Who can actually win the flag from here?

Who can actually win the flag from here?

The bye rounds are done and we’re heading down the home stretch. And the season looks set to come home like the last hour of Furiosa – incredibly well – as we have third and thirteen separated by just six points.

Given that, at this point in the season I think it’s worthwhile to take stock of who could win the premiership and I wouldn’t be bowled over.

I AM NOT MAKING A PICK! These are just the teams that could hoist the trophy on September 28 and not bowl me over.

The Favourites

Sydney
Carlton
Collingwood

I have spilled significant ink on each of these three sides already this season so I’ll keep this brief.

In this tier there are two tiers.

There’s Sydney, then there’s Carlton and Collingwood.

Collingwood is iffier Carlton given their defensive woes, as Darcy Moore is having a poor year and Billy Frampton got abused by Sam Day last week, but I am loathe to move them down a tier.

They’re like a great champion in boxing, I need to see them beaten before I believe that they’re done.

In any case, Sydney looks like Oppenheimer at the Oscars. Inevitable.

These are the top three seeds and it isn’t terribly close I don’t think, especially if all of them make the top-4.

Percentage kings

Brisbane
Western Bulldogs
Fremantle

Footsteps. Do you hear them? I promise you the teams in the top-tier do.

These three teams have the second, third and fifth best percentage in the AFL through 16 rounds. They are also a combined 10-4-1 over their last five games. While only one of them is currently sitting in the top-4, these three are threatening to close like the grim reaper.

Each of them has an identity. Like a John Wick film, you can set your watch to a particular brand of fireworks for each of these teams.

Brisbane and Fremantle score heavily off turnover and from the back half while the Bulldogs are the highest scoring team in the competition from stoppage.

Each of them also has a superstar to hang their hat on.

For Brisbane, Lachie Neale is back. He ranks as the seventh best player in the competition over the last five games after a slow start.

At the Bulldogs, Marcus Bontempelli is having his best year and is, for my money, the single best player in the competition.

Caleb Serong is Fremantle’s version, as he is rated as the ninth best player in the competition and is second in the competition for clearances and first for ground ball gets.

Sometimes footy is about who has the best player. Which player can step up and define a moment that’s begging to be defined by one player? These three will be tough to beat if a final gets down to that question.

Still alive but barely breathing.

GWS
Geelong
Melbourne
Port Adelaide

The six teams already mentioned should be the six favourites in some order, but I’m not ready to write this group of four off just yet.

GWS, Geelong, and Melbourne are too talented and threatened to be too good early in the year for me to totally discount.

GWS particularly are my paramour. I just can’t quit the talent on the list even if they are 2-3 over the last 5. Their list is too good for me to completely give up.

For Geelong, I trust the coach so much and I can’t unsee what I saw early in the year. I was ready to give up on them before they beat Essendon but now I’m back to not being able to quit them particularly while they’re still in the top half of the league at scoring off turnover. Patrick Dangerfield looking primed to inspire a few “the old guy’s still got it” pieces, unlike Joe Biden, also doesn’t hurt.

I might be being generous to Melbourne. With no Petracca they’re probably cooked. It’s like taking Tom Cruise out of Top Gun.

But even still, with Lever back they were so much better against Brisbane and even looked explosive for the first time since 2021. If Kysiah Pickett becomes the best player in football over the end of the year, as he looked against Brisbane, then Melbourne is in it.

Port Adelaide is the luckiest to be in here. They are poor at either end of the ground, particularly defence.

But I’m not willing to write them off.

Their midfield is elite, they have some “nobody believes in us” potential given the pressure on Ken Hinkley, and they are the equal best team in football at generating shots with Sydney.

There’s a world where they win it. It’s remote, but not so remote that Marvel wouldn’t make a contrived multiverse film about it, so it’s in.

Why Not?

Hawthorn

Why not? Honestly, why couldn’t they win it?

They are 5-0 in their last 5 and scored over 95 points four out of five their last five games. Over that period, they are the number one team in expected score differential by basically three goals. They are also second in the league at scoring from centre bounces, fourth for inside 50s and third for metres gained over the same period.

They are also one of the better kicking sides in the AFL. Watching them play Richmond in person for Dustin Martin’s 300th game, you couldn’t help but notice how perfectly every ball dropped into a bucket, particularly coming out of defence. It was surgical. It’s not an accident that they’re top-5 at scoring from the back half.

This is not a ridiculously talented team outside of A-graders like Will Day and James Sicily. If Sicily’s injury is severe then that kills them. A defence built around Sam Frost is like a movie built around Sam Worthington: bad.

But if he is okay, and if they make the finals, why not?

That’s it. That’s the list of teams that can win the premiership.

Near the 8 but no Chance

Gold Coast
Essendon

These two are around the finals and Essendon, at the time of writing, is on the top-4 so they warrant a mention.

Gold Coast can’t win in Melbourne. The Grand Final is played in Melbourne. Easy done.

I wrote earlier this year about Essendon and how I viewed them as the good bad team. Well, they don’t have a single win over a team currently in the top-8 (though they have beaten nine and ten). Their biggest issue is that, over the last five games, they lead the AFL in inside 50s and they are 16th in scoring shots per inside 50 ahead of only North Melbourne and Gold Coast. That’s a talent issue as much as it is a delivery one.

It won’t be Essendon.