Welcome to predicted ladder season, where everyone is always wrong, including us.
And congratulations to the team listed ninth below, because that’s where we had Collingwood going into the 2023 season – whoops.
But that’s part of the fun of this time of year. Plenty will make boring predictions, maybe even keeping the same top eight, when history tells us that’s the only guaranteed way to be wrong.
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We have a few simple rules when trying to predict the top eight; if you don’t follow them, you don’t have a chance of being right. Let’s run through them, followed by our actual predicted ladder.
Rule 1: On average, there will be three changes to the top eight (teams dropping out/climbing in), and at a minimum two.
Obviously it’s a lot harder to figure out which teams will change, but knowing there will be plenty of changes is very helpful.
In two of the last three seasons we’ve had a whopping four changes; in 2023, it was Port Adelaide, Carlton, St Kilda and GWS replacing Geelong, Fremantle, Richmond and the Western Bulldogs.
But in every year of the top eight’s existence there have been at least two changes, and the average is 2.92 in the 18-team era.
Kingy: ‘Stress’ could be Demons’ undoing | 05:39
Rule 2: On average, one team that missed the finals the year before will climb into the top four.
This just keeps happening – and while the stability of the early 2010s means it hasn’t occurred every year in the 18-team era, on average, one team a year makes the climb.
The leap has happened every year since 2015, and only four times since the top eight was introduced in 1994 have no teams made the leap (2009, 2010, 2013, 2014).
We’re only talking about home and away ladder positions, so it means Port Adelaide was the bolter in 2023, joining the likes of Collingwood (2022), Melbourne (2021) and themselves (2020).
But, in a separate but also telling category, we have Carlton and GWS – who came from outside the top eight in 2022 to make preliminary finals in 2023.
It’s another a reminder that genuine flag contenders can come from outside the top eight the year before.
AFL captains weigh in on Concussion CA | 02:25
Rule 3: The teams that finish 5th-8th are much more likely to drop out than the teams that finish 1st-4th.
This is probably obvious, because by definition the 5th-8th teams were worse than the 1st-4th teams, but it’s notable just how many more drop out.
Since the top eight was introduced, of the 83 teams who have played finals and then dropped out, a whopping 61 of them (73%) finished 5th-8th.
Similarly, 58 of the teams who dropped out had lost in the first two weeks of the finals.
Again, we’re not breaking new ground here. Just spelling out how much less likely it is for a top four or preliminary final team to drop out of the eight. It can still happen – see Geelong 2023 – but we’re trying to use probability in our favour.
SO WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO DROP OUT OF THE EIGHT?
Based on a plain reading of the rules, we’d be going with St Kilda and Sydney, because they neither made the top four nor a preliminary final.
We will not be going with both St Kilda and Sydney, however, because you can’t just look at these rules.
The Saints, for example, didn’t impress us a huge amount in 2023 until the last few weeks when they won their way into September. There they ran into a GWS side that was much better than ‘needing to win the final game of the season to play finals’ suggested.
But they’re young and exciting, thanks to some excellent recent drafting, and a core of Max King, Mitch Owens, Mattaes Phillipou and Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera – all 23 or younger – is a hell of a base to build upon. Our fear was they had a just-OK list that was going to cap out around eighth or ninth, but kids that good can push a just-OK over the top.
The Swans, meanwhile, will be a popular pick to rise because there’s nothing us ‘experts’ love more than a team who wins the trade period.
After all adding Taylor Adams and Brodie Grundy into a midfield already featuring the likes of Errol Gulden, Chad Warner and James Rowbottom sure seems like the path back to a Grand Final, doesn’t it?
This is where we went wrong with Collingwood – we underestimated the impact of their targeted recruiting spree, which made them better in almost every area of the ground.
And this is why this year is so difficult to predict. If we’re not picking the Saints and Swans to slide out… are we picking a GWS or Carlton side that won two finals? A Melbourne or Port Adelaide side that won 16-17 games last year? Surely not Collingwood or Brisbane?
Well, here’s what we ended up with…
Coleman-Jones goals from centre circle! | 00:46
1. Brisbane Lions
Their season only starts in September, because after years of frustrating losses deep in the finals, actually breaking through for that first flag under Chris Fagan is all that really matters.
They should set themselves up perfectly for another run to the Grand Final. The AFL’s best home ground advantage – they went 13-0 at the Gabba last year – locks them in for 10-odd wins already.
The whole ‘consistently losing at the MCG’ deal is incredibly frustrating, and you’d love to play more than two games there this home and away season. But on the flip side, that’s only two likely losses there, right?
They copped pretty rough draw with double-ups against Adelaide, Collingwood, Gold Coast, GWS, Melbourne and St Kilda – as you’ll see below, five predicted finalists – but they doubled up against five of those teams last year anyway (the only change is GWS in for Fremantle). So we know they can win a bunch of games while playing those sides twice.
Then you look at the team itself, and they’re still so talented everywhere, especially once Tom Doedee gets out there (which sounds like it’ll be in the opening month) and Will Ashcroft returns (a bit later). And they’ve had a pretty clean off-season without much drama nor fresh injury concerns.
They’ve made the top four in four of the last five seasons, finishing second three times. It’s hard to go against that consistency.
Blackout AND black snake in Blacktown | 00:44
2. GWS Giants
As you’ll see, we have very different views on the two surprise preliminary finalists from last year.
The Giants’ rise seems very real. From June onwards, when they sat 4-8 after a narrow loss to Richmond, they won 11 of 14 games – only losing a close one to Sydney, a bizarrely large one to Port Adelaide which they quickly avenged, and then that preliminary final.
They can score, especially if Jesse Hogan backs up his career year, with the smalls like Brent Daniels and Toby Bedford perennially underrated. They can defend, with Sam Taylor and Jack Buckley looking a brilliant long-term combination. Their endless pathway of young talent also flows into the midfield where Tom Green and, when he’s back fit, Finn Callaghan add to the big names we’ve known and respected for more than half a decade.
Is it weird that Aaron Cadman isn’t getting talked about even more, by the way? You could argue the key forward spot is where the Giants are lacking the most, and while no-one is trying to heap pressure on a No.1 pick in his second year… imagine if this list swapped places with Essendon, or Carlton. Cadman, and whether he can break out, would be the biggest story in Victoria; it’s absolutely for the best he, and the Giants, aren’t inside the southern bubble.
Their run to the last four last year came despite a lack of home ground advantage; they went 4-4 at the Showground and 1-2 in Canberra, where they used to be unstoppable. They were brilliant on the road, winning at 11 different venues across the campaign – but when they’ve been at their best in past seasons, few could stop them at home.
Other than the opener against Collingwood, which is also winnable since it’s at home, they have a pretty cruisy start with North Melbourne, West Coast, the bye, Gold Coast in Gather Round and St Kilda in the nation’s capital. A 4-1 run, or 5-0, is completely reasonable to predict… and remember last year they started 4-8. So imagine how high they can finish if they don’t lose a bunch of games in April and May.
Tom Green’s mum the real MVP in Canberra | 01:04
3. Collingwood
The question is how they react to being the hunted, instead of being the hunter.
They won the flag in a very even season, which means it won’t take much of a drop-off for them to be simply amongst the contenders rather than right at the top. We can’t ignore the fact that Geelong was a more dominant premier in 2022 and fell all the way out of the eight – that surely won’t happen to Collingwood, but throw in Richmond’s 2021 collapse, and there’s a mini-trend forming of premiers coming back to the pack.
They head into 2024 with the oldest and second-most experienced list – they’re clearly positioned to keep on succeeding, with the Daicos and Daicos generation ready to take over when the Pendleburys and Sidebottoms of the world hang up the boots. That transition period won’t be easy, as the Cats just showed, but Pendlebury sticking around (and being as bloody good as he was late last year) means they’re not there yet.
They’ll take a step backwards because the natural gravity of the AFL ensures it. Maybe that’s a slide back from 18 wins to 14 or 15, but that’s still a likely top-four finish and a genuine shot at the flag, so they’ve got room to slide.
And at some point they won’t be the greatest close game team in the history of sports. Even if you think they’ve unlocked the secret by doing a bunch of scenario training, every other club has now had a summer to catch up. We know we’re being stubborn about this topic but we’re going to keep believing in the numbers that say they can’t keep getting away with it.
Just quietly – Craig McRae described their late-game tactics as “bulletproof” on the Howie Games podcast last week. Well, either he’s right, or he’s overconfident.
Are Collingwood a shoo-in for 2024? | 04:20
4. Adelaide Crows
Last month we wrote a piece about the most likely team to rise from the bottom 10 to the top four, based on the yearly trend discussed above.
Adelaide feels like the most obvious contender and will be a popular pick. After all, they already should’ve been in the eight last year.
That story above runs through the case so we won’t repeat all of it, but briefly, it’s worth remembering how good the Crows were against top-level opposition (3-4, 114.5% against the top four) and how their close game luck is likely to turn (1-5 in games decided by a kick).
They’re not a flawless team but continued growth from their young core should mean they take another step forwards, and from where they were last year, it’s not actually a huge leap up into fourth anyway.
The Riley Thilthorpe injury is less than ideal heading into a pretty critical year but we still don’t have a better option to be the yearly top four bolter. It’s not like they needed much from him to be the best attack of 2023, after all.
West Coast fall well short against Crows | 02:03
5. Melbourne
Look, they didn’t have the best off-season, let’s say that much.
But unless things really get out of control they’re still going to have a star-studded line-up. They’re still not that old. And while Angus Brayshaw’s retirement in particular hurts, they’ve got the players to fill that hole.
Some excellent drafting has really helped them; not just the 2019 Jackson/Pickett/Rivers crop which already handed them a flag, but the 2021 group including Jacob van Rooyen and the seemingly soon-to-debut Blake Howes, plus the uber-impressive 2023 No.7 pick Caleb Windsor.
We’re also big believers in the power of a large sample size, and when you need to ignore a smaller one.
The Demons are the only team to finish in the top four in each of the last three seasons, going 49-1-17 across those home and away campaigns. And, yes, then came two straight sets finals exits – but clearly the Dees could’ve and probably should’ve won both finals last year.
We’re not trying to simplify it to the level of ‘they kicked inaccurately but imagine they kicked straight and then they would’ve won’. But in a broader sense, when you create as many chances as the Dees created in those losses to Collingwood and Carlton, over the long-term you will cash in on enough to win. They were doing a lot right.
Gawn smashes 60m BOMB in pre-season | 00:43
And while you don’t want to read too much into pre-season performance, you can definitely read into tactical changes; against Carlton it seemed like, rather than just trying to get the ball forward however they could and hoping the weight of inside 50s would work for them, they had a specific plan for opening up the defence.
The personnel will be improved too, by the inclusions of Shane McAdam and Jack Billings plus a full season of Harry Petty up forward. And you hope Clayton Oliver will get the help he needs to allow him to play a full season at the elite level we know he can hit.
The ceiling is still just so high with this team – they can absolutely win the flag. And we think the chaos around them is clouding people’s view of the list.
It would take a lot going wrong for a group this talented to not make the eight, and we think the Demons are the last team in the top tier of contenders for 2024. The next six teams are a rung below them.
Demons crush Carlton without Oliver | 01:25
6. St Kilda
As discussed above, we just like the way the Saints have built their list over the last few years – maybe not to turn them into a flag contender, but enough to make them genuinely interesting.
We have been critical in the past of the club’s list decisions, specifically in the final years under Alan Richardson, feeling they were trying to top up a list via free agency and trades that wasn’t good enough to be topped up yet. In the process they got very little out of the 2019 and 2020 drafts (though admittedly few did well in the Covid year).
Then came 2021, with the trio of Wanganeen-Milera, Owens and Windhager being probably the best haul from that draft in the entire league – Richmond had five top-30 picks that year and the best of them is Josh Gibcus, who’s probably behind the three Saints in actual AFL impact. Throw in Mattaes Phillipou in 2022, who we love as a breakout contender, and 2023 top pick Darcy Wilson who has gained plenty of praise over his first summer and suddenly Moorabbin hosts a mouth-watering collection of young talent.
We know Ross Lyon can squeeze a lot out of a list. Throw in the likes of Jack Sinclair and Cal Wilkie who’ve elevated themselves into genuine A-graders over the last few seasons, and there’s enough mature talent for that younger group to push into the finals again.
We’ve held our faith in this tip despite some defensive worries – Sinclair being absent early, Dougal Howard’s issue late in the win over North, and now Jimmy Webster being bound for a lengthy break. Repeating last year’s 13-10 record is entirely attainable.
Powell-Pepper suspended for four games | 02:19
7. Port Adelaide
8. Geelong
9. Sydney Swans
10. Carlton
11. Western Bulldogs
There is no possible ordering of these teams we would feel comfortable with. Even Gold Coast was a consideration for eighth, because they’ve got a very kind draw. But let’s run through the respective cases.
We just don’t feel good having the Power out of the eight, so they have to stay. You don’t accidentally win 17 games, though as we detailed in our Pythagorean wins analysis last month, their win-loss record was a bit of a mirage. They went from 2-7 in close games in 2022, to 6-2 in close games in 2023, with an almost identical percentage; they were better, but not seven wins better.
And remember the stuff we said about underestimating Collingwood based on their recruiting? Well, like the Magpies in the 2022 off-season, the Power spent the 2023 off-season specifically targeting their flaws – specifically in key defence. In the same way that Billy Frampton, Dan McStay, Tom Mitchell and Bobby Hill turned out better in reality than they sounded on paper, the unproven pair of Esava Ratugolea and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher may be exactly what they need.
With the Butters/Rozee/Houston/Horne-Francis core it seems impossible the Power could be bad, but could they slip back a bit while trying to figure out the new back six, maybe copping a few unfortunate injuries and some bad luck in the tight ones? That’s all it’d take to see them drop out.
Port tonk Dockers, as Butters does ankle | 01:27
We held our belief in the Cats until Round 23, when their season ended at the hands of St Kilda – remember, they only lost to Collingwood by eight the week before! – and it still doesn’t make sense when you see they finished 12th last year.
The middle of the ladder was just so incredibly even, and yes they had injuries (and the Cam Guthrie blow is a bad start to 2024), and yes the midfield was particularly hard-hit, but there’s still just so much talent on this list. You read the 23 on paper and you remember the 2022 Grand Final and you go, well of course they’re playing finals, they were the best team in it by a country mile just 18 months ago.
Now they have a much easier draw, with double-ups against Adelaide, Carlton, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, St Kilda and the Bulldogs – two clear non-contenders, two that missed the eight last year like them, and two bottom-half-of-the-eight sides. Combine that with expected close game regression – they went 1-5 with a draw in games decided by 12 points or less – and unless injuries really strike again they almost have to get better.
Cats cruise by Bombers in pre-season | 00:54
The Swans have quite a high ceiling, given how good they looked in the back half of 2022, and adding Adams and Grundy to a young star-studded midfield seems like an easy double upgrade.
Almost too easy, right? Adams was pushed out of the Magpies midfield last year for a reason, and the 30-year-old is already injured. Luke Parker will be missing through the early rounds as well, which could swing early games against Melbourne and Collingwood.
We have some questions about the ends of the ground too. The likes of Papley and Heeney should keep them relatively strong but it’s time to see how they really look in a post-Buddy future, and we’re not convinced by Logan McDonald thus far. (Compare him to Jye Amiss, for example, the guy he could be partnering in 2025 – surely you’d prefer Amiss right now?)
In defence, the unfortunate Paddy McCartin situation means they’ve had to downgrade; are they relying on Joel Hamling, who’s played six games in four seasons? Lewis Melican? Someone only hardcore Swans fans really know right now? Whatever the situation, it’s les than ideal.
Remember, when they made the 2022 Grand Final that was ahead of schedule. It wasn’t supposed to be until 2025, or maybe this year if things came together really quickly. And while a lot is going right, there are still problems.
Just imagine if the Swans had drafted like the Saints have over the last few years; instead they’ve been really inconsistent. In fact for almost a decade they’ve combined hitting it really big – Warner and Gulden the best recent examples – with missing completely. So far, the 2021 and 2022 crops are questionable at best.
And it’s also reasonable to note that, while the 2022 run was fantastic, other than that they’ve rarely been better than average for the past six seasons. So it’s not as if flag contention is the natural position of this list.
New Swan left limping in Lions defeat | 01:18
Hang on – Carlton out?! Yeah, their list is pretty damn loaded, and if there’s a team that’s going to make us look completely stupid by winning the flag after we tipped them to miss the finals entirely, it’s probably the Blues.
But we were not as convinced by the back half of their season as we were by the Giants’, because of how it was constructed. The Blues won nine in a row, plus two finals, with the last four all coming by a kick – things could’ve so easily gone wrong. But it goes even deeper than that.
On that winning run they were utterly dominant at scoring from stoppages, something like three times as good as the second-best team; but this is not as important nor consistent a scoring source as scoring from turnovers, where they were average at best.
It would seem very unlikely they would be that good at stoppage scoring again, which means they have to pick up the rest of their game. And we’ll believe they can do the latter, and play the more modern turnover game, when we see it.
Is this nitpicky? Perhaps. As we said, we don’t feel good about this prediction at all. But two teams have to drop out and we can easily foresee a world where the Blues are just a good team, not a great one, and that’s enough to finish 10th in a season that promises to be incredibly even.
Should the Carlton hype be this high? | 04:52
The Bulldogs just have too much talent to keep stuffing this up, yet they keep doing it anyway. In 2023, they were 9-6, and then lost five games by two goals or less – including to a bad Hawthorn team and a woeful West Coast side – as part of a 1-6 record in close games.
If you’ve read our content before you know our views on close game performance; the Dogs played stupidly so many times over that last couple of months last year so it’s not just about being unlucky, but jeez, surely they’ll be better than that in 2024?
Broadly speaking the biggest Bulldogs changes in the off-season came off the field, with the structure around Luke Beveridge, which is smart; any coach in his situation needs the additional help and we’ve been critical of some of his coaching idiosyncracies over the years. But does that mean they’re going to fix the same structural problems which have perennially plagued his teams?
So, again, any of these five teams could easily have squeezed into the eight. Fans of three probably think we’re stupid. That’s the nature of the prediction business.
Harley lashes out after big Laird tackle | 00:36
12. Gold Coast Suns
We were very tempted to place the Suns in our eight, but when we were already feeling bad about leaving teams like the Swans and Blues out, it was just too hard.
Still, there is genuine reason to believe Damien Hardwick can get them there immediately – and it doesn’t even necessarily have to be because of him.
They’re a consistently OK team now, going 10-12 and then 9-14 over the last two seasons, always fading away late in the campaign. Most importantly they’ve borrowed from their big brothers Brisbane and built a home ground advantage, with wins over Geelong, St Kilda and the Lions at Carrara last season. Throw in their 4-0 record in Darwin over the last two seasons and they clearly know how to deal with the humidity when a southern side flies up there.
But then there’s the draw, which we think is the strongest argument in their favour – because it’s so much gentler than anyone else’s.
Not only are the Suns the only team to get two games against both North Melbourne and West Coast, they also get two against sides we don’t rate too highly in Essendon and Richmond.
At a minimum they should go 6-2 in those games, perhaps losing two of their trips to Victoria, but going 8-0 against those sides is entirely plausible. If they did, they would only need five more wins against the rest of the league to play finals.
This is where their home ground advantage could come into play – because a lot of their toughest opponents (Adelaide, Collingwood, Port Adelaide, Melbourne) have to come north. That makes those games winnable; throw in Geelong having to head up to Darwin too.
So even with a little bit of improvement, the Suns can be good enough to bank the 6-8 wins against their easy double-ups, and then get 5-7 wins against the rest of the comp, earning them a September debut. The path exists.
…but we’re still not tipping it because there are so many good contenders this year, and we don’t know exactly how they’ll look under Hardwick just yet.
Suns pumped by strong Giants | 00:46
13. Fremantle
It seems like nobody has a good read on the Dockers, probably because we all need to see what they’re actually gonna look like on the field – the 2022 challengers or 2023 nothings.
They still won 10 games last year, so it’s not like they were awful; just bland. Weirdly they don’t exactly get a draw befitting of finishing 14th, with double-ups against Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Richmond, Sydney, West Coast and the Western Bulldogs.
There are two paths for 2024. One involves them rebounding, and Justin Longmuir proving he can indeed coach, and he sticks around for the second half of the decade where they should surely have enough talent to push for a flag. After all, they’re still young, with plenty of draft picks in their back pocket still to use.
The other path, involving stagnation or perhaps even a decline, probably ends Longmuir’s tenure at the club given the pressure building and his lack of contract for 2025. And while it’d be a step backwards if they need a new coach, by the same token they’d be a pretty enticing list to take over, because again – they’re still young.
That’s what makes them so confusing. Banking three first-round picks for the 2024 trade period allows them to take either path – they can trade out the picks if it turns out they’re ready to contend in 2025, or keep them and draft more young talent if they stink.
If they finish 13th as we’re predicting, Longmuir is probably done, but we don’t feel strongly about this prediction – they just had to go somewhere. We don’t have any firm reasons to expect them to climb, and we feel stronger about the sides above them, but it wouldn’t totally shock us if Freo finished 5th or 6th either.
Can Essendon leaders become ‘ruthless’? | 04:35
14. Essendon
The Bombers are the last team we can realistically see making the eight – putting them 14th is more a reflection of how many contenders there are, plus our question marks over their method.
They did a lot right in the first year under Brad Scott, and their 2023 numbers would look a hell of a lot better if not for their awful last month. But that last month still happened; perhaps it was a sign of them not being used to the year-long intensity he demands, yet it’s still hard to get those images of them trudging off after being annihilated out of our mind.
It’s also worth noting who they actually beat to get to 11 wins – including the Kangaroos twice, the Eagles twice, Hawthorn, Gold Coast at home, Richmond by a point and both GWS and Carlton before they flipped the switch. Victories over Melbourne and Adelaide were genuinely impressive but they didn’t exactly dominate some murderer’s row.
They shoudn’t have quite the same kind draw in 2024. While they get West Coast twice, they also cop double-ups against Adelaide, Collingwood, Gold Coast, St Kilda and Sydney.
There’s certainly a chance their trade period inclusions help them improve but the Bombers just feel a little behind the rest of the top eight contenders when it comes to top-end talent in every area of the ground. It’s a bunch of nice players, with a gun sprinkled in here and there.
Going into 2023 we feared St Kilda had locked itself into being average after trying to bolster a just-OK list through the trade period; they appear to have escaped that trap by drafting really well. The Bombers’ drafting has been less impressive.
And we have to wonder about the defence – not specifically the personnel, but the style of play which permits opposition ball movement and was exploited late in the year when they fell off severely. Does Brad Scott continue with it, going against the modern AFL game style? Or does he revamp things again, requiring another period of acclimatisation?
So again, 14th sounds like we hate this Essendon team, but we don’t. Their floor is reasonably high, because Scott knows how to squeeze plenty out of a list, but the ceiling seems quite low as well.
Bomber sends point-blank shocker wide | 00:36
15. Richmond
Much like our discomfort with tipping a team for eighth, we don’t feel good about putting the Tigers in the bottom four, because they’ve clearly got quite a bit of top-end talent.
It’s worth remembering they had a winning record heading into Round 20 last year, sitting 10th on the ladder and only behind eventual preliminary finalists Carlton on percentage. They then lost four of their last five to finish 13th.
If you’ll recall, they also finished 13th in 2016, and used the bottom-six draw to their advantage in 2017 on route to the flag. And while it would seem remarkably unlikely they could repeat the feat in 2024, is there some chance they pull a GWS-like rise? Is it possible the Hardwick to Yze transition actually revitalises the team, like the Cameron to Kingsley switch allowed the Giants to remember how talented they still were?
The problem is it’d only take a few injuries – and specifically continued woes for Tom Lynch, who genuinely feels like he’s worth 3-4 goals – for the Tigers to be reliant on questionable depth.
We don’t think they’re gonna be bad in 2024, but it’s just going to be hard for them to be good enough to actually contend for finals.
Jack Graham out for up to 5 weeks | 00:24
16. Hawthorn
They’ve had a rough pre-season, but we were always going to be a little less optimistic about Hawthorn making a shock run into contention in 2024 anyway.
There is absolutely a promising young core of talent at Waverley Park, and at their best in 2023 they were electric, knocking off Brisbane and Collingwood at the MCG. But their worst was as bad as you’d expect from a group this young – like the consecutive 10-goal losses to Gold Coast and Carlton, the second half on Easter Monday against Geelong, or even how weirdly uncompetitive they were in the season-ending six-goal loss to Fremantle.
The new-look forward line may take a little while to take shape, the back six still feels shaky and, more to the point, the Hawks know they don’t need to rush this. The rebuild is going very well thus far and while you’d like to see linear progress, and a move from seven wins to 10 or 11 in 2024, and then a finals berth in 2025, they’ve still got to work a few things out.
The Hawks will undoubtedly claim some scalps but it just feels a year too early for them to be consistent enough to make a September charge.
Ginnivan happy with Hawks hit out | 01:10
17. North Melbourne
18. West Coast Eagles
This will be everyone’s bottom two and we’re just a little more optimistic about the Kangaroos starting to get things together.
They showed some promising signs of a fresh game style in the match sim against Collingwood, and they’re a year or two ahead of West Coast in terms of bringing young guns through the doors, plus they have a stronger near-prime talent core with Davies-Uniacke and Larkey, as compared to West Coast’s group of Allen and… well, just Allen.
Plus the Eagles appear legitimately cursed because seriously, how are they STILL having a bunch of injury issues this pre-season? To an extent it makes sense because if you’ve been injured, you’re more likely to get injured again, but it’s not like it’s all the same players going down repeatedly.
The real question is whether either of these teams can possibly escape the bottom two. It’s hard to imagine West Coast doing it, but maybe the sheer gravity of AFL equalisation will allow North Melbourne to? After all they’ve finished bottom two for four straight years and the league is constructed in a way that teams really shouldn’t be there for half a decade.
We are nowhere near daring enough to suggest who the Kangaroos would actually pass, but weirder things have happened. Remember Melbourne in 2019? They made no sense as a bottom two team at the time, nor two years later when they won the flag.
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