Who Wins the Premiership from Here?

Who Wins the Premiership from Here?

GuyWhoLikesSport

At the outset of the finals, it’s time to ask who is most likely from here to win the premiership.

This season isn’t necessarily like last season in that there isn’t a team with an unassailable statistical edge, there is no dominant team.

As I see it, there are three teams with the best chance then virtually everyone else is about the same. 

This should make for a compelling finals series, so let’s get into it. 

Melbourne  

 The Dees’ decision to drop Brodie Grundy is the best example of addition by subtraction since the Pittsburgh Steelers got rid of Antonio Brown.

Since Grundy was first dropped in Round 18 for Melbourne’s 1-point win over the Lions, Melbourne has won five of six with their only loss coming against Carlton, Grundy’s only AFL game over that 6-week period.  

Their attempt to build on a strength didn’t work but they have shown the humility to accept it, as Simon Goodwin said this week.

The ability to cut their losses and move on is almost Belichickian, back when Belichick was making moves like that instead of hiring defensive coordinators and failed head coaches to run offenses.  

 Aside from the Grundy, Melbourne has the best statistical case to win the premiership.

They are in the top 6 in every single one of the premiership indicators and #1 in 4 of them including inside 50 differential, metres gained differential and inside 50s.

Even if Melbourne don’t have a good forward line, which they don’t, they get the ball in there so much that it doesn’t matter.  

They’re 6th in total points and second in point differential.  

In a season where nobody is excellent, Melbourne is the best.

A bit like when The Hurt Locker won best picture (even though I maintain that it should have been Inglorious Basterds but the academy was too snooty). 

 

Bet now: AFL Finals

Collingwood 

The Pies finished top of the ladder this season, largely because of the work they did early in the year when they were blowing everyone out of the water.

In the last five to six weeks though, the comp has seemed to catch up with them.

Over the course of the year, their rating sits fourth in the AFL. But over the last 5 weeks injuries have begun to take a toll and they sit 13th over that period.

That has shown in their overall record over that span sitting at 2-3 with a loss to the Hawks in there.  

Statistically, they are top 6 in 15/19 Premiership indicators and number 1 in 5 of them including metres gained differential, which shows in their consistent ability to create scores from defensive 50.

They’re just about the best rebound team that I can remember.

That, to me, is a gift and a curse given how hard it has proven to win that way instead of getting easy scores from forward half turnover.  

The Pies are a high-wire act team, but they’ve had very little trouble pulling off that high-wire act for most of the season against all opposition. 

Critically they are a juggernaut at the MCG where they will play all of their finals and the Grand Final. 

The fact that they will also get all of their injured/suspended stars back is another reason to have them sitting second despite an indifferent end of the year. 

The good news is that the Pies have never been in a position like this before and blown it.  

Bet now: AFL Finals

Brisbane  

I wrote recently that I didn’t think that it would be Brisbane, and I still don’t.

But they are clearly the third side in this year’s top tier of teams. 

Brisbane managed to stave off a spirited effort by St Kilda to stay in second on the ladder by percentage.

So, thankfully for them, they get to stay home right up until the big dance if they win the first final.  

Their MCG record hangs over them like the anvil hangs over Tom in Tom and Jerry.

Brisbane is 2-16 at the MCG in the regular season.

Yes, they won a final against Melbourne there last year, but they couldn’t do anything with that either.  

They have been basically a dominant side this season in the places that you don’t need to dominate: clearance and contested ball while ignoring more important ways to win like turnover.  

The Lions are a good side, clearly in the game’s top tier, but I can’t get past their MCG record.

I hope I’m wrong, I love watching them, but I just don’t think that I am.  

Bet now: AFL Finals

Port Adelaide  

Port, to me, is a level below the top 3 sides.

That shows in their overall percentage which, at 112.7, is the only one in the top 4 below 123.1.  

After a scalding hot middle of the year where they won 13 in a row before resting everyone and playing Carlton into even better, they have been perfectly mediocre going 3-3 in the run home with a perfectly even scoring differential. 

Statistically, that shows as well as they sit 12th in rating points over that same span while struggling in the areas that they dominated in over the course of the season: notably scoring.  

Their reliance on Charlie Dixon in finals is also an issue.

Ken Hinkley declared that he would be fit for the finals, but Dixon has looked injured or bad for most of the season and he is still their best key forward.

He still looks like Charlie Dixon, but he just is not as influential or as scary as he once was.  

Watching him reminds me of the end of Ricky Ponting.

He still looks the same in his face, is still capable of a moment here or a moment there, but then all of a sudden he’s walking to the pavilion for 32.

Everything except the output is the same.

Bet now: AFL Finals

Carlton  

Boy oh boy is this a shame.  

Looks like Carlton is good, despite losing their last game of the year.  

Part of me wonders (hopes) if there is a bit of Richmond 2014 to the Blues, where the Tigers won 9 straight to make it to September only to get demolished by Port in Week 1 of the finals.  

Every week for two months was a final for the Tigers, so when they got there and everyone else ratcheted up the intensity Richmond just didn’t have the gear to go to.

Similarly, the Blues won nine straight to barnstorm into the finals prior to finally losing to GWS.

They have been dominant over that period in terms of pressure and have won by winning it out of the guts, and getting it to a forward line that is absolutely cooking around Charlie Curnow.  

Their pressure has also been manic and, over the last 10 weeks, they’ve been one of the best in the league in terms of metres gained.  

Carlton is scary.  

The other possible wrench is that Harry McKay appears to have something incriminating on Michael Voss.  

Someone should tell Voss that he doesn’t need to pick Harry.

Since McKay went out injured against Port Carlton have won five of six.

Over that six week block, Charlie kicked 27 goals to win the Coleman and the Blues looked infinitely more dangerous.  

Even the attempt to bring McKay back hasn’t worked.  

Against GWS, in order to play them both but also give Charlie the space he needs, McKay ended up playing in the ruck and the best clearance ruckman in the game Marc Pittonet was omitted.

Even though Charlie kicked three, McKay’s playing still had the potential to rob Carlton of their two biggest assets: clearance dominance and Charlie Curnow.

Playing McKay is a bit like Jamie Lee Curtis showing up in that episode of The Bear.

Everyone likes JLC, she’s great. But in that episode, she took away from everything that makes that show good and ultimately was wrong for the part.

She didn’t have the necessary Italian-ness dripping off her and she ended up massively overdoing it (what’s Edie Falco up to?).  

McKay is good. Carlton is good, but this finals series they’d be better apart. 

Bet now: AFL Finals

Sydney 

Nobody has recovered more quickly from a hangover than Sydney did this year.

After getting smoked in last year’s Grand Final, they started the season 3-6 and looked cooked. 

Since then, the Swans have only lost four more games for the season and have returned to top form.  

Indeed, Sydney has won six of seven games and head into the finals as one of the form sides of the competition, sitting fourth in rating competition-wide over that period. 

They have been an excellent pressure side over that same period as well while still scoring heavily with four from their last six games scoring over 90 points.  

So why are they so low?

They struggle in the metreage game and can, at times, appear stuck in the mud as they try to move the ball forward sitting 13th in meters gained over the season, albeit they’re 6th over the last 5 games.  

Another reason they’re this low: you can throw a blanket over them, Carlton and GWS for me.

Any of those teams are basically interchangeable and have had relatively similar seasons in the sense that they started slowly but have come home like a steamtrain.  

I don’t think they win the premiership but if they win their first final against the Blues, watch out. 

Bet now: AFL Finals

GWS  

If this list was one of the teams you don’t want to see in Week 1 of the finals, I think GWS would almost be on top.

They are a terrifying blend of superstars and role players and a side with whom the underlying numbers are in love, sitting first in the AFL in total rating.  

They were 3-7 to start the year, they finished 10-3.

You could make an argument that they are the hottest team in footy at the moment. 

They also employ Toby Greene, whose air of constant menace is reminiscent the shark from Jaws.

Even when you haven’t seen him for a while, you’re always aware that he could bob up and tear you limb from limb.  

If you’re asking me to pick one forward to win one game with, the first one I’m picking is Charlie Curnow.

Toby Greene is second. Superstar. 

There are significant issues at GWS as well, despite the underlying numbers.

They leak the ball out of the middle and struggle to take contested marks anywhere on the field, making their games incredibly random because of how little control they can exercise over proceedings.  

That also makes them intoxicating viewing. 

I see GWS beating St Kilda pretty easily in the same way that Geelong was Richmond’s bunny for a number of years there in the war of chaos vs control, and after that you’d be terrified to meet them in the second week of the finals as well.

Bet now: AFL Finals

St Kilda

This is disrespectful.

Unlike the rest of the teams from 5-8, the Saints have grimly hung onto 5th or 6th in the finals all season long.

They haven’t needed to storm into the finals through a heady brew of luck and dare.

They’ve been consistent.

They’re like a dog who will not, under any circumstances, give up a bone.

They are, predictably, the absolute best defensive side in the AFL.

Also predictably, they’re one of the least good offensive sides ahead of only the Eagles, Kangaroos and Hawks.

These Saints are the platonic idea of a Ross Lyon team, they’re playing the hits.

Like Chris Nolan, even in a historical epic, somehow having a “let’s fuck around with time” element and a camera shake.

Because of that, the Saints’ ceiling is capped in a way that no other team in the finals’ is.

They are gifted at dragging teams down to their level, but as the competition gets stiffer that task will get harder.

The Saints are the only team in the finals that I would categorically rule out from winning it all this season.

Bet now: AFL Finals