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What a season! If we look at the form guide over the last four weeks, the top three teams should be Brisbane, Richmond and Essendon.
All have at least one game of their last five against the only four teams that can be written off with no chance of making the finals, so all should be considered finalists and premiership contenders.
They are followed by a group of four which includes one no-hoper (Carlton), so three of these (West Coast, Hawthorn and Western Bulldogs) are still in the mix’ West Coast appear certainties while I expect the Western Bulldogs to drop out of contention over the next two rounds.
Geelong did enough early to still be there, and Collingwood and Greater Western Sydney may scrape over the line.
Fremantle, North Melbourne and St Kilda still live in hope, but the road home and the crowd in front of them means it would be a herculean effort just to get to the finals.
So, who will fill the eighth spot out of Adelaide, Port Adelaide and Hawthorn? I believe the master coach may bring the Hawks home.
The news that Luke Hodge may play on in 2020 is great, as his influence at Brisbane has been one of the reasons that the Lions continue to stump the experts. Hodge is number two on the current elite AFL game players list of 11 players, and with Shaun Burgoyne and Gary Ablett (numbers one and three) also a chance to continue, 2020 should again be a great year for star watchers.
With the two Swans (Jarryd McVeigh (4) and Lance Franklin (9)) missing through injury, we will see Heath Shaw jump the queue and beat Buddy to the now crowded milestone of 300 games, and all except Ablett (Geelong/Gold Coast), Jordan Lewis (Hawthorn/Melbourne) and Scott Pendlebury (Collingwood) improve their AFL top 100 game players ranking.
The news is not so great among the current eight AFL top 100 goalkickers with Franklin and possibly Taylor Walker missing through injury and form slumps from Josh Kennedy (West Coast Eagles/Carlton), Eddie Betts (Adelaide/Carlton) and Jarryd Roughead (Hawthorn) meaning any movement up the elite AFL goal scorers ladder will be minimal.
Jeremy Cameron (Greater Western Sydney) – the best performing goal kicker in Round 18 against Collingwood – now needs only eight goals to join the elite top 100 and is in a race with Hawthorn’s Luke Breust, who is five goals ahead of him.
At club level games tallies will be equalled or broken with Geelong’s Joel Selwood drawing level with Peter Riccardi in sixth place on the all-time games played list and Carlton’s Marc Murphy passing David McKay to become outright ninth on the Blues’ all-time list.
Both Josh Kennedys will progress with the Sydney star drawing level with ex-Noble Park player Tony Morwood in 18th position among the Swans game players, while over in the west the nearly 32-year old playing his 215th game for the Eagles will go one better, drawing level with dual premiership player and club best and fairest Chris Lewis.
Traditional milestones will also be reached by Tom Hawkins (250) and Bachar Houli (200).
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