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Ryan likes his sport played efficiently, effectively and elegantly, like a Nic Naitanui hit out to advantage. Always searching for an interesting angle, Ryan loves nothing more than digging deep into the play and searching for the signal others miss in the noise. You can follow Ryan here (@RyanBuckland7).
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Acquiring a prime age AFL superstar has been a fraught and surprisingly fruitless exercise, according to recent history.
And so we reach the end of The Roar’s AFL Top 50. Now we’re in the sorts of rarefied air where there’s not much more to add beyond the number next to each player.
Facing one of the longest finals loss streaks in the league, Essendon has emerged as the 2018 offseason’s darling. One key unknown dogs them as the preseason gets underway.
So much of last year’s football palace intrigue centred on just how far the AFL would go to change the rules of the game in response to some meta-elements of the game it found unsatisfactory.
Numbers! Football! It’s time for our annual dispassionate look at some of the numbers behind the numbers in the AFL and see whether we can jag a bit of signal amidst the noise.
Let’s do two sets of rankings for the final BBL column for this year: the finals teams, and four things Cricket Australia should do to fix the Big Bash.
The past 18 months have been challenging for a thinking fan, with the repeated administrative malfeasance of AFL HQ. This year, we cast all of that aside, and go back to what makes Australian rules football the best sport in the world.
With five games to go, this season’s finalists are all but decided. All that’s left to do in these penultimate power rankings is work out who’ll host them.
We can equivocally draw a line under two of the competition’s eight teams with 13 games remaining. With a season-defining week ahead, another team or two could find themselves out of it sooner than later.
The BBL took the back seat to international cricket this week, and perhaps fortunately so given the standard of play once again failed to reach any great heights.
The top two is unchanged, and we’ve still got no idea what’s happening in between. Halfway – yes, halfway – through this season’s Big Bash, and it feels like it’s anyone’s tournament.
Ranking the BBL teams is my own personal Bird Box Challenge.
Just four games to go on, but there’s been enough signal amidst the T20 noise to make some subtle changes in this week’s BBL power rankings.
Each team has two games in the books, and there’s been plenty of change in this week’s edition of the Big Bash power rankings.
The best short-form cricket competition in the world is back, figuratively and literally bigger than ever. Each week we’ll be running through the games, power rankings style.
Christmas comes but once a year, and in my very particular case, a day later than usual. It’s time to unwrap the 2019 AFL fixture, and see who got lumped with this year’s coal.
No one has won or lost this year’s trade period, because you can’t be a winner or a loser this far out from the 2019 season. This column doesn’t crown winners and losers, but it does have views on the most important outcomes from this year’s trade period.
Player exchange in the AFL needs an overhaul. The last time the Collective Bargaining Agreement was thrashed out both sides failed the challenge of change. Let’s start the process early this time around.
This season there has been far too much talk about what is wrong with the AFL. Let’s celebrate what’s right by running through the best moments of the season.
Our last two premiers have something in common: they were expected to fall out of contention, but surprised us all and won it all. There’s something else: active off seasons.
Paul I like to think you are a Roar reader who engages with the substantive portion of articles instead of the stuff at the periphery.
Where do I say Adelaide won the trade? Or that Geelong made a mistake?
Are the Adelaide Crows winning the Patrick Dangerfield trade?
It’s just a device to cover off two of the interesting teams in the league. The Dangerfield thing was more a realisation I had thinking about where Geelong and Adelaide are at, and then going back and looking at how the superstar acquisition circuit has performed in recent years. Headlines and lead lines are headlines and lead lines for a reason. I hope you and everyone else engages with the substance of what is in here because I write it for a reason. I could come up with wayyyy more interesting controversial and inflammatory opinions than this if that was my goal.
Are the Adelaide Crows winning the Patrick Dangerfield trade?
Josh Kennedy is great but he’s no Lance Franklin. He has dropped down the list this year too though.
The Roar's 2019 AFL Top 50: 20-11
You can blame me and my ranking method: pedigree + prediction. I’m worried we’re about to enter a phase of Josh Kennedy’s career where he plays every other week on average because of his age and the miles on his body.
That has to count against him: being available and able to perform at 100% is a skill.
The Roar's 2019 AFL Top 50: 20-11
Too many Pies here for my liking. You’re only as good as your last game after all.
The Roar's 2019 AFL Top 50: 30-21
West Coast was 8-3 on the road last year, including 3-0 at the MCG, and they won the Grand Final there against a tenant club (which was supposed to be impossible).
The Roar's 2019 AFL Top 50: 40-31
Also new rule: someone has to have two voters vote for them in their individual top 50s for them to make it into the overall top 50. Rioli would be out, James Sicily would be in at 50, and Breust would shuffle up to 49. Can we make that a retrospective change? I feel bad (oh wait no I don’t, it’s a list of names that means nothing, but still let’s make that a retrospective policy change).
The Roar's 2019 AFL Top 50: 50-41
I’m just here to say I have taken down all your names and when Dan Rioli kicks 50 goals and makes the All Australian team this year I’ll send you all a personal email.
The Roar's 2019 AFL Top 50: 50-41
There is nothing in what I said that implies or suggests that because a team has won X number of close games in A period that they will then lose Y close games in B period.
Numbers Game: Which teams will rise and fall in the AFL in 2019?
Y’all are overthinking the close game thing.
Numbers Game: Which teams will rise and fall in the AFL in 2019?
I think you do that, then look to add a team or two from New Zealand.
Unfortunately I think the toothpaste is out of the tube on the teams. There has been so much spent on branding I can’t see them ever going back to State-based teams for the BBL.
What Cricket Australia must do to fix the Big Bash for 2020
I’m not sure that there are more 12 win teams is a strong enough argument to expand the finals series to ten teams. But I am sure the AFL will use that as a key argument when it expands the finals series to ten teams as part of the next broadcast agreement.
The AFL is ready for a ten-team finals series
I reckon the Sydney Thunder line up of the first couple of years of the BBL has this one covered in terms of on-paper awfulness.
If there’s any consolation on-paper talent has meant very little in the BBL when it comes to finals spots. Hobart looked like it has put together a bad squad last year, and they made it to the final!
Big Bash power rankings: Week 1
Yeah I really think it comes down to their batting. There is enough there by way of both power and accumulation, but they’ll be fairly reliant on a middle order full of all rounders. Also not sure what Michael Klinger has been up to.
Big Bash power rankings: Week 1
You’re getting caught in the BS media narrative. Look at it objectively: Fremantle converted a player who was evidently going to leave next year plus pick six into 3-4 best 22 players plus a draft hand equivalent to if they’d have finished in the top six. It’s phenomenal work.
The Giants aren't done, Peter Bell is a golden god and other observations from this year's trade period
My top ten moments of the 2018 AFL season. Emphasis on the my. Of course it’s biased.
Best of the best: My top ten moments of the 2018 AFL season
Based on what I’ve heard over the weekend, I’m not celebrating until I see his signature on a piece of paper.
Best of the best: My top ten moments of the 2018 AFL season
I don’t think it’s ranting. Collingwood/GWS will be the third team in 19 years or something like that to play a preliminary final off a six day break. It’s just not the done thing. The AFL has lost the plot when it comes to appeasing its main broadcaster this year and this is just another example of it.
What now for the Geelong Cats, the AFL's most interesting team?
Rance led the league in one on one contests by so far it’s a joke, taking the best forward of the opposition most of the time, and lost fewer than almost all of them. Add to that his spoiling, intercept work and ability to set up the play and he is the first man picked in the team. It’s trendy to say he’s not that good; don’t fall for it.
Here's who should be in the 2018 All Australian Team
And the fans are heading for the exits.
West Coast Eagles vs Melbourne Demons: AFL live scores, blog
Adelaide!!
2019 AFL season preview: Collingwood Magpies