Two-tier flag race explained as AFL’s pre-season call hurts Hawks — Power Rankings

Welcome back to the Power Rankings.

With three rounds remaining, there appear to be two tiers of flag contenders. But that doesn’t mean we’re ruling anyone out including Hawthorn, who are suffering from a painful fixture.

See our ranking of every AFL club from best to worst after Round 21 below!

FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every match of every round in the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer.

How do the Power Rankings work? We take wins and losses into account, but also the quality of opposition faced and whether teams are likely to get healthier and/or improve going forward. It’s a little bit ‘who’s hot and who’s not’; part predictive, part analysis of what’s happened. If Team A is above Team B, we’d probably tip A to win if they were playing at a neutral venue this weekend.

A big thanks to Will Faulkner who filled in during our absence. This week’s rankings follow on from our post-Round 18 edition.

All times AEST.

1. ADELAIDE CROWS (15-5, 144.1%)

Last week: Ranked 3rd, def Hawthorn by 14 pts

The Crows aren’t losing to West Coast or North Melbourne, so they’re going to end up with a better record than minor premiers Sydney had last year (17-6, 126.7%) – whether they finish on top of the 2025 ladder is more about everyone else than them. If they win the minor premiership Adelaide will have recorded the greatest season-on-season rise in AFL history; they’re admittedly helped by the fact that we’re now in an 18-team competition, but nobody has ever risen 14 positions from one season to another. The record is 13, by Collingwood across 2021-22 and Brisbane across 2018-19, two rises which kickstarted ongoing eras of success at those clubs. But it’s funny how a footy season feels slow and then gets quick very quickly. You’re doing all this work through the winter months and then suddenly you get to the qualifying finals, and you’re one win away from a home prelim. That’s when this Adelaide season is going to suddenly feel very real.

This week: West Coast at Optus Stadium, Sunday 5:10pm

2. BRISBANE LIONS (14-5-1, 112.1%)

Last week: Ranked 2nd, def Collingwood by 27 pts

The Lions had a very strong case to be No.1 this week. That was a heck of a win over Collingwood, making amends for the Easter Thursday blowout earlier this season, and more importantly they just feel more trustworthy than Adelaide because of history. It’s a cliche with a factual basis; finals experience appears to mean something. And the Lions, who’ve played 16 finals in the last six years, have heaps of it. They’re absolutely still at risk of dropping out of the top four because their next three weeks aren’t easy, and one slip-up could have them finishing 5th, but they’ve proven they can win away over the last 18 months – so that’s not as scary as it would’ve been a few years ago. If you wanted to say the Lions should be premiership favourites we would not argue with you.

This week: Sydney at the Gabba, Saturday 4:15pm

3. COLLINGWOOD (15-5, 130.8%)

Last week: Ranked 1st, lost to Brisbane by 27 pts

We pointed out after Round 17 that the Magpies’ draw had inflated their record a bit; they had only played seven games against the top nine. Three losses against top nine teams later, and the Pies are back in the pack. They are still clearly good enough to win the flag, and a reasonable part of the discussion around their recent decline needs the caveat of higher-quality opposition, plus it’s always a bit unfortunate to lose consecutive games by a kick. They are not perfect but they’ve also been pretty badly hit with injuries across the season. They are in the top tier of contenders, along with the Lions, Cats and Crows. We reckon the Suns lead the second tier of contenders from the Giants, Hawks, Dogs and Dockers, and whether you think any teams on that tier can win the flag is purely about your personal view of how narrow or wide the flag race is. (We think it’s wider than most other analysts do, just because weird things can happen in a short finals series.)

This week: Hawthorn at the MCG, Thursday 7:30pm

4. GEELONG (14-6, 138.6%)

Last week: Ranked 4th, def Port Adelaide by 88 pts

The demolition of Port Adelaide joins a long list of traditional Geelong games – late-season Kardinia Park cakewalks. Think Round 24 2024 (def West Coast by 93), Round 23 2022 (def West Coast by 85), or the classic double-act of the genre across Round 22 and Round 23 2018 (def Fremantle by 133, def Gold Coast by 102). It’d take a mighty effort to beat the combined margin of those 2018 games across this current fortnight but Essendon, their Friday night opponent, ain’t great. Everyone is talking about them needing to feed Jeremy Cameron so he has a shot at 100 goals, and that’d be great fun, but all this percentage matters too. The Cats could easily find themselves level on wins with Collingwood, Gold Coast and/or Adelaide so building a bit more could be the difference between a qualifying and elimination final.

This week: Essendon at GMHBA Stadium, Friday 7:40pm

5. GOLD COAST SUNS (13-6, 125.1%)

Last week: Ranked 6th, def Richmond by 84 pts

Right now, the Suns are the perfect test of how broadly you’re willing to define the concept of a premiership contender. Can Gold Coast win the flag? In a literal sense, yes, they’re eligible to do so. And they have a big chance of making the top four. Once you’ve got the double chance anything can happen; there are realistic scenarios where they face Brisbane in a prelim, a team we recently watched them demolish. But if you actually asked us Can Gold Coast win the flag?, our gut reaction would be to say no, because it just doesn’t feel right to suggest a club that’s never even won a final could go all the way. History says you can’t win a flag without at least some recent September experience, and the best result in a debut finals appearance by an expansion club in the AFL era was losing a prelim (Adelaide 1993, GWS 2016); that feels like a realistic ceiling.

This week: Carlton at Marvel Stadium, Saturday 7:35pm

6. HAWTHORN (13-7, 117.6%)

Last week: Ranked 7th, lost to Adelaide by 14 pts

Can the Hawks blame their fixture if they end up missing the eight? After losing a semi-final last year, they were given what we expected to be the fourth-hardest draw in 2025, based on getting double-ups against Brisbane, Collingwood, Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Carlton and Melbourne. Admittedly the latter three teams have probably been worse than expected, but four of their losses have come against that group, and they still have second meetings with the Lions and Magpies to come. If they lose both but beat Melbourne in Round 23, as we’re predicting, they would end up going 6-6 against their double-ups and 8-3 against the rest of the league. We’re not saying the Hawks have been robbed – they played a stinker against the Power in Gather Round, and have copped a few close losses to fellow contenders – but we’re sure they’ll be asking for a gentler run in 2026.

This week: Collingwood at the MCG, Thursday 7:30pm

7. FREMANTLE (14-6, 113%)

Last week: Ranked 9th, def Carlton by 27 pts

Despite leaving them six years ago, Justin Longmuir has only now decided to turn Fremantle into Collingwood. They have won 10 of their last 11 games, the best record over that period of any club, but they don’t feel as good as that. And close games are a big reason why; after all of the drama about last year’s inability to be clutch, the Dockers have won five games by 13 points or less since the end of May, plus Sunday’s comeback over Carlton which was much scarier than the 27-point margin suggests. But just like losing almost every close game overstated the problems in purple, winning almost every close game doesn’t mean as much as you think. It should get them into the finals, assuming things don’t go terribly over the next few weeks, but they do not feel like a legitimate flag contender especially with Hayden Young sidelined again. Keep in mind that top 9 teams have won 34 of their last 35 games against the bottom 9… the one loss was by Fremantle. (Though it was away to Sydney and admittedly they were underdogs pre-game.)

This week: Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, Saturday 8:10pm

8. WESTERN BULLDOGS (12-8, 137.3%)

Last week: Ranked 8th, def GWS by 88 pts

Hard to say if that really counts as a top-eight win. After all, having beaten GWS for the second time this season, there is a very real scenario where the Dogs make the eight without beating a single top-eight team (because the Giants finish 9th). We know they can beat the orange team, and our current predicted ladder has them facing the Giants again in week one of the finals. That’d be nice! This is where their percentage is going to come in handy, because as long as they get to 14 wins they’ve got a shot at making the eight, assuming someone above them gets stuck on 14 also. But really, if they win their next two (vs Demons and Eagles) then lose to Fremantle at Marvel with a potential home elimination final on the line, they don’t deserve to play finals anyway.

This week: Melbourne at the MCG, Sunday 3:15pm

9. GWS GIANTS (13-7, 111.3%)

Last week: Ranked 5th, lost to Western Bulldogs by 88 pts

Since our last column, the Giants have produced the least-impressive 48-point win ever over Essendon, required a preposterous comeback to beat Sydney (this is both a point in their favour, because it was great, and a point against them, because they needed to do it in the first place), and been blown off the park by their so-called rivals the Dogs. There are no number of absentees that make last week’s 88-point loss acceptable and, while the Giants should play finals as long as they beat North Melbourne and St Kilda, the extent of the defeat has left them vulnerable on percentage. If they end up recovering from a 5-5 start to finish 15-8 as we’re predicting, that’s impressive, and in a lot of seasons that record would’ve gotten them into the top four. They’re still some chance of sneaking in there if they beat Gold Coast in a couple of weeks’ time. But despite their improvements they just don’t feel as much of a finished product as they maybe should.

This week: North Melbourne at Manuka Oval, Sunday 1:40pm

10. SYDNEY SWANS (10-10, 95%)

Last week: Ranked 10th, def Essendon by 14 pts

Much like the Swans already are, we were thinking about the 2026 season on the weekend. And specifically ladder prediction season. Every year there are at least two changes to the top eight, and on average there are three – if the Dogs or Giants miss out, this year there will be four. Some people do not follow this rule when predicting their ladder, despite our best efforts to publicise it, but for those who do it seems predicting the top eight is going to be pretty simple. Because isn’t everyone just going to tip whoever finished 9th and Sydney as the two teams moving into the eight? Yes, we’ve got a whole trade period and off-season to come, but it’s pretty hard to believe in any bottom eight teams as 2026 finals contenders right now. This doesn’t really mean anything, it’s just an observation, but keep it in mind for next February.

This week: Brisbane at the Gabba, Saturday 4:15pm

11. CARLTON (7-13, 92.1%)

Last week: Ranked 14th, lost to Fremantle by 27 pts

This week: Gold Coast at Marvel Stadium, Saturday 7:35pm

12. MELBOURNE (7-13, 95%)

Last week: Ranked 12th, def West Coast by 83 pts

This week: Western Bulldogs at the MCG, Sunday 3:15pm

13. ST KILDA (7-13, 87.4%)

Last week: Ranked 13th, def North Melbourne by 9 pts

This week: Richmond at the MCG, Saturday 1:20pm

14. PORT ADELAIDE (8-12, 79.8%)

Last week: Ranked 11th, lost to Geelong by 88 pts

This week: Fremantle at Adelaide Oval, Saturday 8:10pm

This is no man’s land, with four teams playing out the string of disappointing seasons and sometimes getting demolished by the good teams because they have nothing to play for. And, if you want to blame anyone for this weird finals race, these are the culprits. This time last year the teams between 11th and 14th on the ladder had won 38 games plus two draws; this year, the teams between 11th and 14th have won 29 games. Those extra losses have been spread across the top nine; they’ve had 123 wins plus a draw, compared to 113 wins plus three draws this time last year. It is creating the perception that the league is completely split in two, but we think broadly speaking this is just natural variance. Last year was every even and this year is less so; things should even out next year.

15. NORTH MELBOURNE (4-15-1, 73.4%)

Last week: Ranked 15th, lost to St Kilda by 9 pts

This week: GWS at Manuka Oval, Sunday 1:40pm

16. ESSENDON (6-13, 72%)

Last week: Ranked 16th, lost to Sydney by 14 pts

This week: Geelong at GMHBA Stadium, Friday 7:40pm

17. RICHMOND (5-15, 65.5%)

Last week: Ranked 17th, lost to Gold Coast by 84 pts

This week: St Kilda at the MCG, Saturday 1:20pm

18. WEST COAST EAGLES (1-19, 61.9%)

Last week: Ranked 18th, lost to Melbourne by 83 pts

This week: Adelaide at Optus Stadium, Sunday 5:10pm

Just to explain how far back these teams are from the rest – collectively, they have beaten one club outside the bottom four in the last 11 rounds, when North Melbourne upset Carlton in Round 15. We cannot see any of them pulling an Adelaide and going from this year’s bottom four to next year’s top four.