Sydney becomes the fifth
different club to reach the top of the rankings in the past five weeks, which
is easily the most rapid turnover we have had in the top spot since the
rankings began. Last year Hawthorn held the top spot for almost the entire
season. The ‘bad news’ for the Swans is that the previous four clubs to be
ranked number one – Hawthorn, West Coast, Adelaide, and Geelong – have all lost
the next week, and crashed out of the top three. It shows again that the
rankings don’t think that there is a clear best team at the moment.
What of the actual ladder
leaders, North Melbourne, who have won their first nine matches? The Roos have
benefitted from a relatively easy draw so far. They had a good performance in
thrashing the Blues this week, and another one a few weeks back in their win against
the Dogs, but some of their other wins have been against low-ranked clubs Brisbane,
Melbourne, Fremantle, Gold Coast, St. Kilda and Essendon, and a few of those
were quite close. North have their first match in which the rankings rate them
the clear underdogs against Sydney next week. Although, given that Sydney will
be facing the ‘number one ranking curse’ …
For the first time ever
Greater Western Sydney is ranked above Hawthorn. This is notable because in
mid-2014 the two clubs were over 90 points apart in the rankings. This season
GWS has been the most improved club, improving by five goals in ranking points,
and going from mediocre to pretty good. Hawthorn, meanwhile, has lost the most
ranking points, falling by four goals in ranking points, and going from great
to just pretty good again. On the subject of the Hawks, I did tear up at the bad news regarding Jarryd Roughead this week, and I'm not even his teammate or a Hawks supporter.
And the Gold Coast Suns are
once again on the bottom of the rankings, even below a severely depleted
Essendon side. When
I wrote earlier this season that new clubs generally make the finals in their
first decade, I was thinking more of the Suns than the Giants breaking
their drought, based on their good start to the season. Clearly now the Giants are
miles ahead of the Suns, with Gold Coast playing about as badly as it did when
it first entered the league.
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