Opinion
One of the clearest indicators of success with both the men’s and women’s top-level footy clubs is the ability to pull away in the fourth quarter through superior fitness and at times superior depth.
There’s no need to invoke anything about the shorter quarters or warmer weather that the AFLW players work with. In this conversation, we’re going to be comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges.
Statistically, the first of the women’s clubs we should commend would be the road warriors from Fremantle.
In their four games to date, they’ve managed to outscore their opponents by a margin of 83 to 15 in the final quarter, pulling away from the Eagles 23-0 in the fourth quarter, edging away from the Giants 8-2, obliterating an otherwise capable Tigers crew 33-13 in the fourth, and even putting 2021 finalist Collingwood to the sword in the fourth quarter 19-0.
Behind the Dockers, there is a collection of clubs that are demonstrably fitter than average. In this group, I would start with Adelaide.
The Crows have three games totalling 37-13 in their favour in the fourth, with one game where Melbourne was allowed back onto the scoreboard this Saturday after being up 34-2.
It’s probably more accurate to argue that Adelaide let up in the final stanza, and that gave a good Demons team the edge they needed to outscore the three-time grand finalist by three goals to make the score look prettier in the end.
It would be worth reminding the Crows that percentage may determine the site of the grand final again this season.
Also in that collection would be those Tigers, who have been the only team with the energy to kick it between the sticks in the fourth against Fremantle, as well as outscoring Melbourne and St Kilda in the final quarter by a combined 32-12.
However, they were outproduced by the other member of that collection, the surprising 2-1 Gold Coast Suns, the only team with two legit upsets this season with the wagering going the opposite direction.
Both of their upsets came with the outcome in doubt entering the fourth quarter, and in both games Gold Coast pulled away with a strong fourth quarter: 30-19 over the Eagles in Round 2 and 14-1 this weekend over Richmond to overtake the Tigers in one of the most competitive games of the season, moving from eight down at the final break on Sunday to win by five, 39-34.
On a trial basis, one of the final entries in this collection will be Melbourne’s perennially under-achieving pool of talent, mostly on the basis of their demonstrative, demonic demolition of the saintly crew from St Kilda, who they outscored in the fourth quarter by the absurd margin of 41 to nothing back on January 22.
(Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Before that, they had an 8-0 fourth quarter over a disappointing Bulldogs team they had already put away 38-22 in the first three quarters, and a win over the aforementioned Richmond club, which included a two-goal-to-one comeback in the final quarter that fell well short of a serious threat.
Last weekend, they ostensibly outscored the powerful Adelaide Crows in the fourth quarter 19-1, but they get no credit for anything done when down 34-2 after three.
The other ones are the Giants from beyond the lesser part of western Sydney, who have two definite qualifying performances (nine unanswered points over those Suns from down Gold Coast way; 12-2 to put away a favoured Bulldogs team), one with a severe caveat (going 20-0 against the Crows in the fourth isn’t impressive when you start the quarter down 54-7 and were down 44-0 and 47-1 in the third), and one where even losing the quarter 8-2 isn’t that bad when the team you’re losing to is Fremantle.
So, the jury’s still out.
Teams in the middle of the bell curve on this topic include Brisbane (slightly outscored in three fourth quarters, 41-45), Collingwood (30-36, slanted askew by Fremantle’s 19-zip fourth quarter this weekend), North Melbourne (38-39 overall, tilted by allowing the Giants to work themselves into a respectable position after being down 54-7 at three-quarter time), and generally improved overall Geelong (losers to all three previous members but not because of being blown out in the final quarter).
Skip on down to the bottom of the endurance standings, as measured by the fourth-quarter fall-off, and you won’t find much to separate the weakest from the weaker.
And mostly, that’s because there really aren’t any unfit teams out there, just those few we’ve mentioned who’ve got that little extra.
If you want to look at the weakest fourth-quarter scoreboards, what you’ll find are the same teams that are sitting at the bottom of the ladder anyway: the three winless teams below 50 per cent in slots 12 through 14.
Geelong may be 0-4, but anyone who’s watched them knows they’ll get a few this season as it progresses.
The 12th-place Bulldogs (49 per cent) have had some health issues keeping them down in 2022, holding them to just two games so far.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
But in those two games they’ve scored just two points in the final quarter, while their opponents have kicked three goals, two behinds for 20 points in that same time frame. Translate that to percentage, and the fourth-quarter Dogs are a ten per cent team.
The 13th-place Eagles (44 per cent) have gone scoreless in two of their three final stanzas, albeit against Adelaide and Fremantle, so that is forgiven.
And they allowed Gold Coast to romp all over them when they had been within two points at three-quarter time.
The fourth-quarter Eagles are a 31 per cent team, notably worse than their performance over the first three (over 54 per cent).
And the 14th-place Saints (36 per cent) have been outscored drastically in their three games played thus far – but it actually gets worse in the fourth.
Through three quarters, they’re a 42 per cent team. In the fourth this season, they’re only a 27 per cent percentage team.
And that’s thanks to Collingwood relaxing a bit towards the end of their Round 2 game, when they were up 35-2 and surrendered a pair of Saints goals late to disguise the severity of the defeat.
Melbourne had no such compunction the next week, as I mentioned.
But it’s impossible to justify criticising these three teams as being unfit – any team playing day-time games in the heat of the Australian summer are fit or they don’t survive.
Kudos to all 14 clubs and all 30-plus roster members (counting top-ups) with each team.
Let’s look at the games scheduled for Round 5, based on the ELO-Following Football rating system and assuming all games go off as scheduled.
There is no real point in forecasting the Fremantle-Western Bulldogs game, since by the time you read this, it’ll be long completed. But for the record, the Dockers were rated to be 26-point favourites.
The Friday night battle of the winless Geelong Cats and the winless West Coast Eagles at GMHBA has two key elements indicating the first victory of the season for the Cats.
One, it’s a home game. Two, they’re simply better, fitter, and have been closer to a victory on several occasions already in 2022.
And three – they aren’t waiting to find out when they get to go home so they can see their loved ones and get a change of clothes, like West Coast are.
Oh, and four – our ELO-FF rating system says the Cats are three-and-a-half goal favourites. We’ll wager that way, too.
As I began to type this up, I saw the report that GWS has at least six players out on “health and safety protocols”.
That will be the phrase that we all pray we’ll have to explain to our grandchildren in 30 years.
But they’ve lost out on a sure win, as I had the Giants favoured over St Kilda by 16.5 points.
(Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
Saturday’s Brisbane-Collingwood game sets up between two of the big six of the Premier League of women’s footy.
But just as Tottenham are vaguely questionable as being the equivalent of Man City or Liverpool, Collingwood hardly seem the equal of Brisbane, Adelaide or Fremantle.
The ELO-FF ratings agree, because with the assistance of playing twice in a row on the same oval, Brisbane are favoured by one and a half goals this weekend.
Melbourne get to host Gold Coast at Casey Fields on Saturday after a tough day in Adelaide last weekend, and while the Suns are sitting close to the Demons on the ladder with one loss each, the Gold Coast’s loss was to GWS, while Melbourne’s was to league-elite Adelaide.
There is a big difference.
While it’ll be a little closer than the ELO-FF ratings say (seven goals sounds like a bit much), it shouldn’t be competitive in the fourth.
We’re most interested, naturally, in which team has more drive to finish with hands on the ball and knees on the turf.
If it’s Melbourne, it may indeed stretch to seven goals by game’s end. If it’s Gold Coast, their percentage won’t fall far from its current three-digit value.
On Sunday, it’ll be the Bulldogs and Tigers first up, and this may take the prize for closest game of the season if the Doggies are up to it.
Until late Saturday, the season-low final margin was eight points, which was North over Geelong.
We finally had a pair of one-score games late in Round 4 – Brisbane by two over Carlton and Gold Coast by five over Richmond.
Without seeing the results of Tuesday’s Bulldogs game, I can’t tell you the ELO-FF prediction for a margin.
But if there’s no change in the Bulldogs’ current rating, this game would be rated nearly dead even.
Personally, we’ll take Richmond simply because of consistency, better health, and more recent rest.
Not so unpredictable will be Carlton hosting Adelaide at Ikon Park, the home of women’s footy.
The ELO-FF rating system gives Adelaide about a 14-point margin in this game.
(Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Here’s our wishy-washy take on that number – if Carlton stay close in the second half, they could snatch a victory that would surprise everyone except Carlton fans (or perhaps especially Carlton fans).
If Adelaide exercise their advantage, as described earlier, they’ll move out beyond 14 points midway through the fourth and finish well above 20.
North Melbourne get to go to Hobart to host Fremantle, which negates their lone advantage (namely home-ground advantage) in playing the Dockers.
Our ratings list Freo as a half-to-full-goal favourite. If they’ll really be in Tasmania, we’ll take the Dockers by at least two full goals.
Finally, on Tuesday, they’re going to try to give the Saints and Eagles each a chance to win a game and get off the spoon before the Eagles get locked back down in WA.
As the ratings currently stand, this would be a very close game, with West Coast a four-point underdog.
Our gut instinct says that’s probably pretty close to right, so we’ll stick our neck out and take St Kilda as well.
Last week, we were a mere 4-2 in our forecasts, both straight up and against the spread.
After starting the season 17-1 straight up, it was a smashing let-down for which the Gold Coast carry two thirds of the blame. GWS’ win over Richmond carries the other third.
Overall: 21-3 straight up, 15-8 against the spread so far in season 2022.
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