We often hear that having a great forward who hits the scoreboard multiple times a week is the key to success in the AFL, however is this statement true?
I looked back over every premiership team since 1990 to see how often the top goal kickers in the league led their team to success.
At a quick glance it seems that having a great scorer definitely does give a team a chance at tasting the ultimate success. In all, 17 of the last 26 premiers featured a forward that finished the year in the top five for goals scored.
When expanding the parameter to the top ten in goals scored the statistic becomes 21 of the last 26 premiers, while every single premiership team except for Collingwood in 2010 and West Coast in 1994 had at least one forward finish in the top 15.
Alan Didak’s 41 goals in 2010 was the least from a premiership team’s primary goal kicker in recent memory, however Travis Cloke kicked 38 and finished 22nd while Chris Dawes also contributed 30.
West Coast’s 1994 season is quite similar, as Peter Sumich kicked 49 goals and finished 16th in goal kicking, just ahead of teammate Brett Heady who kicked 44 and Chris Lewis who kicked 38.
The leading goal kicker for the past 26 premiers has also very rarely been a small forward.
Peter Daicos, Darren Jarman, Alan Didak and Lewis Jetta are the only non key-position players to be the primary goal scorer in a premiership team in the last 26 years.
The other 22 are prototypical lead-up forwards such as Jason Dunstall, Wayne Carey and Matthew Lloyd.
It’s also interesting to note the average goals scored by a premiership team’s leading goal kicker during this period is just slightly under 71.
While the average has no doubt been boosted slightly by incredible 100-goal seasons from Matthew Lloyd and Lance Franklin, every leader kicked at least 45 goals except for Didak.
In fact, 76 per cent kicked at least 55 goals while 65 per cent kicked at least 65 goals.
Depending on how many finals were played and if the player was injured, this means that generally for a team to win a premiership they need a player averaging around 2 goals per game.
In 2015 only four teams in the league (Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon) didn’t have a player up around this mark.
Additionally, of the ten teams that had a player kick 45 goals or more last year, six of them were teams that made the top eight. Fremantle’s Michael Walters and North Melbourne’s Jarrad Waite just missed out, finishing on 44 and 42 goals respectively.
It’s hard to state whether teams that taste the ultimate success are successful because of their top forwards or whether being a great team means that somebody will just inevitably kick 45 goals.
However, seeing these stats it’s hard to argue with the importance that clubs place on trying to secure a dominant forward for their future.
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