The 2023 AFL season is a two-speed league.
In the top 15, we have the true contenders and a bunch of teams that can challenge anyone on their day – all the way down to the 14th-placed Swans (well, when they’re not injury-ravaged) and 15th-placed Giants (who’ve been competitive every week bar this one). All but GWS have a percentage above 97 (so they’re basically average or better)
Then there’s the bottom three. North Melbourne, West Coast and Hawthorn share four wins between them – two came against each other – plus a horrific percentage around 60.
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These teams are bad. Very bad; they lost by a combined 194 points in Round 9. And those blowout losses are becoming a weekly problem.
“They’re (the Hawks) one of three just ultimately dreadful teams playing football in 2023, and they might be the best of the three,” veteran journalist Damian Barrett said on the Sunday Footy Show.
“Essendon has got the benefit of playing West Coast and North Melbourne twice in the course of the season, they come in consecutive weeks (in Rounds 11 and 12, and Rounds 21 and 22), and you’d think that’s just a guaranteed 16 premiership points.
“It is historically as bad as it’s been.”
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Port Adelaide champion Kane Cornes added: “This threatens to derail the season somewhat because you’ve got three out of the nine games (each weekend) effectively ruined, when they don’t play each other.”
But while ex-Richmond and Bulldogs star Nathan Brown protested “that’s the way the game is – you’re always going to have sides down the bottom that are easy to beat, you’re always going to have sides up the top, it’s just the nature of the game,” it is uncommon to have three terrible teams instead of just one or two.
While their percentages will change over the course of the season – especially with more games to come against each other – as it stands, we’ve never had a terrible trio like Hawthorn, North Melbourne and West Coast in the AFL era.
“It just feels like to me the gap is bigger than it’s ever been between the strong teams, the teams on the rise and those down the bottom of the ladder,” Fox Footy commentator Anthony Hudson said on The First Crack.
“I’m just worried we’re going to have a lot of predictable games between now and the end of the season, there’s still 14 weeks to go. We’ve got the extra week, it’s going to seem longer than ever.”
TEAMS WITH A PERCENTAGE BELOW 65 (Final home & away ladder, AFL era)
2 teams – 2022 (West Coast, North Melbourne), 2018 (Gold Coast, Carlton), 2016 (Brisbane, Essendon), 2013 (Melbourne, GWS), 2012 (Gold Coast, GWS), 2011 (Port Adelaide, Gold Coast)
1 team – 2020 (Adelaide), 2019 (Gold Coast), 2015 (Carlton), 2014 (St Kilda), 2008 (Melbourne), 1997 (Melbourne), 1996 (Fitzroy), 1995 (Fitzroy), 1993 (Sydney), 1992 (Brisbane Bears)
No teams – 2021, 2017, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1994, 1991, 1990
Currently in 2023: North Melbourne (62.9%), West Coast (60.5%), Hawthorn (60%)
So nobody can deny there’s a problem. But that doesn’t mean it’s ruining the season as a whole.
This is where the double-ups come into play – the six teams every AFL club plays twice – to turn a 17-game season where everyone plays each other to the 23-game campaign we actually see.
The league tries to balance the season by giving better teams a harder fixture and vice versa; the double-ups are the main mechanism for this.
As mentioned above Essendon gets four more games against members of the terrible trio – the Eagles twice, and the Kangaroos twice. This makes some sense, because the Bombers were a bottom-six team last year and were given an easier fixture to make up for it.
But they’re not the only team to earn this benefit. Two 2022 top-six teams get it, Fremantle (Hawthorn and West Coast twice) and Melbourne (playing Hawthorn and North Melbourne twice), plus a middle-six team St Kilda (playing Hawthorn and North Melbourne twice), and another bottom-six team in North Melbourne (playing Hawthorn and West Coast).
As you can see, the teams that happened to draw the Hawks have cashed in, because they’ve fallen off a cliff from last year’s mediocre-but-eight-win side to this year’s wooden spoon contender.
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This is where there’s a flaw in the system. Most experts thought the Hawks would slide but you never know who’s going to rise and fall, so some teams’ fixtures are going to be harder than others.
But it’s a flaw we have to accept if we’re going to have two blockbusters between big teams and/or local rivals every week. If we’re not changing the fixture to be purely about equality – say, everyone plays each other over the first 17 rounds, and then the ladder at that stage dictates the last six rounds – we have to cop problems.
Put it this way: if we want two derbies or Carlton-Collingwoods a year, we also have to cop situations like last year, when Geelong played both North Melbourne and West Coast twice.
We don’t think changing the double-up system so that all the top-six teams played each other twice next year (and so on) would help either – that’d just mean we’re not guaranteed derby double-ups and give bad teams an unfairly huge advantage.
But back to the facts at hand. Five teams have the advantage of getting two of the Hawks/Roos/Eagles twice this year – but that’s a better scenario than usual, isn’t it?
Last year Adelaide, Geelong and Gold Coast all got a big advantage over the rest of the league, playing the Roos and Eagles twice. So that’s three teams with an edge; this year it’s five.
Isn’t that preferable? The more teams with an advantage, the less of an advantage it is, after all.
“The worry for me too is we’re heading for 19 and maybe 20 teams, and I just feel that’s going to be it even harder to have an even competition,” Hudson said on The First Crack.
“You’re even further away down the bottom, further away from the top teams and further away from success.”
St Kilda legend Leigh Montagna meanwhile pointed out how the best teams in the league got even stronger last off-season through trade and free agency to further widen the gap between the bottom sides.
“The gap is getting bigger between the top and bottom teams. I think free agency and (trading) are playing a part in it,” he said on The First Crack.
“You go back to the off-season, all the teams that were in the top eight last year basically got better with players they brought to their club – the Bulldogs, Brisbane, Melbourne and Collingwood with what they added. We’re starting to see that.
“I think it’s going to be even harder for these teams down the bottom that think they’re going to rebuild and down it in 3-5 years, I don’t think that’s realistic with free agency and the opportunities for these other clubs at the top of the ladder to stay strong.”
For dual premiership Kangaroo David King, clubs now “pay a greater price for mismanagement now then ever”.
“If you get those key decisions wrong in the off-season and the cool, clear light of day hours – the ones you make on a Wednesday or through an off-season period – regarding your draft picks, the opportunity to create a window to win a flag, your build if you like … you sit down the bottom of the table,” King told Fox Footy.
“Clubs down the bottom are down there because of some poor decisions they’ve made over the last few years.”
There’s one other mini-benefit to three teams being terrible – the mini-tournament it has created over the rest of the season for the rights to the near-certain No.1 pick, Harley Reid, who one recruiter told Foxsports.com.au was the best prospect he’d ever seen.
Unfortunately Reid suffered a head knock during Saturday’s clash between the Australian under-18 team and Carlton’s VFL side, but that’s not expected to impact his draft hopes.
Realistically the Hawks, Roos and Eagles are the only contenders for the wooden spoon (and thus the No.1 pick) left, because the team in 15th has three wins with a very solid percentage, and it’s hard to imagine all of them winning four or more games.
And it just so happens that they have a series of games left against each other…
The Harley Reid Cup
Round 10: Hawthorn vs West Coast, UTAS Stadium
Round 18: North Melbourne vs Hawthorn, Marvel Stadium
Round 20: West Coast vs North Melbourne, Optus Stadium
These fixtures are very interesting because the Kangaroos have the advantage of an extra win in the bank, but the Hawks and Eagles have the advantage of games where they’ll be clear favourite because of home ground advantage.
Of course there’s always a chance that one of these teams upsets one of the top 15, but otherwise those three games should determine the wooden spoon.
And where Reid should be looking at property.
“There’s a carrot dangling for a team that finishes last,” Montagna said.