win, first for points per turnover affected, fifth for opposition points per clearance win, and first for opposition points per turnover. Pretty good!

Understanding the origin of teams’ scoring chains is one of the most effective ways, at least in general terms, to describe how they play. The basic, highly stylised contrast is between teams which press to win the ball back high up the ground versus those which are happy to allow the ball to come closer to their defensive goal, create intercepts, and then exploit large amounts of space out the back.

I certainly hadn’t anticipated the Eagles’ scoring profile to have changed so much. Last season, 49.7 percent of the Eagles’ scoring came from forward half chains (a stat highly reminiscent of the Damien Hardwick Richmond sides Andrew McQualter served his coaching apprenticeship in). Collingwood’s profile is also a far cry from their 2023 Premiership year, when they systematically generated scores from half-back. It’s early – these shares will likely shift. And again, it’s not perfect. A chain which began from a metre behind the centre circle is coded the same way as one that began from a kick-in. But it’s still illustrative.

As I do each week, let’s look at how many possession chains each side generated in its Round 6 matches. The numbers from the Carlton-Collingwood game slightly surprised; watching the game left me with the impression that the game was more interrupted by turnovers than it actually was (I think it was mostly just turgid – before sparking into life in the last quarter).

Elsewhere, Hawthorn would again be (mildly, given they still won the game) concerned to have generated under 100 possession chains. To an extent, possession chains are a proxy for chain quality and result. You can’t generate repeat turnovers and inside 50s if you score with your first one. But generally speaking, creating more chains is a reliable way to win games of footy. Richmond’s number – just 91 – is a stark illustration of where the side is so far in 2026.

Looking at how efficiently each side converted different types of possession chains into scores in Round 6 tells you a lot about how individual games were won and lost. Carlton had more opportunities than Collingwood, but weren’t as efficient. The injury-ravaged Bulldogs couldn’t generate volume or efficiency. The Giants would be kicking themselves for their inability to capitalise on multiple scoring opportunities generated from turnovers but, as the joke goes, they’d probably miss. Gold Coast bled a lot of clearances – a potential subject for a future post – but shot the lights out when they won the ball at stoppage. And Melbourne, historically unlucky last season (they won four fewer games than the numbers said they “should” have), are getting good rolls of the dice so far this season. What a difference it makes.

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Footnotes

• According to Wheelo Ratings, which uses a slightly modified form of Champion Data’s player ratings system, Caleb Serong was best afield in Sunday’s Derby – but his game only merited a 15.2 rating, the 51st-best game of the round. That sounded unusual to me, so I asked Andrew Whelan, Wheelo curator, how often that’s happened. It turns out Serong’s game was the equal-seventh lowest highest-rating game in all AFL games since 2012 (excluding 2020, the weird year we all try to forget). It’s also the lowest since the Crows played the Saints at a soggy Adelaide Oval in Round 18, 2024, in a game best remembered as Riley Thilthorpe’s return from injury and debut as a muscle-bound caveman type. The player who rated 15.2 that night? Lachlan Sholl.

• Melbourne had 729 games’ worth of experience go out of its side for last Sunday’s game against Brisbane. The Demons’ four inclusions accounted for 24 games’s worth of experience. According to friend of the newsletter, Emlyn Breese, 705 is the 12th-biggest net experience loss for a team that went on to win.

• Another one from Sirswampthing: Mason Cox (211cm) and Isaiah Dudley (168cm) set a new record on Sunday for the biggest height difference between two teammates in the V/AFL area.

• What unites Xavier Duursma, Nick Vlastuin, Mitch Georgiades, Josaia Delana, Jordan Croft, Jeremy Howe, Griffin Logue, Christopher Scerri, Chayce Jones, and Charlie Ballard? That’s right – they’re the 10 players who have played at least three games this season and have a 100 percent retention rate when kicking inside forward 50. Small sample sizes can produce strange results.

Recommended reading

• Sarah Black also decided this was the week to write about the Richmond rebuild. It’s a scrupulous look at the club’s list, its young talent, and where the gaps still are.

• Gemma Bastiani picks her AFLW Team of the Decade. It’s well-argued, even if there are some players very unlucky to miss out. Bec Goddard or Doc Clarke to coach, of course.

• Jono Baruch, over at The Gardiner Stand (a great example of the intelligent and passionate club-focused content I mentioned in my essay), writes about Michael Voss’s combative press conference defending the club’s conduct during the sad Elijah Hollands saga. It’s well worth a read.

• Ricky Mangidis reviews North Melbourne’s big win over Richmond, reflects on the first quarter of the season, and looks ahead to a tougher stretch ahead.

• Leigh Eustace on footy, fans, and never forgetting the context of the Anzac Round.

In addition to restarting paid subscriptions, I’ve also created a “Buy Me a Coffee” page so you can give me even more money. Here’s the link.

Early in the third quarter of Sunday night’s rain-soaked closing game of Gather Round, St Kilda’s designated forward-50 ruck, Mitch Owens, was awarded a free kick after Jordon Sweet was judged to have held his jumper. As with many ruck frees, it was inscrutable upon first viewing. Subsequent replays didn’t really clarify things – if anything, it made the contest look more genuine. In the moment between the umpire’s whistle being blown and him announcing which team was to receive the free kick, there was confusion from both sets of players – which quickly turned into bewilderment among Port’s players and howls of frustration from the Adelaide Oval faithful.

Owens was no certainty to kick the goal. He was about 40 metres from goal, at a 45-degree angle, in the driving rain. He is not, it is fair to say, the league’s most reliable kick. But a possible goal became a certain one when, as Owens was beginning his approach to goal, umpire Nick Foot whistled for a 50 metre penalty. Ollie Wines and Zac Butters looked nonplussed, Owens kicked the goal, and the Saints were 21 points ahead. They were never headed. It soon transpired that Butters (the commentators initially believed it was Wines) had been reported for abusive language.

In a statement issued on Monday, the AFL confirmed Butters had been charged with using ‘Abusive and Insulting Language Towards an Umpire’. That’s the point where the facts end and the conjecture begins. It is in this space that discourse thrives. Later in the same statement, the AFL disclosed that Butters was alleged to have asked Foot “how much are they paying you?”. The they implied by Butters’ rhetorical question was both ambivalent and extremely important. “They” might have been referring to St Kilda and the uneven free kick count on the night. The 50-metre penalty awarded against Butters took the count to 16-8 in favour of the away side. A wag in search of a cheap gag might venture that St Kilda, after recruiting Tom De Koning, Jack Silvagni, Sam Flanders and Liam Ryan in last year’s trade period, wouldn’t have had any leftover petty cash to pay an umpire (to anyone affiliated with St Kilda reading this: this is a joke). If that had been the broad consensus – I should add the important caveat that Butters disputed this account in front of the AFL Tribunal – then perhaps the incident could have been chalked up as one of those “unfortunate things” that gets said in the heat of the battle.

The wrinkle, of course, is that Nick Foot isn’t just your average AFL field umpire. He is also, according to his LinkedIn profile, a “Broadcast Host and Racing Analyst” at Sportsbet and the “Head of Content & Form Analyst” at the 2 Units podcast, a “horse racing podcast and racing subscription service that provides punters with quality horse racing insight and accountable staking advice”. Which feeds directly into the second interpretation of what Butters is alleged to have said: the they are the betting companies which have attached themselves to footy like a parasite to its host.

Questioning the integrity of an official is serious business. I understand Foot’s indignation and the AFL’s choice to refer Butters to the tribunal. Had the AFL not sanctioned Butters, it could have been interpreted as implicitly endorsing the player’s criticism of Foot (assuming, of course, Butters said what he was accused of saying). The tribunal eventually found Butters guilty of ‘abusive, insulting, threatening or obscene language towards or in relation to an umpire’. The eventual punishment – a $1,500 fine – is a funny twist given the intensity of feeling the incident generated.

As I write, on Tuesday night, there are still many loose ends. Butters himself is adamant that he didn’t say “what are they paying you?” and instead said “surely that’s not a free kick?” (or some variant thereof). Foot’s microphone audio, which could have either exonerated or condemned the player, was curiously choppy and ambiguous – call it the Zakruder Film. Butters’ and Wines’ testimony appeared to line up. Port Adelaide chairman David Koch, not usually one to rattle the AFL’s cage, claims that Butters had no idea Foot is employed by Sportsbet. The club and AFL Players’ Association are said to be furious and considering their options. It’s a messy saga that, despite its anticlimactic outcome, has highlighted a number of intersecting issues that, together, constitutes a growing legitimacy crisis for the AFL.

The criticism AFL umpires receive is almost always disproportionate to their performance. Much of it is downright abusive, a non-trivial amount is conspiratorial. That abuse has real consequences: it wears down the people doing the job and, at the margins, deters people from taking it up. The AFL’s desire to protect umpires from this is not only understandable but genuinely laudable. What is harder to defend is allowing a senior umpire to maintain outside employment with a betting company – not because it is evidence of wrongdoing, but because the gap between a real and perceived conflict of interest is smaller than we tend to assume. Both require disclosure. Both create the space for questions about a person’s probity. And in an environment where the AFL is already facing significant scepticism about rule changes, draft distortions, player suspensions, and more, those questions don’t stay theoretical for long. When fans who distrust the administration see it move to protect an umpire who works for a betting company, they don’t interpret it as institutional loyalty to a veteran official. They read it as circling the wagons.

Clearly, Nick Foot’s employment with Sportsbet has been endorsed by the AFL. It’s on his LinkedIn page, he maintains an active Twitter presence, and – most obviously – he continues to umpire AFL matches. Allow me to add my voice to the chorus of thousands and ask: why, when it’s facing such hostility about recent decisions, does the AFL continue to allow an arrangement which only breeds more cynicism and conspiracising? Here’s my attempt at an answer: there is a conspiracy afoot. Only it’s not the conspiracy that many fans sincerely believe – that umpires have it in for their club. It’s one that plays out on electronic advertising boards, the Potemkin segments during TV and radio shows, podcast ads, and is increasingly impossible to untangle from the consumption of the sport: the sport and the industry that is slowly hollowing it out have become, by design, near-impossible to tell apart.

I’m a very occasional bettor. Maybe once a year, I’ll place a multi on a sequence of English Premier League games. Over my betting “career”, I’m probably a couple of hundred dollars on the positive side of the ledger. I’m lucky enough to not feel the pull of betting the way that so many people, mostly to their detriment, do. I’ve never bet on footy and, as regular readers know, I have specifically discouraged betting companies from inquiring about newsletter sponsorship. I don’t particularly like betting, it’s not very popular in my peer group, and I have a distaste for the immiseration it creates. I would probably prefer it didn’t exist – and I would certainly prefer that it wasn’t so intertwined with footy. But we don’t live in that world. Instead, we live in the one where a significant share of the footy media ecosystem is dependent on the tainted money that betting brings in.

Some people will say that we can’t have all the nice stuff without the betting. Besides, who are we to police how people spend their money? Perhaps that’s right. But I’ll say this: the AFL has invited betting companies to infiltrate the supporter experience. It sanctions a senior umpire’s ongoing employment with a betting company. Its former CEO departed for a sinecure at a betting company. We shouldn’t be surprised when fans recognise the conflict of interest – real or perceived.

The Butters saga would be a curiosity if it stood alone. But it didn’t. The same week produced another AFL disciplinary story with the same basic underlying architecture: an unclear evidentiary record, a player who maintains his innocence, and an institution that moved to punish regardless. I’m talking, of course, about the AFL’s decision to suspend young Saints forward Lance Collard for nine weeks (two suspended) for a homophobic slur directed at a Frankston player in the VFL. Here, too, there are many layers. It’s his second offense. The incident wasn’t heard by an umpire or picked up by a microphone. The alleged victim is a final-year law student who went to Brighton Grammar. Collard is, in the words of the King’s Counsel who served as the tribunal chair, a young Indigenous man who “has had a difficult background” and “grew up with no positive male role model”. The victim and perpetrator were teammates at Sandringham for two seasons.

The major confounding variable here, and what differentiates this case from prior instances of players abusing opponents, is that Collard steadfastly denied using the slur, insisting instead that he called his Frankston opponent a “maggot”. He even signed a statutory declaration to that effect; a stark contrast to his first offense in 2024, when he admitted use of the slur. But, of course, Collard would deny that. Even prior to this incident, he was standing at the crossroads of his AFL career. This is precisely where the AFL’s past choices, laudable as they may be, have created an interlocking set of incentives that frequently contradict one another and arguably make the ultimate goal – a more inclusive game – harder to achieve.

Speaking to reporters after Collard’s first suspension for use of a homophobic slur (which was itself at least the fourth such incident of the 2024 season), AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said that “you will see sanctions increasing until we don’t have it any more”. This signalled a clear preference by the AFL – it sought deterrence and was prepared to achieve it by punitive means. Almost two years on, we’re entitled to ask questions about both the justice and efficacy of that approach.

The first question which comes to mind is whether escalating penalties are commensurate with a harm minimisation framework. Is stamping out homophobic slurs a worthy goal? Yes, clearly. Will the knowledge that a player will receive a seven, eight, or nine-week suspension instead of a five-week ban deter them from using a homophobic slur? Perhaps. Is it more likely instead to create incentives for doubling down and strict denial? I think so. Is that state of affairs amenable to the outcomes that (presumably) everyone actually wants – contrition, reflection, growth, and minimising harm to LGBTQI+ players and supporters? No.

The second question (I’m pretending I only posed one in the preceding paragraph) is what kind of harm to LGBTQI+ fans is caused by the partisan sentiment these cases generate? It is, I’d argue, often greater than the harm caused by the original incident. When a club chooses to fight a suspension – as Adelaide did with Rankine last season, as St Kilda may yet do here – it unwittingly licences a discourse in which the player’s innocence becomes a cause, and the people harmed by the language become collateral damage. The slur becomes a lit fuse. Every AFL club pursues its self-interest over broader moral obligations to the game, and it’s probably naive to think otherwise. It’s worth adding the caveat that St Kilda’s statement after the verdict did acknowledge the impact the matter has had on LGBTQ+ and First Nations communities.

Thirdly – what importance do we assign to the role of education? Following Collard’s first suspension in 2024, he undertook a Pride in Sport training course to better understand the impact of homophobic and transphobic language on people who wanted to participate in footy. St Kilda called one of the convenors of that course, Pride Cup CEO Hayley Conway, as a witness during the AFL’s investigation. Conway spoke about Collard’s engagement and demeanour, noting that Collard “seemed quite nervous at the start… he was quite remorseful, shy and also really thoughtful in his comments especially as the session went on.” I suppose the fact that Collard was, on the balance of probabilities, found to have used the word again is evidence against the premise that he gained greater empathy for LGBTQI+ people. But I’m not convinced it means we should stop trying.

You might never have heard of “carceral liberalism”. But you’ve probably seen it in the wild. It’s, roughly speaking, the tendency exhibited by some political progressives to reach for punitive mechanisms – suspensions, fines, gaol sentences – to address social harms, while leaving the structural conditions which produced those harms (or allowed them to fester) untouched. The critique is that carceral liberalism satisfies the symbolic demand for accountability without doing anything to shift the underlying culture, and that its costs fall disproportionately on already-marginalised people. I’m by no means the first person to apply this concept to the case of homophobia in the AFL. Asha Steer, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, made it in an elegant piece last September. “Focusing on single acts of bigotry,” Steer wrote, “releases institutions, like the AFL, of any responsibility and ensures ongoing homophobia and racism in football.”

The Collard case, like the Rankine case and several before it, adds a racial dimension that makes the concept bite hardest. St Kilda’s Indigenous Player Development Manager Katrina Amon – mother of Hawthorn player Karl – testified on Collard’s behalf and spoke to his difficult background: “He hasn’t had a strong male role model in his family… he went and lived with his Nan to support her, he financially supports his Nan now and they have a really strong relationship.” What weighting, if any, should we give that evidence – especially when applied to a second-time offender? The AFL decided it didn’t excuse the action.

A carceral liberalism argument would observe that an institution, desirous of burnishing its progressive credentials, has imposed a severe punishment on a young Indigenous man in the name of protecting another marginalised community, without interrogating why the culture that produced the behaviour exists or what the AFL’s own institutional responsibility for it might be. There are obviously real and strong rebuttals to this line of thinking. The AFL is big, but it’s not big enough to shift tectonic cultural plates. Our sympathies should lie with the victim before the offender. Footy has an inglorious record when it comes to LGBTQI+ inclusion. Almost everyone who’s been to a state league or country footy game has probably heard the slur Collard was found, on the balance of probabilities, to have used. Just two former players – Mitch Brown and Leigh Ryswyk – have publicly admitted to being anything other than straight. Collard had agency and access to elite legal representation. But I think the comments about Collard’s upbringing, beyond being a ploy to have his suspension reduced or tossed out, get at something real: the pro-equality attitudes that I and, I presume, most of my readers possess shouldn’t be taken for granted – they are the products of upbringing, culture, and educational programmes that are more available to people higher up the socioeconomic ladder. I’m troubled by the fact that, by my count, four of the six players to have been suspended for the use of homophobic language are either Indigenous or Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (the white senior coach, who’d already spent decades in the system, escaped with a fine). To be clear, I’m not suggesting this is anything other than a coincidental product of small numbers. But I suspect the AFL hadn’t fully anticipated that outcome before it pledged to eliminate homophobic abuse.

I’ve posed questions. I’m afraid I don’t really have answers. And neither case has reached its final destination. What I have instead is this observation. The AFL has started, in both cases, with genuinely good intentions: support umpires, eliminate homophobic abuse, and maintain the integrity of the competition. It has then made specific public commitments – permitting a senior umpire’s employment with a betting company, escalating penalties until the language disappears – without adequate consideration of what might happen downstream of that. What happens when the umpire gets accused? What happens when the penalties create incentives to deny rather than reflect? These aren’t unforeseeable questions. They are the predictable consequences of treating complex problems as though they can be resolved by drawing a clear line and daring people to cross it. The AFL keeps drawing lines. The problems keep evading them.

Straight from the chart

Last week, I made a note to explore how effectively teams are converting clearance wins into scores. There are several ways of measuring “midfield strength”. In a loosely descending order of fidelity, they go: results, raw clearance count, scores from stoppages, points per clearance win. I like the latter because, although like most other measures, it’s confounded by the fact that it involves non-midfielders, it helps to disentangle the knotty problem of clearance quality.

Five rounds in, most sides are about where you’d expect them to be. Carlton, Gold Coast, North Melbourne, and Sydney are all converting clearance wins into scores efficiently. Somewhat less expectedly, so are Essendon and St Kilda. Richmond, Collingwood, and Adelaide, meanwhile, struggle to convert clearances into scores. Overall, teams are scoring about six percent more from clearance wins so far in 2026 compared to 2025 – early season noise, or evidence of a faster game? We’ll see.

About 60 percent of scoring in modern footy come from turnovers. So it stands to reason that, just as forcing turnovers is an essential ingredient of success, so is having the blend of system and talent required to create maximum damage.

This looks a little more like a proxy ladder: Sydney, Hawthorn, Gold Coast, Fremantle, and Brisbane all fare very well. Carlton, Richmond, and St Kilda, rather less so. Two interesting details that aren’t captured in this graph: just like they were last season, the Crows are still #1 in the AFL for opposition turnovers – they’re just not quite scoring from them as efficiently. The Western Bulldogs, meanwhile, are forcing the second-fewest turnovers of any side in the league (and 11th for scores from that source). The defensive shift is real. Just two sides feature in the top three for both points from clearance wins and points from turnover wins: Sydney and Gold Coast.

As usual, examining the total number of possession chains won by each side provides an interesting glimpse into the underlying structure of the game they took part in. The numbers from the Adelaide vs. Carlton game leap off the page – 289 total possession chains, 178 of which were intercepts, is an astonishingly high number. Rain is only a partial explanation – the Friday night game between the Dockers and Pies had “only” 234 chains.

The Crows-Blues game was choppy even before the rain came. Both sides were anxious when they had the ball and energetic when they didn’t. I also wasn’t surprised to see a high number of possession chains in the Saturday twilight game between Sydney and Gold Coast. Both sides thrive on forcing and exploiting turnovers at high speed. West Coast and Richmond supporters, meanwhile, should be mildly encouraged by the fact that their sides did a good job of generating possession chains – the problems came mostly with what they did with them.

As it reliably has been for the whole season thus far, teams converted clearance wins into points at higher rates than turnover wins. As I wrote above, points from clearance wins are up about six percent leaguewide compared to last season. My prior was that most of this increase would have come from centre clearances (recall the discourse from about a month ago about how teams would exploit the extra space created by longer ruck taps).

It turns out that the increase in clearance win scoring efficiency has been driven entirely from around-the-ground stoppages. In fact, scores from centre bounce clearance wins are actually slightly down so far in 2026 (from 0.958 points to 0.938). Scores per stoppage clearance win, meanwhile, are up more than 10 percent thus far (from 0.872 points to 0.960). This means that, five rounds into 2026, teams are actually scoring more from their average stoppage clearance win than a centre bounce clearance.

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Footnotes

• Courtesy of the doyen of Australian sports stats, Swamp: Essendon’s first 100+ score since Round 2, 2025 means that the longest active 100+ score drought now belongs to… Collingwood. The Pies have played 14 games since last breaking the ton.

• Another fun fact (also courtesy of Swamp) about that Essendon vs. Melbourne game at Gather Round, and that’s not even counting the fact that, by winning, Essendon avoided setting a new streak for consecutive games lost: it was just the third AFL game this century where the first 17 goals were all kicked by different players – and the first since Round 17, 2003.

• How about that Cooper Trembath, eh? Is he already North Melbourne’s best forward? I suppose that depends on how highly one rates Paul Curtis. He took five contested marks against the Lions on Saturday – including that spectacular pack mark in the goal square – in just his eighth game. That feat has only been matched once by a North player in the last three seasons. Trembath also has the highest hitout win percentage in the entire AFL (admittedly, part-time rucks are often over-represented).

• If you thought that Fremantle winning with only 10 scoring shots was unusual… you’re absolutely right! According to Oliver Gigacz, the last time a V/AFL side won with fewer scores was in 1909, when Melbourne (4.4 – 28) defeated University (2.15 – 27). I wonder what University’s expected score would have been that day.

Recommended reading

• Marnie Vinall wrote about Lance Collard’s recent suspension for the ABC and came to the correct conclusion: there were no winners, just different shades of losers.

• Also for the ABC – I can’t believe taxpayer money is being used to subsidise my competitors! – Sean Lawson and Cody Atkinson dug into why long-range scoring is at its highest point in a decade and what it might mean.

• Jonathan Horn writes in The Guardian with his characteristic grace and eloquence about the Butters and Collard verdicts.

• The return of a semi-guilty pleasure of mine: Jasper Chellappah is back with his draft power rankings of the year. It’s shaping up to be a diverse, talented, and – with the notable exception of the possible top two, Dougie Cochrane and Cody Walker – quite open pool.

• This is an Instagram Reel, not an article, but I’ve been really enjoying the tactical snippets I’ve seen from Jack Ginnivan and Tom Mitchell’s new show. This clip is a great examination of how Izak Rankine was able to manipulate his direct Geelong opponent to create space to receive and initiate a scoring chain.

• Over at his Substack, Leigh Eustace puzzles over the problem of building a better AFL fixture.

In addition to restarting paid subscriptions, I’ve also created a “Buy Me a Coffee” page so you can give me even more money. Here’s the link.

On last week’s episode of Footy Classified, journalist Cal Twomey reported what most people inside the game had already been expecting: big changes are coming to father-son and academy bidding at the draft. The graphic below provides a summary.

Clubs which finish in the top four will be forced to pay a premium when matching a bid on their star kids. They’ll only be allowed to use a maximum of two picks to match. The current 10 percent matching discount will be abolished. And, most intriguingly, clubs that see their natural top five pick pushed back as a result of bids will be compensated with an additional end of first round pick. The AFL Commission apparently committed to changes following its competitive balance review, and Twomey’s reporting – which, as anyone who follows the draft closely knows, is not so much speculation as it is advance notice – makes their implementation for this year’s draft a near-certainty. The AFL’s choice to soft launch the changes via Twomey’s spot on an insider-y late night footy show suggests both a knowledge that the changes, like any to the draft, would be hotly debated and (perhaps) a desire to gauge public sentiment before they’re made official.

The nominal intent of the changes is to make it harder for already-strong sides to cheaply match bids on their tied talent, thereby directing more of the best kids in the draft to sides at the bottom of the ladder. Equalisation, in other words. That’s a laudable goal. But the changes certainly aren’t perfect. I worry about the potential for sides to collude by bidding on each other’s father-son and academy talent to effectively manufacture extra picks. I’m not convinced the gap between fourth and fifth-placed sides – often only percentage – is wide enough to warrant penalising the former but not the latter. Yes, one plays a qualifying final and the other an elimination final. But those teams are often equally strong. And I’m hardly the first to comment on the seeming peculiarity of the timing: pulling up the drawbridge the year after Gold Coast has secured its windfall of academy talent, that will sustain a long period of flag contention, for cents on the dollar.

But the biggest problem isn’t with the new bidding rules per se. It’s the fact that, despite being a gesture towards equalisation, they’re better understood as yet another distortion to what’s become a highly compromised draft system. The AFL, caught hopelessly between its ardent desire to grow the game in new markets, its ardent desire to preserve the sentimentality of the game, and its apparent desire for equalisation, has added layer upon layer of rules, fudges, and fixes to the draft to mollify different stakeholder interests.

The result is that the draft – notionally the engine of equalisation – has lost much of its equalising power. Alastair Clarkson believes clubs will never willingly bottom out again. St Kilda has complained bitterly and pivoted to a new list management strategy. The data bears this out structurally. In the 15 seasons between 1996 and 2010, an average of 1.73 sides which featured in the previous season’s top four stayed there the following season. In the 15 seasons since, that number has increased to 2.13. The bottom of the ladder is just as sticky. Between 1996 and 2010, 1.6 sides from the previous year’s bottom four stayed there. In the ensuing 15 seasons, despite most of that covering an expanded 18-team competition, an average of two sides per season have remained rooted in the bottom four. Economic mobility, especially for the least well-off clubs, is declining in the AFL.

The success of sides like Hawthorn and Fremantle – both now genuine flag contenders with virtually no father-son or even academy players to speak of (apologies to the promising Calsher Dear) – is sometimes cited as evidence that the effects of the father-son rule are overstated. Their experiences don’t prove that the advantage of the father-son rule isn’t real. The clubs that have benefited most from the father-son rule didn’t need it to be competitive either. But they were granted a margin for error that most clubs today do not have.

If footy is like chess – a game played according to mutually understood rules, where coaches begin with a given set of pieces and attempt to win by outthinking their opponents – then list management is the art of optimising the value of your starting pieces. It’s the meta-game. And although the meta-game doesn’t determine the outcome of any individual contest, it tilts the scales before the contest begins.

The reverse-order draft is meant to address that asymmetry. The dividend of being the worst side, one with an unhealthy number of pawns, is first dibs on the prospect that’s most likely to become a king one day. The draft was never meant to legislate equality of outcome. It was meant to guarantee something like equality of opportunity. By conceding that it’s OK for some clubs, often precisely those which have better starting pieces, to jump the queue because their father played for them, the father-son rule cuts against that idea. The new bidding rules are the AFL’s attempt to tax that advantage more punitively without removing it. But both the rule and the rule that’s been made in response to the rule ultimately concede the same thing: the starting position isn’t equal, and hasn’t been for a long time.

The father-son rule was introduced in 1949 to fulfil a sentimental request: sons should be able to play for their fathers’ clubs. It’s widely believed the VFL introduced it following successful lobbying by the Melbourne Football Club, which wanted the young Ron Barassi to follow in the footsteps of his father, who’d been killed in action in World War II. The rule is an emotional recognition of footy’s deep emotional roots and rich tribal continuities. The game is, among other things, about lineage and belonging. You can understand the romantic impulse. Many fans, typically those who support clubs that have been net beneficiaries, love the rule and believe it’s one of the things that sets our game apart from other codes.

That’s all true and important. But I also think it’s reasonable to ask if the AFL owes a higher duty to romance or to fairness. Perhaps you think I’ve loaded the dice there. It’s true that the father-son rule is procedurally fair, in the sense that the distribution of talented father-sons among established clubs should be largely random. It doesn’t really have anything to do with how well a club has managed anything other than its relationship with past players and its admin. But randomness doesn’t produce fairness. And, in the case of the father-son rule, it hasn’t produced either.

There’s another romance that defenders of the father-son rule rarely talk about. That’s the romance that belongs to supporters of clubs that have spent years in the wilderness, have watched flags go to the regular suspects, year after year, and been told that the draft will eventually give them their turn. That hope isn’t just a core part of the footy fan experience – it’s key to the functioning of the entire footy-industrial complex. The Essendon fans that are still subjecting themselves to the weekly horrors are doing so in the belief that it’ll amplify the satisfaction of the good times. By contributing to the increasing ossification of the ladder, the father-son rule subsidises the romance of certain supporter groups over others. It concentrates the experience of glory at one end of the ladder and rations it elsewhere. Not enough people make what seems to me an obviously true argument: meritocracy, properly realised, is romantic. The open draft represents the idea the best players find the clubs that need them most, where merit rather than lineage determines who gets a shot at glory. All 16 clubs made a prelim between 1998 and 2006. In the last nine years, just 13 of 18 have. Perhaps you don't believe that's a big difference. I do.

Despite being theoretically open to all clubs, the father-son rule has in practice produced highly skewed results. Of the – by my count, which is likely to be a bit off – 120 father-son selections made since the introduction of the reverse-order draft in 1986, 15 (12.5 percent) have been made by Collingwood. That includes some fairly handy names – the Daicos brothers and Darcy Moore come to mind – and some answers to pub trivia questions. Geelong have had fewer but made them count: Gary Ablett Jr., Tom Hawkins, and Matthew Scarlett formed the backbone of the Cats’ dynasty era of the late 2000s and early 2010s.

St Kilda, meanwhile, is an example of the pendulum of variance swinging the other way. In the pre-bidding era, David Sierakowski – son of 1966 premiership player Brian – played 93 games for the club before being traded to West Coast as part of the deal that brought Fraser Gehrig to Moorabbin. In the modern bidding era, Bailey Rice (son of Dean) played 11 games. Two other selections never managed a senior game. The club’s situation became sufficiently acute that, last year, it launched a formal father-son and father-daughter academy, reasoning that it needed to manufacture what other clubs had accumulated by accident. Funny how the least successful clubs are also the unluckiest.

About two-thirds of Premiership sides this century have featured a father-son player in a meaningful, best-22 role. Dustin Fletcher anchored Essendon’s defence in 2000. Jonathan Brown was the spearhead of three consecutive Brisbane flags. Gary Ablett Jr. and Matthew Scarlett were central to Geelong’s dynasty, while Tom Hawkins extended it into 2022. Travis Cloke and Heath Shaw were key pieces of Collingwood’s 2010 flag. Tom Liberatore, son of Tony, drove the Western Bulldogs’ miraculous 2016 flag through the middle. And in 2023, Collingwood became the first premiership team to field three father-son players in key roles – Moore as the captain and defensive lynchpin, Josh Daicos as the flying winger (and eventual Best & Fairest winner), and Nick Daicos as, well, Nick Daicos. Will Ashcroft has already won two Norm Smith Medals. The clubs that have accumulated the most father-son talent are, almost without exception, the clubs that have won the most. They’re the best and the luckiest. Good for them.

The strongest back-up for these claims comes from an unlikely source: the AFL itself. In 2014/15, the league’s football operations department undertook a review of the father-son and club academy rules ahead of the introduction of the Draft Value Index. I’m not sure if the AFL knows this, but the review document still lives on its servers. You can read it right here. Two lines jump out. They’re delivered matter-of-factly. But they’re actually admissions that the AFL has been perfectly aware for years about the distortions produced by the father-son and academy provisions. The first is the recognition that, despite the theoretical equality of father-son access, the winner-takes-all structure of the competition has created effects that greatly favour some clubs over others:

The second is the report’s (breezily evidence-free) assertion that, despite its acknowledged anti-competitive effects, the father-son rule is still worth it:

The governing body knew what it was doing, knew the cost, and chose romance over competitive integrity. A decade on, it’s tightened the rules, but is still making the same fundamental choice in an era where the divide between the haves and have-nots feels more pronounced than perhaps ever before.

Let’s consider some first principles. In his magnum opus, A Theory of Justice, the liberal political philosopher (and baseball tragic) John Rawls proposed a thought experiment for evaluating the justice of a system: design it from behind a veil of ignorance, without knowing which position within it you’ll occupy. From that position, Rawls argued, you’d choose to design the system according to principles that protect the least advantaged – because you might be one of those least advantaged.

Apply this to the draft. Behind the veil, you don’t know which club you support. You don’t know whether your club has an elite father-son prospect incoming or hasn’t had one worth getting excited about in 30 years. You don’t know whether your club is more likely to finish in the top four or the bottom four, whether it has the corporate knowledge to exploit the new bidding rules, or whether its list was built for the style of football the AFL’s on-field rules currently reward. From that position, would you design the father-son rule? It allocates a scarce, valuable, randomly distributed asset on the basis of sheer dumb luck. It bears no relationship to competitive merit, list management quality, or draft strategy. A rational agent behind the veil would reject it.

Rawls articulated another test to measure justice. He called it the difference principle. The difference principle states that “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who was immediately struck by the similarity between Rawls’ difference principle and Kane Cornes’ recent assertion on SEN Fireball that “every decision the AFL make from here on in has to be with the end goal in mind to make the competition as even as possible.” Pass the father-son rule through that test. Cui bono? Clubs with historical depth – most typically, the oldest, most established ones that have had more prominent fathers playing in earlier eras. Not, in other words, the clubs one immediately thinks of as needing extra help. The father-son rule fails the difference principle.

Practically, what might recent footy have looked like had the father-son rule never existed, or had clubs been forced to pay fair costs for their prospects? Perhaps Geelong would have had to choose between one or two of Ablett Jr., Hawkins, and Scarlett. St Kilda would probably have won at least one flag. The broader balance of power across the late 2000s and early 2010s might have been different. Ultimately, it’s impossible to say – counterfactuals are slippery. But I’m confident that whatever was lost in romance and tradition would have been more than offset by the thing the AFL claims to prize above all else: a fair contest. And nothing would have actually prevented Geelong, or Collingwood, or the Western Bulldogs from going after the sons of their club greats. They’d have had to back their judgement in the open draft – to decide, without a safety net, that this particular kid was worth that particular pick. That seems like a more honest test of a football club than the one the old system provided and the new one still. And if Gary Ablett Jr. had gone to Geelong with Pick 7, or 8, or 23, instead of going for a song at Pick 40, wouldn’t the story still have been just as good? Josh Dunkley is a Premiership hero at two clubs his dad didn't play for.

The trade-off between tradition, growth in new markets, and competitive integrity is hardly a new one. Fans have been grumbling about it since before non-Victorian sides joined the league. Things are different now, of course. The ruleset which enabled Geelong to draft Tom Hawkins with Pick 41 in the 2006 draft no longer exists. Nor, soon, will the rules that enabled Collingwood to match Gold Coast’s bid on Nick Daicos using Picks 38, 40, 42, 44. But I suspect the longevity and familiarity of the father-son rule has blinded people to its actual effects. The influence of a gun father-son pick (or three of them at once, as in Geelong’s case) can be felt for years. The Geelong trio, Daicos, Darcy, and the Ashcroft brothers help their sides stay good for longer. They make a difference on the field, and players at other clubs want to run out alongside them.

A quick word on what I’m not arguing. The Northern Academies and the Next Generation Academies have each come with their (frequently changing) own bidding mechanics, their own exceptions, and their own patches. Each has contributed to the draft’s disfigurement. But they rest on different moral foundations. The Northern Academies exist to grow the game (both commercially and in participation) in New South Wales and Queensland. The Next Generation Academies were introduced to create pathways for players from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and for Indigenous players that the elite talent pipeline has bypassed. Although both distort the draft, neither distort it in the same way or for the same reasons as the father-son rule, which has principally benefited the oldest, most established Victorian clubs – the ones that needed the least help. Whether broadening participation and incentivising clubs to develop local talent are worthier goals than preservation of tradition is a debate for another day.

In a piece a few weeks ago, I argued for what I tentatively called ‘footy libertarianism’ – not a call to abolish rule-making, but a meaningful distinction between establishing the basic parameters of a system and steering it toward a preferred outcome. I mostly applied footy libertarianism to the AFL’s most recent set of rule changes. But the concept applies equally to the meta-game – the game which determines what chess pieces you begin the game with.

The architecture of the draft should preserve plurality. It should create conditions in which different list-building philosophies can coexist and compete. The father-son rule distorts that pluralism. Two clubs with similar draft positions, similarly effective salary cap management, and similarly effective development programs will have systematically different list compositions if one happens to have more prominent alumni with football-playing sons. I don’t know about you. But I prefer my governing body to remain neutral on the question of which style of play is most viable, and to establish principles that, where possible, minimise the effects of luck.

The proposed father-son bidding changes aren’t really a remedy. They’re the latest fudge on top of a series of fudges that have come before. But there is a way to overcome the tyranny of the Empire of the Son. Not reform. Not another patch on the patch. Full abolition, on the grounds that no one standing behind the veil of ignorance would design it, that it fails the difference principle, that it violates the footy libertarian commitment to plurality and organic evolution, and that every attempt to correct its distortions has produced new distortions that inevitably require further correction down the line.

The counterargument is emotionally powerful. Lineage matters in our tribal game. There’s genuine romance in the idea of a Daicos or a Ricciuto or a Pavlich pulling on the same colours as their father – and real horror in the idea of them in navy, or teal, or blue and gold. Perhaps cold competitive logic shouldn’t be the only principle by which football is governed. But abolishing the father-son rule wouldn’t prevent any of those stories from happening. It would just stop the AFL from subsidising them. A club that truly believes in a young player can take him in the open draft, back its judgement, and pay the full cost. That’s a more honest expression of loyalty, and a better test of some of the things clubs should be tested on (talent evaluation and asset management) than a rule which compels the rest of the competition to underwrite the sentiment. Tradition isn’t enough to excuse inequality; not when it helps determine which teams win flags and which win wooden spoons, and not when the AFL itself knows the cost and chooses to pay it anyway. Andrew Dillon has a chance to actually do something meaningful during his tenure. He should revolt against the Empire of the Son.

Straight from the chart

Over the past month, I’ve approached the subject of the increasing speed of the game from a few different angles: full polemic and more granular looks at the changing shape of the handball game, score sources, and centre bounce attendance concentration. This week’s charts continue on in that latter vein and ask what’s happening to uncontested possessions?

The best place to begin is to look at the share of contested vs. uncontested possessions. I’d expected a shift away from contested possessions, reflecting the fact that a faster game strongly implies a more uncontested one – but I hadn’t expected such a big shift through four rounds.

I suspect these numbers will moderate over the course of the season. Not because 36 games isn’t a representative sample, but because – due to weather conditions and team’s systems not quite having clicked yet – March and April aren’t always representative of the rest of the season. The cold will come, the ground will soften, the run will slow.

If the share of contested possessions is going down then at least one of three things is happening: there are fewer contested possessions, more uncontested possessions, or both at once. Turns out it’s the third thing. Contested possessions are declining in absolute numbers, but not by very much: games in 2026 are currently averaging 127.1, compared to 130.5 in 2025. The bigger change is in the number of uncontested possessions per game. The current competition average (227.9) is the highest since 2018, when there was an average of 228.8 uncontested possessions per game.

Uncontested marks are following the same trend, to an even more exaggerated degree. 85.6 uncontested marks per game is the highest on record (or the highest that Wheelo Ratings, which goes back to 2012, can find – which is basically the same thing). Teams are moving the ball faster and players are running faster and further. Footy is becoming a more cardio-intensive sport.

Round 4 yielded some mildly interesting results when it came to how often teams started with the ball. Brisbane having 18 more possession chains than Collingwood wasn’t a surprise. Adelaide having more chains than any other side across the entire round probably was. Sydney “only” had 117 chains because 45 of them – 38.6 percent! – ended in shots. Hawthorn generating eight more chains than Geelong was statistical confirmation of the eye test: they were the better side for most of that titanic Easter Monday clash.

An early-season trend I want to explore in greater depth in next week’s review is how heavily teams are scoring from clearance wins. Only Fremantle, West Coast (just – and not that it particularly mattered), and Sydney scored at higher rate from turnover wins than clearance wins in Round 4. Perhaps that’s expected: stoppages are rarer, set-ups are more sophisticated, and the type of player that attends them is changing (think more Kysaiah Pickett, less George Hewett). But it still jumps off the page.

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Footnotes

• Some interesting league-wide trends shared by Champion Data’s Daniel Hoyne on his most recent appearance on SEN Sportsday: scoring is at its highest in a decade, ball movement is the fastest on record (by more than 10 percent), inside-50 entries per game are at their highest rate in 27 years, scores per inside-50 are the highest they’ve been for 10 years, and the number of marks is the second-highest for 18 years. As a result? Pressure is the lowest on record through four rounds of the season.

• Courtesy of Cal Twomey: “The numbers say the best players are, on the whole, spending more time off the ground this year. Of the top ranked 49 players in the competition according to AFL Player Ratings, 36 had lower time on ground in the opening month than last year.” (Note: this doesn’t include Round 4.)

• The 10 youngest players in the West Coast vs. Sydney game on Saturday night all wore blue and gold guernseys. It doesn’t justify the result. But it partly explains it.

• There have been six games with 128-point margins in VFL/AFL history. Jamie Cripps has played in two of the last three – for different clubs, and on different ends of the result.

Recommended reading

• If you don’t already, make sure you’re doing the Friday Footy Quiz. Test yourself, your friends, family, neighbours – anyone who’ll listen. It’s always good fun.

• Friend of the newsletter, Mimi Birch, writes that we should have sympathy for the Saints – they’re just doing the rational thing in the face of a broken draft system.

• Toby, author of the always thoughtful Jousting Sticks substack, doesn’t like the way the footy media talks about money.

• Jonathan Horn on the scourge of goal songs and the general cacophony of noise at footy games these days (writing that made me feel so old).

• The Vulture Street Journal is feeling good about Brisbane’s big win over Collingwood last Thursday night.

• Over at Jumper Punches, Nick Rynne reviews Round 4 from the perspective of the WA clubs (spoiler: good, then bad).

In addition to restarting paid subscriptions, I’ve also created a “Buy Me a Coffee” page so you can give me even more money. Here’s the link.

Another reminder that I’ve turned paid subscriptions back on. I’m not planning to put up a paywall, but if you think my work is worth supporting, a paid subscription – just $6 a month – is greatly appreciated.

Carlton second half fade-outs. Adelaide being on the wrong end of a call in a close loss. West Coast beating Port by a kick at the Adelaide Oval. Tagging back in vogue. A player accused of making a homophobic remark. Grand Final timing discourse. Essendon discourse. We didn’t start the fi––nope, not going there. You know how The Force Awakens, the first film in the most recent (mostly terrible) Star Wars trilogy, used virtually the same story beats as A New Hope? That’s what Round 3 of the 2026 season felt like. Footy doesn’t repeat. But there are times it rhymes.

I’ll get three of those topics out of the way in short order. Yes, Zac Taylor should have been awarded a free kick for incorrect disposal. But Matthew Nicks was right: it didn’t affect the result. I can’t summon strong feelings about when the Grand Final should be played, although, like all people in their mid-thirties, I am increasingly perplexed by the AFL’s ceaseless drive for unnecessary change. And Essendon’s plight is almost certainly the most tedious recurring subject in footy media. I know why it’s so persistent: Big Vics get clicks, and talking about the sins of the past is easier than analysing the games of the present. But it’s so much sound and fury, signifying nothing (I’m sure when Shakespeare wrote those words he was thinking about the fact that many pundits are pretending to not understand that Essendon are rebuilding because senior figures at the club haven’t used the literal word). Essendon are bad because most of their players are bad. That failure has many fathers – poor drafting, poor development, internal dysfunction. But one underrated cause of Essendon’s current plight is that they didn’t bottom out sooner. Instead, they made decisions which kept them in the worst part of the ladder: the bottom of the middle third. That’s the worst of all words. It’s harder to draft elite talent, and harder to turn the heads of elite free agents. Winning while trying to win is great. Losing while trying to lose is good. Losing while sort of trying to win? Not advisable!

Essendon’s plight is a neat enough segue for me to discuss what I think is probably the most misunderstood subject in footy and (hyperbole klaxon) broader society – opportunity cost. Simply put, the opportunity cost of an action is the potential benefit foregone when that action is taken over another. Opportunity costs compound hundreds of times across every club’s list build process. The opportunity cost of using a first round pick on an established player is that you forgo the chance to use that pick in the draft. The opportunity cost of your list manager only offering your skilled but defensively flakey half-back/winger a one-year deal is that Sam Mitchell might swoop in and pluck him away. The opportunity cost of delisting a talented but wayward third tall forward is that he’ll learn what it takes to make it in the big time, go West, and become part of one of the most feared attacking tridents in the game. Opportunity cost, then, is a framework for better understanding the consequences, both within games and across seasons, of the decisions that footy clubs make all the time.

Opportunity cost – one of the few things I still remember from my economics degree – is where my mind always goes when the subject of tagging comes up, which it does two to three times a season and has popped up again in the aftermath of Finn O’Sullivan’s “tag” on Zach Merrett and Koltyn Tholstrup’s brief to stay close to Patrick Cripps on Sunday afternoon at the MCG. I want to advance a proposition. Tagging can be situationally effective. But the median footy fan – this excludes you, discerning reader – doesn’t always fully comprehend the opportunity cost of tagging. Instead, they (not necessarily unreasonably) think that tagging is shorthand for “nullifying the opposition’s best player” and effectively playing 17 vs. 17. This makes sense if you believe that all that happens when you apply a tag on an opposition star is that the output of a high-value player is nullified by a lower-value tagging player. But there are opportunity costs many people don’t consider.

This piece from last season, written by Cody Atkinson and Sean Lawson (the doyens of smart footy writing) lays out the trade-offs very well. As with all of Cody and Sean’s work, the piece is well worth reading, especially in how it lays out the stress that carrying a hard tag on an opposition star can place on a side’s own structures. But perhaps the most interesting part of it is the insights the authors got from different senior coaches. I especially appreciated Dean Cox’s comments on the flexibility that James Jordon brings to his tagging role. “The great thing about James is the balance that he does have between ‘OK, I need to restrict’ but also ‘I need to impact when I get the chance as well,’” Cox said. Reading that, and then seeing friend of the newsletter Ricky Mangidis’s excellent breakdown of Finn O’Sullivan’s work on Saturday night, makes me think that our mental model of what constitutes a tag in 2026 probably needs updating. Perhaps there’s still a niche for the strictly defensive “hard tag”. But perhaps the modern tagger needs to bring a blend of defensive accountability and attacking threat – in other words, they need to be a good player on their own merits.

Opportunity costs probably aren’t the first thing which comes to mind when considering why Carlton keep fading out so spectacularly in second halves of footy games. Despair and mirth, depending on one’s allegiance, would be higher up the list for most people. But it’s still a useful lens to apply – because, almost every week, the Blues demonstrate the opportunity costs of over-investing in a brand of football that is becoming increasingly obsolete. Diagnosing Carlton’s second half fade-outs has become its own cottage industry. I’ve read all kinds of purported explanations. The two I find least convincing are that the players don’t want it enough (except, apparently, early in games) and that they get tired (harder to sustain given the game against Melbourne came after a 17-day break). The one I find most persuasive is that the Blues have over-indexed on contested footy. This graph tells its own story.

Since Round 1, 2022 – Michael Voss’s first game in charge as Carlton coach – no side has been more dependent on stoppage wins to generate its scoring. Only four clubs have scored more than 42% of their points from stoppages over this period. Two of those four have been historically bad. One is studded with dynamic midfield talent. And the other is Carlton. That’s a problem for a few reasons. Firstly, stoppage setups are easy for smart midfield coaches to counter – say, at half-time. Second, stoppages are harder to win when your players are tired. And thirdly, as I’ve written in these pages before, the AFL has introduced a series of rule changes to encourage speed and deter stoppages. Combine it all and Carlton’s dependence on winning stoppages looks increasingly anachronistic. Across the first month of the 2026 season, the Blues have generated a whopping 61.4% of their scores from stoppage wins. Next best? West Coast at 47.47%.

That statistic rather flies in the face of pre-season talk that Carlton would look to re-balance its game plan (and, by implication, rely less on contested footy). But this isn’t just a 2026 problem. The Blues are feeling the pinch of years of decisions – player acquisitions, personnel appointments – that have deepened their dependency on an increasingly outmoded and unsustainable style. They appointed a coach who preaches a bash-and-crash style, who was himself the blue chip version of a bash-and-crash archetype, and have loaded up on key position players and big, slow inside midfielders. As regular readers know, I believe the characteristics of a playing list are a major and often underplayed constraint on everything that happens on the field. Carlton have chosen to keep adding hammers, even though they already had plenty of them, at the same time as the AFL has systematically reduced their value. No wonder everything looks like a nail at Princes Park. That’s opportunity cost in action.

Opportunity cost is usually presented as a negative. The word ‘cost’ can be scary. But it’s neutral in theory and often value-positive in practice. Consider West Coast’s stirring win at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday. Much has been written – justly – about how exciting the Eagles’ young players suddenly look. It’s certainly nice for Eagles fans to rediscover some joy after a grim few years. But, early in a rebuild, even the best kids need the guidance and protection offered by senior players. I’m old enough to remember the meltdown triggered on the West Coast part of the internet by the club’s choice to trade Pick 3 in the 2024 draft to Carlton in eventual exchange for Liam Baker, Bo Allan, and Matt Owies. Why are we passing up the chance to draft an elite midfielder, went the consensus, in favour of a utility and a more speculative prospect? The rage and misery was in especially abundant supply after the player Carlton turned that early pick into, Jagga Smith, found a lot of the footy in his first games in navy blue.

A few weeks on, however, and that decision by West Coast suddenly doesn’t look as short-sighted as it might have appeared. Allan was the Eagles’ fourth-highest rated player on Sunday. Mark Ricciuto (perhaps not the font of all footy truth) called his first goal Chris Judd-like. Several other baby Eagles ran amok. And, in the background, quietly doing the less fashionable work which enabled them to shine… was Liam Baker. Baker had a good if not particularly memorable game. But his influence goes well beyond last Sunday. He’s the third-highest rated Eagles player across the last 20 games (second if you exclude Milan Murdock, which – as exciting as his start to AFL life has been – you should). Beyond that, there’s the fact that the argument for the Baker signing rested on a conception of value that was harder for traditional metrics to capture: off-ball defensive work that allows more talented teammates to flourish, and an on-field lieutenant that helps translate a new coach’s instructions to a young team.

The correct conclusion to make about the Baker trade, beyond the fact it’s still too early to reach a definitive one, is that it’s always important to factor in opportunity costs. Most Eagles fans – most footy fans, full stop – considered Jagga Smith to be an unacceptably high cost for securing the services of Liam Baker, Bo Allan, and Matt Owies. A year and a half later, it’s beginning to look like the Blues and Eagles are travelling in opposite directions. I wrote in my West Coast season preview that rather than wins, Andrew McQualter would instead be better served by looking for improvements across three key performance indicators: scores from forward half, turnovers forced, and post-clearance contested possessions. The Eagles were 16th, 11th, and 16th respectively in those categories last season. Through three games of 2026, they’re 13th, 13th, and 5th. It’s still a work in progress. But, all of a sudden, there are green shoots everywhere. If you consider just the second halves of games, the Eagles are currently +35 for contested possessions. They’re beginning to cook. Having an experienced Baker helps.

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The Video Room

I’ll keep this week’s video section (relatively) short and sweet, given how prolix I’ve been elsewhere. As we all know by now, handball is the new meta. Every club, except, apparently, Adelaide, is embracing the forward handball and increased overlap run as a means of breaking down opposition defensive structures that are becoming increasingly good at repelling kicks. That action naturally prompts an equal and opposite reaction, namely: how are sides responding defensively to prevent opposition territory gain by hand? In last week’s review, I posted a clip of Rory Sloane explaining Hawthorn’s intricate cascading forward press that slowed Sydney’s handball exits. Today, I want to take a look at how Collingwood smothered Greater Western Sydney’s handball game on Friday at [checks notes] Marvel Stadium???

The Giants were 1st in the AFL for handball metres gained in 2025 and, although they’ve slipped in both absolute and relative terms thus far this season, it’s clear from watching them that overlap handball remains the cornerstone of their ball movement. The Giants use handball in all key phases: to initiate chains from half-back, access the corridor, and to create better inside-50 launch points.

Friday night was no exception. The Giants had more handballs than any other side in Round 3, and – at a glance – kicked at the lowest rate. That’s how they wanted it. That was also how Collingwood wanted it. The Magpies didn’t strictly set out to restrict the Giants’ handballing. Doing that would have incurred an opportunity cost of space out the back that, watching at the ground, it was clear McRae’s men didn’t want to concede. Instead, they set out to minimise the amount of space that Giants players had to do anything productive once they got the ball in their back half. Here’s some vision of how they did it.

In this first clip, Lachie Ash – who will feature prominently – began with the ball on half-back, as he so often does for the Giants. He carried the ball far enough to prompt Jordan De Goey up to press him. De Goey’s choice to press immediately made Scott Pendlebury, about 15 metres further up the field, realise he also needed to press up to prevent Lachie Whitfield from receiving in space. He timed his press perfectly and also – here’s where having played 428 AFL games helps – knew to stick out a hand to disrupt Whitfield’s attempted handball. Tim Membrey picked up the pieces and Dan McStay ended up walking the ball in for a goal. De Goey’s press which forced a loopy handball, Pendlebury’s realisation it was his turn to press up, and the hand in – three small, compounding pieces of experience that created a turnover goal.

The second clip, from late in the first quarter, didn’t actually involve a handball – but it demonstrated how well Collingwood was able to anticipate the Giants’ preferred ball movement patterns. Lachie Ash received the ball at centre half-back and saw this:

He made the prudent choice of honouring Lachie Whitfield’s short lead on defensive 50. But what’s also visible is that, despite needing to shuffle its zone across to account for the switch, Collingwood had already set up with five players across the full width of the centre square.

Here’s the rest of the play. What Whitfield ought to have done, and indeed what GWS focused more on doing to get back into the game, was kick it to Callum Brown, who was waiting in space on the broadcast wing. Instead, Whitfield couldn’t resist the temptation: he kicked it to Oliver Hannaford. But Brayden Maynard had already anticipated that and was able to affect an unorthodox turnover (and avoid conceding a front-on contact free kick) by turning his back at the last second and diverting the ball to Isaac Quaynor.

The remaining clips – these are all demonstrations of the value of effective oppo analysis as much as anything else – highlight how well Collingwood understood how GWS would accelerate when needing to chase the game.

Stephen Coniglio marked the ball on defensive 50. He immediately made a mistake by dishing off to an overlapping Ash, who shouldn’t have called for the ball because Tim Membrey was still in the vicinity, tracking another runner. Nick Daicos quickly twigged what was going on and directed Membrey to press up on Ash before Coniglio even handballed it to him. As a result, Ash had no space to continue to chain and ended up kicking a poor grubber in the vague direction of Whitfield. Collingwood mopped up the loose ball and eventually kicked it to a waiting Membrey.

The next clip didn’t end in a direct turnover, but it might as well have. Once again, our hero Lachie Ash (that man again!) was involved. Corralled by two Collingwood forwards, he dished out a long handball to the waiting Joe Fonti.

If you stop the clip at the moment Fonti received the ball, you can see he probably could have kicked it towards the corridor. It would have been the better choice given the game state. Instead, probably partly because of his own inexperience, and partly because of Collingwood’s success in affecting turnovers, Fonti immediately looked boundary-side and sent a handball to Harvey Thomas. Thomas tried to do the right thing – immediately send another handball inboard to Stephen Coniglio – but by this point, Collingwood’s players knew they’d effectively removed all other options and were able to swarm the former captain. The chain eventually ended in a boundary throw-in.

The final clip shows how desperation can worsen decision-making. Whitfield handballed it off to Fonti. You can see Fonti ignore his pleading teammate on the wing – Collingwood were happy to concede a mark that wide – to instead try and burst past Membrey and Lachie Schultz. He made a decent fist of it but, knowing that Fonti would probably be forced to handball, Dan Houston had made the correct decision to push up and block the next link in the chain. Steele Sidebottom mopped up the ground ball and Harry Perryman found Membrey alone in the pocket.

None of this was rocket science, exactly. Nor was it ultra-aggressive pressing. It was good coaching that correctly anticipated the preferred ball movement patterns of the opposition and good, experienced players who executed and exploited the Giants’ predictability. The proof of Collingwood’s success is evident from looking at the shot map of Friday’s game. The Giants took 24 shots on goal; only slightly below their season average of 26.4. But the real difference was in the quality of shots they manufactured. Those 24 shots were only worth an average of 2.62 expected points each – a staggeringly low value. For reference, Richmond took the hardest shots on goal in 2025, averaging 3.09 expected points per shot. The shots the Giants were forced into taking on Friday night were significantly more difficult than that!

There’s a clear lesson here: as advancing the ball upfield by hand becomes a more dominant ball movement strategy, coaches will dedicate more time to countering that strategy. Not every response will look the same, and there will be counter-responses. It’s an interesting and rapidly evolving branch of footy tactics. If anyone from Champion Data is reading this: please start tracking handball turnovers!

Straight from the chart

DFS Australia is a great resource. Although it’s primarily used by and for SuperCoach types – of which, I admit, I am not one – it’s the best single source for centre bounce attendance statistics. I like CBA stats because not only do they tell rich stories about the fortunes of individual players, but they tell you how different sides approach one of the fundamental parts of the game. So I thought I’d look at the distribution of player usage at centre bounces for each club since 2023.

I decided to represent the data using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, a standard measure of market concentration calculated by squaring the percentage share of each firm in a market (in this case, players in at centre bounce) and summing those squares, resulting in a number from near-zero to 10,000. The bigger the HHI number, the more that a club’s centre bounce attendances are concentrated among a small set of players (theoretically, 100% of centre bounces across a season could be attended by just four players – the primary ruck and three on-ballers).

What I like most about these results is how they show there are many different paths to success. Brisbane have regularly had a highly concentrated centre bounce mix over a period where they’ve made three straight Grand Finals. The Bulldogs are similar. Collingwood’s centre bounce concentration is middle of the pack; a reflection of Nick Daicos’s primacy, the emergence of the likes of Beau McCreery and Ned Long, and Craig McRae’s clever rotation of his older players. Then there’s Geelong. The Cats recorded the least concentrated/most dispersed centre bounce attendance mix across the entire sample period in 2024. Unlike sides like North Melbourne in 2023 or West Coast in 2025, Geelong wasn’t rebuilding (it never is!). Instead, Chris Scott opted for a full horses-for-courses approach. 23 Geelong players – fully half the list – attended a centre bounce in 2024. Does it mean Scott is indifferent to the result of centre bounces? I’d say it’s more likely to be evidence of his pragmatism – his willingness to adapt whatever tactic is most likely to yield success.

In my introductory essay above, I showed a graph of how all 18 clubs have generated their scores by chain type since the start of 2022. 70-odd games of data have created convergence. Even Carlton, the side most reliant on stoppage wins for scoring, generates “only” 11% more scores from that source than Richmond, which has relied the least on clearances. Unsurprisingly, the data for the 2026 season is far more volatile.

The leaguewide average is close to the 2022-2026 average (stoppage scoring is a little down), but that masks some significant disparities. Richmond and Carlton are still the bookends; the Tigers are highly reliant on turnovers for scoring (Dimma DNA), while the Blues still need to win clearances to score (Voss DNA). Of course, a caveat applies: this graph doesn’t say anything about volume of scoring. Essendon and Fremantle have similar scoring profiles. But it doesn’t mean they’re similarly good.

This week’s chain data showcases one of footy’s more enduring truisms: wet weather games contain lots of possession chains. That’s because the conditions force lots of turnovers and lots of stoppages. The other noteworthy result here is how broken/choppy the St Kilda vs. Brisbane game really was. That result certainly aligns with the impression I got from watching the game (and all St Kilda’s games this season). The Saints conceded and forced the second-fewest turnovers in 2025. It’s early days, but they’re closer to mid-table for both thus far this season. I suspect that’s a symptom of trying to play a more adventurous style (and not entirely succeeding).

Turning our attention to how teams actually capitalised on their possession chains and, as with much else in Round 3, the most interesting things here came out of the two Sunday games. The Eagles scored an average of exactly one point from each stoppage win chain against Port Adelaide, continuing a productive run of scoring from this source (and underlining concerns about Port’s defensive frailties). But it was the game at the MCG which provided the most eye-popping results. Both Carlton and Melbourne scored (and conceded) prolifically from their clearance wins. But the outcome ultimately hinged on what each side was able to do when it forced turnovers. The Demons weren’t especially dangerous. But the Blues were positively impotent.

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Footnotes

• Collingwood scored 29 points from stoppages against GWS on Friday night at Marvel Stadium. 27 of them – 93% – were from the centre bounce, surely a record. How about that Oscar Steene debut? The early-season bye appears to have come at a good time for a bedraggled looking Giants side.

• One from former Carlton captain and potential future friend of the newsletter, Sam Docherty: when the Blues win the contested possession count in a game under Michael Voss, they win about 70% of the time. When they lose contested possessions, that win rate drops to about… 7%. Yikes!

• More evidence for the Western Bulldogs’ defensive improvement and more reason for their fans to feel bullish: Luke Beveridge’s side has improved its defensive-50 ground ball gets ranking from 17th last year to sixth through three games of 2026, and gone from 18th to eighth for defensive-50 intercepts.

Recommended reading

• The most disappointing news of the nascent footy season, at least for me, is that Ricky Mangidis’s many professional commitments will give him less time to write over at his own blog, The Shinboner. As the name suggests, Ricky’s a North Melbourne fan. Thankfully, he’s still finding time to write in-depth reviews of North’s games throughout the season. His write up of the game against Essendon included thoughts on how both sides moved the ball, some of North’s positional shifts, and the cost of putting the cue on the rack so early. Essential reading, regardless of one’s allegiances.

• I don’t promote This Week in Football enough here. Each week, some of the sharpest minds in indie footy writing apply their gifts to different subjects they’ve been thinking about. Last week’s edition featured Jeremiah Brown on the changing composition of marking, Lincoln Tracy on why the early-season spike in scoring isn’t as big as we think, Emlyn Breese on what GPS tracking can tell us about early-season hamstring injuries, and Joe Cordy on Hawthorn and Sydney’s different set-ups in their Round 2 game at the MCG. Read, enjoy, and subscribe.

• Jonathan Horn, very much a friend of One Percenters, writes in The Guardian about how Carlton’s choice to back in Michael Voss is admirable – but for the fact that Voss isn’t the right man (and perhaps never was). Jonathan’s weekly columns are always a delight.

• Cody Atkinson and Sean Lawson ask a provocative question: has Queensland become the second footy state?

• Over on his Substack, Lincoln Tracy writes about an under-appreciated element of the Western Bulldogs’ early-season defensive strength: good spoiling.

• I’m sounding the New Footy Substack klaxon again! Franco Greco, a clinical and counselling psychologist, writes on his belief that Carlon’s fade-outs are a stress response more than they are a deficit of fitness or talent.

In addition to restarting paid subscriptions, I’ve also created a “Buy Me a Coffee” page so you can give me even more money. Here’s the link.

More housekeeping: now that I’m satisfied I’ve rediscovered a good writing rhythm, I’m going to turn paid subscriptions back on. I’m not planning to put up a paywall, but if you think my work is worth supporting, a paid subscription – only $6 a month – is greatly appreciated.

My polemic last week about the AFL’s choice to iteratively engineer a faster game style through rule changes generated more discourse than I’d anticipated. It was even cited by Xander McGuire – yes, Eddie’s son – on the most recent episode of the “Dan Does Footy” podcast. I tried to make a more nuanced argument than simply “game’s gone”, acknowledging that most seasons start off quite frisky in terms of overall scoring before cold weather, hard grounds, and adaptive coaches increase stoppages and decrease scoring. Instead, I advanced the claim that the AFL’s rule changes were undermining a more organic evolution of styles and evenly-matched competition between different styles.

One thing I didn’t account for in that piece was the potential effect of an ever-faster game on soft-tissue injuries. That looks like an important omission given that the seven games of Round 1 yielded nine separate hamstring injuries: Callum Ah Chee, Tom Liberatore, Christian Petracca, Tom Lynch, Toby Nankervis, Anthony Caminiti, Connor Rozee, Griffin Logue, and Milan Murdock all pulled up lame. That doesn’t even include other soft-tissue injuries like those sustained by Rory Laird and Josh Worrell, or the bevy of soft-tissue injuries sustained over earlier rounds and pre-season.

The medical literature is clear: hamstring injuries are strongly associated with high-speed running and the specific biomechanical demands of, say, picking up a footy at pace – hip flexion, knee extension, and full stretch under load. If you were trying to design an injury that tracks changes in the speed of the game, you would probably end up with something that looks like this. It’s a slightly macabre index, to be sure, but an effective one.

Anomalous results of any kind tend to generate lots of discourse in a footy media that most closely resembles a dog chasing after a car. Still, nine hamstrings in a single round is an arresting number, and certainly suggestive of something real. But does it meet the threshold of statistical significance? I thought I’d try to answer that question. Rather than fixating on Round 2 in isolation, I tracked the cumulative number of hamstring injuries that were recorded prior to or in Opening Round, Round 1, and Round 2, across the past three seasons (in other words, for as long as Opening Round has existed). This task was only possible – or at least, less than infuriatingly fiddly – because the AFL publishes weekly league-wide injury reports. My digging yielded the following:

• 2024: 23 new hamstring injuries (through 21 games)

• 2025: 25 (19 games)

• 2026: 33 (21 games)

Caveat: it’s eminently possible that there were hamstring injuries which weren’t included in these reports, or that I accidentally under- or over-counted somewhere. And it’s dangerous to extrapolate from what are ultimately still small sample sizes. But it’s still possible to make some provisional comments. There’s a small increase from 2024 to 2025, but well within the range you’d expect from early-season noise. 2026, meanwhile, saw a 20 percent jump in hamstring injuries per game from 2025 (1.31 to 1.57).

Some history can help us put these numbers into a broader context. Here’s something I didn’t know: the AFL publishes injury reports for full seasons. They’re supposedly “annual”, although I couldn’t find a more recent report than the one covering the 2023 AFL and AFLW seasons, published in September 2024. That gripe aside, they’re interesting reading, and provide a long-run baseline for comparison. Unsurprisingly, hamstring injuries are the most common cause of missed games. Across recent seasons, clubs average roughly five hamstring injuries per year. Multiply that across 18 clubs and you land in the vicinity of 85-95 hamstring injuries league-wide in a typical season. The exact number moves around the margins (there were 4.94 hamstring injuries per club in 2021, 5.19 in 2022, 4.71 in 2023), but is generally stable. Interestingly, there were fewer injuries in the 2023 AFL season than in any of the previous 10 years.

2026 looks rather different so far. Through 21 games, barely 10 percent of the Home & Away season, the season has already produced roughly a third, perhaps a bit more, of a typical full-season total of hamstring injuries. That isn’t a perfect comparison: we shouldn’t necessarily expect soft-tissue injuries to be evenly distributed throughout the season. Early rounds tend to see more of them as players ramp up from pre-season. However, even if we assume that something like 20 percent of all hamstring injuries occur by Round 2, and there haven’t been any exogenous shocks which might systematically increase the incidence of soft-tissue injuries, you’d still expect something more like 20. 33 is, well, quite a lot more than 20.

What might it mean? That probably depends on which model you think best describes injury accumulation in the AFL. We can probably discard the simplest model: naive extrapolation. That would imply there’ll be more than 300 hamstring injuries over the course of the season. A more realistic view is that, like scoring, hamstring injuries spike early and then settle. On that reading, the current trajectory might point to something more like 140-60 hamstring injuries across 2026. That’s still close to twice the average implied by the most recent AFL Annual Injury Report. A more conservative model would assume that the current spike in hamstring injuries really is anomalous, and that by season’s end, there’ll have been somewhere in the order of 90-100 of them. A slight elevation from past seasons, perhaps, but no great cause for alarm.

Of course, as I alluded to a couple of paragraphs above, just looking at the numbers is only half the story. 2026 has already produced about a third of a typical season’s worth of hamstring injuries. Well, what if footy isn’t typical anymore? What if there’s been a structural shift – say, in the speed of the game or the length of pre-season – that meaningfully increases the fatigue that makes hamstring injuries more likely to happen. Is there a magic whole-season hamstring injury number that should make the AFL (and the AFL Players’ Association) sit up and take notice? What about 110-120? What about other benchmarks, like severity (minimising the incidence of ultra-severe hamstring injuries like that suffered by Connor Rozee seems like a worthy goal!) or timing? Either way, when the time comes, I sincerely hope the AFL publishes an Injury Report covering season 2026 – for the men and women.

There’s an understandable temptation to draw a line from “the game is getting faster” to “players are twanging hamstrings more often”. The early-season data suggests there’s signal. But – and this could just be my natural scepticism – I’m not wholly convinced we can make that conclusion just yet. Early-season samples are volatile, and one or two anomalous rounds can skew the picture.

Instead, I think we can make a more modest claim: the early running from 2026 shows a materially higher incidence through Opening Round, Round 1, and Round 2 than the corresponding periods of 2024, and above what long-run trendlines would suggest. These injuries appear to be clustered, and they’re of a type that’s most closely associated with repeat high-intensity sprints. It doesn’t prove that footy is too fast for the human body. It does, however, suggest that something – it could be increased speed, it could be a shortened pre-season, it could, as certain critics claim, be related to a reduction in contact hours – has shifted enough to show up in the data. The next few weeks will tell us more. If, after that, the numbers look unequivocal, the focus should shift to solutions.

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The Video Room

Two of the most intriguing tactical questions coming into 2026 were how would opposition coaches counter Adelaide’s ultra-contested style now that the Crows had established themselves as a semi-serious team, and how would the Western Bulldogs try to cover up the systemic and personnel-based defensive weaknesses that plagued them last season. Their enthralling game on Friday night provided valuable information about both.

One of the Dogs’ persistent issues last season was that their territorial superiority, coupled with an aggressive high press, created significant space for opponents to transition when they beat the first layer. That exposed the Dogs’ relatively weak defensive personnel to repeated one-on-ones. Remember how Port Adelaide, in the Late Hinkley Era, would regularly be opened up in defensive transition? It was like that. Luke Beveridge has responded by largely eschewing the forward press and instructing his side to drop deeper when out of possession.

The early numbers are stark. In 2025, the Dogs allowed an average of 75.9 uncontested marks – the sixth-fewest in the league. Through three games of this season, they’re conceding 111. Only Essendon are conceding more uncontested marks than the Dogs, and the Bombers aren’t doing it on purpose. There was a stat on one of the few interesting panel shows (I think it might have been First Crack) which, in the aftermath of the Dogs’ defeat of GWS in Round 1, stated that no side is applying less pressure between the 50-metre arcs. In soccer parlance, what the Dogs are employing is usually called a mid-block. It’s an antidote to more aggressive pressing schemes which seek to win possession close to the attacking goal. Let’s see some vision of what that looked like in practice on Friday night.

This passage of play was actually one of the few times, at least in the first half, where Adelaide solved the puzzle of progressing from their back half into forward 50 – but it’s still illustrative of the Dogs’ approach. Rory Laird took an uncontested mark on the half-back flank. This was already good for the Dogs. Laird is a fine player but a conservative kick. As soon as he went behind the mark, a Dogs player – I think it may have been Joel Freijah, but it’s not totally clear from the broadcast – sprinted across the Toyota logo to cut off the inboard kick. Dogs compressed space to deny Wayne Milera space on the defensive side of the centre square (this was a consistent theme of the night). Eventually, Laird (who, it should be said, was nursing a calf injury), kicked it laterally to Chayce Jones, who did the same to Nick Murray, and onto Josh Worrell. The Crows generated three uncontested marks, all of which the Dogs were perfectly happy to concede, but didn’t advance the ball.

Later in the same chain, there was an example of what the Crows simply didn’t do enough of until they had no other option, late in the game. When Jordan Dawson, who dropped deep to try and initiate some positive play from the back half, marked the ball, he was confronted with the Dogs’ mid-block. Brayden Cook’s short lead towards Dawson should have been the trigger for Chayce Jones, who’d drifted to the back of the centre square, to move in the direction of the centre circle, creating a lane Dawson would have fancied his chances of finding. That didn’t happen, so instead Dawson just chipped it back to Murray. As I said, the Crows eventually made it inside 50 (this time). But it was a problem they struggled to solve all night.

It’s worth pausing here and commenting on the quality of the Dogs’ defensive structures, and the discipline required to make it work as well as they did. Here’s a still of that situation where Dawson had the ball at half-back. Yes, the Crows should have been much more proactive in creating a lane. But at the same time, they were deterred by how precisely the Dogs guarded space. Look at that kite shape on the right-hand side of the centre square. If Ed Richards (who’s at the bottom of it) was two metres closer to Dawson, Jones might have gambled on running forward and calling for the ball. Understanding teasing distances and the optimal distances between teammates are the fundamental ingredients of effective zones. The Dogs did that very well.

Here’s one final clip from the second quarter. The ball began in the hands of Murray. He actually executed a bold forward kick to Laird. Laird then made a small error which results in Adelaide once again being pinned back in its own defensive half. He immediately kicked it laterally to Izak Rankine. Rankine is a better kick than Laird – but he was in a worse position to do something productive with the ball. What probably should have happened instead is Max Michalanney becoming more active and making himself available for the overlap handball instead of remaining inactive. In the end, the Crows manufactured a decent switch across the ground to the broadcast wing. But their slowness was not without cost. The guy who ended up sending it long inside 50, from just past the centre circle? Jordon Butts. A fine stopper, but not a precision kicker.

This tweet, which I posted at half-time, summarised my thoughts on why, if Luke Beveridge does indeed choose to adopt a less aggressive forward press as a default stance, I think it’s such a great fit.

Most of the Dogs’ best players are attackers and attacking midfielders. Most of their weakest are defenders. The mid-block thus solves two problems at once. By slowing opposition transition and sending more players closer to D50, it makes it easier to crowd out opposition entries and apply effective defensive pressure. It also creates space further up the ground for the Dogs to run, find space, and generate one-on-one contests in the event of a turnover.

The Dogs’ strategy was an interesting contrast to this clip from the Sunday Footy Show, where Rory Sloane shows the benefits of Hawthorn’s forward press against Sydney on Thursday night. Sloane rightly identified the Hawks’ ability to force loopy handballs that created cascading pressure as an important factor in stemming the Swans’ ability to transition with handball. The risks involved with that kind of pressing scheme is that it only needs one player to miss their trigger to open a big hole in a defensive zone (see: Carlton in Opening Round vs. Sydney). By snapping into a mid-block as quickly as they did, the Dogs prevented that space from being created in the first place.

A few more specific comments on why this worked so well against the Crows (and it did – Adelaide scored with less than five percent of its D50 chains on Friday, compared to a 2025 league average of 10.1 percent). The Dogs were happy to sag off Murray and Butts because they weren’t afraid of what they could do with the ball. But they were vigilant in staying close to Wayne Milera, whose disposal and run was instrumental to the Crows defeating Collingwood in Round 1. Without Mark Keane’s creative, occasionally hare-brained disposal, and Dan Curtin’s contested power, the Crows are currently too easy to hem in like this.

The Crows have taken 90 or more uncontested marks in eight games dating back to the start of last season. They won all of the first six (all last season, shaded dark green) by 10 or more goals. They’ve taken 109 and 111 uncontested marks in their first two games of 2026, for a 14-point win and Friday’s six-point defeat. Given this is a recurring issue for them – and an easily foreseeable one, I discussed it in my season preview – and that Keane won’t be back for months, I suspect any short-term improvement needs to be driven by players like Michalanney and Josh Worrell becoming more willing to carry the ball out of defensive 50.

Adelaide played on just 13.1 percent of the time after a mark or free-kick in the second quarter. When there was no other choice but to go for it, in the fourth term, the Crows played on 47.4 percent of the time. They’re pretty conservative in general, especially in the back half (only Fremantle played on less often in 2025), partly because they have fewer good users in their defence than other sides of their stature. Simply dialling up the risk might not be the answer. It’s easy to look at the fourth quarter of Friday’s game – when the Crows staged a stirring, near-successful comeback, enabled by more risk – and conclude that’s how they should have been playing the whole time. But that ignores the reality that playing like that, especially if it meant more onus on Murray and Butts to make progressive kicks, could have seen the Crows go into the three-quarter break much further behind. These trade-offs aren’t as simple as the outcomes make them appear.

But full credit should go to the Dogs. They won’t always find an opposition as perfectly fitted for the mid-block zone. And part of their defensive improvement is down to the quality of individual performances (Buku Khamis has never looked more comfortable at AFL level) as much as it is a new defensive set-up. But it’s worked well so far. Three weeks into the season, Beveridge might have done something his critics believed he wasn’t capable of: improved his side’s defensive output without sacrificing scoring power. Old dogs, new tricks.

Straight from the chart

Here’s a logical proposition: if footy is getting faster, as per the current discourse topic du jour, then you would logically expect at least part of that to be reflected in how often teams play on from marks or free kicks. That data is available, and if you ask nicely, technically savvy friends like Emlyn Breese will dig it up for you.

The small uptick masks a big standard deviation. Some teams, for better and for worse, are playing on a lot. Others, meanwhile, aren’t. Per team play-on percentage is one of those statistics where it’s important to separate intent from outcome. Of the four sides currently playing on less than 35 percent of the time, only one – Fremantle – played on less often last season, when they did so just 31.6 percent of the time (the lowest rate, by miles, in the AFL).

Three sides are currently electing to play on more than 45 percent of the time. Essendon is a cautionary tale in what that can look like when done badly: turnovers when players caught upfield in anticipation of a handball chain that never eventuated, opposition players in space, and blown coverages. Geelong, befitting their status as the fastest team in footy, played on second-most often last season and have taken another step in that direction so far in 2026. The real riser is Sydney. Last season, they played on just 35.9 percent of the time – fewer than all but three sides. This season, they’re currently going at a breakneck 49.2 percent. Errol Gulden wasn’t kidding when he said the Swans would play a faster brand in 2026.

Let’s look at one of the regular charts – total chains. I think the main story from Round 2 was compression: only the Port vs. Essendon game featured a big discrepancy in how often sides began with the ball in the same game. The other is probably that – and this could very well be an artefact of fast early-season footy – only three sides created fewer possession chains than the 2025 season average. Over the course of the round, sides averaged 118 chains. Frothy.

Again, what’s probably even more interesting than how many sides begin with the ball is how effectively they score from different chain types. The Round 2 data is skewed by three outliers: Gold Coast’s frankly absurd 1.7 points per stoppage win chain, Port’s 1.48 points per turnover win chain (checks out), and West Coast’s 1.35 points per stoppage win chain. Wait – what? Polar bear in Arlington, Texas, etc. The Eagles were -9 for overall clearances, but +7 in scores from stoppages. Power, positioning, and – crucially – the ability to force stoppages in their own front half. The shorter the route to goal, the better.

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Footnotes

• Fremantle’s win over Melbourne meant that, for about 21 hours, the AFL team that has gone the longest since its last loss was North Melbourne. The baton has now been passed to the Western Bulldogs.

• Essendon crisis stats watch: the Bombers conceded their highest ever mark tally (157) to Hawthorn in Round 1. On Sunday, they fared even worse, conceding 165 marks to Port Adelaide, including 25 inside-50 – their worst tally on this particular metric since 2016. It’s been a demoralising start to the season at Windy Hill.

• West Coast didn’t just stop a run of 14 consecutive defeats when they beat North Melbourne in a banger on Sunday. It was the largest quarter-time deficit (24 points) they’ve overhauled to win a game in Western Australia… this century. The Eagles might not be flying high yet. But at least they’re off the ground.

• A good one from AFL journo Riley Beveridge, shared in the aftermath of Charlie Curnow’s one-handball second half against Hawthorn and the discourse that followed: since the start of 2025, Charlie Curnow has kicked 18.16 in first quarters. That stacks up pretty well against the top three in last year’s Coleman Medal count – Jeremy Cameron (17.9), Ben King (25.12), and Jack Gunston (17.11). However, in quarters two through four, Curnow has kicked just 19.16. Compare that to 74.38 for Cameron, 62.12 for King, and 69.32 for Gunston. Cause or effect of Carlton’s fadeouts?

• Centre bounce scoring watch: after Round 2, teams are currently scoring an average of 10.9 points per game from centre bounce chains. That’s…. less than any full season since 2021, when teams could only muster 10.4 points from that source. It’s still very early, there’s lots of volatility with small numbers, but perhaps footy isn’t broken beyond repair after all.

Recommended reading

• My good friend and self-admitted one-eyed Port Adelaide fan, Patrick McCabe, laments the banana republic status of the South Australian clubs that leaves ordinary members like him without a real say in how their club is run.

• Lincoln Tracy writes that everyone needs to calm down about Collingwood (spoiler: they won’t).

• Another new Footy Substack alert! Leigh Eustace, at Footy Analysis, makes the sensible assumption that a 20th AFL club will follow the 19th. He sees two outstanding candidates for where that club should be based.

• The Vulture Street Journal have used the Lions’ first bye of the season to re-evaluate the 0-2 start and what they need to do to finish in the top four.

• Over at Jumper Punches, Nick Rynne reflects on a very satisfying weekend for the West Australian sides.

• Rohan Connolly takes a playful swipe at the “young men yelling at clouds” (I appreciate the implication I’m young) in this piece, which suggests that the angst about the current state of the game might be misdirected.

In addition to restarting paid subscriptions, I’ve also created a “Buy Me a Coffee” page so you can give me even more money. Here’s the link.

Kayo rolled out a new interface between the conception and publication of this piece. My own experience has somewhat improved, while those of others has worsened. The timing isn’t perfect, but I don’t think it materially changes anything I’ve written here.

The scene: the start of the final quarter of the increasingly riveting Brisbane vs. Western Bulldogs game in Opening Round. Tim English had just kicked a goal, and the Dogs were wrestling back the momentum it appeared the Lions had definitively seized midway through the third term. Were they about to answer their critics – those who reckon they can’t get it done against the best – in the most spectacular way possible, or would the Premiers reassert control? It was footy at its most tense and electrifying.

The situation: my wife retires to bed. There’s no expectation that I join; she knows perfectly well how hopelessly addicted I am to footy.

The compromise: I’ll watch the end on my phone.

The twist: the Kayo mobile app totally fails me. All it displayed was an error message which suggested, tersely, the problem was probably my internet connection. I checked some other apps. They all worked, of course. It was only Kayo that didn’t. Attempting to watch through my mobile browser didn’t work either. A brilliant game continued elsewhere – at the Gabba, on TV, on radio – yet I wasn’t part of it.

The last resort of the powerless: I fired off an intemperate (by my very mild standards) tweet.

I put my phone away – OK, I scrolled until I was too tired to scroll anymore – and went to sleep. I awoke to dozens of replies. Many reported the same issue: Kayo failing in the last quarter. I noted that a few of those people had usernames or display pictures which clearly signalled an allegiance to the Dogs. They were denied the chance to see a special win as it happened. Other replies empathised in a more general sense: their version of Kayo malfunctions regularly, and usually at the worst possible moment. Stirred by righteous indignation, I posted a follow-up tweet. It was a resolution to write about Kayo – and a request for followers to share their horror stories. Step aside, Jacqui Felgate: citizen journalism has come to One Percenters.

I expected replies. You’ve probably gathered by now, given the state of the world, that populism tends to play well online. I experienced this in a very modest way with my last post. I didn’t expect to receive over a hundred. A handful were positive – noble attempts at introducing balance to the conversation. (My favourite, by far, was one user who reported a seamless experience on their Hubbl set-top box. Hamish and Andy knew!) The vast majority of the messages I received, however, were complaints.

Beyond the sheer volume of complaints, what struck me most was their breadth. They didn’t cluster around just one part of the product. They spanned almost every layer of the experience: buffering streams, blurry video, casting errors, connections, login loops, confusing menus, inexplicable ads, and customer support that insists your internet connection is actually the problem. Not a single part of the stack is immune. It turns out that for a hell of a lot of people, even a “good” Kayo experience - i.e. one not marred by technical errors – skews mediocre. I’ve gotten this far without even mentioning the rapidly rising cost of subscription, which was cited in many complaints and was at least implicitly present in all. Kayo was $25 per month when it launched in 2018. As of February, the “premium” offering costs $46 per month.

As a streaming service, its performance is abysmal. Every single game has lagged, stuttered, paused and buffered multiple times, almost every few minutes, yet somehow the adverts play smooth as butter. It’s just shameless and stupidly expensive. I hate that I have to use it.

But there’s one category of experience I keep coming back to, because it feels so egregious: the times people have been robbed of the chance to see memorable moments as they happen. Jack (not his real name) wrote to tell me how Kayo’s technical issues cost him the chance to see the end of two games decided after the siren. The first was the Sydney vs. Port Adelaide game in early 2023, when Ollie Florent had a kick to win it after the siren. “While the ball was mid air and looking like a goal,” Jack wrote, “my stream froze, buffered for a while and then a technical issue message popped up.” Jack had no idea that Aliir Aliir had spoiled the ball before it crossed the goal line – he had to look up the final result. Three months later, Jack was also denied the chance to savour, in real time, Dan Houston’s goal after the siren to beat Essendon at the MCG. “It was an epic finish to the game – if only I’d been able to see it”, he wrote. “My stream froze in the same way as the Sydney game, so another exciting finish was lost.”

Jack’s example of being deprived of the chance to see special moments as they happened was the most dramatic – but by no means the only one. People complained about entire matches being unwatchable, replays skipping to the end, even missing golden points (there’s no wrong door here at One Percenters!). A recurring sentiment that added to people’s frustration was that Kayo really is in a class of its own: other streaming apps – even those that cost a third of the price – seem to work just fine. Out of all of this emerges one key question: why is Kayo so terrible?

Part of the reason why Kayo fails so often and why its failures drive us up the wall the way they do is that sport occupies unique psychosocial terrain. Most forms of entertainment are abundant. Sport – and the ancillary “content” it generates – is by no means scarce. But the moments it creates and feelings it provokes are rare (or at least should be). A match exists only once. The post-siren goal, the golden point try, the wild momentum swings late in a game are fleeting events. They can’t be recreated later without losing the thing that made them meaningful in the first place. Sport is also a collective ritual. That’s most obvious when you’re at the stadium. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I almost welled up before the first bounce of the Collingwood vs. Adelaide game; the majesty of the MCG, the crowd’s anticipation, the smell of beer and fried food – it’s a heady brew. But you can feel something similar at the pub and even, in an attenuated sense, when you’re watching alone, because you know others are strapped into the same emotional rollercoaster. When Kayo crashes during moments like Dan Houston’s shot after the siren, or the last quarter of the Brisbane vs. Dogs game, the frustration is existential: the moment is gone. A replay is a poor facsimile.

Kayo refused to stream when I was in Dawesville, a suburb of Mandurah. The reason? Kayo is not available in “remote Australia”…

Live sport is a shared collective experience that only the most hyped Netflix finales can compare to. That has social and psychological implications. It also has technical ones. Streaming live sport – this is probably the closest I’ll come to sympathising with Kayo in this piece – is hard. In a fragmented, post-monoculture media environment, live sport is one of the few things that still pulls thousands, sometimes millions, of people into the same moment. That creates a very different problem to the one Netflix is solving. Netflix has to solve for how to best distribute demand across time. When you open Netflix, you’re accessing a vast library of pre-existing content. The experience is asynchronous: people watch at different times. If a server is under strain, the platform can route you elsewhere, buffer slightly, or downgrade quality. Live sport doesn’t have those luxuries. Kayo has to handle everyone watching at once. That creates demand spikes that are semi-predictable but can’t be forecast with absolute precision. A close game entering the final quarter pulls in neutrals and casuals whose footy group chats are suddenly popping off.

Delivering that experience means handling enormous bursts of concurrent requests, pushing high-bitrate video with low latency across a network that’s subject to congestion. Content Delivery Networks and extra server capacity help, but the core problem remains. Traditional TV broadcasts solve this problem differently. A signal goes up, and (theoretically) anyone with a receiver can access it. The marginal cost of an additional viewer is effectively zero. Streaming doesn’t work like that. It scales with the audience. Every additional viewer is another stream, another load, another potential point of failure. None of this excuses poor performance. Many services seem to have more or less figured it out. But it does explain the central frustration: the moments you most want Kayo to work – the biggest games, the highest stakes – are exactly when it’s under the most strain.

Kayo texted me a $1 per month offer as they tend to do. I clicked the link, paid, was charged $25. The live chat refused to do a thing about it, they just hit me with the “we don’t do refunds for change of mind”. Immediately tried to cancel and they offered me six months at half price. There’s zero on their end suggesting that the discount will actually be activated, so it might be round two of this sh*tshow this week when it’s renewal time.

If you thought delivering video streams was tough, then doing it both well and profitably is tougher still. Live sport is the last truly scarce, time-sensitive content left. You can watch Stranger Things tomorrow. The only people who watch the game tomorrow are nuffs, analysts, and those with the discipline to avoid spoilers. Scarcity drives prices. So does demand. Live sport has both. The result is that its value to broadcasters has skyrocketed.

You could write a book about the information conveyed in this graph. The headline is simple enough: broadcasters have gone from paying the AFL about $100 million per season in the early 2000s to more than $640 million today (not adjusted for inflation). That’s the price of the one thing that still reliably draws mass audiences. Beyond that, there’s also a broader story about professionalisation, technological change, and rising consumer spending power. You can even see the effects of Covid. Each rights cycle sets a higher floor. The product hasn’t fundamentally changed, but its strategic importance has.

Where this bites for streaming providers is cost distribution. Under the old model, that cost was spread widely. Foxtel bundles worked because people who didn’t care about footy (they do exist!) still paid for it. Sport was subsidised by lifestyle channels, documentaries, and reruns of The Simpsons. You didn’t need every footy fan to turn a profit. Streaming breaks that logic. There’s no bundle, no cross-subsidy. If you want sport, you pay for it. Which means the full cost of those ever-more expensive rights deals is borne by the relatively small group of fans engaged enough (who have what economists call a “relatively inelastic demand function”) to eat the monthly cost.

Kayo refuses to learn my actual preferences in presenting links to live sport, e.g. properly prioritise showing me AFLW and NRLW games ahead of motorsports or golf or UFC which I have never, ever shown any interest in.

Kayo has about 1.7 million subscribers. That looks like a lot, but not when those subscribers are helping underwrite Fox’s share of the $4.5 billion footy rights deal. The subscriber base is narrow. It’s also unstable. Subscriptions are cyclical: fans sign up in March and cancel after the season; others drift away when their team drops off; others cancel (ironically) in disgust at Kayo’s price and performance. There’s lots of churn. Again, the contrast with Netflix is instructive. Its value proposition is continuous. Older content retains value. Sport doesn’t. Like a new car the moment you drive it off the lot, its value decays almost immediately. The result is a very imperfect storm: rising rights costs are concentrated onto a smaller group of customers. Infrastructure costs scale with demand. The AFL wants more money. Customers want to pay less – or at least feel like they’re getting more. Platforms like Kayo sit in the middle, assailed from all sides.

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I haven’t even addressed the elephant in the room, hovering conspicuously above all this. Foxtel, Kayo’s parent company, used to sit inside the most traditional Australian media ownership structure imaginable. News Corp was the majority owner, Telstra was the minority partner. But as of last April, Foxtel and Kayo are owned by DAZN (this is apparently pronounced “da zone”). DAZN is not a traditional broadcaster. It’s a privately-owned sports streaming platform, backed by the British-American-Russian investor and philanthropist, Len Blavatnik (technically, DAZN is owned by Access Industries, which Blavatnik owns). Two months before DAZN bought Foxtel, it secured a reported USD$1 billion investment from the “SURJ Sports Investment” group. SURJ – which, amusingly enough, is run by Danny Townsend, who briefly and rather ingloriously “ran” the A-League – is owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Saudi state’s vehicle to launder its reputation (and counter Qatari soft power) through strategic investments. I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like the idea that a slice of my increasingly hefty Kayo subscription is finding its way into the bloody pockets of Mohammed Bin Salman.

WatchAFL, the product you cannot access in Australia and is for expats only, is fifty times better and probably staffed by one person and a dog.

DAZN has spent big over the past few years, hoovering up access to football (both soccer and American ), boxing and other combat sports, Formula 1, and ice hockey in multiple markets. Those bets have been motivated by the same underlying logic: acquire enough rights and enough fans, in enough places, would subscribe. Brute force blitz-scaling.

The results have been… mixed. DAZN’s way of doing business is expensive. The company has been dogged by reports of multi-billion dollar losses for years, as rights costs have outrun subscriber growth and churn has remained stubbornly high. In response, DAZN has shifted to something that looks more like consolidation. Less than a month after being acquired by DAZN, Foxtel announced around 100 job losses, concentrated in marketing and engineering functions. Barely two months after that, Kayo cut a handful of “digital content production” staff. Those moves – some of the first under the new DAZN leadership – reflected the group’s shift to a more streamlined operation. DAZN technically isn’t private equity. But it waddles and quacks in a way that’s startlingly reminiscent.

Kayo is no longer a local streaming service navigating the quaint Australian market. It’s now part of a massive, concerted, ethically dubious platform that’s under significant pressure to prove that sports streaming, at scale, can actually work as a business. That context casts the two recent price increases – in February 2025, two months before the acquisition, and February 2026 – in a different light. The experience we get as (long-suffering) Kayo subscribers increasingly reflects business decisions made outside of Australia. There’s a worryingly high probability that the person who now runs the numbers on behalf of Kayo does not know about Rodney Eade’s legendary Will Minson spray.

This is all explicable on a commercial level. Capital exerts its own logic. But it doesn’t mean we have to like it. There is a trendy term for what’s happening here: enshittification. The idea, popularised by Cory Doctorow, is that apps and websites tend to follow a predictable pattern. To begin, they’re good to users. Prices are low and features are generous. The goal is growth. Once users are locked in, the focus shifts to being good to partners – advertisers, rights holders, and investors. Prices go up. Costs are cut. Consumer surplus is methodically converted into producer surplus. Anyone who’s used Uber in the last 2-3 years understands what I’m talking about.

Why can’t you now cast to a screen off the app on your phone? When the heck did that happen?

It’s easy to forget now, but Kayo really did feel like a genuine innovation in the early days. It was much cheaper than Foxtel and also solved a real problem: how to pay for sport without paying for anything else. Unfortunately, it now looks like it’s careening down the same one-way road. I’ve already discussed the manifold technical problems. Prices keep on going up. Ads have slowly infiltrated the experience. The small frictions – the extra click, the few seconds of delay, the sense that the product is worse than it used to be, and worse than it should be – keep adding up.

Kayo is getting more expensive while the service it provides – and, of course, customer satisfaction is partly a function of value for money – seems to be getting worse. This isn’t aberrant. It’s how businesses like these turn the screws when it’s time to pay the money men. Growth gives way to monetisation and priorities shift accordingly.

Enshittification and the vague feeling that you’re locked into an ecosystem where enshittification is the point creates resentment. Obviously, negative feelings and sport aren’t strangers. Sport is, as many a wit has observed, mostly an elaborate mechanism to feel sad (unless you support Geelong, Hawthorn, Brisbane, the New England Patriots, etc.). But we’re used to those feelings. Sadness, envy that your rival club’s fresh draftee looks better than your own, anger that your idiot bald fraud of a coach has selected Fringe Player X over Fringe Player Y – to a meaningful extent, we invite those feelings. And, for all but the most emotionally maladapted among us, those feelings are self-contained. We feel anxious before the first bounce, excited/angry/happy/sad during the game, revel in the glow of victory or stew in defeat, and then move on (only to repeat the cycle the following weekend).

Frustration with Kayo feels different, and much harder to justify. I don’t want to know or care about the technical or geopolitical details of the app I use to mainline footy for 15 hours a week. To be perfectly honest, I’d rather not have needed to write this piece. But I’ve been forced to, because negative feelings – that we typically use sport to escape – have infiltrated not just watching our team, but accessing the product itself. Instead of asking normal footy questions like, “are we good?”, “why aren’t we good?”, “why are our hated rivals good?”, we’re asking questions like, “why doesn’t Kayo work properly?”, “if the AFL is making billions from this deal, shouldn’t the viewing experience actually work?”, and “how do I feel about subsidising Mohammed Bin Salman’s bonesaw fund?” Those aren’t questions about sport. They’re questions about power, fairness, and ethics. In other words, they’re questions about politics.

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It took me some time to realise that the common element underpinning the replies I received to my prompt was that they were all political. Not in the Labor vs. Liberal sense, but in the sense of customers expressing their frustration and powerlessness against corporate actors that don’t prioritise their interests over those of investors. The sense that they’re getting ripped off – and, short of denying themselves access to the sport that usually soothes the injuries inflicted by real life, they can’t do much about it. Every final quarter glitch, every unfulfilling customer service interaction, every price increase then becomes part of a broader narrative: this thing that is supposed to make me feel better is instead getting worse. I’m not saying there’s a straight line from Kayo-related irritations to the surge in support for One Nation. But I am saying that people are entitled to feel annoyed that an experience which should be a distraction from the messiness and meanness of real life has instead become another part of it.

I’ve got the premium version so that my grandparents can watch at their place. They’re in their late nineties, so not tech savvy at all but I set it up for them and they can watch their footy and basketball happily. Every now and then, it asks for a confirmation of the account, where you scan a QR code or put a generated code into the Kayo website and authorise use. They can’t scan a QR code, and they have no idea how to get to the website and enter the code manually before the code refreshes (you have about a minute to do it and that’s just not going to happen).

So once a month or so they call me to ‘fix’ Kayo, and I enter it on the website at my end. Takes 30 seconds, easy done. However now that they’ve sent the mass reset email out, we’ve signed them up for their own basic Kayo. My fear now is, which is something Kayo will never have considered, if I login in to theirs on my phone explicitly for the purpose of authorising them, it’ll trigger a two IP address at once thing and start the whole password reset process again. Zero chance Kayo has considered that some people who like sport can’t actually manage their own Kayo account due to being born in the Depression.

The AFL has never had more money, political power, or cultural influence. At the same time, the people who run it have rarely faced greater disillusionment. Some of that frustration is reasonable: the rule changes, the fixture, Opening Round, the state of the draft and equalisation. Some of it is less so: umpiring, or the vague sense the game has “gone woke”. But I’m convinced a meaningful share of it – and yes, I know the AFL doesn’t operate Kayo – comes from a much more mundane and protean place: people are paying more for a viewing experience that feels more fragile than ever (all while there’s no longer a free-to-air game on Saturdays). The Foxtel era was expensive, but reliable. Early Kayo was cheap and relatively reliable. The post-DAZN era feels both expensive and unreliable. Layer that on top of broader cost-of-living pressures and declining reliability across other parts of life, and the sour mood is easy to understand. We look at the buffering wheel and we think about Andrew Dillon, or the other products in our lives that don’t work as well as they should.

I kept up with the final quarter of that Brisbane vs. Western Bulldogs game on Twitter. It was fun. I’m lucky enough to have built a small following there, and between the excitement of the game and the laments of others whose Kayo let them down, there was plenty to entertain me. I experienced a different kind of moment. But it wasn’t the one I really wanted. It wasn’t the one I pay $46 every month to experience.

For most of the modern history of televised sport, watching a game was simple. You turned on the TV and a soothing, avuncular presence explained what was happening. The technology was complicated, but invisible. You could just fret about the footy. Streaming promised something sleeker and smarter. Instead, it has sometimes turned the basic act of watching a game – the collective ritual that shapes our lives, in ways little and large – into a software problem. When the software fails, the moment disappears. The after-the-siren kick, the golden point try, the final surge in a close match – the things that make sport memorable – happen somewhere else, while you stare at a buffering wheel, and Len Blavatnik and Mohammed Bin Salman sit in their gilded towers, grinning.

This edition is a day late because I’ve been playing Slay the Spire 2. If you don’t know what that is, keep it that way – you will save hundreds, possibly thousands of hours that could objectively be allocated to more sensible and practical purposes. If you do know what that is, then you might understand what I mean when I say that the experience of playing it has prompted me to think a lot about balance.

Slay the Spire 2 is, in essence, a game where you play combinations of cards, as different characters, to defeat a sequence of enemies. It is combinatorial – no two runs are the same. And it is deeply choice-driven. When you lose – which I do, a lot – it rarely feels like bad luck. You can almost always trace the loss back to a set of decisions that, in hindsight, could have been better.

Like its predecessor, Slay the Spire 2 works so well because it achieves a very particular kind of balance. Asymmetric balance. (I promise this will be about footy very soon.) Balance, in this context, doesn’t mean sameness. It means something closer to equilibrium: a system in which multiple, fundamentally different approaches can all plausibly succeed. The best-designed games manage this trick. They don’t funnel you toward a single optimal strategy. They create space for different approaches and hold them in tension. No one approach dominates for long – and if it does, it gets patched out. Game developers understand that maintaining that balance is what keeps a system alive.

I valued the idea of asymmetric balance in footy even before I had a name for it. It felt in keeping with the egalitarianism Australians like to claim, and the equalisation the AFL likes to promise. In short: it felt fair. And for most of the time I’ve followed footy, it has felt like that balance existed. Different sides, built on different principles, rose and fell. Sometimes the teams that beat them looked like refined versions of the same idea. Other times, they felt like repudiations of it. Yes, sides sometimes stacked talent and tactical advantages for long enough to become dynasties – but it still felt like there were multiple ways to build a good team and multiple ways to win: slower, territorial control; fast, transition-heavy attack; corridor aggression; boundary accumulation; contest and territory; turnover and surge.

To put it plainly: there should be different, approximately equally viable ways of winning. That balance is worth preserving. It’s also – as any game designer will tell you – extremely precarious.

I am increasingly worried (inasmuch as one can be about anything in footy) that the AFL’s new rule changes, especially when layered on top of those introduced over the past decade, have broken that balance. This isn’t preservation of equilibrium or cultivation of viable competing strategies; it’s a shove in a narrower, more homogeneous direction – one that aligns with a particular style and a particular vision of what the sport should look like.

If you think about the AFL as a system, then the last decade – and especially this off-season – looks a lot like a series of balance patches. Except, instead of improving balance, they’re all pushing in the same direction. Tightening the stand rule. The last-disposal out of bounds free kick. Rucks no longer being allowed to wrestle. The reduction in kick-in time from 12 seconds to 8. Immediate restarts for around-the-ground stoppages. Individually, most of these can be justified. Collectively, they represent a clear preference for more speed, less friction, and fewer opportunities to slow the game down, reset, or absorb pressure. More transition. More turnover. In game design terms, it’s a systematic buff to one style of play – fast, transition-heavy footy – and a corresponding nerf to others.

This tweet, by friend of the newsletter Vams, comparing Opening Round and Round 1 in 2026 to the corresponding period from last season, tells the story well.

Styles change and metas shift. More than I probably give credence to, meta shifts in professional sport tend to be downstream of rule changes. To pick just one example: the short-passing game in elite soccer was made more viable by the introduction of the rule that allowed defenders to stand in their own penalty area to receive passes from their goalkeeper. Beyond this, there is the sample size effect: there have only been 14 games of footy played so far this season. But those numbers reinforce something I and many others are feeling: the beginning of 2026 has seen a dramatic intensification of incumbent trends that’s knocked things off-kilter.

The problem isn’t that the game is becoming faster or more open. It’s that this outcome is being engineered by a governing body that has unilaterally decided what “good” footy should look like, and is now putting its thumb on the scale. I don’t like that. It means we’re no longer watching a game that evolves on its own terms. We’re watching one that is being steered toward a preferred aesthetic that aligns with broadcast imperatives, but not necessarily with the long-term competitive health of the sport, the interests of clubs, or, frankly, the preferences of many supporters who are already feeling disillusioned with the current AFL administration.

Here are some design principles I would prefer the AFL follow in order to maximise the space for competing approaches:

1. Plurality: there should be multiple different ways to win. AFL House shouldn’t elevate one over the other. If speed is to win, let it win on its own terms. Instead, the AFL should strive to sustain a system in which different approaches can co-exist.

2. Freedom: every rule change removes a set of viable responses. Some constraints, as I’ve written above, are necessary. But layer enough of them together and the game begins to homogenise into something blander – not because coaches lack imagination, but because the system no longer rewards or, in some cases, even allows it.

3. Organic evolution: the most interesting versions of footy are the ones that resist being solved. Where strategies rise and fall, where innovations are discovered and countered, where no single approach holds the field for long. As far as possible, we should not interfere with that process.

Call it footy libertarianism. This isn’t a call to abolish rule-making, or a claim that the game has ever evolved in a vacuum. Footy has always been governed. And don’t worry – I’m not actually a libertarian. But I do think there’s a meaningful difference between establishing the basic parameters of a system – goals are worth six points, don’t concuss blokes, etc. – and steering it toward a preferred outcome.

But that is what the recent suite of rule changes do – in outcome even if not necessarily intent. Each change trims away a little bit of optionality and quite a lot of the equalisation that’s already under threat in other domains. The result is a game that increasingly pulls teams toward the same solution: move the ball quickly, embrace transition, maximise turnover scoring. If that’s what your list is built to do, you’re advantaged. If it isn’t, bad luck – especially if you’ve spent years investing in a style that’s no longer viable (or, if like Reilly O’Brien, your AFL career has been ended virtually overnight).

No rule quite raises my footy libertarian hackles like 6-6-6. Introduced in 2019 – explicitly to combat flooding and increase scoring – 6-6-6 mandates that at every centre bounce, each team must position exactly six players inside both their forward and defensive 50-metre arcs, with the remaining six, including two wingers, in the midfield zone. On paper, it was a tweak. On grass, it removed one of the few levers struggling teams have to correct course in-game. If you’re getting beaten at the contest, you can’t hedge. You can’t overload inside defensive 50. You can’t flood the stoppage and buy yourself time to reset behind the ball. You just have to cop it.

That cuts directly against another one of my beliefs – that weaker teams should have more options, not fewer. The fewer tools you give a side, the more you entrench existing advantages. The new rule changes confer benefits on the sides that need them the least. To be maximally provocative: we’re stealing from the poor to give to the rich. The teams that aren’t are deprived of the few mechanisms they have to resist, or at least stem the bleeding. Bad teams should be allowed to flood. It’s not pretty, but I’d argue it’s a viable response to a problem – and that broadcaster imperatives aren’t a strong enough reason to override it.

You could see this dynamic play out across Round 1. Again and again, struggling sides were getting beaten at centre bounce, which led directly to repeat scores. They had no recourse to slow things down. I’ll show a few examples in this week’s Video Room. Before I do: yes, that happened before this season. And yes, the buck ultimately stops with players and coaches. They need to execute better. Brad Scott’s failure to implement a coherent defensive system isn’t the fault of 6-6-6. But coaches of struggling sides should have more tools at their disposal. Instead, the AFL has taken many of those tools away.

If you take those principles seriously, they shouldn’t just apply to what happens on the field. They extend to the broader architecture of the competition. The AFL talks a lot about equalisation. It’s one of the organising ideas of the competition, manifested in the salary cap and the reverse-order draft (remember that?). At the highest level of abstraction, equalisation is about maximising the number of viable ways sides can compete. That idea is under significant stress across the game – and the recent rule changes have exacerbated it on the field. When you reward speed above all other methods, you’re not just making the game “faster”. You’re also making it harder for certain types of teams to compete.

What could a more “libertarian” approach look like in practice? It might mean loosening some of those constraints, on field and off. Why have constraints on list sizes? Why not instead move to a model where clubs are judged on per-player payments instead of a largely rigid salary cap floor? Why shouldn’t West Coast be allowed to have 60 players on its list? More churn, more chance of turning up a diamond in the rough. I’m not seriously advocating for these ideas in particular, but I am arguing for the principle that we should let clubs and coaches get weird.

Some experiments would fail. That’s fine. The goal isn’t any particular outcome: it’s the curation of a pluralistic space in which different approaches, different systems, and different philosophies can co-exist in healthy tension. Our reward will be a game that’s richer, less predictable, and harder to solve – a game where the question of how best to win is more open than it feels like it’s becoming.

It might sound a bit pompous to frame it this way (if you’re allergic to me being a wanker, sorry), but there’s a kind of “good life” question embedded in all of this. These latest rule changes have shaped the game to be faster, more open, more transitional. That’s a preference. And I’m not convinced the AFL should have the right to impose that preference, especially when it narrows the pathways through which weaker or differently constructed teams can compete.

Balance is precious and precarious. Game developers can issue balance patches at will. Slay the Spire 2 is currently in Early Access; the game will change as bugs are squashed and over- or underpowered strategies are corrected. The AFL doesn’t have that luxury. The task is harder: acting as custodian of the game while managing competing stakeholder interests. Clubs, players, broadcasters, and supporters don’t always want the same things. But that doesn’t change the fact that a core part of the AFL’s basic bargain – be smart enough, for long enough, and you could win – is eroding.

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The Video Room

I’ve made a set of philosophical claims above. I think they show up in the numbers. Now let’s see how they show up on tape: what does this narrowing of options actually look like in practice? This week’s clips all focus on the same subject: teams piling on consecutive goals in quick succession against opponents that – for reasons both within and beyond their control – were powerless to stop the bleeding. Some of these goals have to do with the constraints imposed by 6-6-6. Others are more about the progressive tightening of the stand rule, and how hard teams are finding it to break opposition uncontested possession chains. To be clear, I’m not blaming the ruleset for systemic defensive failures, nor do I want to downplay excellent attacking footy. I’m interested in something narrower: the relative paucity of defensive Plan Bs available to coaches when Plan A isn’t working.

The first clip comes from the MCG on Friday night, where Hawthorn mauled an abject Essendon side that looked every bit as defensively permeable as it has for the past few years. These three goals, part of a run of five in the last 10 minutes of the half, had nothing to do with the 6-6-6 rule and everything to do with the chasm in how effectively these sides defend, generate, and exploit turnovers.

The first goal was effectively the result of Nate Caddy missing a handball to Jye Caldwell. Dylan Moore dished a lateral handball to Josh Ward on the overlap. Ward did the right thing: he looked inboard and found Moore with a forward handball before Moore repeated the trick. That’s how Jack Ginnivan – who you’d think would be hard to miss with the peroxide blonde – found himself in acres of space on the attacking side of the centre square. It was good transition by Hawthorn; they “leap-frogged” the Bombers by hand, drawing in defenders to distort defensive shape. Nick Watson did the rest.

The second goal was the product of good forward pressure. The Hawks’ forwards forced a dumped defensive exit kick. Jack Scrimshaw gathered and found Massimo D’Ambrosio. The issue here is that three Essendon players were drawn to Scrimshaw but none actually corralled or impeded him in any meaningful way. Archie Perkins half-committed to corralling and ended up in no man’s land. D’Ambrosio supplied the finish against his old side.

The third goal showed how Hawthorn uses aerial superiority to convert turnovers into scores. Tom Barrass followed up his intercept mark with a conservative kick to Jarman Impey, who opted for territory by kicking long down the line. Even here, in a seemingly innocuous position, Essendon’s system broke down – why was Andrew McGrath forced to contest in the air against Mabior Chol? The result was predictable. Similarly, there was no way Jai Newcombe should have been in so much space. One kick meant nine Essendon players were unable to impact the play. Newcombe found Ward, Ward found Gunston, Gunston found the goals.

The second clip comes from the Western Bulldogs vs. GWS game on Saturday afternoon. The game was probably already beyond the Giants at half-time, but conceding four goals in fewer than five minutes to open the second half wouldn’t have done anything to brighten Adam Kingsley’s mood.

These goals are quite different to the ones Hawthorn piled on in their run against Essendon. Although technically only Aaron Naughton’s goals in this sequence came from centre bounce, Sam Darcy’s (technically a forward-50 turnover) effectively did too. The goals are representative of the Dogs’ power at stoppages and the Giants’ weakness in the same phase (it’s not just because of Tom Green’s absence, either – they conceded the most points from centre bounce in 2025). They’re also illustrative of how quickly the new ruck rules have privileged the leapers – like Tim English – over the grapplers, like Kieren Briggs.

For Naughton’s first goal, Ed Richards did brilliantly to prevent Clayton Oliver’s handball to Finn Callaghan, Marcus Bontempelli allowed the momentum of Briggs’ tackle to spin him around so he can offload to Tom Liberatore, and all of a sudden the Dogs were out. The Giants had been sucked into the contest and had no one on the defensive side of the centre circle. For the third goal in the sequence, Briggs – who struggled all day – gave away a ruck free and the split-second of hesitation as he and Toby Greene expected play to stop was enough for Bontempelli to gather and fire out a long forward handball to Richards, who steadied and found Naughton with a beautiful kick. The common element here, quite aside from the Dogs’ positional discipline, is that Kingsley didn’t have any tactical tools to stem the tide. He couldn’t drop a forward back into the hole in front of Naughton. He could only cross his fingers.

The final clip comes from Sunday afternoon at Marvel Stadium, where North Melbourne franked their early dominance against Port with three goals in fewer than three minutes to end the half.

Charlie Comben’s goal happened because Mitch Georgiades didn’t stand when called by the umpire. It was a great kick by Comben, who was best on ground. More performances like that and he could yet become the aerial interceptor North desperately needs him to become. The second goal is technically a turnover but happened in the immediate aftermath of the centre bounce. I really like how Finn O’Sullivan waited an extra split-second for Kane Farrell and Zak Butters to approach him before dishing off to Cam Zurhaar. The burly half-forward then found Colby McKercher, who had a hand in affecting the initial turnover, zooming past. He duly finished. The third goal in the sequence ended up being a scrappy affair but was created by Harry Sheezel’s pressure on Port captain Connor Rozee, Luke Davies-Uniacke strong surge forward, and some leap-frogging handballs that, had they been a fraction cleaner, would have created another shot for McKercher. Duursma’s finish was a good reward for effective forward-half team pressure. That’s not a sentence one has been able to write often about North Melbourne in the past half-decade!

By my rough count, there was an average of about 1.64 sequences of one side kicking three or more goals within 5-6 minutes across Opening Round and Round 1 this season, compared to about 1.5 for the corresponding period in 2025. So the differences aren’t huge. They’re probably not statistically significant. But they’re illustrative of an important reality of modern footy: teams can get a run on, especially out of the middle, and opponents have fewer and fewer strategies to stop them. Things can get ugly, fast.

Straight from the chart

One of the most fundamental (and easily attainable) pieces of evidence for the hypothesis that footy is getting faster is what’s happening with handballs. There’s a simple reason for that: they don’t offer the option of stopping play the way a mark does, and (unless something’s going wrong) a player receiving a handball is not stationary. Teams aren’t actually handballing more: so far in 2026 there are fewer than five more handballs per game than in 2021 (although zoom out and the picture does change slightly: there were an average of 170.1 handballs – almost 20 more than this season – in 2016). What they’re doing is handballing forwards at unprecedented rates.

The difference in handball metres gained was already noticeable between 2021 and 2025. However, 14 games into the 2026 season – where a small sample size is an issue – handball metres gained have gone through the roof. As I wrote above, the new rule changes are all pushing in the same direction: speed. That, combined with the increasing sophistication of defensive zones, has seen the forward handball become a powerful weapon.

The graph above shows the average metres gained by hand of the #1 ranked side in that statistics across the seasons. A lollipop for the reader (assuming anyone has come this far) who can tell me – in the comments – the common factor shared by the 2021, 2022, and 2026 leaders for handball metres gained.

Turning our attention to broader matters – let’s look at how each side fared in Round 1 when it came to generating possession chains. Remember that there are three ways to win possession: win a clearance, win a turnover, or have your opponents kick a point. More chains are generally but not always better: Hawthorn, the Western Bulldogs, and North Melbourne all generated fewer chains than Brisbane, but theirs ended because they kicked goals.

Going from left to right, a few things jump out. The first is that Carlton are good at winning the ball. By my rough count, only Gold Coast currently averages more possession chains per game (yes, yes, sample size). The bulk of the Blues’ issues stem from their incompetence with the ball – especially their short kicking. The second is that Brisbane and Fremantle can feel reasonably satisfied despite two otherwise disappointing defeats. They are beginning with the ball. Not necessarily in ideal spots, and not well enough to win, but their clearance and turnover engine is functioning. The third is that Melbourne and St Kilda, despite scoring an aggregate 227 points, combined for just 214 possession chains. The arithmetic reason is that neither side could affect turnovers with any regularity. Just 108 intercept possessions and 188 marks tells the story: this was a very low-pressure game. We’re used to seeing that from St Kilda under Ross Lyon. We’re rather less used to seeing that from Melbourne. But of course, there’s a new King in town.

Winning the ball is half the battle. The other half is doing damage in possession. To understand how effectively teams did that across Round 1, let’s look at the below graph.

I appreciate a graph like this might not be immediately intuitive. But one of the things I like about it is how it can serve as numerical validation of our feelings about certain games. Did you think that Richmond vs. Carlton, despite the inherent excitement of a close finish, was a slightly stodgy affair? On the other hand, did the Essendon vs. Hawthorn game feel like a glorified training drill? The numbers will back you up on both. Somewhere between teams huffing and puffing, and sides walking it in unopposed, there’s a Goldilocks zone. The Geelong vs. Freo and Collingwood vs. Adelaide games felt like that: fair contests between bat (offence) and ball (defence). A shout-out to North Melbourne, too. I was there almost exactly a year ago when they belted Melbourne by 10 goals under the Marvel lid. Sunday’s defeat of Port felt different: slightly less the product of running red-hot from stoppage wins (although there was that!), and slightly more the product of a side finally beginning to resemble a modern footy team. Caveat: we don’t know how bad Port will be this season.

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Footnotes

• A good one from yet another friend of the newsletter, Emlyn Breese: the St Kilda vs. Melbourne game had a combined 34 uncontested forward-50 marks (17 each). That’s the highest combined total of any game from 2021 onwards. Basketball with a Sherrin.

• Christian Petracca watch: following his game against West Coast on Sunday night, two of Petracca’s three highest-rated games ever have come at the Suns. Not bad given he’s played, uh, two games for them. The case for Gold Coast being proper flag contenders in 2026 revolved around Petracca getting back somewhere near his peak, not scaling a new one. It’s almost as though Damien Hardwick knows what to do with explosive goal-kicking midfielders. (Playing West Coast – who were better than most expected – also helped.)

• Centre bounce scoring watch: sides scored an average of 12 points from centre bounces in Round 1, virtually indistinguishable from the 2025 average of 11.4 points from the middle. The mean disguised a big standard deviation: two sides (Richmond and Collingwood) didn’t score a single point, while the Western Bulldogs (32) and Gold Coast (28) ran up the score.

• Despite the chatter about how the new ruck rules would unlock centre bounce scoring, raw clearance wins have arguably never been less predictive of winning games of footy. Sydney won the fewest clearances of any side in Round 1 (23), while Brisbane won the equal-most (45). Fremantle and St Kilda both won the lion’s share of clearances – and points from that source – in their Round 1 games, but didn’t win the four points. Clearance stats are fuzzy because good teams tend to be better than their opponents at most things, including… winning clearances. Winning clearances can serve as statistical indicators of dominance. It is increasingly rare that teams rely on them as their primary means of winning footy games.

• One of the points I tried to convey in my Adelaide season preview is the striking extent to which its game plan is defined by post-clearance contest wins. An interesting manifestation of that profile is that the Crows are simultaneously mediocre at moving the ball yet devastating at scoring from their back half. Against Collingwood, Adelaide advanced from its defensive 50 to forward 50 just 15.7 percent of the time but scored 52 points – level with Melbourne for the highest return of the round. In case you’re spooked by such a minuscule sample size, the Crows were 12th for D50 to F50 transition success rate last season. It’s a bug and a feature. The Crows lack the run and class half-back disposal of most other good sides, but their one-on-one superiority allows them to win secondary contests (think breaking tackles and taking contested marks) at a higher clip than almost anyone, without over-committing numbers. Winning 25 more contested possessions against Collingwood suggests the Crows mean to pick up where they left off last season.

Recommended reading

So many friends of the newsletter!

• Martin McKenzie-Murray considers the prospects of his beloved Dockers in this piece for The Saturday Paper. Don’t let the soft paywall stop you.

• I’m not the only one getting polemical. Mim has taken a stinging broadside at Opening Round over at her excellent Substack.

• Toby takes stock of Richmond’s rebuild and how the Tigers might fare in 2026 over at his Jousting Sticks newsletter.

• Another great new indie footy Substack alert! This one is also (mostly) about Fremantle! Seb Morrison looks at what the Dockers need to improve to go a few steps further this season.

• Over at Jumper Punches, Nick Rynne gathers his thoughts about the two West Australian clubs starting the season off with different types of defeats.

• The Vulture Street Journal, a new Brisbane Lions-themed Substack, reviews the Premiers’ disappointing defeat at the SCG.

Before diving in, a quick bit of housecleaning. I never quite nailed the format of these weekly reviews last season. One Percenters has always tried to occupy a different lane – slower, longer, more deliberate – and reacting to nine games by Tuesday doesn’t always come naturally. Over summer (in the moments where I wasn’t writing season previews) I thought about how to structure these posts better. For now, I’m trying something simple:

• The Video Room: clips from one or two games that tell an interesting tactical story.

• Straight from the Chart: graphs inspired by the weekend’s action.

• Footnotes: statistical curiosities to share with your friends to prove you know ball.

By design, these posts are meant to be provisional inquiries rather than grand pronouncements. They’re things I noticed and thought were worth writing about, not the definitive record of what matters. If you ever catch me writing something that reads like “Team X did Y, therefore Z will be true forever”, please pull me up. Footy shifts quickly, especially early in the season as sides shake off cobwebs and adjust to new players and new rules.

That sense of adjustment was everywhere during Opening Round. Much of the pre-season discussion focused on how the rule changes – the removal of the sub, the last-disposal free kick rule, tweaks to the stand rule, and the reversion to the old ruck contest rules – might change the shape of games. One theory was that allowing rucks to use their greater momentum would expand the tap radius at centre bounces, turning stoppages into looser one-on-one contests that favour speed over brute strength.

That idea makes sense qualitatively. But, with one notable exception, it didn’t really show up in the numbers this weekend. There was actually less scoring from centre bounces than in last year’s (admittedly truncated) Opening Round. Still, coaches clearly spent the weekend experimenting. Some sides played two rucks; others opted for an extra runner. Rotation patterns looked different. Time-on-ground for key players varied significantly. The search for marginal gains never ends.

But we can tentatively suggest two things. First, as speed and turnover scoring become more central, the trade-off of playing two genuine rucks – as Carlton did on Thursday night – becomes more pronounced. Second, coaches are actively exploring how to manipulate rotations to maximise the influence of their best players. We’ll see if those ideas hold. It’s very early – eight teams haven’t even played yet! – and nothing is settled for long. But if Opening Round hinted at anything, it’s that the game’s long march toward speed probably isn’t slowing down.

Let’s look at a game where that dynamic was particularly visible.

Before I do, a modest tribute to Dennis Cometti: watching footy as a kid in the 1990s was one of the ways I learnt to be Australian. The idiomatic slang, the demonstration of the traits – the comradery, the courage, the vigour – we are told are quintessentially Australian, the identification with a sporting tribe; I learnt all those things from the footy. Dennis and Bruce gave voice to those experiences. So I’ll join my voice to all the others who lauded Dennis’ wit, passion, knowledge of the game and the craft of commentary, and add one more encomium: thank you for being a part of my childhood.

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The Video Room

A few minutes before the start of play on Thursday night, I posted this tweet:

All three were in evidence throughout the game. Carlton really did try to change the way they moved the ball. You could see concerted efforts to find a teammate in a better position with a release handball or short kick. The Blues gained 375 metres via handball, a significant increase from their 2025 average of 160.5. Their first goal of the night, kicked by Brodie Kemp, was a proof of concept. It wasn’t pretty (Tom McCartin should have intercepted Jagga Smith’s kick), but it reflected a newfound determination to link up by hand and access the corridor.

It’s no coincidence that three of Carlton’s new players – Smith, Ollie Florent, and Ben Ainsworth – were all involved in the build-up to that first goal. For most of the first half, the Blues combined that modestly improved ball movement with contested superiority (they went +21 in contested possessions through the first half) to dominate territory. A 10-point lead was less than Carlton’s statistical superiority should have merited.

But the thing about good early intent is that it has a habit of falling back into old habits when subjected to real pressure. The reason I never get too excited about isolated clips of sides generating overlap handball in pre-season is that opposition teams rarely care enough to try and stop it. So while Carlton did genuinely show a different intent in the first half – more link-up by hand, more corridor access, better launch points – in key moments, that boldness disappeared. To some extent, that will improve. If you drill new habits for long enough, they will supersede old ones. Carlton’s first goal of the second half, a lovely flowing move that again rested on Ainsworth’s willingness to look inboard and ability to execute the kick, showed that the intent was there.

But Carlton will face a hard constraint on playing faster, handball-dominant footy: the physical attributes of its list. Fundamentally, I’m not sure you can turn Patrick Cripps, George Hewett, and Cooper Lord into players who hurt opponents with run-and-carry overlap. Carlton’s list is optimised to overwhelm opponents with territory. There isn’t enough pace and agility in the side, particularly in midfield and behind the ball.

Sydney’s list has been constructed very differently. The Swans are teeming with dynamic runners who gain significant territory and distort opposition defensive structures with carry and twist the knife by damaging disposal by foot. The first and second halves of Thursday night’s game were an ideal case study in how those approaches – contest, pressure and volume vs. speed and efficiency – manifest, and which tends to win out in the current footy paradigm. Sydney were poor in the first half. They looked nervous, not quite sure of the trigger points for their ball movement, and were spooked by Carlton’s contest dominance into rushed territory gains.

That all changed in the third term, when the Swans piled on the ninth-biggest single quarter score in V/AFL history to effectively take the game away from Carlton. It has a lot to do with the second and third points in my tweet above: corridor access and aggression at centre bounce. But I think it also has a lot to do with how Sydney’s list profile is fundamentally better-suited for the style of footy the AFL wants to engineer in 2026. The Swans turned a -22 contested possession discrepancy in the first half into a +10 advantage in the third term. There were a few reasons why. Sydney got better at reading Carlton’s preferred contest exit method and getting a hand in. Carlton’s big midfielders (and Marc Pittonet) began to tire, which allowed Sydney’s to win first possession more often and distribute to players on the outside of the contest. And, as fatigue began to set in among Carlton’s inside players, the Swans got rolling. Justin McInerney’s second goal is a great example of how Sydney were eventually able to generate situations Carlton couldn’t stop.

There are two things I’d like to focus on in this clip. The first is Errol Gulden’s influence. The Swans like leaving Gulden in space half a kick ahead of stoppage, because the expected pay-off of him gaining uncontested possession in Sydney’s attacking half is big. But I really liked his starting position here. He was already moving at speed when he received the handball – immediately creating uncertainty among Carlton’s opponents. The second is that Sydney’s zone when Gulden received the ball was unusually skinny and biased to the defensive side of the centre square. When the camera zoomed out, you could see why: by clustering the way they did, they created a huge amount of open space on the attacking side of the square. McInerney didn’t have a single teammate within 30 metres of goal-side when he received Gulden’s long handball. Even the top of attacking 50 had been cleared out to create more space for him. A move like this is the effect of coaching: realising how subtle changes to spacing can create overloads which your superior runners can exploit. (A caveat: Adam Saad’s injury meant Carlton were a man down in this play.)

Sydney repeatedly exploited this same play throughout the third quarter: they used their superior speed to break away from their tiring opponents (exploiting Carlton’s poor stoppage discipline; a common ingredient in games where the Blues get overrun is their players collapsing to the inside and losing contain), constantly shifted the ball to the outside, and vacated attacking central areas to gain territory through run and carry. Charlie Curnow’s first goal in red and white is a good example.

Chad Warner and Malcolm Rosas both rolled back to the contest, while Curnow stayed high, creating a band of open space which Carlton’s players also chose to leave vacant (some of Carlton’s problems could have been offset by shifting to a more zonal defensive structure – i.e. leaving a man on the defensive side of the centre square). The Swans affected the turnover, released Warner into space, and no Carlton player stood a hope of catching him before he delivered a short kick to an onrushing Curnow.

Why did Carlton’s players get tired? Partly, as discussed, it’s because of the investment the club has made into a bash-and-crash list optimised for bash-and-crash footy. Partly it was the humidity of an early March night in Sydney. Michael Voss couldn’t have done anything about that. But he didn’t help himself with his team selection. Two genuine rucks and four tall defenders (Jacob Weitering, Lewis Young, Harry Dean, and Mitch McGovern) meant that not only did the Blues have fewer runners – the runners they did have each had to work a bit harder. Injuries to Saad and Lachie Fogarty didn’t help matters on that front. By the end of the game, Sydney players had recorded 282 sprints to Carlton’s 246.

Isaac Heeney’s second goal of the third term combined all these factors with one other: the centre bounce. I wrote in the preamble to this week’s review that the notional extra space afforded at centre bounces didn’t really show up in the Opening Round numbers. The one significant exception was in the third quarter of this game. The Swans kicked three goals directly from centre bounce clearance win chains, all in the third term, and all the product of confidence, aggressive positioning, clever spatial manipulation, and opponents who couldn’t keep up. Rowbottom took Pittonet out of the play, Lord got sucked into the contest, Walsh was caught in no-man’s land, and a tired Cripps chased his direct opponent in vain. Blues fans have seen this movie before.

In half an hour of footy, Sydney opened the flood gates and subsumed their opponents. It was an unusually vivid example of how individually small factors – discrepancies in conditioning, stoppage adjustments, team selection, rule changes – can compound. By my rough count, 43.5 percent (10/23) of the Swans’ inside-50 entries in the first half landed outside of the width of the centre square. In the second half, just 17.7 percent (8/45) were. They didn’t just increase the volume of their attacks – they also dramatically increased their danger.

Did this game tell us anything we didn’t already know about these two sides? Despite the shock of the third quarter, I’m not sure it did. Carlton are closer to another rebuild than contention. While the Swans, helped along by rule changes which are beneficial to their style of play, should be good in precisely the way they showed in the second half.

Straight from the chart

If, after watching Sunday night’s game (where Collingwood mustered 23 fewer inside-50 entries than St Kilda but still won), you’re left with a hunch that Craig McRae’s Pies are the masters of winning games despite a territory disadvantage – you’re onto something. Take a look.

McRae has coached exactly 100 games at Collingwood. Those 100 games have yielded 68 wins, 30 defeats, and two draws. The Pies have had more inside-50s than their opponents in 52 of those games – and won 39 (75 percent). It’s their record in the 46 games where they’ve had fewer inside-50s where the quality of their defensive work shines through. McRae’s Pies have won 28 of those 46 games – a win rate of more than 60 percent. Somewhat astonishingly, that win rate even holds up in games where Collingwood’s opponents have had 20+ more entries – the Pies are 6 from 10 in those games. That includes their win against St Kilda on Sunday night.

After Carlton got slaughtered out of stoppages on Thursday night, the Blues’ midfield mix has once again come under scrutiny. Every variant of Carlton midfield discourse is a variant of the same basic complaint – it’s too big and too slow, increasingly obsolete in an era where speed is king – and every variant involves Patrick Cripps. The Blues’ captain is emblematic of his side’s midfield struggles: he’s great at winning first possession (and territory), but less capable when it comes to both converting that possession into scores and defending when possession is lost. I thought I’d look at his individual player ratings and see what they revealed.

There’s a lot this graph doesn’t capture. It doesn’t show that Cripps’ opponents are becoming increasingly adept at causing damage by running off him, or that they’re running off him more often. Nor does it show any obvious correlation with Cripps’ performance and Carlton’s results beyond their slow starts to 2025. It isn’t even a slam-dunk that Cripps’ performances are declining, although he’s currently a long way from the extraordinary peak of his second Brownlow-winning season.

However, the graph is illustrative of two things: the first is that the Herculean performances that dragged Carlton across the line in big moments are becoming rarer. The second is that Cripps, especially when used alongside other similar types of player like George Hewett, poses a specific tactical problem that Michael Voss hasn’t yet figured out. If Cripps’ opponents are causing increasing amounts of damage running off him, one solution involves him spending less time in the midfield. But on the evidence of what we’ve seen, he’s not a natural forward, and I certainly wouldn’t send him to half-back. I think we saw Voss’ attempted solution late last season: use Cripps as an occasional second ruck at around-the-ground stoppages. It drew derision, but it could be worth revisiting: Cripps is better than any traditional ruck at ground level, and he can use that advantage to either directly gain territory or try and find a teammate on the outside.

As I wrote above, Carlton were punished by Sydney in stoppages on Thursday night. Sydney’s ability to turn stoppage wins into points was the obvious outlier from Opening Round. As I showed in the clips above, the Swans wreaked havoc whenever they succeeded in getting it to the outside. The Giants (turnover win chains) and Western Bulldogs (stoppage win chains) also had supreme efficiency to thank for their respective Opening Round victories.

The final three clusters of columns on the right-hand side compare how well sides converted possession wins into scores across this season’s Opening Round, last season’s (when, remember, there were only two games!), and 2025 as a whole. What jumps out is that… nothing really jumps out. Points per chain were slightly up this weekend compared to last season, but not in any way which makes me believe it was anything beyond finishing variance and the ease of playing fast footy in the first week of March.

If you’re after evidence that this season’s Opening Round marked another step change in the speed and freneticism of our game – which appears to be the sentiment among many pundits – you need to look at how many possession chains each side actually generated. Let’s do that.

This is probably the first indication that something real might be happening. Each team in this year’s Opening Round had more possession chains (remember, they’re the sum of clearance wins, forced turnovers, and kick-ins) than the 2025 season average. They averaged almost 10 more possession chains than last season. The difference? Turnovers. Opening Round had an average of 49.4 kick-in plus turnover win chains, compared to 48.4 for the 2025 season as a whole. But there was an average of 8.6 more turnovers forced per team. That’s something I’ll be keeping my eye on.

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Footnotes

• Christian Petracca’s 213th career game and first as a Gold Coast player was also the highest-rated game he’s ever had. As if that wasn’t already enough to prompt chagrin among some Melbourne supporters, it was also – by almost 30 percent – his best-ever ball use game. 34 disposals, 15 contested possessions, 10 inside-50s, and three goals straight will do that. This version of Petracca makes Gold Coast very, very scary.

• The house always wins and variance always regresses to the mean. Hold on, I’m being handed a note. The injury-ravaged Giants overshot their expected score by an outrageous 32.6 points in their victory against Hawthorn on Saturday. This comes after Adam Kingsley’s men were second in the AFL for xScore overperformance in 2024 and third in 2025. They can’t keep defying gravity… can they?

• The Western Bulldogs went to the Lions’ den and won. And they did it while conceding an expected score of 120 – more than in any game since expected score record-keeping began in 2021 (yes, they conceded a higher xScore than the 2021 Grand Final!). It made me think back to this sentence I wrote in my season preview: the Dogs’ most viable path to success might not involve material defensive improvement – it could just be becoming a historically great attacking side.

• There were 104 stoppages on Saturday night when the Western Bulldogs took down the reigning Premiers in a heart-stopper. Meanwhile, there were just 71 on Sunday night as Collingwood withstood the new-look, old-school Saints. But ask most people which game they found more exciting. The AFL shouldn’t be scared of stoppages.

Still reading? Great. I could use your help. After technical mishaps prevented me from watching the last quarter of the Brisbane vs. Bulldogs game, I’ve decided to finally write about Kayo. Do you have a horror story you’d like to share with me? Then reply in the comments, send me a private message, or email me at hello@onepercenters.net.au.

To commemorate that work, I’ve had them compiled into an e-book.

You can pay whatever you deem a fair price for it – including zero.

Click the button below to go to the product page, where you can download the e-book in either .epub or .pdf formats.

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I’ve pasted the foreword down below, after the fold. Hopefully it provides all of you, especially new readers, with an insight into why I started One Percenters, why I so enjoy the season previews, and what I’d like to see it become in future.

My sincere thanks to everyone who reviewed a draft preview. My thanks also to my good friend Connor O’Brien, who did the design work for the book. He also designed my logo. The visual identity of One Percenters is entirely the product of his imagination. If ever you need graphic design work, please consider Connor.

Two years ago, I was someone who spent an unhealthy amount of time watching and thinking about footy, while also lamenting the relative absence of intellectually serious footy writing. Where was the writing, I wondered, that reflected my own preoccupations?

Today, I still spend an unhealthy amount of time watching and thinking about footy. But now, with One Percenters, I have somewhere to think about it in public.

The premise is simple: I try to write the kind of footy analysis I’d like to read. Writing that respects complexity. Writing that respects the intelligence of supporters. Writing that treats a game which exerts such unreasonable emotional control over us with the seriousness it deserves.

I haven’t always succeeded. But more or less by accident, I’ve found a niche with these season previews.

They allow me to appraise clubs from every angle – how they play, how they’ve built their lists, what could go right, and what could go wrong. Most of all, they let me pursue the question that defines One Percenters: what are clubs actually trying to do?

We already have a measure of how successfully clubs achieve their objectives. It’s called the ladder. Outcomes dominate footy coverage. But beneath outcomes lie processes and intentions. Those are just as interesting – and often more revealing. That’s what these previews attempt to capture.

It may seem strange to write this much – more than The Great Gatsby, apparently – about footy at all, and doubly strange when there’s no footy on. But February is when plans are still intact. It’s easier to understand intention before reality intervenes.

I’m certainly no oracle. I speak every day with people who know more about footy than I do, and many of them generously reviewed drafts of these previews. I’m grateful for their time - and solely responsible for any errors that remain.

If you believe there isn’t enough serious footy writing, I’d ask one thing: share this book. Tell your footy-mad friends about it. Subscribe if you haven’t. If you have a platform and want to talk footy, invite me on. If you have an idea to collaborate, reach out.

The response to this year’s previews has convinced me that One Percenters can be more than a hobby. It can be a community.

That’s enough from me. I hope this set of previews teaches you something about at least one club suiting up in 2026. If you’d like to argue about any of it, you know where to find me.

Hope your team makes you happy this season.

Mateo.

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2025 ladder position: 18th (1 win, 22 losses)

2025 best-and-fairest: Liam Baker

Senior coach: Andrew McQualter

Story of the season

Winning just a single game in a new coach’s first season before losing a co-captain to free agency – to the back-to-back Premiers, no less – would usually prompt the kind of existential crisis and mass-firing event that eventually yields an Amazon Prime documentary. And let’s not beat around the bush: 2025 was a miserable season for the West Coast Eagles, especially in the context of the three miserable seasons that preceded it. Supporters experienced every kind of footy-related pain: six defeats by 10+ goals, four by 10 or fewer points, the Oscar Allen farrago. But 2025 was also the clean break with the past the club required – and some green shoots really did poke their heads warily through the smoking ruins. Andrew McQualter rebooted the club’s tactical identity. Allen’s departure may have felt tawdry, but the compensation pick yielded a high-end draftee. They almost beat the minor premiers. A handful of exciting young players announced themselves as parts of a better future. And Willem Duursma became the club’s second number one pick in three years.

If there’s such a thing as beneficial misery, that’s what West Coast went through in 2025. Not good – but a prologue to “possibly good”. I’m not sure if the Eagles were the best one-win side in AFL history. But no one-win side has ever generated as much (reasonable) belief among supporters that something better could finally be coming.

Summary of game style

The single most important thing to understand about Andrew McQualter’s theory of footy is that it’s as different to Adam Simpson’s as can be. Under Simpson, the Eagles’ identity was built around control: kick-mark chains, retention, territory management, structural safety. Even as personnel declined, the instinct remained to circulate, reset, and protect. McQualter has moved them sharply away from control and embraced chaos. The statistical profile screams it. Since 2023, Simpson’s final full season in charge, the Eagles have gone from bottom four to top half for speed of ball movement. Metres gained per disposal have gone from 17th to fourth. At the same time, handball metres gained more than doubled – clear evidence that the Eagles now look to quickly surge and gain territory. Marks fell from midtable to 17th. Disposal retention – a proxy for risk tolerance – went from fifth in 2023 to dead last in 2025.

The influence of McQualter’s former boss, Damien Hardwick, is clear. The Eagles now seek contests instead of seeking to circumvent them. Their contested possession share rose from 17th in 2023 to sixth last season. Scores from turnover – a non-negotiable KPI for chaos teams – improved meaningfully, even if still below league average. The new model Eagles willingly trade retention for direct territorial gain and an increased likelihood of destabilising opposition defences. Win possession, release by hand, surge into open space, kick long and direct. A slight but real increase in time in forward half – from 44.4 percent in 2023 to 46.3 last season – is evidence that the plan is having some of the desired effect.

The obvious problem is that, for the time being, ambition has outpaced capacity. Chaos cuts both ways: when the ball spills, better teams punish you faster than you can punish them. The Eagles are easy to cut apart. Forward of centre, chain-to-score and stoppage scoring remain 18th. The system is producing greater variance but not (yet) sustained scoring pressure. 2026 is likely to focus on continuing to bed down the principles of McQualter’s game plan – speed, territory, contest, pressure – until they become second nature. The next layer is structural: tighten transition defence and turn forward-half pressure into reliable scores. If the Eagles can lift their forward-half scoring into the middle third of the competition and stabilise their transition defence, the win-loss column will begin to follow. Although progress thus far has been modest, the direction of travel is clear. The Eagles no longer try to win through control. They try to win through chaos. The ultimate objective is to master it.

List changes

In: 

• Willem Duursma (2025 National Draft, Pick #1)

• Cooper Duff-Tytler (2025 National Draft, Pick #4)

• Josh Lindsay (2025 National Draft, Pick #19)

• Sam Allen (2025 National Draft, Pick #29)

• Tylah Williams (2025 National Draft, Pick #39 – NGA)

• Brandon Starcevich (trade – Brisbane),

• Tylar Young (trade – Richmond)

• Fred Rodriguez (2025 Rookie Draft)

• Harry Schoenberg (Supplementary Selection Period)

• Finlay Macrae (Supplementary Selection Period)

• Deven Robertson (Supplementary Selection Period)

• Milan Murdock (Supplementary Selection Period)

Out:

• Oscar Allen (free agent – Brisbane)

• Liam Ryan (trade – St Kilda)

• Campbell Chesser (trade – Carlton)

• Callum Jamieson (delisted)

• Coen Livingstone (delisted)

• Jack Petruccelle (delisted)

• Loch Rawlinson (delisted)

• Jeremy McGovern (retired)

• Jayden Hunt (retired)

• Dom Sheed (retired)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: four (T-13th)

Average age at Opening Round: 23.6 (18th)

Average number of games played: 54.1 (18th)

The proceeds from the departures of Oscar Allen and Tom Barrass hit the account and the Eagles had a bob each way. They selected five players in the National Draft, traded in two, and added depth with four SSP signings. Willem Duursma separated himself from the chasing pack to finish 2025 as the clear number one pick. His height, frame and athleticism have drawn comparisons to Marcus Bontempelli. Cooper Duff-Tytler is perhaps even more intriguing – an ultra-mobile 200cm ruck/forward who runs all day and gathers cleanly below his knees. The error bars on both are wide, but so is the upside. Josh Lindsay, widely regarded as the best kick in the draft pool, addresses a glaring need for class (with Tom McCarthy likely shifting into the midfield), while athletic midfielder Sam Allen and energetic NGA small forward Tylah Williams rounded out the draft haul.

West Coast paired mercurial draftees with experienced role players. Brandon Starcevich arrived in a deal that stretched the definition of Mega Trade. When available, he’ll provide toughness and leadership down back; given his concussion history, availability is the question. Tylar Young adds some ballast to a key defensive mix that already skews blue collar. The Eagles also added Finn Macrae, Harry Schoenberg and – in the fulfilment of footy’s lowest-stakes prophecy – Dev Robertson via the SSP process. All will believe they can play a dozen senior games this season. Clubs in West Coast’s position must raise both floor and ceiling; the Eagles can reasonably argue they’ve done both.

The departures of Barrass and the sad retirement of McGovern left two large holes in defence that needed patching. Reuben Ginbey flourished in his first season as a full-time defender; his size and speed make him a versatile and challenging match-up. Harry Edwards also emerged as a viable long-term option, though the recruitment of Tylar Young suggests the club is not fully convinced by Sandy Brock or Rhett Bazzo. Starcevich slots straight in alongside Liam Duggan as part of a dependable lockdown duo. It’s safe to say not all Eagles fans were convinced by the decision to bring in Liam Baker (the club published an article on its website defending the deal). But he really was good in his first season in blue and gold. A Best & Fairest and promotion to captain was his reward. He’ll spend time at half-back and wherever else required. After spending significant time in the midfield last season – to reasonably good effect – Brady Hough has spent the entire pre-season training as a defender. Ryan Maric has been retooled as a tall rebounder, although I don’t see the argument to play him over Josh Lindsay if both are fit.

The best-case scenario is that West Coast’s midfield levels up to become mediocre in 2026. The modal outcome is that it remains the worst in the league. The obvious issue is there aren’t enough guys you’d trust to regularly win first possession against good opposition midfield units. Persistent injuries (Elliot Yeo) and declining form (Tim Kelly) have prevented continuity. Only ruckman Matt Flynn attended more than 60 percent of centre bounces in 2025. A Yeo anywhere near close to his old best and a fit Harley Reid are automatic selections. Beyond that, it’s speculative. Elijah Hewett’s talent is hard to question, but his size, defensive impact and durability are not. Jack Graham and new recruit Dev Robertson profile as defensive enforcers more focused on stemming bleeding than causing it. Starcevich has flagged a desire for midfield minutes; whether he gets them remains to be seen. Duursma is unlikely to play significant midfield time in 2026 – half-back or wing looks more probable. Macrae and Milan Murdock will believe they can force their way into calculations. The barrier to entry to the 2026 Eagles midfield isn’t very high.

The forward line probably has the most immediate upside, largely because Jake Waterman was an All-Australian the last time he completed a full season. Jobe Shanahan appears to have overtaken Archer Reid and Jack Williams as the second key forward option. The Pick 30 from the deep 2024 draft leads well and can clunk them in a way that reminds many Eagles fans of a certain bearded forward that wore number 17. Cooper Duff-Tytler should get early games and will excite Eagles fans. Beyond them, questions remain. The most obvious is that, with the departure of Liam Ryan, there isn’t a reliable crumbing option. Jamie Cripps is going around again. He’s crafty, but at such an early stage of the rebuild, I’m not sure his value as a teacher is greater than the opportunity cost of playing him. One could say the same of Matt Owies. Giving opportunities to Jacob Newton (who’s impressed since joining the club), Tylah Williams and Malakai Champion feels more aligned with the Eagles’ timeline. Expect any combination of Hewett, Kelly, Graham, Robertson, Schoenberg and Tom Gross to rotate through half-forward. Whoever settles there, McQualter’s objectives are clear: the forward line must become both more dangerous at ground level and a more reliable first line of defence. Right now, it’s closer to a trampoline.

Line rankings

Defence: Below Average

Midfield: Poor

Forward: Below Average

Ruck: Poor

The case for optimism

The Eagles are very bad. But the case for optimism in 2026 begins with an important caveat: they weren’t quite historically inept in the way a one-win season suggests. They recorded one actual win but finished with 2.7 expected wins – the number they’d have claimed had expected score broken evenly. A one-win season could easily have been a three-win season with nothing changing except variance. Even so, 2.7 expected wins was less than half the 5.8 expected wins of 2024. The regression was real. But here’s the catch: much – perhaps all – of that regression can be traced to three things: the loss of key players, the transaction costs of switching game plans, and a surprisingly difficult draw.

An efficient way to turn a poor side into a very poor one is to subtract Tom Barrass and Jeremy McGovern. The costs of Barrass’ trade were front-loaded; the proceeds – Josh Lindsay, Sam Allen, Tylah Williams and more reps for Harry Edwards – won’t vest for some time. McGovern’s retirement was all downside. Add the loss of Jack Darling, whose workhorse presence insulated young forwards, and it’s hardly surprising that a riskier game plan, combined with the removal of the club’s two best defenders, led to further defensive deterioration. The Eagles embraced chaos at the same time as losing players well-positioned to help them absorb it.

The second reason for optimism is boring old continuity. The Eagles have now had a full additional pre-season drilling McQualter’s system. Beyond the obvious talent gap they faced last season, there was also a familiarity gap. They were learning a foreign language while playing opponents fluent in theirs. Liam Baker and Jack Graham were brought in to accelerate the shift, but there were moments when players visibly wrestled with the conflict between muscle memory and new tactical instructions. Repetition breeds instinct. Expect a more fluent version of the McQualter model in 2026.

It’s dull to talk about draw difficulty. But it matters! The Eagles had the joint-easiest draw in 2024. Last season, no side had a bigger discrepancy between expected and actual fixture difficulty. Seven of the top 10 sides ended up with an easier draw than West Coast. That’s significant at the bottom of the ladder. The Eagles are projected to have the 13th-hardest draw in 2026. Although it’s perhaps not as generous as a side in its position might hope, it’s far less brutal than last season.

Explaining why West Coast went from bad to very bad in 2025 is more anti-pessimism than true optimism. Proper optimism begins with the recognition that, for the first time in years, there is a reasonable volume and spread of young talent: Harley Reid, Willem Duursma, Cooper Duff-Tytler, Jobe Shanahan, Josh Lindsay, Reuben Ginbey, Elijah Hewett, and Tom McCarthy (not young, but inexperienced). That group still has a lot to prove, and fit remains an open question. But the distribution is healthy. There are power midfielders, outside runners, key forwards, distributors and defenders. That reduces positional bottlenecks and, more importantly, maximises the most valuable developmental resource: minutes. They’ll also be supported by a mature cast bolstered by Brandon Starcevich, Tylar Young, Deven Robertson and Harry Schoenberg. These aren’t stars, but they are floor-raisers who, alongside second-year Eagles like Baker and Graham, ensure the young core isn’t carrying everything.

It took West Coast too long to admit a rebuild was necessary. Now that they have, those young players will play significant football in 2026. They’ll either swim or struggle. Either way, the club gains clarity. The Eagles won’t be good even if everything above materialises. But they should be far more competitive. With some luck, four to five wins feels achievable.

The case for pessimism

The optimistic view is that West Coast have paid the upfront costs of stylistic reinvention and are therefore positioned to reap the benefits. The pessimistic view is that the bill has only just arrived and that the benefits, if they ever arrive, are a long way away.

A game model rooted in chaos is exhilarating when it works. It is also unforgiving – on multiple axes. The first is tactical. Chaos without elite decision-makers and superior one-on-one players is just turnover. Chaos without effective counterpressing is just exposure. Betting on variance when you’re the less-talented team in most games might be notionally rational. But variance is a double-edged sword. It does not simply increase your chance of an upset; it increases the likelihood of heavy defeats. High-variance systems produce high-variance margins. For a young side, frequent big losses do more than damage percentage. They distort learning, obstruct habit formation, and can test belief in the model itself.

That goes directly to the second danger of chaos: it punishes young bodies. High-speed transition, repeat contests and constant defensive recovery runs generate fatigue and collision load in ways controlled possession football does not. A young list asked to surge, press, chase and re-press for two hours every week can break down. Soft-tissue injuries and late-season fatigue can snowball into stalled development and defeats that compound the psychological toll if the conditioning base isn’t yet mature. The Eagles flagged physically in their final pre-season hitout, against Port. Perhaps it was evidence of a heavy training load. Perhaps it was evidence that Miniball is hard to sustain.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the chaos model. Most clubs are embracing some version of it. But it is a difficult wave to ride because it functions best when compounding a particular kind of advantage: power, speed and one-on-one superiority. I wrote above that the Eagles have assembled a promising cohort of young talent and are approaching the rebuild correctly by accelerating list turnover. But, as of today, very few of those prospects are sure things. Talent is not the constraint for Harley Reid – but his long-term commitment to West Coast might be. Nor is talent the issue for Elijah Hewett – but durability has been. Stack enough of these questions together and an uncomfortable possibility emerges: the young core may be deeper than it is transformative. Rebuilds fail not because they lack prospects, but because they lack genuine difference-makers. Beyond Harley, that question remains very open. West Coast has drafted interesting, diverse talent. It hasn’t yet assembled that into the spine of a good team, let alone a contending team. The gap between where the Eagles are right now and competence still looks more like a chasm. Everyone still assumes that West Coast is too big to keep failing. How many more seasons down the bottom until that assumption begins to waver?

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Breakout player

There are few players across the AFL I’m more intrigued to see in action this season than Tom McCarthy. The number one pick from last year’s Mid-Season Draft has been a revelation since his debut on West Coast’s half-back flank. The fact he’s come from relative obscurity, rather than an elite finishing school environment, raises the exciting possibility – the likelihood – that he’s got a lot of growth left. He’ll start the season in the Eagles’ midfield. Jobe Shanahan is a close second. The young key forward also impressed in his debut season and the departure of Oscar Allen, together with Jake Waterman’s return to fitness, should give him the opportunity and continuity needed to thrive. Josh Lindsay – yes, I’m getting greedy – is probably worth a mention too. He may already be the best kick in a side he’s only been a part of for four months. That says much about him and the current state of the club he’s joined.

Most important player

It’s probably Harley Reid. He’s not West Coast’s best player yet, but he could be by season’s end. In theory, his Dustin Martin-esque combination of power and pace traits (minus, for the time being, the forward acumen) make him the perfect flagbearer for a game plan indebted to Damien Hardwick’s great Richmond side. Reid’s debut season was outstanding (it also wasn’t a coincidence that most of it was spent alongside a fit Yeo). His second season – aside from his decision to re-sign with the Eagles until the end of 2028 – didn’t quite meet the same standard. It’s far from the club’s biggest concern. Signs from pre-season have been largely positive. But if Harley Reid is to become the top-10 player most believe he can, he must take the next step in 2026.

Biggest question to answer

Good teams stack talent or develop a system that holds up. The best teams optimise their talent-system fit. The most important question for West Coast’s current build – and therefore the question that needs answering, as a priority – is how good is the young talent, and how well does it mesh with Andrew McQualter’s game plan?

What success looks like

The continued development of what is now clearly the youngest and least experienced list in footy remains an obvious priority. But individual progress is inseparable from collective tactical progress. Therefore, McQualter and his coaches will be looking for continued improvement in key metrics of his game model: scores from forward half, turnovers forced, and post-clearance contested possessions. If West Coast can become competent in those, a jump up the ladder may not be too far away. Do that, upset a good team – Freo, ideally – along the way, and it’ll be a pass mark.

In a nutshell

Many things about West Coast’s season will not surprise. The Eagles will lose the vast majority of their games, many by large margins. But if they continue to embed the principles of Andrew McQualter’s game plan, while unearthing the core of their next good team, supporters will believe that progress is finally being made.

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2025 ladder position: 9th (14 wins, 9 losses)

2025 best-and-fairest: Ed Richards

Senior coach: Luke Beveridge

Story of the season

You couldn’t engineer a better Western Bulldogs season under Luke Beveridge for the Footy Media-Industrial Complex. The Dogs won 14 games in 2025 (that’s good!). But they went 2-9 against top-eight sides (that’s bad!). But their heaviest defeat was only 22 points (that’s good!). But they suffered injuries to key players (that’s bad!). But they won eight games by 71 or more points (that’s good!). But they finished ninth after decisively losing a virtual knockout game against another finals contender (that’s bad!).

Everything that, fairly or not, has come to be seen as shorthand for Bevoball since the 2016 flag – spectacular scoring power, fragile defending, noble failure – was in abundant supply in 2025. Pundits and critics, especially those who revel in declaring the Dogs the best list in footy and any subsequent failure a damning indictment of the coach, will see plenty of negatives: the frustration of missing out on September, Marcus Bontempelli turning 30, ongoing structural and personnel issues in defence. Sure. But there are at least as many positives: Sam Darcy and Ed Richards emerged as true stars. Aaron Naughton had the best season of his career, easing the feeling of “what could have been” surrounding Jamarra Ugle-Hagan. Joel Freijah spent time in the middle and looked bloody good doing it. There is reason to believe this team will improve, not stagnate. 2025 was immensely frustrating. But it might also have yielded the tough lessons the Dogs need to stamp their authority on the competition.

Summary of game style

The Bulldogs’ game is built on a largely-warranted confidence in their own superiority. They ranked 1st for total disposals in 2025, 2nd for disposals per chain, 5th for marks, and led the AFL for inside-50 differential, scores from the back half, and percentage of possession chains that turned into scores. They win territory and convert that into points more efficiently and at higher volumes than any other side.

The Dogs’ elite midfielders win the ball at stoppage and generate repeat entries. Strong key forwards turn those entries into high-quality shots, reflected in their league-leading xScore per attempt and ranking for offensive one-on-ones. The system is designed to win first possession, recycle it cleanly, and reload quickly. If they don’t score, they reset and go again. That’s why their chains are long but not especially fast. Playing the majority of the game in the front half is the way the Dogs attack and one of the main ways they defend.

This combination of talent in high-impact roles and aggressive off-ball defensive positioning simply overwhelms weak sides. If you can’t stop the Dogs running downhill out of the centre square, or find a way to neutralise Sam Darcy, you will almost certainly lose. But the same system produces fragility at the top end. In 2025, the Bulldogs were below average at forcing turnovers and 17th for tackle differential. They do not generate much defensive friction. Teams that stand up defensively – those that can absorb entries, win aerial contests, and exit with composure – pose a particular problem. They can deny the Dogs cheap entries, force them to defend in space, and exploit their limited two-way wings and thin key defensive stocks to prosper in transition, especially in wide areas. Aggressive positioning can produce ugly results when things break down. Only Melbourne conceded a higher average value of shots last season. The benefits (control of possession and territory) are often harder to appreciate.

The Dogs accept volatility because their expected return per possession is so high. Does that make them a glass cannon? It’s fairer to say that their style is shaped by their list’s strengths and weaknesses. They optimise for accumulation, repeatability, and belief in their own scoring power. When it works, they overwhelm their opponents. When it doesn’t, they are frequently exposed by savvier opponents. But given their list profile, it is the game they have to play. The Bulldogs don’t lose in the boring way (a lack of talent). They lose in a much more interesting way – because their talent is distributed in ways that force them to incur defensive risk.

List changes

In: 

• Lachie Carmichael (2025 National Draft, Pick #21)

• Louis Emmett (2025 National Draft, Pick #27)

• Will Darcy (2024 National Draft, Pick #60)

• Connor Budarick (trade – Gold Coast)

Out:

• Jamarra Ugle-Hagan (trade – Gold Coast)

• Anthony Scott (delisted)

• Caleb Poulter (delisted)

• Jason Johannisen (delisted)

• Taylor Duryea (retired)

• Liam Jones (retired)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: five (T-10th)

Average age at Opening Round: 24.9 (8th)

Average number of games played: 73.4 (9th)

After bringing in six players across the 2024 draft and trade period, the Dogs were quieter this time around, making three selections and trading in Gold Coast’s Connor Budarick for Pick 37 (with Pick 70 coming back). Lachlan Carmichael, a Sydney academy prospect, is a versatile small-medium defender who can play taller or smaller than his listed 185cm. Louis Emmett is a mobile tall who supplements the Dogs’ ruck/key position stocks, and Will Darcy is a speculative shy at the stumps who, at Pick 60, will at the very least be a cheap way to keep older brother Sam happy. Budarick, meanwhile, looks like a smart acquisition given the Dogs’ struggles containing opposition smalls and mediums. They join a list that had already been supplemented by two players taken in last year’s Mid-Season Draft: Michael Sellwood (a West Australian half-back with a raking left-foot kick) and Zac Walker (an intercept defender from Phillip Island). Sellwood was apparently close to debuting late last season and the early word is that Emmett’s development is ahead of schedule.

It remains to be seen exactly how Budarick fits in Beveridge’s defensive scheme, and how prospects like Carmichael, Sellwood and Walker develop. But the Dogs have diagnosed the problem correctly: the defence is the weakest part of the list, and where their talent distribution issue is most pronounced. Rory Lobb has done an admirable job since his reassignment as a defender, but gives up size and craft to the game’s best key forwards. Beyond him, the key defensive posts look paper-thin. Jedd Busslinger, to put it politely, hasn’t yet earnt the trust of Beveridge. To put it less politely, his seven games last season did not look like the beginning of a successful AFL career. James O’Donnell has provided great value for a former Category B rookie but is limited. It’s no coincidence that the Dogs tend to struggle against forward lines with multiple tall threats. The small/medium stocks look better but, with the exception of Bailey Dale, short on stars. Overinvestment of draft capital into the defensive line is a risk – but so is underinvestment.

There are no similar complaints about the investment or return on investment when it comes to the midfield. The Bulldogs averaged +17.5 points per game from the differential of scores from stoppages in 2025. No other side managed +10. But the output masks changes to personnel. Adam Treloar went from being a constant presence at centre bounces in 2024 (when he attended 80 percent of centre bounces he was eligible for) to a bit-part player, attending just 24 percent of centre bounces across his four games. His midfield minutes were taken by Matt Kennedy and Joel Freijah. The biggest question is how the Dogs will reconfigure when it’s time to phase out Tom Liberatore. Libba bleeds red, white, and blue. But he’ll turn 34 midway through the season, and he’s one head knock away from a forced retirement. His defensive discipline and ability to win the hard ball will need replacing (at least in the aggregate). The weakness in the Dogs’ midfield is found on the wings. Bailey Williams and Sam Davidson are willing runners and good soldiers, but in an era where wingers are getting bigger, and teams increasingly opt to advance the ball via wide areas to hedge against turning it over in the corridor, their athletic limitations expose the Dogs in the air and in defensive transition.

A year ago, I said that uncertainty surrounding Jamarra Ugle-Hagan made the Dogs’ forward line a hard read. That was fairly spectacularly wrong. The Dogs were first in the AFL for expected score, goals per inside 50 entry, and scoring shots per inside 50. Everyone knows that a fit and committed Ugle-Hagan is a very good AFL forward. So it’s a great credit to Sam Darcy, Aaron Naughton, and the Dogs’ coaches that his absence was barely noticed (at least on the field). Darcy would have been named All-Australian had he not missed six games with a knee injury (the ominous reports of him piling on the goals in internal trials – admittedly, against his own defenders – suggests he’ll probably put on a blazer this year), Naughton had a career-best year, and Jordan Croft showed enough to suggest he’ll be a handy back-up if either are unavailable (or Bevo is feeling frisky and wants to play with three talls). Closer to the ground, Rhylee West became a very good small forward in 2025, combining clever positioning with effective finishing to register 39 goals. He did so in the total absence of Cody Weightman, whose pre-season patella injury turned into a horrible saga. The aerial ability of a fully fit Weightman would round out the Dogs’ forward line – but he’s only recently started running again. It would be a surprise to see him at AFL level before the mid-season bye.

Line rankings

Defence: Average

Midfield: Elite

Forwards: Elite

Ruck: Above Average

The case for optimism

The fact that their team missed the finals while at the same time being regarded by analysts as possibly the best team in the AFL is, uh, scant consolation for frustrated Dogs fans. But it does matter. There is a world of difference between missing the finals the way the Dogs did and the way that, say, the Eagles did. Several things had to go wrong to miss out with 14 wins. They all did. That sucks – but it makes the path to redemption much shorter.

The case for optimism is simple: the Dogs were two wins from finishing in the top four, and there’s still growth left in this group. Enough of that growth could be driven by just one man: Sam Darcy. He’s already very possibly the best key forward in footy – no one would seriously begrudge him a spot on the podium – and yet it still feels like he’s just scratching the surface of his vast potential. Imagine if he undergoes the Riley Thilthorpe Exercise Regimen – his gravity alone will create more opportunities for his teammates. The broader point is that, given Darcy’s freakishly high ceiling and the dazzling array of midfield talent, the Dogs’ most viable path to success might not involve material defensive improvement – it could just be becoming a historically great attacking side.

Dogs fans should also feel optimistic that, beyond Darcy, the list will be deeper and stronger in 2026. Joel Freijah and Ryley Sanders will get better. The 2024 draft crop has shown good flashes. Cody Weightman might play footy this season. The Bont isn’t going anywhere. Connor Budarick isn’t a star, but should be a solid defensive presence. Combine those improvements with some better luck with injuries and in-game variance, and it’s not at all a stretch to see 14 wins turning into 16 or 17 – and a real flag tilt.

The case for pessimism

The maximally pessimistic argument for the Dogs in 2026 is that their struggles against the good sides are the product of real structural and personnel issues, not just bad luck, and that they didn’t improve the quality of the personnel by enough. The 2-9 record against top-eight sides wasn’t a fluke. The Dogs only “won” two of those games on expected score – a blow out against GWS late in the season, and (just barely) the Round 11 meeting against Geelong, which didn’t convert into an actual win. Take out that second GWS game, and the Dogs cumulatively scored 144.4 fewer points on expected score in fixtures against the top eight. Sure, they could have jagged a couple of those games. Just one would have been enough to make finals. But that doesn’t change the larger point, which is that there was an identifiable and repeatable blueprint to beat the Dogs in 2025: sit deep, lure them forward, turn the ball over and exploit them going back the other way, taking advantage of their undersized wingers – a significant structural issue – and overmatched key defenders. Luke Beveridge couldn’t find an answer that held up.

Although I’ve focused predominantly on the issues the Dogs have defending in transition, they also struggle to defend slow plays. They struggle to end defensive sequences full stop. The Dogs were 15th for scores conceded from opposition kick-ins (not a big number, but indicative of a problem) and below league average for opposition chains that began in the defensive half and ended in a score. When opponents enter their defensive 50, they generate shots at an above-average rate, whether by mark or at ground level. The problem isn’t only the structure ahead of the ball. It’s the absence of a defensive fail-safe behind it.

The apparent pursuit of Adelaide’s Jordon Butts suggests internal recognition that there’s an issue. But it’s an oversimplification to say that Beveridge should simply dial down the aggression in big games. Players spend months learning the intricacies of defensive zones and pressing triggers. The costs of switching to “Plan B”, which might be better-suited for the specific match-up but definitely won’t be as well-honed, are usually bigger than the benefits. There’s been talk that the Dogs have placed a renewed focus in pre-season and tackling and pressure. Sure – but find me a team that doesn’t talk a big game about their contest and pressure work. The Dogs’ defensive frailties aren’t about effort (oh, how I’d love to expunge that word from the footy lexicon). They’re structural. Perhaps the solution is to accept this iteration of the Dogs will never be defensively elite and try to win regardless. It’s not unthinkable the Dogs could become an even more potent attacking force. Darcy will get better. Weightman could actually play games. But teams that are bad at defending without the ball don’t usually win flags. And there are other vulnerabilities. The Dogs have done a good job of getting younger while staying good, but Tom Liberatore is still a load-bearing presence in the middle and, as a midfielder whose primary role is defensive, doesn’t have an obvious replacement currently on the list. Most of the Dogs’ best players are young or in their prime. Libba isn’t.

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Breakout player

I’m giving myself a pat on the back for nominating Joel Freijah here last season. It didn’t require much insight, but the footy mainstream has cottoned on to what Dogs fans realised right away – the kid is seriously good. Pending his recovery from a hamstring injury he sustained early in pre-season, Ryley Sanders could be the next cab off the rank. The Pick #6 in the 2023 draft has made solid progress in his first two years at senior level and the picture of the player he will become is looking clearer. Although he doesn’t obviously possess the athletic traits of someone like Freijah, there’s scope for him to be an effective accumulator who links possession chains and pops up with the odd goal – the new Adam Treloar? An honourable mention for Lachie Jaques, who Freijah himself has tipped for a breakout in 2026.

Most important player

This is the third season I’m writing these and the first time the answer to this question (and many others regarding the Dogs) isn’t obviously Marcus Bontempelli. He’s still probably the best player in footy. But the addition of Matt Kennedy to the on-ball rotation, as well as the emergence of Joel Freijah, and (especially) Ed Richards as viable first-rotation midfielders, lifts some of the burden from his shoulders. He might not need to be Hercules anymore. Sam Darcy’s reach and ability to distort gravity in the forward line makes him a wholly unique proposition. The Dogs still won two of the six games he missed last season by 90 or more points, but could only go 3-3 over that stretch. Bontempelli has replacements who are somewhat close to his level. Darcy does not.

Biggest question to answer

Unless Jedd Busslinger reaches a level he hasn’t yet, or Luke Beveridge engineers another unlikely positional change (Jordan Croft to full back, perhaps?), the Dogs will persevere with essentially the same defensive personnel as they did last season. Given that, the question becomes: will Bevo and his coaches dial down the aggressive defensive positioning, even if it makes the Dogs a little less potent, or will they decide that their approach is ultimately the one most likely to yield success?

What success looks like

Given the AFL’s new wheeze of expanding finals to more than 50 percent of the league, it’s unthinkable that the Dogs won’t be playing some kind of elimination match in September. But finishing 10th ain’t the same as finishing 1st. If their best players stay fit and keep firing, and Beveridge can find solutions in areas of relative weakness (the wings, small defenders, transition defence), the Bulldogs will be one of the best teams in footy. As it is, they’re not far off. Anything less than a home final would feel like drift.

In a nutshell

Bevo’s Dogs are actually Schrödinger’s Dogs – they are both the plausibly best team in footy, and the ninth best. They have stacks of talent, but not in all the positions you need. The immensity of their scoring power is offset by the risks they take to generate that power. Nothing from Premiers to play-in would surprise.

2025 ladder position: 10th (12 wins, 11 losses)

2025 best-and-fairest: Isaac Heeney

Senior coach: Dean Cox

Story of the season

And another one gone, and another one gone – another one bites the dust (nooo). Queen’s earworm became the unofficial and very much unwelcome anthem of Sydney’s season as serious injuries to serious players derailed Dean Cox’s first year in charge. Errol Gulden was the first to succumb; a broken ankle in pre-season kept him out until Round 15. An ankle injury also did in Logan McDonald, this time for the whole year. Captain Callum Mills missed the first half of the season, as did small forward and Most Valuable Pest, Tom Papley. Without them, the Swans fell behind the count and couldn’t recover. A 90-point home defeat to the Crows, capped off by Wayne Milera’s surprising admission that the Swans were “a bit of a rabble”, was the nadir.

Finals were already out of reach by the time key players returned to replenish the ranks. But when they did – shock – the picture became much brighter. The Swans looked somewhere close to their best; vibrant in attack and, helped by some tactical tweaks from Cox, resilient down back. Winning eight of the final 11 games helped the Swans at least finish with a positive win-loss record – and reminded the rest of the AFL that the side which made the 2024 Grand Final can play some scintillating footy. Sydney’s hierarchy wasn’t complacent, either: some frenetic wheeling-and-dealing saw Charlie Curnow become a Swan in the final hour of the Trade Period. The cost – three first-rounders and Will Hayward– was rich, but the rewards could be too. The Swans will be back.

Summary of game style

Reader, I’m going to give you a peek behind the veil. I usually compile these summaries of game style by checking my qualitative priors about how a team plays – call it the eye test – against a list of key metrics that inform different phases of play (transition, contest structure, turnover method, etc). I usually look at metrics for the last two full seasons, because they allow me to see where sides have weakened/strengthened, or – more significantly – what they have chosen to prioritise or deprioritise. I decided on a slightly different approach for Sydney this season. Instead of using the full 2025 stats, I’ve instead looked at metrics for the final 10 games of last season, when key players like Errol Gulden returned and Sydney became not only a much better team, but one which was able to play footy more aligned with coach Dean Cox’s preferences.

Doing that revealed evolution rather than revolution, but with a couple of significant structural changes. First, the similarities. The Swans still build from their back half with patience. They still use short kicks and uncontested marks to shift the opposition’s first defensive layer before looking inboard to puncture it. They still tend to seek corridor access, and they still rely on the burst of players like Gulden and Chad Warner to turn small gaps into cascading overlap. Sydney were again among the slowest teams for raw ball speed late last season, but that obscures the real rhythm of how they want to play: deliberate shaping, followed by sudden release. Slow-fast. Changing angles by foot. Conceding goals to Sydney is like what Hemingway said about going bankrupt – it happens gradually, then suddenly.

Now for the differences. In 2024, the Swans paired corridor ambition with an aggressive forward press. No side scored more than they did from forward-half chains. That model carried them to a Grand Final, but it also revealed an ultimately fatal vulnerability. When opponents beat the first wave and controlled possession with clean kick-mark sequences, Sydney could be disarmed. In six of their seven losses that season, they lost the uncontested marks count. In their heaviest defeats, the gap was huge. Control and ball monopolisation was the antidote to their press.

Dean Cox noticed that. That’s why, late last season, the Swans began to look more like the teams that had given them so much trouble. In the final 10 games, Sydney’s expected score from turnover chains fell sharply – but opposition turnover scoring fell further. No side spent more time in possession across this stretch. The Swans went from forcing and conceding turnovers at an average rate to forcing and conceding fewer than just two sides. Clearance differential and hard-ball differential both strengthened, and their expected score from stoppage chains climbed into the competition’s top tier. The bottom line: the Swans stopped seeking chaos.

The press has not disappeared, but it softened. The numbers suggest fewer all-out hunts and a greater emphasis on rest defence: improved intercept positioning, reduced spoil dependency, and some of the lowest opposition expected threat per kick in the competition. Sydney are committing fewer men to the ball but setting up better behind it.

More than once across this pre-season, Errol Gulden has spoken about how his side intends to “put more speed on the ball” in 2026. To the extent that has a meaning beyond being a proxy for “play better”, I don’t think it means the Swans will get frantic. Instead, it probably means earlier trigger points, less time spent dwelling in sterile back-half circulation, and more decisive corridor release. Unless Cox has discarded the club’s long-held preference for slow-fast ball movement, the Swans will still prefer to surge when the field is shaped to their liking.

Charlie Curnow is likely to be pivotal in this. He’s not a bailout pack-crasher. He is a leading, one-on-one predator who, like a mirror image of Buddy Franklin, can swing around on his right foot and kick goals from 60+ metres. To maximise him, Sydney must be disciplined. If they bomb long into density from deep positions, as Carlton did too often, they will blunt his greatest weapon. If they can isolate him inside 50 – after having shifted the defence laterally and created separation – he will flourish. In theory, his presence significantly raises the ceiling of a system already adept at manufacturing high-quality entries but often without the same quality of personnel finishing that good work.

A significant reason John Longmire’s game model often came unstuck in Grand Finals – sorry, Swans fans – is that its tendency to rely on clean ball: corridor access, uncontested marks in build-up, and forward entries delivered to advantage. Big finals are precisely the games where those conditions are hardest to engineer. Some of Cox’s tweaks – greater stoppage authority, improved rest defence, fewer cheap turnovers, a call to restore the “Bloods” contested identity – look like an attempt to make Sydney less fragile under stress. But the attacking focus is likely to be a more robust version of the existing model than anything new. In 2026, expect a side that is deliberate and selective in possession, more secure behind the ball, and more interested in winning territory at stoppage. Whether that sturdier defensive shell is enough to protect a geometry-first attack in September is probably the question that will define their season.

List changes

In: 

• Harry Kyle (2025 National Draft, Pick #14 – Academy)

• Jevan Phillipou (2025 National Draft, Pick #35)

• Billy Cootee (2025 National Draft, Pick #42)

• Max King (2025 National Draft, Pick #49 – Academy)

• Charlie Curnow (trade – Carlton)

• Malcolm Rosas Jr. (trade – Gold Coast)

• Jai Serong (trade – Hawthorn)

• Noah Chamberlain (Category B Rookie)

• Liam Hetherton (Category B Rookie)

Out:

• Oliver Florent (trade – Carlton)

• Will Hayward (trade – Carlton)

• Jack Buller (trade – Collingwood)

• Indhi Kirk (delisted)

• Blake Leidler (delisted)

• Caleb Mitchell (delisted)

• Ben Paton (delisted)

• Robbie Fox (delisted)

• Aaron Francis (delisted)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: four (T-13th)

Average age at Opening Round: 25.1 (5th)

Average number of games played: 84.9 (4th)

The Swans knew they had three draftable academy prospects and also knew they could probably only match bids on two of them. They decided they liked Harry Kyle best. His powerful athleticism – he posted three top-10 results at the National Draft Combine – has a whiff of Finn Callaghan to it. He’ll probably begin at half-back or on a wing. Matching the Giants’ bid on Kyle meant the Swans didn’t have enough points to match the Western Bulldogs’ bid on medium interceptor Lachlan Carmichael. Expect that to happen more in an era of super-productive Northern Academies and tightened bid matching rules. The Swans did, however, have the points to match Adelaide’s bid for forward Max King at pick 49 (the Swans academy prospect, not the perennially injured St KIlda forward). In between those two Academy prospects, they also selected overage Norwood midfielder Billy Cootee – one of the best players in the SANFL – and Jevan Phillipou, a mid/forward who’s younger brother of St Kilda’s Mattaes. I’m a fan of Jevan’s athletic traits and a fan of his unabashed self-belief. Pretty much every elite athlete is irrationally self-possessed; Jevan just says it out loud.

As intriguing as Sydney’s draft haul was, the trades dominated the headlines. Ollie Florent and Will Hayward were on holiday in Argentina when they got a phone call from Dean Cox and Leon Cameron summarily informing them their time at Sydney was up. Neither wanted to go, but both needed to in order to pave the way for Charlie Curnow. It’s a ruthless industry. Hayward’s ability to stretch defences vertically and knit together play in the forward half will need to be distributed across other players. There’s nothing more to say about Curnow that I won’t have written elsewhere in this preview – suffice to say it’s a big statement, more or less precisely the profile of player Sydney most needed, and puts them firmly in Win Now mode. It’s a peak-aged list: several of the role players are old, but, crucially, the stars aren’t. Isaac Heeney is probably investigating that weird tech billionaire’s anti-ageing protocol as we speak.

The defence is good less because of star power and more because of disciplined spacing that reliably forces tough shots (Sydney was first for opposition expected score per shot in its two recent Grand Final years, third in 2025, and fifth in 2023). Tom McCartin, Lewis Melican and new recruit Jai Serong (a sneaky good trade) will make a reliable if unglamorous trio. Sam Wicks and Matt Roberts are more defensive options, while captain Callum Mills organises structure and ball movement from half-back. Nick Blakey gets to do the really fun stuff; he has licence to move up the field and even carry through the corridor. Much of Sydney’s ability to speed up its chains runs through The Lizard.

There isn’t much we don’t know about the midfield by now. Rowbottom tackles, Jordon tags, Warner weaves, Gulden kicks, and Heeney does a bit of everything. It’s versatile and dangerous, although the very best opposition midfields can exploit its relative lack of size and its division of duties; the defensive midfielders offer little attacking threat while the stars don’t do a heap of defensive running. I’m interested to see how Angus Sheldrick fits. The West Australian, taken with Pick 18 in the 2021 draft, didn’t play a single AFL game in 2024 but injuries ahead of him allowed him to establish himself as part of the on-ball rotation in 2025. At the very least, he will improve the depth of the Swans’ midfield.

The addition of two new players, both of whom are different archetypes to what Sydney had before, will significantly change the look and threat of the Swans’ forward line. I’ve written about Curnow already and will write more about him further down. The fit with Logan McDonald will be important. I think the best way to make it work is for McDonald to play the role of a deluxe Eric Hipwood: kick his share, contest, block, run, and create space for the alpha. The addition of Malcolm Rosas Jr. could provide Sydney with a ground-ball danger they lacked last season. The idea of deploying Papley slightly higher up the ground to replace some of Will Hayward’s forward-half connection, while leaving Rosas closer to goal, makes sense to me. Joel Amartey and Hayden McLean will duke it out for minutes, while Braeden Campbell will continue on a half-forward flank alongside whichever one of Isaac Heeney or Chad Warner isn’t on ball.

The Swans haven’t rebuilt. They didn’t need to. They’ve rebalanced, keeping the spine intact while sharpening the forward line for a tilt right now.

Line rankings

Defence: Above Average

Midfield: Elite

Forward: Above Average

Ruck: Above Average

The case for optimism

The human tendency to overextrapolate recent trends means there are lots of people who’ve forgotten how good the Swans are when the list is healthy. Sydney was the second-best team in the AFL in 2024 and the best for most of it. Since then, they’ve effectively swapped Will Hayward and Ollie Florent for Charlie Curnow, Malcolm Rosas, and Jai Serong (I’m ignoring the minimal list changes after the 2024 season). The three new arrivals will make the Swans better in ways that really matter – stability down back and potency up forward. Adding Charlie Curnow and a dangerous small forward to a side that made the Grand Final just two seasons ago is a good place to start from.

Another reason for optimism is that 2025 functioned as a live audit of Sydney’s depth. Injuries to key players – Gulden, McDonald, Mills, and Papley all missed heaps of footy – didn’t just remove star power; they forced role players into structural responsibility. Angus Sheldrick went from not playing a senior game in 2024 to playing all but three in 2025, including significant midfield stints. He’ll be better for the experience. Braeden Campbell took a step. Riley Bice proved he can hang at AFL level. It was a tough season – but one that also provided the Swans coaches with important information about who can hold under pressure. When the A-graders returned late in the season, they plugged back into a group that had been stress-tested by their absence.

Swans fans should be optimistic for reasons that go beyond the quality of new personnel and availability of old. As I wrote in the Summary of Game Style section, Sydney’s statistical profile late in the season once their stars returned suggests that Cox is approaching the problem of fixing his side’s fragile defensive profile the right way: more front-half footy, more time in possession, and a defensive structure that more effectively neutralises threat. Based on 2024, the Swans don’t need to become something new. They just need to become incrementally harder to score against when momentum swings against them.

Cox said he learnt a lot from his first season as an AFL head coach. Part of why he did, beyond the pressure of the position and the challenge of being without so many important players, is that he had one of the smallest coaching groups in the AFL. Despite Sydney’s reputation as one of the most organisationally stable clubs in the AFL, it looked a slightly puzzling decision even then. In 2026, he’ll be armed with the experience of a bruising first season – and he’ll be surrounded by more people to bounce ideas off. Melbourne Premiership coach Simon Goodwin has joined Sydney as Director of Coaching, and former Sydney player and VFL coach Jeremy Laidler will return as an assistant after three years behind enemy lines at the Giants.

Put it all together and the case is straightforward. Instead of looking for a new identity, the Swans are trying to sharpen one that took them to the last Saturday in September just two years ago. If they are healthier in 2026 – and a bit tougher to score against – they should return to what they consider to be their rightful place at the pointy end. The Swans are in Win Now mode. That’s exciting.

The case for pessimism

Trading three first round picks in three consecutive drafts to land Charlie Curnow is a clear declaration that Sydney believes it can Win Now. That’s exciting. It’s also scary – because it leaves little margin for error. If 2026 does not yield genuine contention, the only realistic asset replenishment lever they can pull is the one marked “Chad Warner to West Coast”. Losses matter more when you’ve already spent the future. Consolidating assets into a superstar key forward is also inherently risky, particularly one whose health has been capricious and whose commitment has – at times – been less than absolute. On paper, Curnow transforms Sydney’s forward line. He also concentrates structural responsibility into a role that’s already highly sensitive to variance. An unhealthy dependency on Charlie undermined one club’s flag ambitions. Sydney’s list is more coherent than Carlton’s was; its style more conducive to coaxing forth his immense talent. But there aren’t many silver bullets in footy.

There is also the question of whether the defensive improvements I noted late in 2025 represent a real change or statistical fluke. The numbers noticeably improved once key personnel returned, and the emphasis on front-half control makes sense. But late-season samples can flatter. The Swans played some good sides in their final 10 games of 2025. They also played Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, Essendon, and West Coast. Sydney’s defensive vulnerabilities are rarely exposed against those sides – they’re exposed against the best ball movement teams. Much sterner tests await.

Then there is the standard of opposition. Footy does not stand still. Sydney will be better in 2026 than last season. But so will other sides – including the one that just won a second straight flag. Several younger sides are entering their athletic peak and doubling down on volatility at the same time Sydney appears to be leaning more in the direction of control. As Brisbane has shown, you can win by zagging while other teams zig – if you’re good enough. The Swans should be very good. But in a league this tight, very good can still mean fourth.

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Breakout player

Angus Sheldrick is probably the rational candidate here, given the way injuries created room to establish himself in the senior side last year. Jesse Dattoli is a romantic choice (he was one of my favourite prospects in the 2024 draft pool). But I think the most compelling candidate is Malcolm Rosas Jr. The evidence from pre-season is that Charlie Curnow won’t be the only new addition to the Swans’ forward line that could significantly augment the threat it poses opposition defences. It’s early, but he – in combination with a fit-again Tom Papley – could give the Swans a genuine ground level threat they’ve not had for some time.

Most important player

Isaac Heeney is still Sydney’s best player, but last season convinced me that Errol Gulden is its most important because of how he knits everything together. He’s both very good and very unique: a hybrid wing/outside midfielder who will often be the first to bite off the inboard kick that accesses the corridor and then run hard for a follow-up handball to be the one delivering inside 50. His fitness and connection with Curnow – it could be the most devastating one-two punch in footy – will go a long way to determining Sydney’s ceiling in 2026.

Biggest question to answer

Theoretically, it all makes sense: take the side that was the best team in footy for most of 2024, add Charlie Curnow, a dangerous small forward, more defensive solidity, and greater support for a young coach, and you should have a contender. The question – given the expectations those additions create – is how good will the end result look on grass?

What success looks like

It’s rare that a side which missed finals in one season that – the health of key players permitting – has no excuse to miss out again. But that’s Sydney’s situation. The elite talent is there. The role players are there. The system that has yielded success should be there. The top half of the ladder was mightily congested last season. But a Swans side operating anywhere near its theoretical maximum in 2026 should be better than several of the teams which finished above them in 2025. Sydney doesn’t need to finish in the top four. But it should believe it can. And it should aim to win at least one final.

In a nutshell

Fortified by the arrival of Charlie Curnow (and Malcolm Rosas Jr.) to the Harbour City, the Swans should be unrecognisable from the side that began 2025 and materially stronger than the one which ended it with eight wins from 11 games. This is not a list building toward something. It is a strong list in its prime.

2025 ladder position: 12th (9 wins, 14 losses)

2025 best-and-fairest: Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera

Senior coach: Ross Lyon

Story of the season

The start and the very end were good – the middle, not so much. The Saints brushed off an opening 10-goal loss to an Adelaide side that ended up being better than anyone expected by winning their next three, including their now-customary defeat of Geelong at Marvel Stadium. But their oddly large gap between ceiling and floor was demonstrated by a run of six defeats in seven which included West Coast’s only win of 2025 and was only broken by an incredible 10-goal win against Fremantle. As it soon became clear that the Saints wouldn’t be taking part in September, the footy faded into the background, replaced by the most momentous off-field storyline of the season: the future of Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera. The stakes were raised with every headline performance. Even a frankly bonkers fourth-quarter comeback against Melbourne in Round 20 was partly overshadowed by the young superstar’s decidedly non-committal responses about his future after the final siren.

I’ll be honest – I thought he was a goner. That would have been a devastating blow for the Saints, a club that’s only made finals twice since 2011, and strong evidence for the theory that the AFL’s equalisation mechanisms are breaking down. Which made it a very welcome surprise, when, on August 17th, Cal Twomey announced that Wanganeen-Milera had rebuffed intense interest from both South Australian clubs to extend with St Kilda until the end of 2027. Inspired by the clear message of Wanganeen-Milera’s choice to only re-sign for two years – give me a good supporting cast – the Saints were extremely aggressive during the Trade Period. Tom De Koning, Sam Flanders, Liam Ryan, and Jack Silvagni will all wear red, black, and white in 2026. Most importantly, so will Nas.

Summary of game style

Ross Lyon continues to coach his sides to play according to a stable set of maxims: reduce volatility and manage risk. In 2025, the Saints again ranked prominently for key metrics of control-oriented football such as kick share (4th), marks (4th), disposal retention (4th), and expected retention per kick (2nd). Their ball movement was built around structured kick-mark chains rather than handball surge or early corridor access. Progress was incremental and frequently funnelled toward the boundary, with the flanks functioning as both attacking lanes and defensive buffers.

Lyon understands that turnovers are unavoidable but believes their impact can be neutralised. St Kilda’s games consistently feature fewer aggregate turnovers than those of most other sides, reflecting a deliberate effort to confine possession changes to compressed, low-risk zones. If you’ve ever felt like watching the Saints under Lyon is like watching a basketball game (but slower), then you’re onto something. Defensively, the Saints prioritise structure over pressing. They are content to sit deep, absorb pressure, and trust their zone to funnel opposition possession into low-value areas. Maintaining defensive shape is often preferred to actively hunting turnovers.

This comfort with conceding territory and defending deep helps explain St Kilda’s distinctive attacking profile. At their best, the Saints are a strong back-half scoring side, capable of turning controlled defence into prepared counterattack. In 2025, only Greater Western Sydney generated a higher share of its scoring (and only just) from back-half chains. Strong structure and selective aggression combine to produce an offence that’s low-volume but relatively efficient. Just four teams generated fewer inside-50s than the Saints in 2025, but once inside, the Saints created shots as often as Brisbane. The central question, given their aggressive off-season recruitment and rising expectations, is how Lyon now incorporates greater risk without undermining the defensive base.

The clearest pathway to offensive improvement runs through Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera. His speed, evasiveness, and willingness to carry the ball to draw opponents out of position provide St Kilda with a genuine line-breaking outlet inside an otherwise conservative system. If chains are moulded to his unique strengths, Nick Daicos-style, then he can help the Saints improve their ability to selectively access the corridor – the model’s current missing link. Tom De Koning’s clearance strength, meanwhile, should enable the Saints to begin more chains closer to goal rather than in their back half. Behind the ball, Jack Silvagni, alongside Cal Wilkie, adds intercept capacity without sacrificing structural discipline. At the other end, Liam Ryan will introduce volatility in forward areas where Lyon-coached sides have tended to struggle to create it.

All told, these pieces point toward evolution rather than reinvention. Lyon isn’t dogmatic, but he has his principles. He’s unlikely to abandon control and risk mitigation as the bedrock of his footy. Instead, his improved personnel could allow him to preserve the foundations of his system while giving specific players permission – in specific moments – to break it. The potential rewards are there. So are the risks.

List changes

In: 

• Sam Flanders (trade – Gold Coast)

• Liam Ryan (trade – West Coast)

• Tom De Koning (free agent – Carlton)

• Jack Silvagni (free agent – Carlton)

• Charlie Banfield (2025 National Draft, Pick #41)

• Kye Fincher (2025 National Draft, Pick #52 – NGA)

• Kobe McDonald (Category B rookie)

Out:

• Jack Steele (trade – Melbourne)

• Max Heath (trade – Melbourne)

• Harry Boyd (delisted)

• Zaine Cordy (delisted)

• Zak Jones (delisted)

• Angus McLennan (delisted)

• Arie Schoenmaker (delisted)

• Jimmy Webster (retired)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: eight (T-6th)

Average age at Opening Round: 24.5 (10th)

Average number of games played: 76.2 (8th)

St Kilda’s choice to compress its contention timeline by pivoting from the draft towards the aggressive pursuit of mid-career players will have immediate ramifications for all three lines. The logical second-order consequence is that the Saints, by rising up the ladder as soon as this season, are de-emphasising the importance of future drafts to its list construction. That raises the stakes – not just for the new recruits, but for the players they’ve drafted since 2021.

This being a Ross Lyon-coached side, St Kilda’s backline is the most resilient part of the team. Callum Wilkie is the defensive general. While one cannot fault Anthony Caminiti’s endeavour, the size he often gave up to opposition forwards forced Wilkie to man the opposition’s biggest forward while also minding the second tall. Dougal Howard is big enough, but I’m not sure his body can be trusted enough. The addition of Jack Silvagni will help. Although he’s listed as a couple of centimetres shorter than Caminiti, he’s a bigger body and a better natural interceptor. The solidity of a Wilkie-Silvagni pairing should give Lyon greater tactical flexibility. A plausible response would be to continue to tolerate contests inside defensive 50, trusting the duo’s ability to repel opposition entries. A more audacious one would be to give other defenders more license to disrupt opposition chains higher up the ground. Unless Alix Tauru is sent down back as a roaming interceptor, Caminiti is likely to continue to feature. The question of which players will be responsible for drive from the back half will – like so many questions about the Saints in 2026 – be dominated by where Wanganeen-Milera plays most of his footy. To put my cards on the table: I am adamantly pro-midfield Nas, even if it means he isn’t the first link in the rebound chain. Jack Sinclair is an excellent half-back, and it’s time to see what Tobie Travaglia can do alongside him.

If we assume that Wanganeen-Milera will be a midfielder in 2026, as he was for the final seven games of last season, that transforms the nature and severity of the threat that the Saints’ midfield will present to opposition teams. Despite not possessing the frame for repeat hard-ball contests, Wanganeen-Milera is a superb ground-level player and a constant protagonist. The appeal of him getting the ball closer to opposition goals is too tempting to resist. The Saints’ choice to trade captain Jack Steele to Melbourne for spare change opens up an engine room vacancy that one assumes will be filled by Sam Flanders. Something like a Macrae/Flanders/Wanganeen-Milera/Windhager core rotation, with players like Sinclair, Hugh Boxshall, and Hugo Garcia (and Max Hall, please, Ross!) getting some reps, looks like a much more multi-dimensional midfield unit than the bland groups of years past. I’ve not mentioned Mattaes Phillipou’s name yet. The talented but luckless South Australian attended only seven centre bounces last season, in St Kilda’s desperate and unsuccessful attempt to avoid defeat to West Coast. He is the archetypal big-bodied midfielder who can drift forward and kick goals. His determination to wring every ounce of his talent out of himself (and his teammates) is absolute. If his body can withstand it, he needs to play in the midfield. The Saints’ midfield looks better this season. But given the current composition of the list, and the fact the club has signalled that it’s done with drafting (for the time being), it needs Phillipou to step up if it’s to become great. Darcy Wilson, Brad Hill, and Mason Wood will likely start on the wings, but expect names like Travaglia, Hall, and – if he ever gets his body right – Liam Henry to roll through at different times.

There is a big question mark, in the exact shape of Max King, hovering over the St Kilda forward line. Without him, the Saints will be too dependent on either creating separation (possible against bad sides, very hard against good ones) or bringing the ball to ground for small forwards like Jack Higgins and Lance Collard (I guess?) who can actually hit the scoreboard. With him, they offer a genuine aerial threat that makes opposition key defenders think twice before peeling off, and creates a beneficial concertina effect where players like Mitch Owens, Alix Tauru, and Cooper Sharman can take lesser defenders. King’s availability will determine how potent the Saints can be in 2026. Tauru is an interesting wildcard. His athleticism and lust for the contest will make him a handful no matter where he plays, but I think the priority should always be to see what such a maverick talent can do in the forward line.

Even if I’m aware that’s what it took to prise him out of Western Australia, I’m sceptical of the decision to award Liam Ryan a three-year contract. However, the fit makes theoretical sense. At his best, Ryan provides a hybrid aerial/ground-level threat that should complement both the Saints’ talls and their smalls. I’m just worried he’s no longer at his best. And then there’s Rowan Marshall. He remains a good ruck, but has historically offered little as a forward – as, to this point, has Tom De Koning. Playing both is tempting against sides that rely on clearance wins, but it only works if one of them can genuinely threaten inside 50. If De Koning is the long-term number one, Marshall risks becoming an awkward fit in a forward line that already hinges on Max King’s health. For now, he looks less like a focal point and more like a talented spare part.

Line rankings

Defence: Above Average

Midfield: Above Average

Forward: Average* (a fit Max King could make it Above Average)

Ruck: Above Average

The case for optimism

I wrote about St Kilda’s decision to crowbar their contention window open back in October. There’s a section, which I’ll quote here, that underpins why I think Saints fans should feel more optimistic about 2026 than at any point in the past few seasons:

The Saints aren’t content with living and dying meekly anymore. In the recent trade period, and the months preceding it, they’ve chosen a different approach, one which sharply diverges from the one they’ve pursued since 2021, and indeed one that’s rarely associated with the club: audacity. It’s a challenge to conventional wisdom of how to build a competitive AFL list. It’s recognition of the narrow path the club must walk to find success. And it’s a demonstration of the extent to which one player will define their prospects for the rest of the decade.

There are two overlapping reasons for optimism contained in that paragraph. The first is that the Saints have rejected the default script offered to clubs in their position – draft patiently, hope the kids are good, hope they stay, and hope the timing lines up before gravity drags you back down the ladder. That model may still work for some. But for clubs without access to Academy windfalls or generational father-son pipelines, it is becoming harder to treat it as the only responsible path. But rather than sitting around lamenting their lot, the Saints are looking to do something about it. In addition to their daring strategic pivot, they’re getting Moorabbin up to scratch, fielding a standalone VFL team, experimenting with Irish talent, and publicly inviting the pressure of expectations. Whether their model will work remains to be seen. But until we know, supporters should feel encouraged that their club is being proactive rather than passive about its place in the hierarchy. They’re actually trying to win.

The AFL derives much of its legitimacy from the idea that club that make enough smart decisions, compounded over sufficiently long timelines, will find success. If that bargain is eroding, someone has to test a different one. The Saints believe the traditional pathway was unlikely to deliver what they needed – so they’re doing something different. That, at minimum, is preferable to drift.

The second cause for optimism is simpler: Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera stayed. Only for two years, mind – the circus will return soon enough – but his decision removes the weekly anxiety that hovered over last season. He will be a Saint for at least the next two years, and the message implicit in the length of that deal – show me progress – has already jolted the club into action.

Buying short-term wins can feel out of step with an era increasingly influenced by modelling and age-curve analysis. But analytics offers no clean solution to the problem of retaining a club-defining superstar while remaining competitive. Keeping Wanganeen-Milera doesn’t guarantee a flag. But losing him effectively guarantees the Saints won’t win one. In that context, going all in is the better move. And look, say what you like about buying short-term wins, but winning is fun. If, as they should, the Saints win more than nine games and play meaningful football in September, that alone represents progress. Momentum matters. It sustains belief inside the club and connection outside it. Good eras are preceded by good vibes.

The case for pessimism

Much of the optimism above is independent of on-field performance and instead rests on the psychic dividend of St Kilda’s choice to walk a different path. But ultimately, the success of the club’s strategic pivot will be judged by two closely related metrics: winning enough games, and retaining Wanganeen-Milera. I’m sceptical about the first – which makes me uneasy about the second.

The Saints should improve in 2026. But there is a fair way to go to catch the good teams, and a long way to match the best. St Kilda finished 12th on the ladder and 13th for expected wins. It wasn’t a small gap to the team ahead of them, either – they were 2.4 expected wins behind Carlton. Improvement is possible, of course. And there is usually significant variation from season to season. Adelaide’s surge from 15th to minor premiers will be cited all year as proof of that. But those rises are exceptions more than they are the norm.

The real risk is misalignment. After such an aggressive off-season, the expectations of supporters and, more importantly, of Wanganeen-Milera may outpace what this list can realistically deliver. If the threshold required to persuade Wanganeen-Milera to extend beyond 2027 is higher than what the Saints can achieve in the short term, the gamble becomes dangerous. Striving for the top and not making it is the worst place to be in professional sport – doubly so if it costs you your superstar. That’s how you end up with a list full of good second-tier AFL players but light on the stars needed to truly compete. Shooting for the moon is all well and good. I’ve lauded the Saints’ approach. But let’s not pretend it doesn’t increase the chances of ending up underwater.

Which brings us to Max King. Ross Lyon revealed this week that King’s calf injury is likely to sideline him for five to six weeks; an unfortunate revision of an earlier two-to-three-week timeline. King hasn’t played AFL since 2024. He has played 23 games across the past three seasons. He is a good forward. Given the timeline that the Saints have now committed themselves to, I don’t think the project works without him rediscovering fitness and the form that saw him kick 52 goals in 2022.

Audacity raises ceilings. It also raises stakes. If the Saints surge, clubs in their position will have a new model of how to compete. If they stall, the consequences will be sharper than they would have been under a slower build.

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Breakout player

Max Hall’s form last season probably disqualifies him, but I’d like to mention him anyway. Hall suffered separate ACL injuries when he was 15 and 16, didn’t get drafted, and plugged away at Box Hill until St Kilda selected him with its first pick in the 2024 Mid-season Draft. Last season, he almost immediately became one of the Saints’ best players. It’s a lovely story. Ross – if you’re reading this – please give him some midfield reps! If Hall has indeed already broken out, then I’ll instead nominate Alix Tauru. The maverick key position player with the big leap and shock of blond hair – no, I’m not calling him “The Flying Viking” – displayed a golden retriever-like energy across his 10 games last season. If he can harness his exuberance and become a little more disciplined, he is likely to become a handful at either end of the ground.

Most important player

Sometimes this question does not have an obvious answer. This is not one of those times. Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is St Kilda’s most important player because he is the club’s best player, its biggest recruitment asset, its biggest commercial asset, and genuinely load-bearing for its near-term future. No pressure, Nas!

Biggest question to answer

Beyond “what is the threshold level of success given last season’s aggressive recruitment?”, the questions that will likely define St Kilda’s 2026 season are: 1) how will Ross Lyon accommodate new players that enhance his side’s intercepting, clearance-winning, and finishing capabilities while preserving defensive integrity; and 2) is it medically feasible to transplant a healthy person’s legs onto Max King’s body?

What success looks like

The Saints’ last two seasons have effectively been over in June, leading to dull Sunday afternoon games played in front of half-empty Marvel stadium crowds. That can’t happen again. Playing finals must be the benchmark – and I don’t mean making the Wildcard Round. I mean making at least an Elimination Final. The Saints have a core of players, a supernova in the form of Wanganeen-Milera, and a canny old coach. Go and get it.

In a nutshell

The Saints have chosen to reject the default script – the one which says that, in footy, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. I’m not sure it’ll be enough to suddenly take them from mediocrity to contention. But, for the sake of the competitive integrity of the game, I hope it does. We probably all should.

2025 ladder position: 17th (5 wins, 18 losses)

2025 best-and-fairest: Tim Taranto

Senior coach: Adem Yze

Story of the season

Anxieties about the early progress of the most ambitious rebuild in Richmond’s recent history were put to bed 32 minutes and 53 seconds into the last quarter of Round 1 when Seth Campbell outran Lachie Cowan to kick the match-sealing goal and, in an expression of spontaneous joy, celebrated with a backflip. Winless season? Tell ‘em they’re dreaming. In truth, the anxieties of all but the most neurotic Tigers fans had been allayed well before then. Their side roared back from a 41-point deficit midway through the second quarter, led by their grizzled veterans and impetuous kids. Sam Lalor, the number one draft pick, was the fourth highest-rated player on the ground on debut. They were strong, they were bold, and they fought until they won.

The wins were infrequent but special. The Tigers’ second, a month after their first, was special because it was against Damien Hardwick’s Gold Coast – at Marvel, no less. The third win, against West Coast, was special because it was sealed by Tom Brown’s heroic rundown tackle. The fourth was special because it was against Essendon and also possibly the worst game of footy ever played. There were some close losses along the way, too, but I doubt many supporters cared. The season was a success. The kids are alright. And four more highly-touted ones were welcomed to Tigerland during the draft.

Summary of game style

After Richmond’s 2024 season was wrecked by injuries, Adem Yze’s priority in 2025 was tactical, psychological, and physical stability. So he opted for caution. Ball movement slowed. Kicks were sent down the line instead of through traffic. Retention was improved and unnecessary contests were avoided. The underlying logic was simple: minimise a young list’s exposure to danger while embedding good habits that could scale later. It probably isn’t the final form of the Yze game model; just a provisional version until the talent catches up.

That conservatism was, in part, motivated by a desire for preservation. A physically developing side asked to play high-speed, contest-heavy football can break down. Seen this way, slowing the game and favouring controlled possession over chaotic pressure was also a form of on-field conditioning management, allowing young bodies to mature without being constantly pushed beyond their limits. Yze placed significant on-field responsibility on veterans – Nick Vlastuin, Nathan Broad, Tim Taranto, Kamdyn McIntosh, and Tom Lynch – who became the system’s on-field lieutenants. Much of Richmond’s play flowed through their decision making: steady exits, conservative switches, and low-risk territory gains designed to keep the team organised behind the ball. At the same time, Yze did not insulate his younger players from responsibility. Luke Trainor, Sam Lalor, and Jonty Faull were entrusted with important roles rather than protected cameos. The trade-off was inconsistency, but the intention was clear: learn the boring system stuff first, do the fun expression stuff later.

Richmond’s statistical profile reflected Yze’s desire for stability. Knowing they would rarely enjoy a territory advantage, the Tigers were happy to drop deep defensively (they were #2 in the AFL for defensive one-on-ones), trusting in the quality of experienced personnel like Nick Vlastuin and Nathan Broad. Those defensive numbers enabled them to become more reliable exiting defensive 50 and more disciplined in their spacing, even if it meant they were frequently toothless up forward. Time in forward half stagnated, forward-50 groundball control collapsed, and shot quality fell to league-worst levels. Some of that was simple: their forward line was physically overmatched. Some of it was the product of deliberate decisions made upfield.

For a decade, Richmond’s identity had been built on chaos, surge, and forward-half violence: win, swarm, overwhelm. Yze has almost completely dismantled that model and, in its place, built a system that – at least for now – favours discipline, structure, and repeatability. It’s possible that more layers will be added as his young team grows and gains confidence. But in 2025, the aim was to generate stability and reduce variance. The result was a side that became both harder to score against and easier to stop.

List changes

In: 

• Sam Cumming (2025 National Draft, Pick #7)

• Samuel Grlj (2025 National Draft, Pick #8)

• Zane Peucker (2025 National Draft, Pick #31)

• Noah Roberts-Thomson (2025 National Draft, Pick #54)

• Patrick Retschko (trade – Geelong)

Out:

• Kamdyn McIntosh (delisted)

• Jacob Bauer (delisted)

• Jacob Blight (delisted)

• Mate Colina (delisted)

• Thomson Dow (delisted)

• Jacob Koschitzke (delisted)

• Tylar Young (trade – West Coast)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: nine (T-3rd)

Average age at Opening Round: 24 (16th)

Average number of games played: 58.7 (17th)

Richmond’s recruiters are trying to win my allegiance by drafting South Australians. Nice try, but it won’t work – Sam Cumming technically isn’t even South Australian. He is, however, a talented mid/forward who excelled at senior SANFL level last season. Given his attributes, Richmond’s choice to draft him, when they already have players like Sam Lalor and Taj Hotton on their list, was an interesting one. The Tigers already have inside-leaning midfielders like Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper on their list, but they’re unlikely to be around when the side is next in contention. The fact Richmond has largely stayed away from such types in its recent drafting – the club’s recruiters could have picked Dyson Sharp but chose not to – suggests they believe the extractor-type inside midfielder might be going out of style.

Instead, Richmond’s four selections in the 2025 draft showed a clear preference for dynamic physical attributes. What Sam Grlj lacks in vowels he makes up for in speed and explosiveness. Considered possibly the best athlete in last year’s draft pool, he again provides a signal of how Yze might add layers to his side’s game plan in coming years. Zane Peucker, who played alongside Cumming for South Australia at last year’s U-18 National Championships, is another mid/forward hybrid who models his game on Brisbane’s Zac Bailey. Noah Roberts-Thomson – another South Australian, and cousin of former Swans cult hero Lewis – is a similar type who fared well at SANFL U-18 level for Sturt.

The delisting of Jacob Blight and Tylar Young’s trade to West Coast indicate that Richmond’s first-choice tall defenders in 2026 will be Ben Miller, Josh Gibcus (who deserves a good run at it), and Noah Balta. No other bottom-four side will boast such a talented and balanced trio. The mediums aren’t bad, either. Nick Vlastuin remains one of the game’s best interceptors and his excellent 2025 season was rewarded (inadequately, according to most Tigers supporters) with a selection in the extended All-Australian squad. His experience and anticipation will make him an ideal mentor for young colleagues still learning their craft. One of those youngsters is Luke Trainor, the 21st pick from the 2024 draft who immediately looked at home at AFL level, even spending time on the wing and as a marking forward. Jayden Short, Tom Brown, and Sam Banks share responsibility for initiating Richmond’s exits from defensive 50.

Richmond’s midfield is precisely the work in progress you’d expect from a side still trying to climb its way out of a deep hole. Fitness permitting, there are three non-negotiables: Toby Nankervis, Tim Taranto, and Jacob Hopper, who last season finally shrugged off the soft tissue injuries that had disrupted his first two years at Tigerland. These three will provide the physical support for what will otherwise be a very young engine room. Expect Jack Ross and Dion Prestia – when fit, which isn’t always – to also feature regularly, but Yze will want to find the right balance between competitiveness and giving the next generation meaningful reps. All being well, Sam Lalor will see his centre bounce attendances dialled up this season. The footy world knew about the 2024 number one pick’s power and athleticism, but I’m not sure they knew about his composure and touch – I definitely didn’t. Hopefully we’ll get to see Josh Smillie sooner rather than later. Complex muscle injuries restricted the big-bodied midfielder, taken five picks after Lalor in 2024, to just four VFL appearances in his debut season. Given he and Lalor are a year ahead in their physical development, you’d expect them to get precedence over Grlj and Cumming for midfield minutes. The marquee 2025 draftees, who’ve reportedly impressed in pre-season, will probably begin AFL life on a wing or a half-forward flank.

Tom Lynch signing a one-year contract extension last August means he’s set to continue as Richmond’s full-forward this season. His performance – and whether he is offered another deal – will be judged as much by his contribution to the improvement of the Tigers’ young key forwards as it by his own output. The growth of those forwards, especially Jonty Faull and Harry Armstrong, will go a fair way to determining Richmond’s prospects in 2026 and beyond. They’re two distinct types: Faull loves to crash packs and bring it to ground inside 50, while Armstrong looks more comfortable on the lead (while still being capable of a contested grab). Key position players are probably the toughest part of the rebuild to nail, partly because – due to the physical development required – it can take longer to learn if you’ve found your guy or not.

Several key forwards on Richmond’s list will be vying for minutes. Liam Fawcett might not be as exciting a prospect as Faull or Armstrong, but he’s spent a year longer in the gym. Tom Sims, a forward who can also ruck, played 11 AFL games in his debut season and looked pretty good in the process. Mykelti Lefau, meanwhile, will be eager to get back to footy after a horror run with injuries and a pre-season drink driving indiscretion. Talls need smalls. Richmond’s main two are Seth Campbell and Maurice Rioli. Just like Faull and Armstrong, they’re quite different. Rioli has developed into a pressure machine who makes opposition defenders nervous. Campbell, meanwhile, belied his draft position – Pick #12 in the 2022 Rookie Draft! – with the sort of clean gathers and smart finishing you’d expect from a top-10 pick. He’s not a typical small. Much like Zac Bailey, he’s a good player who happens to be small. After those two, the picture is less clear. Taj Hotton would have played every game if not for the recent discovery of bone stress in his hip that’ll keep him sidelined for as long as four months. Yze may persist with the likes of Rhyan Mansell and Steely Green, or he might decide their roles are better filled by recent high draft picks who aren’t yet ready for the midfield (i.e. Grlj and Cumming). This is an example of the decision Yze will be making across different parts of the ground: how quickly to blood elite talent over more workmanlike senior players, and the costs and benefits of each approach.

Line rankings

Defence: Average

Midfield: Below Average

Forward: Below Average

Ruck: Above Average

The case for optimism

The kids look good! Most have already shown precisely the small signs of talent and composure you want from young players just starting out: clever handballs out of congestion, smart positioning, diagonal kicks when the bail-out down-the-line option was there, little taps to advantage. Lalor, in particular, has shown enough skill and composure – to go with his athleticism – to persuade Tigers fans that the club made the right choice calling his name out with Pick 1. But it’s not only him. Taj Hotton’s burst and front-half instincts translate at AFL tempo. Luke Trainor has composure that belies his age. Harry Armstrong and Seth Campbell have shown they can impact games in meaningful moments rather than merely accumulate developmental reps.

Only the most physically prodigious 18- and 19-year-olds can consistently compete in contests with mature AFL players. The real separator is whether their brains can process events quickly enough in the heat of battle. On that front, Richmond’s young core has mostly passed early tests. Smillie and Faull (the former because of injury) are probably the only two whose debut seasons weren’t a clear tick. Lalor, Trainor, Hotton, Armstrong, Gibcus, Campbell – it’s an exciting group, and more importantly, one that will gain experience together. And that’s not even mentioning the 2025 crop, or the high draft picks still to come.

Richmond’s progress up the ladder will probably plateau slightly as the older players who are still contributing – Nick Vlastuin, Tom Lynch, Dion Prestia, Nathan Broad, Toby Nankervis – age out. But I think Adem Yze and his coaches have made the right bet: the value of the experience those senior players bequeath to the next generation will, in the long run, be worth the short-term cost. That experience ranges from professional standards and emotional regulation to micro-habits like defensive positioning and leading craft. Mentorship, especially when you can trust the players doing the mentoring, is a performance multiplier. As North Melbourne and other clubs have shown, even elite talent can languish in non-elite environments. There was a risk of cutting too deep, or not deep enough, when Richmond embarked on its rebuild. The early evidence – and it is still very early – is that they’ve got the balance about right.

The case for pessimism

The biggest risk for the Tigers across the next couple of seasons is that lots of small, individually manageable problems begin to snowball. It starts with the list structure. For now, on-field performance is underpinned by a dependable but ageing core. But that scaffolding won’t last forever. When players like Toby Nankervis and Nick Vlastuin decline or depart, real questions will emerge. Who becomes the next number one ruck? Where does the next layer of inside and contested strength come from? Can the next generation of tall forwards reproduce Lynch’s gravity? None of these are fatal flaws. Much of the heavy lifting in this rebuild has already been done. But the basic question of “how many positions do we know we’ve nailed” lingers over every rebuild and haunts those that don’t pan out. Premium roles are the hardest to replace, and succession planning is where many otherwise sound regenerations falter. It’s possible that, in players like Sims, Trainor, Lalor, Smillie, and Faull, the Tigers already have replacements for those veterans on the list. But I don’t think we know that for certain just yet.

The statistical reality is that, as promising as most of the young crop has been so far, and the emotional investment supporters make in draftees, they won’t all make it – at least not at Richmond. Even in the maximally optimistic scenario, there probably won’t be room for them all in the side. Faull, Armstrong, and Sims is probably too top-heavy for the way footy is played these days (or will be in 2030) to work as a coherent trio. Could Lalor, Smillie, Cumming, Hotton and Grlj all play in the same midfield? Probably, but that doesn’t take into account the player, or players, that Richmond will draft with (presumably) high picks in 2026 and 2027. Good players who don’t play as often as they’d like, or don’t play the role they want most, can ask for trades. There’s uncertainty, and uncertainty creates risk. Rebuilds that look great in year one can still peter out.

The high priority of learning more about the young Tigers is why the injuries to Hotton and Smillie are so disappointing. Development is not linear, but it is cumulative. Missed pre-seasons and fragmented early years don’t just delay the progress of individual players. They can disrupt chemistry, role clarity, and confidence – all essential ingredients for shared success. For a list that is relying on several young midfielders improving together, even modest setbacks can hurt down the line.

Layered over all of this is the simplest risk of all: losing. Richmond probably over-performed in 2025 relative to its list profile. Regression, measured strictly by win-loss record, is possible in 2026. And young teams that spend too long on the bottom rungs of the ladder can begin to normalise narrow losses and honourable defeats. You don’t have to go far – you can find good examples if you look back far enough at Punt Road. Things should be different this time around. This is an environment shaped by success. People affiliated with the Tigers know what it takes to win. But even good environments are tested by disappointment. And from the most fundamental perspective of all – that of supporters – losing (which is what Richmond will be doing in most of its games this season) isn’t as fun as winning, even when losses are leavened by the memories of recent glory and the hope of glories to come.

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Breakout player

I was about to write a paragraph about why Taj Hotton could announce himself as the most exciting of all of Richmond’s recent first-round draftees when I saw the news that a diagnosis of bone stress in his hip will rule him out for as long as four months. It’s a massive blow for a player who already missed most of his debut season recovering from an ACL injury sustained during his draft year and a blow for footy lovers. That makes Sam Lalor the obvious candidate. He showed plenty last season. But a series of hamstring injuries limited him to only 11 games. If he properly breaks out, Richmond’s rebuild timeline compresses.

Most important player

Answering this requires taking a definitive position on the importance of contributing to wins this season versus contributing to wins when Richmond will really need them further down the track. Tom Lynch will be important in 2026 but not in 2030. But Toby Nankervis will be so important to Richmond’s ability to stay in games this season that he’s probably the natural candidate. Nankervis doesn’t just help keep them in games – he protects development by preventing games from becoming chaotic blowouts. The Tigers have drafted elite young talent across most lines. They don’t yet have an obvious replacement for their big ruck.

Biggest question to answer

Throughout this preview, I’ve alluded to a slight contradiction between the structured, rather safe game plan Yze and a list that is replete with dynamic (albeit young) athletes. The question arising from that contradiction is how soon will Yze seek to add attacking layers to Richmond’s game that maximise the talents of those dynamic young players. How can he engineer more one-on-one contests for Lalor to win? How can he use Faull’s contested acumen to create ground-ball opportunities for Seth Campbell and, when he returns, Taj Hotton? How can Trainor’s natural intercepting ability be best utilised? And, crucially, how can those layers be added in a way that promotes not just the growth of individual players, but the whole team?

What success looks like

Richmond’s KPIs in 2026, like any side this early in a rebuild, will all centre on the development of its extremely promising crop of young players. Yze will want to see moments, yes, but also more than moments: continuity, a progressive assumption of greater responsibility, and an increasing share of on-field value. He’ll also want a better look at how it all fits together. Richmond won’t be contending in 2026. But the more he can learn about his group and his game plan this season, the better it’ll make them in 2030. Another backflip would also be nice.

In a nutshell

Wins are tomorrow’s problem. In 2026, Richmond’s focus will be the same as it was last year: developing its young talent while playing enough of the veterans to stay afloat.

2025 ladder position: 13th (9 wins, 14 losses)

2025 best-and-fairest: Zak Butters

Senior coach: Josh Carr

Story of the season

On February 12th, 2025, Port Adelaide announced that Ken Hinkley would coach in 2025 before handing over the job to Josh Carr at the conclusion of the season. That answered the biggest question swirling around the club but generated an only slightly smaller one in its place: would Carr be the de facto Senior Coach? Both he and Hinkley strenuously denied, insisting that Ken remained in charge. That this claim wasn’t accepted by everyone pointed to the difficulty of managing a planned coaching transition.

Some of the optimism generated by the news that the Hinkley Era now had a definitive end was destroyed by a brutal first-up defeat to Collingwood at the MCG, a performance which showcased this side’s persistent problems against strong opposition under its long-time coach. An easy dismissal of Richmond in a game where new recruit Jack Lukosius broke his kneecap was followed by limp defeats to Essendon and St Kilda which proved that Port’s revamped game plan was experiencing teething problems (I promise this is not a joke about Port fans). It established the basic pattern which came to define 2025: Port was competitive against mediocre sides and exposed against good ones. That’s because, for many reasons, Port was a mediocre side in 2025. An unlikely home win against Gold Coast in Ken Hinkley and club legend Travis Boak’s last game was a nice coda to what was otherwise a wasted, shapeless season. The knowledge that beating Gold Coast ultimately meant the Crows played (and lost to) Collingwood instead of the Suns in their Qualifying Final might have warmed some hearts down at Alberton.

Summary of game style

For much of the Hinkley era, Port were one of the competition’s most kick-dominant, territory-driven sides. Aggressive ball movement was underpinned by marking dominance. At its best, that game plan overwhelmed opponents who couldn’t handle Port’s speed and midfield power. But Port’s coaches also knew it was inherently fragile. When space narrowed and pressure intensified – as it tends to in September – Port often struggled to stabilise and absorb momentum. If they couldn’t access the corridor, they struggled to generate quality looks. The results could be brutal.

So, ahead of the 2025 season, whoever the Senior Coach actually was recalibrated the method. Kicks fell sharply as a share of disposals. Handball receives and handball metres gained rose dramatically. Port’s profile shifted from “win it and kick it” to something more connective, built around layered possession chains and coordinated support. The idea was to build something more modern, and more resilient, that was both less predictable and more tolerant of the intense pressure of finals footy.

Captain Connor Rozee’s redeployment to half-back (partly a response to Dan Houston’s defection to Collingwood) was a key part of that shift. Rather than being another piece in the midfield rotation, he became the player tasked with initiating back-half possession chains: organising exits, stepping through the first layer of pressure, and using his vision to see up the field. It looked like an unusual move for a club captain midfielder in his prime. Structurally, it made sense.

Some things worked. Port became much more comfortable moving the ball by hand and exit sequences became cleaner. There was less predictability. The problem was the foundational layer couldn’t hold. Port went from being one of the competition’s best clearance sides to one of the worst. The side’s ability to win contests around the ground declined. Once the initial defensive press was breached, opponents still cut through too easily. The intent was clear: move beyond a glass-cannon identity towards a more resilient structure. But the foundations of control that might have enabled it to work fell away.

Given that Carr was almost certainly one of the architects of the new game plan, a wholesale reversal of the new approach in 2026 seems unlikely. The more plausible path is consolidation: improving stoppage integrity, tightening defensive spacing, and strengthening forward-half retention. It won’t always be pretty, and it certainly won’t be easy – but the foundations of Port Adelaide’s new tactical identity have been laid.

List changes

In: 

• Jack Watkins (Rookie Draft)

• Will Brodie (trade – Fremantle)

• Corey Durdin (trade – Carlton)

• Jacob Wehr (free agent – Greater Western Sydney)

• Balyn O’Brien (Supplementary Selection Period)

• Mitch Zadow (Supplementary Selection Period)

Out:

• Dylan Williams (delisted)

• Ryan Burton (delisted)

• Lachlan Charleson (delisted)

• Jeremy Finlayson (delisted)

• Hugh Jackson (delisted)

• Jed McEntee (delisted)

• Travis Boak (retired)

• Willie Rioli Jr. (retired)

• Rory Atkins (retired)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: five (T-10th)

Average age at Opening Round: 24.6 (9th)

Average number of games played: 64.9 (14th)

No club has a list profile quite like Port Adelaide. There are a handful of bright-burning stars in or near their peak age: Butters, Horne-Francis, Bergman, Rozee, Georgiades. There are about the same number of competent second-tier contributors: Aliir, Wines, Drew, Lukosius, Powell-Pepper. And then there is a long tail of patchwork players: mature-age imports, rookies, and speculative late picks – the dubious harvest of years spent overlooking the National Draft. Port’s list isn’t hourglass-shaped or J-shaped. It’s mushroom-shaped. Talent is concentrated in a small number of players rather than distributed evenly across the list. That’s true of every list: talent follows a power law distribution in footy as it does in other occupations. But the extreme profile of Port’s list helps explain why, in recent years, Hinkley’s side has been both irresistible against poor sides and easy for the best to stop. The club’s recent off-season moves gesture towards a more even spread – Will Brodie, Corey Durdin, and Jacob Wehr will probably all play games in 2026 – but none materially move the needle.

All three lines are brittle, but the backline has the least upside. It’s not without strengths: Aliir Aliir remains a clever interceptor, and Esava Ratugolea has moved beyond meme status to become a dependable match-up on opposition key forwards. But it gets thin rather quickly. Brandon Zerk-Thatcher is often overmatched by bigger and smarter opponents. Lachie Jones has the physical tools of an AFL player, but not always the decision-making. Rozee’s move back has offset some of the damage caused by Houston’s departure, yet Port still looks short a genuine high-end distributor. A lockdown small capable of neutralising elite opponents is also conspicuously absent. Miles Bergman can fill that role, but it is not the best use of his talent. The result is a backline that functions well when the game is on Port’s terms, but struggles to repel repeat entries.

Whenever I contemplate writing an article about how footy’s taxonomy for different types of midfielders should progress beyond “guns” and “bulls” to terms that actually do descriptive work (like in soccer), my mind drifts to Port’s midfield. The talent is concentrated in attacking midfielders. Butters, Horne-Francis and Rozee, before he became an attacking half-back, are all more like 10s than 8s or 6s. They’re creators, not controllers. As a result, a large amount of the responsibility falls on the shoulders of Willem Drew. At times, it resembles the original incarnation of Real Madrid’s “Galácticos” when they met their match; lots of flair, not much defensive running. Butters is the superstar: incisive in traffic and relentlessly creative. Although a very different type of player, Horne-Francis is too good not to reach a similar level one day. His slight stagnation in 2025 was more plausibly the product of injury and tactical adjustment than anything more serious. The most intriguing midfield variable in 2026 is Miles Bergman. Used extensively at centre bounces in a small number of games last season, his blend of athleticism and discipline makes him a logical candidate for a more permanent role. Ollie Wines provides hard-ball ballast. Jase Burgoyne has established himself as a reliable winger, though his slight frame might cap his on-ball potential. The opposite flank remains unsettled, likely shared between Jackson Mead, Jacob Wehr, Christian Moraes, and rotating midfielders. Dante Visentini looks like he’ll start the season as Port’s first-choice ruck.

The forward line is mercurial. Mitch Georgiades is an unconventional spearhead who prefers to lead into space rather than crash packs, though Charlie Dixon’s retirement did see his contested work improve last season. His ability to create separation and generate shots is near league-best. Jack Lukosius’ first season in teal was largely lost to injury, but the theoretical fit is sound: Lukosius connecting the ground vertically, Georgiades operating closer to goal. Whether the pairing can generate enough contests and defensive pressure remains uncertain. With Todd Marshall likely to spend more time in defence in a Westhoff-type role, opportunities may open for Jack Whitlock or Ollie Lord. At ground level, the small forwards are mostly blue-collar types: Darcy Byrne-Jones, Joe Richards, Sam Powell-Pepper (returning from a second ACL). The exception, the gifted Joe Berry, has impressed in his second pre-season. As with the rest of the list, the forward line reflects Port’s broader profile: high-end talent at the top, thin depth beneath it, and limited room for error if injuries hit or form dips.

Line rankings

Defence: Average

Midfield: Above Average

Forward: Average

Ruck: Below Average

The case for optimism

Most Port fans will feel optimistic this season compared to last not because they necessarily expect short-term results to improve, but because Ken Hinkley, a man who they had long since stopped believing could ever deliver a Premiership, is no longer coach. My view of Hinkley’s tenure is boring and conventional: I think he crafted a list and a game plan whose attributes meant Port frequently overperformed in the Home & Away season and underperformed in finals. But it’s clear to me that years of near misses and embarrassment in big games had curdled the relationship between the club and its supporters. The Hinkley Era was as stale and toxic as a month-old loaf of bread. The personality types matter here, too. If Hinkley was the Good Ol’ Boy who shrugged his shoulders and congratulated the opposition after another humbling defeat against a serious side, then Josh Carr resembles his opposite: the hard-nosed winner who was an important part of Port’s only AFL flag and has cultivated a reputation as a tactical innovator. Coaches, just like players, contribute to hope and optimism.

Port played below its level last season because of injuries – Butters, Horne-Francis, Lukosius, Ratugolea and Powell-Pepper all missed chunks of games – and (probably) the subtly demotivating impact of a publicly announced coaching succession plan. Another boring but salient reason for Port’s slide down the ladder was that it ended up having the hardest fixture in the AFL. Port played Adelaide, Geelong, Hawthorn and Fremantle twice, and only played the bottom four teams once. Port’s reward for finishing 13th (the AFL determines fixtures based on which third of the ladder a side finished in) is a 2026 draw that’s predicted to be the second-easiest. That will give Port’s younger players and its novice head coach a bit more margin for error.

The third and what, in the long run, will prove the most substantive reason for optimism is that Dougie Cochrane is coming. As is – assuming he chooses footy over basketball – Zemes Pilot. And Louis Salopek. And Tevita Rodan. Port will enjoy priority access to at least four prospects that, at this stage, are regarded as first-round calibre (or, in the case of Cochrane, the presumptive number one pick in 2026). The influence of the mid-2000s generation that delivered Port much success looks likely to continue.

The case for pessimism

Port fans have more reasons for optimism than they’ve had for a while. They’ve left behind the toxicity of the late Hinkley Era, a soft draw (and the introduction of the Wildcard Round) will revive hopes of getting back into the finals, and the AFL has granted the club’s application to have Dougie Cochrane recognised as a Next Generation Academy member.

The clearest sign of danger ahead is that Zak Butters and his emissaries, including Ken Hinkley, are currently following the script of Victorian Player Who Really Wants To Move Back To Victoria But Doesn’t Want To Admit It to the letter. Responses are coy and non-committal. Zak’s just focused on footy. He’s been giving 110 per cent throughout pre-season. At this stage, it would be a surprise if Butters were to remain at Port Adelaide beyond 2026. Make no mistake: that would be a big blow. Clubs use draft picks in the hope that they convert into players like Butters. But there’s even a silver lining here. Port would certainly match any rival offer for Butters, thereby forcing a trade and turning what would have otherwise been a single compensation pick into a rich bounty it can use to ensure it has the resources needed to both match a bid for Cochrane and to retool its list. The fact that Port has priority access to four such promising talents across the next two drafts will also help avoid the disruption to the draft created by Tasmania’s imminent entry into the AFL. For a club that urgently needs to strengthen in key positions, it’s probably a net-positive transaction. But there’s still significant risk involved: as exciting as players like Cochrane and Pilot look, there’s zero guarantee they will become as good as Butters already is.

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Breakout player

For a club that has steadfastly ignored the National Draft for years now (I’ve never known a club to use zero picks, as Port did in 2025), I am optimistic about the quality of Port’s 2024 crop. Jack Whitlock projects as an AFL-calibre key position player. Christian Moraes has lots of rough edges but also heaps of spirit. It’s Joe Berry who has the class. His debut season was only fair, but plausibly explained by Port’s struggles to get much going forward of centre. The reports from pre-season is that he looks primed to show supporters why he was regarded as perhaps the best small forward in the 2024 draft pool.

Most important player

Both for what he contributes on the field and the significance of his decision about his future for the club’s medium-term, it’s Zak Butters. As I’ve written above, there are arguments to be made for both outcomes. No one at Alberton would be upset if he chose to stay. On the other hand, the selling price would provide Josh Carr and Jason Cripps with significant resources to retool a list that has become too top-heavy. Whatever happens, it’s nice we’ll get at least one more season of Butters at Port. Few players in the AFL embody their club’s self-perception the way he does – a snapping, slightly psychotic underdog who’s happy to inflict and absorb damage for his people.

Biggest question to answer

It’s very possible Butters has already made his mind up about his future. Besides, I’ve written enough about the consequences and opportunities of his decision already. I’m more interested to see Josh Carr’s game plan. Will he opt for continuity with last year’s style or take further steps in a direction of his own choosing? How fast will Port move the ball? Will they attempt to regain clearance strength or trust in their transition method? Where will players like Miles Bergman spend most of their time? There’s a long list of relevant ancillary questions.

What success looks like

Success for Port Adelaide in 2026 would require most of the following: evidence of a less fragile game plan, Jason Horne-Francis to take the leap he couldn’t last year, successfully lobbying the AFL to not curtail Port’s access to its upcoming NGA and father-son motherlode, and clarity about Zak Butters’ future intentions (Clarified Butters?). Do all that and play a final – yes, that includes the Wildcard Round – and it’ll be a good year.

In a nutshell

A new coach taking over after the club’s longest-serving incumbent, a new style, a talented but uneven list, and uncertainty about the future of its best player – there is huge variance around what happens at Alberton in 2026. Nothing from 6th to 16th would surprise. But after a decade of underwhelming certainty, most Port fans will take uncertainty with upside.

2025 ladder position: 16th (5 wins, 17 losses, 1 draw)

2025 best-and-fairest: Harry Sheezel/Tristan Xerri

Senior coach: Alastair Clarkson

Story of the season

I was there that Sunday. Round 2. March 23rd, 2025. The day North Melbourne beat a Melbourne side with Max Gawn, Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver, and Jack Viney in it by almost 10 goals. The Kangaroos didn’t just beat the Demons – they bullied them, dominating in precisely the parts of the game that had been Melbourne’s domain in their era of success. I won’t quickly forget the emotions of North fans that day. Joy, disbelief, hope. Catharsis. Even a six-goal loss to the Crows at Adelaide Oval the next week didn’t dent their optimism. The Roos had been competitive against two good sides, and thrashed a side that many people still expected to be good. It seemed as though, finally, the light at the end of a very long tunnel was approaching.

But what looked like light was instead a false dawn. That euphoric win against Melbourne and respectable loss against Adelaide were followed by a trio of grim defeats – to Sydney, Gold Coast, and Carlton on Good Friday – which brutally revealed the fragility of North’s improvement and the chasm they still needed to bridge. Narrow losses to Port Adelaide and Essendon were leavened by a draw in Tasmania against eventual Premiers Brisbane that North really ought to have won. A win against Carlton six weeks later once again showed that the Roos really were capable of taking it to teams who relied on winning out of the middle. However, as dismal collapses against Hawthorn and Geelong in the run-in showed, their struggles against sides which move and win the ball at speed were as apparent as ever. North improved. But only by enough to win two more games and move up one spot on the ladder. The leap that their fans crave – that might actually make the hell of the last five years vaguely worth it – still feels a long way away.

Summary of game style

Separating intent and outcome isn’t easy when watching poor teams and consulting their statistical profile. Signal and noise blur because weaker sides are often just trying to survive. That being said, it’s possible to discern what Alastair Clarkson is attempting at North Melbourne. His work so far has prioritised the construction of a game model that minimises risk in possession while gradually layering in competitive habits and defensive discipline. Stability takes precedence over expression.

The foundation is stoppage. Clearances and first possession are the one phase of the game where North often enjoys a talent advantage, and Clarkson has leant in. The Roos hunt territory through contest wins, preferring to begin chains in the forward half rather than exit from deep defence. This is both tactical and psychological: starting higher up the ground reduces exposure and the number of decisions required in the open field. When the Roos win the ball, conservatism quickly takes over. North have been the slowest side in possession for the last two seasons, favouring short kicks and safe outlets. Their retention numbers are strong – their metres gained and threat per kick are not. The priority is not to be wrong. Chains produce volume without incision. Sound, yes, but little fury.

Squint a little and you can see the fingerprints of Clarkson’s great Hawthorn sides, which also used possession to manage territory and manipulate shape. The difference is damage. That Hawthorn side had elite kickers which pierced opposition zones. They were helped by the game being slower and less defensively sophisticated than it is today. This North group does not yet have the same technical edge, and the modern game punishes hesitation. A weapon in one era can look like a holding pattern in the next.

Safety in possession has not yet translated to a viable defensive model. North are the league’s worst side at defending turnover. Long chains stretch their shape; when possession is lost, the counterpunch is immediate despite the appearance of numbers behind the ball. This pre-season has apparently focused on teaching a new defensive set-up more centred on manning the back shoulder of opposition players instead of pushing high, which was often punished against faster sides. We shall see what transpires.

The Roos optimise for winning and keeping the ball rather than surviving without it. Even their clearance strength is a double-edged sword. North were the second-highest scoring side from centre bounces in 2025, but conceded the second-most scores from the same source. Their young midfield tries to win the ball in close, often surging numbers toward first possession. That aggression is encouraged because it’s where North’s talent advantage lies. But when clearances are lost or emerge messy, there is little protection behind the ball. The sight of opposition midfielders streaming towards goal out of a stoppage, a North player desperately trailing behind, is a familiar and unwelcome one for Roos fans.

The optimistic view is that this is a team being taught habits before being granted freedom. Risk is permitted at stoppage, where roles are clear. In open play, behaviour is tightly circumscribed and licence is given only to certain players. The pessimistic view is that conservatism reflects Clarkson’s doubt – in his players, his system, and his ability to improve either.

List changes

In: 

• Lachy Dovaston (2025 National Draft, Pick #16)

• Blake Thredgold (2025 National Draft, Pick #26)

• Hugo Mikunda (2025 National Draft, Pick #48)

• Charlie Spargo (free agent – Melbourne)

Out:

• Will Phillips (delisted)

• Brynn Teakle (delisted)

• Miller Bergman (delisted)

• Kallan Dawson (delisted)

• Eddie Ford (delisted)

• Geordie Payne (delisted)

• Darcy Tucker (delisted)

• Finnbar Maley (trade – Adelaide)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: 9 (T-3rd)

Average age at Opening Round: 24.2 (14th)

Average number of games played: 72 (11th)

Lists with headline demographics like North’s – young, but not unusually inexperienced – are often ready to improve. But poor drafting and recruitment have left the Kangaroos with an uneven distribution of talent across their list, both by age and position. Recent drafts have prioritised immediate need as much as upside: Lachy Dovaston was widely regarded as the premier small forward in the 2025 pool, Blake Thredgold stood out as an intercepting defender at the under-18 championships, and Hugo Mikunda brings agility and creativity. Former Pick #3 Will Phillips and Finnbar Maley were the most notable departures.

North’s backline has been among the weakest in the league for several seasons, and things are not helped by a perennial inability to stop opponents bringing the ball their way. Charlie Comben is a rare athlete and excellent interceptor; he is also unusually susceptible one-on-one and a dodgy kick. A competent defensive system would do more to accentuate his strengths and mask his weaknesses. Toby Pink has established himself as the most dependable option down back. He is not flashy, and often gives up size, but he competes honestly. Griffin Logue, health permitting, looks set to partner him. Matt Whitlock has shown promise but is not yet physically ready for a full season in defence (or up forward). Injuries continue to undermine stability. Jackson Archer, arguably the best pure defender on the list, will miss the season after an ACL injury, while Thredgold is expected to miss most of the year with a foot stress fracture. Although it can get him into trouble, Colby McKercher provides essential speed and dare for a side that doesn’t have enough of either. Caleb Daniel remains composed, but his lack of size and speed is becoming harder to disguise.

The midfield is where most of North’s talent is concentrated. Luke Davies-Uniacke, Harry Sheezel, Tom Powell, and George Wardlaw form an intriguing core. With Finn O’Sullivan and Luke Parker rotating through, the group looks strong on paper – but it often underwhelms in practice. Wardlaw and a declining Parker aside, there is no natural defence-first midfielder in the mix, and this group is also expected to generate much of North’s attacking drive. If Wardlaw’s hamstring issues persist, Luke Urquhart deserves an opportunity; his size and defensive instincts could help restore some balance. Dylan Stephens, Bailey Scott, and captain Jy Simpkin (whose trade request was declined) will compete for wing roles.

North’s forward line illustrates how quickly list profiles can change. Entering 2025 it looked serviceable, but no more. Twelve months later, Paul Curtis has emerged as a genuine star, Cooper Trembath has offered hope as a contested partner for Nick Larkey (which makes his non-participation in recent match simulations perplexing), and Cam Zurhaar is coming off a career year. Dovaston adds further small-forward threat. Suddenly, this looks like a dangerous unit. The challenge is supply. Jack Darling remains a workhorse, but the sooner North moves past him, the better. Charlie Spargo is likely to feature early given his free-agent arrival. Zane Duursma is the major wildcard: his talent is obvious, his work rate less so. This season may determine whether he is part of North’s future or another missed opportunity.

Line rankings

Defence: Poor

Midfield: Average

Forward: Average

Ruck: Above Average

The case for optimism

Optimism is in scarce supply at Arden Street. But, heading into 2026, I can detect two sources of it: the micro case that the Roos are improving, and the macro case that stagnation would at least force a reckoning. To begin with: the Roos are getting better. Glacially, agonisingly, spasmodically – but the signs are there. Here’s proof:

Do not confuse this for the claim that North are a good team, or even necessarily on the path to becoming one. I’m making a different claim: that, in the context of the fact that Clarkson came into a club with meagre talent, no settled system, and no corporate knowledge of success, some progress is being made. Not at the speed North Melbourne fans want, or the rate normally associated with a side that’s spent so long at the bottom. But at the margins.

Teams with fragile confidence prefer to start the season with benign draws. The Roos’ first six games are against Port Adelaide, West Coast, Essendon, Carlton, Brisbane, and Richmond. North hasn’t split its first six games of the season since 2018. In fact, since 2020, the Roos have won a cumulative total of just six of 30 games from Rounds 1 to 5. This is an excellent opportunity to build into the season, embed habits that will help against the better sides, and not extinguish the hopes of supporters before May.

The very real possibility that North’s modest improvements are being driven by the growth of young players instead of the growth of the system around them brings me to the second cause for optimism: rupture and renewal. If progress stagnates in 2026, and the suspicion that Clarkson’s style of coaching is no longer optimal for the modern game is borne out, then North Melbourne’s hierarchy might be forced into the realisation that it’s best to move on. A club in North Melbourne’s parlous state was always in danger of hiring the saviour coach. But over-committing to the wrong coaching hire is just as bad a decision as making the wrong hire in the first place. There is a glimmer of hope that, if things get bad enough under Clarkson, the board acts and replaces him with someone who can construct a modern game plan, rather than a diluted version of the one which brought glory long ago. Yes, it would bring the Roos back to the starting line. But it’s not like they’ve travelled far from that point anyway.

The case for pessimism

I strive to keep things original here at One Percenters. But I’m going to open this section by quoting the start of my pessimism section from last year’s North Melbourne preview:

North are a very bad footy team, and I think they’re still a long way from being even an average footy team. The problems are many and major. The list, despite the major surgery of the last few years, still has many players who aren’t of AFL standard. There were so many moments last season – and the season before last, and the season before that – where neither the quality of North’s attacking and defensive structures, nor the application of their players were at the level required in the AFL.

A year on, all of that remains largely true. But there is more to say. So, using that as my starting point, I’ll go layer by layer – list, system, club. Let’s begin with the list. The unavoidable fact is that it’s significantly below the standard that should be reasonably demanded of a club that’s been picking early for five years. Re-litigating recent drafts is tedious, but the fact remains that North’s seven top-four picks since 2020 do not currently look like they’ve yielded the elite core needed for sustained contention. This could still change! But right now, North don’t have enough stars. They also haven’t hit on enough picks outside of the top 10, either – the picks that should be turning into the players that make up the core of the list. Including the Rookie Draft, Mid-Season Draft and SSP window, the Roos made 33 selections outside of the top 10 between 2020 and 2024. Fewer than half, just 15, are still on the list today. Of those 15, four are established best-23 players, and only one – Paul Curtis – has obviously outperformed his pick.

Years of poor drafting and recruitment mean North have few reliable mid-career players, leaving the kids to shoulder a larger share of the burden than they would have to at other clubs. Part of North’s player acquisition problem is that they aren’t selecting for the right physical attributes. According to friend of the newsletter Emlyn Breese, North Melbourne’s 2026 list is the shortest (by median height) of any team from 2012 onwards. At a time when teams are increasingly optimising for athletic traits, this is curious, and more than a touch concerning. You don’t necessarily need to be big and fast to move the ball quickly. But it certainly helps to be big and fast when defending.

That brings me onto the second layer: the system. I summarised my view of what I think Clarkson is trying to do in the Style of Play section. As I often say, it's important to separate progress from outcome. But outcomes are what determine if clubs win finals and coaches get sacked. And, three years in (yes, I know he took indefinite leave for most of 2023), the outcomes don’t suggest that Clarkson’s system – careful in possession, volatile out of the middle, routinely exposed in transition – is generating the right outcomes. Changes to ruck rules that work against Tristan Xerri’s strengths risk taking away one of North’s current advantages. The main reason teams are bad is because their players are bad. But the quality of a team’s defensive structures should be significantly less sensitive to talent. The path from being bad to being good almost always runs through becoming hard to beat. Get scrappy. Then get good. The Roos are still far too easy to beat. That’s a talent issue – but it’s also a system issue. It’s fair to ask if Clarko’s lost his fastball.

Poor drafting and a poor system don’t happen in a vacuum. They are the products of a club that, for reasons in and out of its control, is not currently equipped with either the means to or knowledge of how to create a winning football culture. To be clear, this is not a veiled swipe about North’s success in AFLW, or the fact that the club president is (gasp) a woman. North’s issue isn’t that they aren’t focused on the problem. It’s that they’re stuck in a loop – poor performance, poor recruitment, poor development, poor performance – they can’t escape. This isn’t all in the club’s control. North doesn’t have the option of solving its drafting problems by recruiting big-name free agents. Yes, it’s unfair that the path to success – to competence – is narrower than most other clubs’. But that’s the reality. The only people who can wrench North out of its doom loop are the players, the coaching staff, and the hierarchy. None have done a good enough job so far.

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Breakout player

I’ve complained a fair bit about the quality of North’s recent drafting. Riley Hardeman is exempt from that criticism. The running defender from Swan Districts has impressed in his 20 games, showing a boldness and impetuosity that stands in stark contrast to many of his teammates. North fans are hoping the ankle injury he sustained during the pre-season against Melbourne is not as serious as it first looked.

Most important player

Harry Sheezel is probably North’s best player. There are two ways to view that: the first is to celebrate the development of an exquisitely talented, intelligent young guy who’s invested in the success of his club. The second is to ask how it’s happened that a player who won’t turn 22 until a month after the Grand Final – and whose third season wasn’t at the level of his first two – is asked to assume so much responsibility. The most plausible path to North escaping its current mess involves him becoming a superstar who players at other clubs are desperate to play alongside.

Biggest question to answer

What if it doesn’t get better? This is at least the second straight year where I’ve encountered a lot of suggestions online that North could contend for the finals (or at least one of the play-in positions). I can understand the impulse to optimism. If we aren’t getting unreasonably excited about footy in February, what are we doing? But, as this preview has probably made clear, I don’t think that’ll happen. I’m sceptical that the Roos will escape the bottom four. What happens if there are still only the barest signs of an AFL-level defensive system? What happens if more clubs that began their rebuilds after North did leapfrog them? What happens if supporter discontent becomes vocally directed at Alastair Clarkson? What then?

What success looks like

It’s hard to believe I’m writing this more than three years into the Clarkson Project at North, but the foundations of a game model and list that will one day yield success simply aren’t there yet. Forget about finals or the play-in game – they won’t happen. Clarkson needs to begin at the beginning: make North hard to play against. Develop habits and routines that will scale with talent. And give the talent every opportunity to flourish. North’s next good team won’t have Jack Darling in it. But it might have Cooper Trembath in it.

In a nutshell

North Melbourne has precious little progress to show for its five years at the bottom of the footy ecosystem. Improvement in 2026 must be found in talented young players taking the next step and implementing a system that can withstand the rigours of modern footy. Failure to improve should spell the end of Alastair Clarkson.

2025 ladder position: 14th (7 wins, 16 losses)

2025 best-and-fairest: Max Gawn

Senior coach: Steven King

Story of the season

A rearguard effort to restore continuity that eventually became a definitive turning of the page of Melbourne’s most successful modern era. Simon Goodwin went into the season bullish that a revamped game plan – more on the specifics below – could revitalise a list beginning to show the ill effects of age and discontent. His stated belief that his side could still contend if he pushed the right buttons looked naive after a 0-5 start that made everything else academic. You can’t lose by 10 goals to North Melbourne and expect things to stay the same. The season wasn’t without highlights – a win at the Gabba! – and the Dees were desperately unlucky on the numbers. But it didn’t change the fundamental fact: this cycle had run its course, and the club’s board believed Goodwin wasn’t the right man to start the new one.

Not many coaches have been sacked three days after winning a game by 83 points. But then, not many coaches had a reign quite like Goodwin’s: an astonishingly dominant flag year followed by two seasons that yielded zero finals wins and a string of off-field headlines. It’s not possible to succinctly capture how Melbourne fans felt: relief, mingled with gratitude at what Goodwin had delivered and regret that there wasn’t more of it. Troy Chaplin assumed the reins on an interim basis, and on September 12th, Steven King (not the horror writer) was appointed as Melbourne’s new Senior Coach. His appointment reflected a decisive break with the past: the club sanctioned the departures of club legends Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver, failed to keep hold of Judd McVee, delisted seven players, and brought in 10. The king is dead; long live the King.

Summary of game style

For most of the Simon Goodwin era, the Demons played with one of the clearest identities in the AFL: win contests, own territory, overwhelm opponents with volume. The fullest expression of that was the final 45 minutes of the 2021 Grand Final – 45 minutes of the most destructive footy played this decade. But by 2024 (it still worked in the 2023 finals series! Sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce the right way), that system was beginning to fray. Some of it was opponents getting better at absorbing what Melbourne threw at them. But just as much, probably more, was personnel-based: Angus Brayshaw’s retirement, Clayton Oliver’s personal drama, Steven May’s physical decline (and personal drama). The model grew increasingly dependent on episodic individual brilliance to offset systemic wear.

Goodwin’s late-era – last-gasp – response was to try and adapt instead of doubling down. Before the beginning of the 2025 season, Melbourne signalled a desire to move away from brawn and towards brains: cleaner exits, more overlap handball, earlier involvement of outside runners. In theory, that evolution made sense. But in practice, it proved destabilising. Last season, the Demons were still one of the league’s strongest contested sides. But the clearance strength that had powered their dominance had degraded due to the combination of personnel decline and structural change. The Demons suddenly became leaky in the middle and lost their ability to close space quickly enough to constrict opposition transition. They won enough of the ball, but retention didn’t translate into control or damage.

The problem was that Goodwin believed that the old Premiership core, overlaid onto this new game plan, was capable of taking Melbourne back to the summit. The club’s hierarchy believed differently – and decided to go in a different direction. King’s early influence has been decisive. The club’s moves during the trade and draft period, as well as early pre-season games, point to further steps in the direction Goodwin was trying to go: away from clearance-centric football toward a faster, more networked system built around speed and transition.

Early patterns have (wisely) funnelled play through Kysaiah Pickett, not as a static forward target but as a mobile forward-half connector who receives on the move, gains territory via carries, and links via handball chains. Instead of relying on repeat inside 50s and contested marking to grind opponents down, Melbourne are positioning themselves to score more frequently from turnover and secondary transition. A renewed emphasis on speed and two-way running is designed to restore the integrity of the defensive layer. The caveats are clear: it’s early and no serious footy has been played yet. But it represents a decisive break with the Premiership identity and towards something faster, more exciting – and, perhaps, more dangerous.

List changes

In: 

• Xavier Taylor (2025 National Draft, Pick #11)

• Latrelle Pickett (2025 National Draft, Pick #12)

• Thomas Matthews (2025 National Draft, Pick #30)

• Changkuoth Jiath (trade – Hawthorn)

• Brody Mihocek (trade – Collingwood)

• Jack Steele (trade – St Kilda)

• Max Heath (trade – St Kilda)

• Riley Onley (Rookie Draft)

• Kalani White (Category A Rookie, father/son)

• Oscar Berry (Category B rookie)

Out:

• Clayton Oliver (trade – Greater Western Sydney)

• Christian Petracca (trade – Gold Coast)

• Judd McVee (trade – Fremantle)

• Charlie Spargo (free agent – North Melbourne)

• Jack Billings (delisted)

• Kynan Brown (delisted)

• Tom Fullarton (delisted)

• Marty Hore (delisted)

• Oliver Sestan (delisted)

• Will Verrall (delisted)

• Taj Woewodin (delisted)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: four (T-13th)

Average age at Opening Round: 25.6 (3rd)

Average number of games played: 80.8 (4th)

Melbourne’s off-season had two clear themes: to move on from the Goodwin Era and to recruit for speed. It’s not often you trade out two players who, between them, have seven All-Australian nominations, two Coaches Association Player of the Year awards, and a Norm Smith. It’s rarer still that doing so is the right decision. Petracca and Oliver will forever be heroes of the Melbourne Football Club. But enough baggage had accumulated that a reset felt necessary. Petracca fetched a significant return: Picks 7, 8 and 37 in the 2025 draft (used on Xavier Taylor, Latrelle Pickett and Thomas Matthews), plus the Suns’ 2026 first-rounder. Oliver garnered only a future third-round pick from GWS – a blunt reflection of his diminished standing.

Those departures were the beginning rather than the end of Melbourne’s list recalibration. Brody Mihocek arrived from Collingwood to mentor the younger talls and manufacture ground ball opportunities for smalls. Jack Steele adds leadership and a mature body to a midfield that suddenly looks short on both. The compensation pick for Charlie Spargo became Changkuoth Jiath. On draft night, the Dees targeted pace and rebound in Taylor and – to some surprise – Glenelg small forward Latrelle Pickett. Judd McVee, who had agitated for midfield time, departed for Fremantle, where he is unlikely to get any. Seven delistings underlined the appetite for renovation. Taken together, these moves prioritise experience, speed and flexibility over star power – a profile that makes more sense in the context of Steven King’s likely preference for overlap, width and transition rather than contest dominance.

The biggest defensive question surrounds Steven May. He was integral to Melbourne’s early-decade success, but he may no longer fit the club’s strategic direction, and the off-field noise now clearly outweighs the on-field value. To me, the answer looks clear: see what it looks like without him. Melbourne aren’t short of key defenders – Jake Lever, Tom McDonald (is he still doing that all-meat diet?), Harrison Petty (surely back where he belongs), Daniel Turner and Jed Adams can probably form a workable rotation. Even if they can’t, that’s valuable information in a year designed for recalibration. Jake Bowey remains the preferred distributor. Beyond him, the small and medium mix is unsettled: Andy Moniz-Wakefield is returning from an ACL, King might want to see Jiath on a wing, and Christian Salem’s skills remain exquisite but, at 30, the club may decide it’s time to see a younger face in his role.

Across two seasons, Melbourne’s midfield has shifted from the league’s most recognisable to one defined by transition. There is still talent. Max Gawn remains the best ruck in the game. Kysaiah Pickett is now a bona fide – and very good – midfielder. Steele offsets some of what was lost, even if he can’t replicate it. Jack Viney is the last of the old guard, but concussion interruptions and a serious achilles injury make it difficult to see him returning to his peak. Trent Rivers shapes as a more permanent midfield piece after a 2025 season in which he attended the majority of centre bounces in the games Viney missed with a concussion and almost none for the rest of the season. Melbourne fans, however, will be most excited to see Caleb Windsor and Harvey Langford. Langford’s debut season was impressive and further physical development should take him to the next level. Windsor’s second year was disrupted by injury and a switch to half-back that made some sense on paper but never really did on grass. He has looked sharp this pre-season. The wing roles, meanwhile, appear genuinely open – Ed Langdon (probably running laps of the MCG as I type), Xavier Lindsay, Jiath, Jai Culley (post-injury) and Harry Sharp all in the frame.

An average forward line worked well enough when Melbourne overwhelmed opponents with volume. That equation probably no longer holds. But a new method might produce greater efficiency. Kozzie Pickett will be Melbourne’s best forward when stationed inside 50 and their best midfielder when rotated on-ball. His cousin Latrelle will add speed and flair. Bayley Fritsch remains a reliable medium target; Kade Chandler is a clever and underrated small. Beyond that core lie many unresolved questions. Does Mihocek have two more strong seasons left? Is Jacob van Rooyen trending toward genuine second/third tall quality or plateauing as serviceable? Is there hope left for Matt Jefferson? Can King extract anything from Shane McAdam? Is it time to phase out Jake Melksham? What exactly is Koltyn Tholstrup? The virtue of Melbourne’s current phase is that they can afford the patience required to find out.

Line rankings

Defence: Average

Midfield: Average

Forward: Average

Ruck: Elite

The case for optimism

The disappointment of seeing a once-great side not quite fulfil its awesome potential before fading into irrelevance and acrimony might linger. But in 2026, another set of more positive emotions should begin competing for space in the hearts of Dees fans: curiosity about what the next great Melbourne side could look like, excitement about a faster, more attacking style, and hope that the club’s – perhaps belated – recognition of its predicament augurs well for its ability to keep doing the same in the future.

Style is not a trivial matter. Attritional footy is easy to accept if it delivers success. It’s rather harder to swallow if it produces a 14th-placed finish. This isn’t an argument against developing effective defensive structures. It’s recognition of the fact that there are many supporters who evaluate their relationship with their team – or at least the choice to spend their hard-earned to go to the footy on a freezing night – based on the endeavour of the stuff that’s served up. Melbourne shifting to a more exciting brand is something to look forward to.

There is cause for significant optimism, too, about several of the club’s recent draftees. There is lots of excited chatter about Caleb Windsor this pre-season. Harvey Langford looked excellent in his debut season. Both now have fewer players between them and meaningful midfield roles. Xavier Lindsay’s first year wasn’t as attention-grabbing as Langford’s, but he still looks like he could be an important piece of the next generation. There’s still hope for players like Koltyn Tholstrup. Jacob Van Rooyen should benefit from the presence of Brody Mihocek. It’s too early to say anything definitive about Xavier Taylor or Latrelle Pickett – perhaps beyond the fact that both make for good media interviews – but there’s also nothing wrong with getting excited about the prospect of Latrelle and Kysaiah linking up for the next decade. Not every draftee becomes a star. But extrapolating based on promising early glimpses is a core part of the footy fan experience. Long may it reign.

The cherry on top is that, despite Melbourne’s manifest frailties last season, they were a better team than their win-loss record showed. Based on expected scores, they should have won four more games than they did – the same number as Carlton and only 1.5 behind Greater Western Sydney. It’s interesting to consider what choice the club hierarchy would have made about Goodwin had those expected wins materialised into real ones. They might have been more open to his claims that last season’s list could still contend. Obviously, many of the players who contributed to the side in 2025 won’t be there in 2026. But some of them will be. If they perform, and the pendulum swings the other way, that may already be enough to put the Dees in the play-in conversation.

The case for pessimism

The first steps of any rebuild are especially treacherous because, in addition to the high stakes riding on every high-end draft pick, there’s a fundamental tension: coaches are motivated to seek wins to consolidate their job security, even if it might ultimately undermine the long-term objectives of the build. That’s why it’s so important that the board and CEO give the coach genuine permission to lose now in order to win later. Well-run clubs have a strong alignment between what the CEO and Board expect, and what the coach is trying to do. Melbourne have not been an obviously well-run club for many of the past few seasons. Supporters ought to be heartened by the early moves of the Brad Green/Steven Smith era, especially their steadfastness in sacking Simon Goodwin. But their resolve hasn’t been tested by on-field results not meeting off-field expectations. There is risk there.

Clubs undertake rebuilds because they recognise that their list can no longer compete at the pointy end of the ladder. Lists that can no longer compete at the pointy end typically lack two important things: enough star players and a coherent distribution of AFL-level talent. Those issues overlap but aren’t the same. In Kysaiah Pickett, the Demons have one of the brightest stars in footy. Until further notice, Max Gawn is still the best at what he does. The departures of Petracca and Oliver and decline of Steven May mean that’s probably where it ends (for now). The distribution of AFL-level players is lumpy – contributors at the top end, but holes created by players not yet living up to their draft position. There are multiple ways to interpret Melbourne’s choice to bring in Brody Mihocek. The most benign is that he’s there to provide structure, physical support, and experience to a callow crop of tall forwards. The least benign is that the club is concerned about the development of said tall forwards. Either way, importing short-term solutions to solve long-term development problems at the beginning of a rebuild is risky.

There are similar questions to be asked of the key defensive posts. Melbourne tried hard to make Steven May another club’s problem during the Trade Period. They did not succeed. The situation is far from ideal: a Premiership hero whose persistent off-field issues appear to have broken containment. The football solution is clear. The off-field solution is less clear; unresolved culture problems can metastasise.

To an extent, bad lists are self-correcting: they tend to finish lower down the ladder and have more opportunities to select better talent to drive improvement. But the impending entrance of Tasmania into the AFL landscape makes the next few years a more dangerous time to be rebuilding. The Demons have a productive Next Generation Academy (as Melbourne fans know, there’s a world, very similar to this one, where Mac Andrew wears red and blue) but that looks like rather small beer next to the Northern Academies. The AFL’s equalisation mechanisms are under stress. Dees fans know what it’s like to be stuck at the bottom for so long that you re-evaluate your relationship with footy. It shouldn’t be this bad this time. There is still top-end talent, a decent mid-career core, draftees that have shown great promise, and a capacity to develop talent. But they are still taking the first steps down a very long road. Not everyone gets to the end.

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Breakout player

Harvey Langford finished fourth in last year’s Rising Star award. He impressed all who watched him (a shrinking audience, given how quickly Melbourne’s season went south). And yet it was clear that one was watching a player only beginning to scratch the surface of his potential. The disposal skill and quality of decision-making are already apparent. The next step is more meat on the bones. When Langford develops the strength to move inside and reliably shrug opposition tackles, his game should ascend to the next level.

Most important player

Kysaiah Pickett’s status as Melbourne’s most important player for the rest of the decade and beyond was cemented on June 12th last year, when he quashed persistent chat about his future to sign a contract until the end of 2034. His move into the midfield – only Max Gawn and Clayton Oliver attended more centre bounces! – elevated him into the game’s very top bracket as both a clearance winner and goal-kicker. Kozzie is a delight to watch. And for as long as he’s a Demons player (now almost certainly the rest of his playing days), there will be optimism.

Biggest question to answer

Throughout this preview, I’ve largely accepted the premise that Melbourne is embarking on a rebuild. There is strong circumstantial evidence this is the case: a new coach, with a new plan, and many new players. But it’s not quite definitive. There could be an element within the club which believes that a good season from key players, faster-than-expected development from emerging talent, and better luck could result in a return to finals. Given that, the decisions that King and his selection committee make about players like Steven May, Jack Viney (when they’re available) will probably reveal their preference: build, with the pain that implies, or hedge?

What success looks like

When the Melbourne board made the decision to sack Simon Goodwin and trade out Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver, it implicitly agreed to the proposition that the win-loss record and ladder position should rank low on Melbourne’s list of performance indicators for 2026. It also committed to the idea that progress in 2026 is better measured by how successfully a new coach can embed a new game plan, how much younger players develop, and how much information is gained about which areas of the list need most attention. And, ideally, that process would also be rewarded with another couple of high-end draft picks.

In a nutshell

This time last year, Melbourne fans were debating whether to stick with the core and the coach that had delivered a drought-breaking Premiership or twist. That question was definitively answered. 2026 will be the dawn of a new era. There’ll be bad days. But, unlike the last two years, it might actually be fun.

2025 ladder position: 7th (15 wins, 8 losses – eliminated at Preliminary Final stage)

2025 best-and-fairest: Jack Gunston

Senior coach: Sam Mitchell

Story of the season

Fresh from a stellar 2024 that saw them fall agonisingly short of a prelim, Sam Mitchell’s men won their first four games of 2025 before a disappointing loss to their new nemesis, Port Adelaide, in a rematch AFL House had been salivating over for six months. Easy wins against three of the eventual bottom five set up the Hawks well for a season-defining five-game stretch against Gold Coast, Brisbane, Collingwood, the Western Bulldogs, and Adelaide. That sequence both showed that the Hawks had consolidated their progress from 2024 and that there was a small but discernible gap to the competition’s very best sides. They ran the Suns closer than anyone else had in Darwin, beat the Crows in an arm-wrestle in Launceston, and out-thought the Dogs. But the Lions and a red-hot Pies side had their measure. Undeterred, the Hawks kept on banking wins, including a stunning 64-point demolition job of the Pies in the return fixture in Round 22, to finish 15-8 – only enough for seventh spot on an extremely crowded ladder.

Hawthorn’s reward was a trip to face the Giants in Sydney in an elimination final. Despite almost allowing the Giants back into the game, Mitchell’s men led virtually all day and were good value for their 19-point win. The Hawks then easily dispatched an unnerved and outclassed Adelaide side that, still demoralised from the self-inflicted loss of Izak Rankine, had no answer to Hawthorn’s midfield dominance. That win meant the Hawks returned to the stage they always believed they belonged: a prelim, at the MCG, against old foes Geelong. For a quarter, it was going very well. At half-time, the margin was still only a point. But then, Patrick Dangerfield did what only players of his calibre can do: he took the game away. A bravura 31-disposal, 20-contested possession, three-goal game was too much for the spirited Hawks. Progress? Yes, definitely – especially considering how much of it was made without Will Day. But also, not a definitive rejection of the idea that they’re not quite at the level of the very best sides. That was effectively confirmed by the club’s pursuit of Essendon captain Zach Merrett during the Trade Period. The player wanted the move, but the Bombers couldn’t sanction the idea of their captain donning brown and gold. On and off the field, the Hawks kept stirring the pot in 2025.

Summary of game style

Sam Mitchell and his AI model of choice have built one of the AFL’s most coherent and adaptable game models, grounded in a resilient defensive structure, pressure, and spatial control. With the ball, the Hawks play with urgency but without recklessness. They move the ball quickly without giving up width or optionality, often advancing through the half-spaces to create angles that allow them to threaten on both the inside and outside. Handball is used to generate separation and draw in defenders before releasing in-bound kicks that stretch defensive structures. The result is a quick but methodical possession game that values choice over control.

This emphasis on optionality – making sure there’s always a viable outlet – helps explain the risks Hawthorn do take with the ball. The Hawks lead the AFL in kick threat rating differential. In plain English: their structure enables them to attempt damaging kicks and prevents their opposition from doing the same. Risk is tolerable because it is protected by post-clearance strength and defensive integrity.

Crucially, Mitchell’s game plan doesn’t need first possession to function. The Hawks were 16th for clearance differential in 2025 (although they scored heavily when winning them). Instead, turnovers are their gold standard – only Adelaide forced more in 2025. Players like Conor Nash and Jai Newcombe allow for rapid counterpressing in the first layer, supported by a disciplined second layer – often anchored by Tom Barrass – that chokes opposition ball movement, forcing slow exits, over-possession and (eventually) errors. This dual structure, made possible by a handful of versatile hybrids equally comfortable in the air and on the ground (Josh Battle, Josh Weddle, James Sicily, Blake Hardwick, Jack Scrimshaw) has helped Hawthorn to become one of the best defensive teams in the game.

The decisive moment of turnover is the catalyst for rapid offensive spread. Powerful runners like Newcombe and Weddle break lines, while clever half-forwards like Dylan Moore and Connor Macdonald hold width and stay high to ensure availability of good options. Inside 50, the Hawks balance structure with adaptability. While they briefly experimented with four tall targets throughout 2025, the preferred configuration remains a three-tall system (made viable by Jack Gunston’s resurgence to All-Australian form) supported by dynamic smalls. Nick Watson, Dylan Moore, and Jack Ginnivan function as pressure engines, connectors, and opportunistic finishers, enabling the Hawks to capitalise on the good work done upfield to drag opposition defenders out of position.

After four years of building under Mitchell, Hawthorn’s identity is now clear. This is a high-tempo, width-aware, pressure-supported game built on territorial control and calculated risk. The Hawks want the ball in the front half, with opponents stretched laterally and defensive systems constantly recalibrating. When it clicks, the model generates intelligent attacks that are difficult to repel.

List changes

In: 

• Cameron Nairn (2025 National Draft, Pick #20)

• Aidan Schubert (2025 National Draft, Pick #23)

• Jack Dalton (2025 National Draft, Pick #34)

• Matthew LeRay (2025 National Draft, Pick #56)

• Ollie Greeves (2025 Rookie Draft)

Out:

• Sam Frost (delisted)

• Seamus Mitchell (delisted)

• Jasper Scaife (delisted)

• Luke Breust (retired)

• Changkuoth Jiath (trade –Melbourne)

• Jai Serong (trade – Sydney)

• James Worpel (free agent – Geelong)

List profile

Number of top-10 draft picks: four (T-13th)

Average age at Opening Round: 24.4 (13th)

Average number of games played: 71.4 (12th)

Here’s a proposition many readers will instinctively recoil from: you have to hand it to Hawthorn. Sam Mitchell and National List and Recruiting Manager Mark McKenzie have constructed a flexible, competitive list at modest cost in an era when most of the best sides are studded with father-son and academy picks. It’s true that key pieces like James Sicily, Will Day, Jai Newcombe and Dylan Moore were already on the list when Mitchell took over (caveat: Mitchell was coaching Box Hill when Newcombe emerged), but important contributors like Jack Ginnivan, Karl Amon, Lloyd Meek, Mabior Chol and Jack Scrimshaw were acquired cheaply.

Recent drafting has been strong. Weddle looks on a superstar trajectory, Watson isn’t far behind, and Ward and Cam Mackenzie could yet get there. Regularly hitting on later picks like Mitch Lewis and Calsher Dear doesn’t hurt either – and let’s not forget that 55 players were taken before Sicily in 2013.

The Hawks rejected the consensus that 2025 was a weak draft, taking five players while also executing live trades that netted two 2026 second-rounders – assets that could again be deployed in pursuit of Zach Merrett. Three of the draftees were teammates at Central Districts and part of South Australia’s Under-18 Championship side. Cameron Nairn projects as a clever medium forward/wing, Aidan Schubert as a rangy key tall, and Matt LeRay as an outside runner. Jack Dalton, the fastest at the combine over two kilometres, adds inside depth, while Ollie Greeves – once touted as a top-10 pick – cost little after sliding.

The new additions won’t strengthen the backline – nor will they need to. Josh Battle and especially Tom Barrass give Hawthorn a reliable defensive fallback if the turnover machine misfires. What stands out in this part of the list is versatility. Blake Hardwick can be thrown forward. James Sicily can do a job there too. Jack Scrimshaw plays tall or small. Weddle begins in defence but impacts all three lines and will see more midfield time in 2026. Jarman Impey and Karl Amon drive rebound with hard running and precise kicking. Noah Mraz, impressive at VFL level, has earned a two-year extension through 2028.

The midfield is better than most people think – raw clearance numbers are a bad proxy for midfield quality! – but a shade below the best. Will Day and Jai Newcombe are the stars. Day is the lithe thoroughbred whose long stride lets him escape traffic and do damage by foot, while Newcombe prefers to use his power and balance to burst through stoppages. Irishman Conor Nash is there to destroy and set screens for his more talented teammates. Given Day’s persistent and concerning injury concerns – more on that in the pessimism section – Hawthorn probably need one of Josh Ward or Cam Mackenzie to become a star to truly contend with its current list. Of the two, Ward is closer. His running ability and disposal make him an important element of Hawthorn’s transition game. The next stage of his development is adding damage: three goals from 25 games was a poor return for a player of his talent (Day, admittedly in a more attacking role, kicked six in six). The departure of James Worpel and versatility of Hawthorn’s list means that, especially as Day recovers from shoulder surgery in the first half of the season, you’d expect several different players to roll through there. Mitchell has teased the prospect of real midfield minutes for Nick Watson, Josh Weddle, and Connor Macdonald. Those are three very different players, so it’ll be interesting to see how the pieces fit. The other noteworthy potential personnel change to report is that the new ruck rules (which discourage wrestling) appear to have put Ned Reeves back in the frame for senior selection. The 210 centimetre (!) behemoth doesn’t provide the same quality of contest work around the ground as Lloyd Meek, but if taps to genuine advantage become a viable tactic again, Hawthorn could decide the benefits outweigh the risks. There’s even talk that Mitchell will do something that’s become rare in the modern game: playing them both.

The Hawks are at the leading edge of the league-wide tactical shift to small forwards. Some people laughed when they took Nick Watson with Pick 5 in the 2023 draft. They’re not laughing anymore. His partners in crime inside 50 are Dylan Moore (perhaps more of a small medium forward than a “true” small) and Jack Ginnivan, whose top five finish in Hawthorn’s Best & Fairest in his second season vindicated the decision to trade him in from Collingwood. If Ginnivan and Watson are the young punks, then Jack Gunston is the old(er) man with a second lease on life. It’s hard to think of a late-career renaissance quite like his. He looked done at Brisbane. Two years later, he’s an All-Australian and Hawthorn’s Best & Fairest. Is it a risk to have so much scoring output resting on the shoulders of a 34 year-old? Perhaps. But it’s also an amazing story. Mabior Chol, Mitch Lewis, and Calsher Dear are the first-choice key forwards. All are useful – and Dear is very promising – but there is a gap to the best key forward cohorts in the league. Injury limited Dear to only nine games and Lewis to eight (sadly, injury and Lewis aren’t strangers) in 2025. Because of their dangerous smalls, Hawthorn rely more on bringing the ball to ground inside 50 more than most sides – so the health of Lewis and particularly Dear looms large in assessing how far they can go in 2026.

Line rankings

Defence: Elite

Midfield: Above Average

Forwards: Above Average

Ruck: Above Average

The case for optimism

Hawthorn has successfully navigated the first and most treacherous step of a rebuild: it has progressed from the bottom rung of the ladder to near the top. Not the summit (yet), but close. The Hawks have a talented young list, a game model that ensures a high floor, and the status and recent success to ensure they’ll remain an attractive destination for, say, out-of-contract superstar Port Adelaide midfielders or disgruntled Essendon captains. Concerns about not having drafted enough elite talent can be easily allayed by recruiting it instead (that, after all, is the model pursued by Hawthorn’s great rival, Geelong). Their road to success from their current point is short. All of which is to say, Hawthorn are in a position that most other clubs would envy.

There’s also a viable path to further improvement. The first is internal. Of the 10 non-ruck (sorry, Lloyd) Hawthorn players with the highest player rating over their last 20 games, six – Newcombe, Day, Ward, Ginnivan, Weddle, and Watson – are all still in the first half of their careers. Even if you think Newcombe is near his ceiling, and worry that injury will prevent Day from fulfilling his potential, the latter four names are still in the phase of their development where you’d expect real improvement. Other young players like Calsher Dear, Cam Mackenzie, and Massimo D’Ambrosio still have room to grow, too. If the older part of the core maintains their output for another couple of seasons, then the Hawks will get better. That won’t be lost on players who are contemplating their future at other clubs. The fact that Hawthorn couldn’t bring Essendon to the negotiating table for Merrett shouldn’t blind us to the fact that they recruited Tom Barrass and Josh Battle just a year earlier. Players, especially if they’re the age where the success of the Clarkson Era left an impression on them, want to join the Hawks. That’s a bullish sign for sustained competitiveness.

The case for pessimism

The Hawks are good. But they need Will Day to make them great. And, although we know he’s a star, unfortunately, we don’t know whether his body can withstand the rigours of AFL footy. Two separate foot injuries limited him to just six AFL games in 2025. That was after a stress fracture in his navicular bone delayed his start to 2024 and a collarbone injury ended it early. Which made it especially cruel that, just a week after his return to full training, a dislocated shoulder is likely to rule him out until around Hawthorn’s mid-season bye. It’s a devastating blow for Day and a disappointment for fans who enjoy seeing the competition’s best players. It also materially lowers Hawthorn’s ceiling. The Hawks are trying to thread the eye of the needle: to win a flag before Gunston, Sicily, and Barrass age out. No Will Day makes that task immensely more difficult. I hope all these injuries are just repeated coincidences. But it’s getting harder to make that case. And, past a certain point, it doesn’t matter much. Day was drafted in 2019. Six and a half years later, he’s played just 76 AFL games.

His extended absence speaks to a broader point: the Hawks have lots of good to very good players. It’s a testament to the quality and resourcefulness of their list build. But they don’t have as many A-graders as other Premiership contenders. Day is one – but he lacks the most important ability of all: availability. Newcombe, Sicily, Barrass and Gunston are excellent AFL players. And, as I’ve written above, Hawks fans should feel confident that Weddle and Watson are on the path to the elite. But – and I appreciate how crude a measure this is – if you were to draw up a fair list of top 50 AFL players, how many would be Hawthorn players? And how many would be Brisbane, Sydney, Gold Coast, and Western Bulldogs players? This isn’t disqualifying. The Dogs are a good reminder that an abundance of elite talent isn’t a silver bullet, especially if it isn’t complemented by a good supporting cast and an effective defensive system. Hawthorn has the role players and the system. But elite talent is still the fundamental constraint in the AFL.

I suspect the club believes something similar – hence its hard pursuit of Zach Merrett in last year’s Trade Period. The Hawks will try again this year, and might get their man. But even if they do, they will probably be walking a tightrope. Merrett will be 31 at the start of next season. So will Tom Barrass. James Sicily will be 32. Jack Gunston will be 35. Hawthorn can win a flag in the next three years. But more things would need to go right for that to happen than for most other contenders. In a way, it’s a testament to the quality of this rebuild – and Sam Mitchell’s coaching – that the difficulty of winning a Premiership is being cited as a cause for pessimism. Plenty of rebuilds don’t get this far. But getting good before you’ve drafted all your key pillars can prevent a team from ever becoming great.

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Breakout player

Weddle and Watson are overqualified. Josh Ward probably is too, although his style and demeanour doesn’t demand attention in quite the same way. As I wrote above, if Hawthorn are to obtain the internal improvement required to become first-rung flag contenders, they probably need at least one of Ward or Cam Mackenzie to blossom. Mackenzie has shown flashes of sublime talent and decision-making. If he can go from neat to damaging, the Hawks might have the next midfield star they crave.

Most important player

Because of his impact when he’s playing and when he isn’t – Will Day. The Hawks did an admirable job of covering for his absences in 2025. But the South Australian can do things no one else on their list can. When he plays, he drives that 1-2 percent of improvement that is often enough to decide prelim finals. When he isn’t, Hawthorn look organised, capable – and ever so slightly talent-deficient compared to their fellow contenders.

Biggest question to answer

If the Hawks can’t rely on Will Day in 2026, where is the improvement – either in personnel or system – that pushes them into real contention coming from? Right now, they’re tantalisingly close. They’re well-coached, resilient, and flexible. But the margins at the top are so fine that you could plausibly point to four or five teams better than them. Winning four finals (likely, given the amount of time Day will miss) is not an easy way to win a Premiership.

What success looks like

Hawthorn have won finals in each of the last two seasons despite not finishing in the top four. Logically, this suggests that success looks like taking the next step during the Home & Away season, in order to sustain a real tilt at the flag. But the loss of Day for the first three months of the year, coupled with the expected improvement of other contenders, makes that feel difficult. Given that, it’s probably fairer to temper expectations: get Day healthy, finish in the top six, win an Elimination Final, see what happens from there – and then push the boat out for the sort of player who helps you go from fifth or sixth-best side to top two.

In a nutshell

The Hawks have built a system that ensures competitiveness and a list that can sustain it. If Will Day gets healthy and one of their young midfielders breaks through, a flag is realistic. If not, they risk remaining a very good team in a competition that rewards great ones.