By contrast to almost everything else on this blog, to work
out the top 20 AFL rivalries, I have not constructed any explicit weighting
system. Having said that, I did look up some numbers – namely, how many finals
and grand finals each team has played against each other. This helped bring
some ‘objectivity’ to my impressions of just how big a given rivalry is (or
was). It’s also in part why Collingwood features so prominently – apart from
the fact that everyone hates them, they’ve played in more finals than anyone. But
facing off in big matches isn’t everything – West Coast and Fremantle have
never played off in a final, but few would doubt that the two Western
Australian teams have one of the biggest rivalries going around. Also, recent
big matches helped; Essendon and Hawthorn barely knew who each other were for
50 years, but their past three decades’ worth of encounters has boosted their
rivalry in the minds of many football followers to the point where that doesn’t
matter much.
However, in the end, it’s just one person’s rankings. To my mind, the top 20 AFL rivalries are:
20. Collingwood v Sydney/South Melbourne (10 finals, 3 grand finals)
19. Brisbane Lions v Collingwood (3F, 2GF; Collingwood v
Fitzroy – 18F, 3GF)
18. Carlton v Hawthorn (10F, 2GF)
17. Essendon v North Melbourne (7F, 1GF)
16. Collingwood v St. Kilda (11F, 2GF)
15. Sydney v West Coast (5F, 2GF)
14. Essendon v Melbourne (16F, 6GF)
13. Essendon v Richmond (9F, 3GF)
12. Hawthorn v North Melbourne (15F, 3GF)
11. Collingwood v Geelong (23F, 5GF)
10. Geelong v Hawthorn (7F, 3GF)
9. Fremantle v West Coast (0F, 0GF)
8.
Essendon v Hawthorn (7F, 3GF)
7.
Adelaide v Port Adelaide (1F, 0GF)
6.
Collingwood v Richmond (16F, 6GF)
5.
Collingwood v Melbourne (22F, 7GF)
4.
Carlton v Richmond (22F, 6GF)
3.
Collingwood v Essendon (20F, 4GF)
2.
Carlton v Essendon (20F, 6GF)
1.
Carlton v Collingwood (22F, 6GF)
2 comments:
Interesting concept... I would have had Melb v Coll higher... Dees were rampant in the 50's and 60's, and the Pies did everything they could to stop them breaking their record of consecutive flags... that's got to add weight?
I inItially had Dees v Pies higher, but then I thought if you asked a Pies fan who their biggest rivals were most would say Essendon before Melbourne. But there's certainly a time where that would have been a strong contender for #1, and if you thought it should be top 3 I wouldn't argue too hard against it.
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