Scoring is Back, Baby: Ranking Footy’s Best Forward Lines

Scoring is Back, Baby: Ranking Footy’s Best Forward Lines

GuyWhoLikesSport GuyWhoLikesSport

This year, footy demands scoring, it’s like in the 90s when, after Reservoir Dogs, movies suddenly had to be funny and faster paced.

Or now in the Tik-Tok world, where things really have to be fast paced or else you’re going the way of Elon Musk in the White House – obsolete.

You can see it in the numbers.

In every year since 2021, the AFL’s goal per game average has gone up from 11.5 in 2021 to 12.4 this year.

More than that, the league’s best forward lines have gone the way of Tom Cruise and hit new heights.

There are currently three teams kicking 15 goals per game this year – Adelaide, the Dogs, and Geelong.

No team has kicked 15 goals a game in a season since the 2017 Crows.

Scoring matters more than it has for years, and the game is better for it.

So, who’s best equipped to handle the new game where kicking goals matters as much as stopping them?

1: Adelaide

Adelaide is the clear number one with a bullet.

Among the top 40 goal per game scorers in the AFL this season, the Crows have five.

The three key forwards – Tex, Thilthorpe, and Fogarty – and then their collection of smalls and hard running high-half forwards with Rachele and Keays.

And that stat doesn’t even include their best player, Izak Rankine, who spends time forward.

They’re the second highest scoring team, getting the second most shots, and kicking the second most goals per inside 50.

It’s not just that they have the horses, it’s how they deploy them.

There’s always one key forward hitting up and always at least one deep as they stretch out defences who are invariably one key back short.

Even when one of the key forwards doesn’t take a mark deep in the forward line, Ben Keays or Alex Neal-Bullen might just be wrapping up their tenth 800m sprint of the quarter at the fall of the ball or, if it’s not them, Rankine or Rachele will be at the fall of the ball.

Trying to stop this Adelaide team from scoring is like trying to stop Pete Davidson.

2: Gold Coast

When I apply for a job, I generally read the job description but, if I get it, I don’t expect the job description to be exhaustive.

I expect there to be other bits and bobs.

Ben King must have read goal kicker on his job description when got drafted, and decided that’s all he’s going to do.

King averages 5 kicks per game this year, and 4.5 of them are shots.

He’s like if Ben Brown could jump.

Rounding out the Ben-fecta is Ben Long, who would have to be a frontrunner with alongside Jack Higgins for the half-forwards on the All Australian team to this point in the year.

The real skill of Gold Coast is in their rangy half-forwards behind Ben Long, with Sam Flanders who has refashioned himself as a forward and Bailey Humphrey playing Dimma’s Dustin Martin role.

If Leo Lombard can push on after a solid debut, he would add a touch more X-factor to a forward line already brimming with it.

3: Bulldogs

The Dogs are the highest scoring team in the AFL and they get the most shots.

Why are they the third best forward line?

While the Dogs kick a lot of goals, no team has more goal scorers than the Dogs with 9.5 per game.

They spread them out brilliantly, and that makes them hard to prepare for, 21 different Dogs have kicked goals.

The Dogs’ leading goal kickers are Rhylee West and Aaron Naughton with 19 each.

Paul Curtis has kicked as many, and he missed a month for tackling.

That’s the point.

They don’t have an ace until Sam Darcy comes back, and even when he does, I still don’t think their top end talent is at the level of the top 2.

They kick a lot of goals because they’re such an excellent territory team and by far and away footy’s best ground ball team.

They’re a Wes Anderson movie.

An ensemble cast where nobody is getting a best actor nomination, but the film might get a best picture nom.

This isn’t a measure of that.

4: Geelong

Another year, another dominant Geelong scoring output. Ho hum, third in scoring, fourth in shots.

Jeremy Cameron just had the worst five goal game in league history against West Coast because he can’t help but kick goals, even at 32.

They’ve made Patty Dangerfield a key forward and, prior to his injury, was one of the six or seven best in footy in the role.

Shannon Neale is fine, while you could do worse than Ollie Henry as a fourth tall.

Then you have Gryan Miers, Shaun Mannagh, Tyson Stengle and Brad Close feeding Dangerfield and Cameron, and hey presto!

There’s a a top-5 forward line footy.

They don’t bat as deep as the other forward lines listed, and their stars are on the older side, but they’re still productive.

Footy at the pointy end is about kicking goals.

Geelong kicks a lot of goals.

5: GWS

There is no statistical case for GWS.

They’re eighth in total points, ninth in shots, and only sixth in goals per inside 50 because of how little time they spend inside 50.

The problem is I just can’t quit the personnel.

Jesse Hogan is still the best key forward in the competition as far as I’m concerned.

Even with a delayed start and some injury setbacks, he’s still kicked 30 goals in just nine games and is the number two mark inside 50 player in footy.

His chief support at key forward is Jake Ricciardi, who is having a career best year. Next to him is the improving Callum Brown, whom Mark Howard insists on calling the athletic one – his tick of saying X player is “the Y one” is deeply annoying.

They’re AFL players.

They’re all athletic – then there’s also Aaron Cadman, another superlative athlete.

But really, the thing about GWS is the smalls.

Toby Greene is all the way back this year, while Darcy Jones and Harvey Thomas have come on strongly.

When they get Brent Daniels back to help Toby on the other forward flank, I will officially not be able to quit the Giants forward line.

One plea: don’t play Jake Stringer.

You’re already a bad front half side, don’t pick him and make it worse.