With round 17 in the books, each team has only seven games left to play.
Do you know what that means? We’re getting to the time where one of my favourite footy cliché’s starts to emerge: “gee whiz, you wouldn’t want to see these blokes in the first week of the finals” when talking about a big win from a team that is on the cusp of the eight.
I think there are three ingredients required for this cliché to be trotted out appropriately.
Firstly, the team has to be one we either had high hopes for before the season, or at the very least appeared a talented list that was touted as a smoky by pundits in the preseason. This ingredient is critical as it ensures that preseason commentariat wasn’t wrong, it was just early.
Secondly, there needs to be some attrition that is getting fixed at the pointy end of the season. That can be injuries, interpersonal turmoil, wider club issues etc.. There has to be a remediable reason for why they are on the outside looking in.
Third and finally, there needs to be a talismanic player around which the concern can crystallise. A player or position group that strikes fear into the hearts of opposing fans. For instance, I remember in the 2019 Grand Final where Richmond was set to play GWS. I figured Richmond were the better side and would probably win the game, but I was petrified at the prospect of seeing Toby Greene in a Grand Final. He’s out now, he lost by 89 but the point remains.
(Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Naturally, this exercise requires the teams to be outside the eight. In the interests of not making this a 25,000 word column but also acknowledging how bunched up the ladder is (8 points separate 5 from 14), we’ll include the teams from 7th on the ladder down to 14th.
These teams are separated by 8 points at most, but percentage is also factor. Therefore, the teams included will be: Western Bulldogs, Geelong, Adelaide, GWS, Carlton, and Richmond.
Fifth and sixth on the ladder today are St Kilda and Essendon. If that holds, which is perhaps unlikely given the chickens look to be coming home to roost on the injury front for the Saints, whoever comes 7th and 8th will be looking at those teams like they’re a PwC client getting a tasty government secret.
Let’s get into the list.
1. Geelong
This is easy. They won the premiership last year. They have won or drawn 4 out of their last 5, including a dismantling of Melbourne. They still employ the services of Patrick Dangerfield, Jeremy Cameron, Tom Hawkins, Tom Stewart, etc.. They’re fourth in scoring, fifth in points per game differential and on percentage alone they’d be fourth on the ladder.
Geelong is like Anton Chigurh. You don’t want to see them. If you do, especially in week 1 of the finals, it probably spells bad news.
2. Western Bulldogs
This one is mostly on vibes. The Bulldogs are decidedly untrustworthy. They very seldom win or lose just one game. Their good games and their bad games tend to come in bunches. They still don’t seem to have their team appropriately balanced as their team build careens from extreme to extreme almost weekly, as their Claudio Ranieri style tinkerer can’t help himself but tinker.
(Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
They’re like that partner that goes on streaks. They’re making dinner, doing all this nice stuff for you for like a month. But then they have a month where they’re going through your phone and asking if there’s something going on with your aunt.
But just when you’re done with them, another good month will start. They’re the worst/best person you’ve ever dated.
To that end, we’ve seen this story before. Twice they’ve come from outside the 4 to make a grand final. When they’re good, they’re really good. There’s no telling if they’ll be good come finals time this year, but what if they are?
They’re a middle of the pack scoring and point differential side, but they have one of the best midfields in footy sitting second in clearances, second in clearance differential and second in stoppage clearances.
They also employ Aaron Naughton, who has been down this season but showed signs of life against the Pies, and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan who is starting to play like a number 1 pick. In the past 6 weeks, his numbers compare favourably to Charlie Curnow and Jeremy Cameron in virtually all the important categories for a key forward: contested marks, inside 50s and score involvements. He’s just kicking less straight than the other two.
The sky is the limit if Jamarra’s form line continues to resemble a rocket ship and he gets his kicking boots on.
Those ingredients, along with Marcus Bontempelli, who has shown shown time and again that he can win a game off his own force of will, should have teams frightened.
3. GWS
Do you want to know an interesting stat? By adding the Official AFL Player Ratings in order to get a team rating, GWS is the top-rated team in the AFL. Rounding out the top 4 are Collingwood, Melbourne and Essendon, with Brisbane sitting 5th.
These numbers aren’t perfect, but at the extremes they tell you who the good teams are.
GWS are at the extreme, a bit like Richmond in 2022. And it’s starting to show in their results.
(Photo by Matt King/AFL Photos/via Getty Images )
They’ve won 4 in a row, with the only loss coming at the hands of a last second goal against Richmond. In fact, of GWS’ 8 losses, half have come by 2 goals or less. They also lost to Essendon by 13 points and randomly have a loss to the Eagles sprinkled in at round 2. They also have some genuine superstars playing extremely well in Josh Kelly, Stephen Coniglio and Toby Greene among others.
But Greene is the jewel, and the AFL’s closest facsimile to the shark from Jaws, when you think about his constant air of menace and havoc wreaking genius, with and without the ball.
Yes, they were mostly spanked by other finals calibre oppositions over the course of the year, but they have recent close wins against Melbourne and Geelong. GWS are a bit confounding. Confounding is scary. Ask an American conservative about the gays, or Bud Light, and you’ll see.
4. Adelaide
I wrote a recent column comparing this year’s Crows team favourably to the 2015 outfit, in the sense that this team is much the same as that 2015 team in terms of being the year before the year before true contention. I stand by that.
That alone makes them scary.
They are one of the league’s most interesting forward lines yet again with Tex Walker still leading the show. But beneath him there’s another key forward prospect in Riley Thilthorpe, who has shown occasional flashes over his career.
Really, though, the terror comes from the smaller players in Izak Rankine and Josh Rachele. They’re roughly the same size, play roughly similar positions, but have different player profiles. They’re the AFL’s best small forward buddy cop combination. Footy’s Midnight Run.
The prospect of being the team that shows up in the post-2025 Adelaide Crows’ premiership video as being the “win that gave us all confidence that we’re on the right track” should make them a team that you don’t want to see. Even if they’ve been rubbish away from Adelaide oval, for this exercise, you still wouldn’t be excited to cop them.
5. Richmond
Any fear of playing Richmond is just leftover fear of the laundry.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
This year’s Tiger team is tough and honest, but their only viable key forward is arguably no longer viable. Jack Riewoldt, at this point in his career, should only be playing 10-15 games a year but injuries have forced him to play every week. He’s putting it together with spit and duct tape, like he has for the last couple of years, but the cracks are finally starting to show and his impact is starting to wane. Last year he was Muhammad Ali eking out wins against Norton and Spinks through just grit and toughness. This year it’s Ali vs Holmes.
Because of that, Richmond is simply struggling to score and sit 13th in point differential for the season. The backline is holding up impressively, and Tylar Young and Noah Balta appear to be building blocks for the future. But this article is about the present. Even with a strong midfield brigade and a cavalcade of goalscoring mids, as well as the talismanic Dustin Martin who is finding a bit of form, you’d be doing backflips if you got Richmond in the first week.
6. Carlton
Yep, in theory they have two pretty good key forwards. Although only one of them has been any good for most of the year.
Yep, in theory they have a few pretty good mids, though none of them have been as good as they were last year where the Blues still didn’t make the finals. None of that is a recipe for a team you don’t want to play. It’s a recipe for a team that you do.
You wouldn’t be scared of Carlton because they’re basically the same side as they were last year, where still managed to miss the finals. Virtually every stat compares unfavourably to the Blues of last year. They’re getting less clearances, scoring far less and are worse in score differential.
Missionary Michael hasn’t changed a thing, his move just isn’t working as well.
Again, it’s not like the 2022 Blues were a juggernaut. They missed the finals. You’re getting the worse version of a crappy product. They’re a Jet tribute band.
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