AFL WOMEN’S Power Rankings: Round 4 2018

There is clearly one event that has dramatically changed the AFL Women’s Power Rankings this week, which is the Western Bulldogs’ massive 73-point win against Carlton. It was three goals more than the previous highest margin in the competition’s short history (Melbourne by 54 points against Fremantle last season), and basically double the next highest margin after that.

The Bulldogs scored at an absurdly efficient rate once they got into attack, with 12 goals and 26 scoring shots from just 30 inside 50 entries – only one more than Carlton. They took eight marks inside 50, and Brooke Lochland – who had kicked only two goals prior to the match – scored an astonishing seven majors (the previous highest individual tally was four).

With a team’s most recent match accounting for 25 per cent of its rating under my system, the Dogs have pretty much broken the Power Rankings. They have a record number of ranking points, and a record gap in ranking points over the next highest ranked team (not to mention top spot on the AFL Women’s ladder). Meanwhile Carlton – considered a mid-range side last week – has been sent plummeting to the bottom of my rankings.

Elsewhere I rate the teams as fairly close. The second-ranked team, the Brisbane Lions, played out a close match at home with Fremantle on the weekend, while Adelaide, currently ranked third, had a draw with seventh-placed GWS. And Melbourne, who were considered a top contender just a couple of weeks back, were well beaten by previously-winless Collingwood, a win which also served to lift the Magpies well off the bottom of the rankings.

With only eleven matches of history to go on perceptions in the women’s league can change very, very quickly. But after such a dominating performance things are looking pretty good for the women in red, white, and blue ...

AFL WOMEN’S Power Rankings: Round 3 2018

The AFL Women’s ladder became more interesting this week, with the three undefeated teams after Round 2 – Carlton, Melbourne, and the Western Bulldogs – all losing this week.

The Dogs lost to a resurgent Adelaide side that was bolstered by the return of Erin Phillips. Phillips re-iterated her status as the greatest player in the land by scoring four out of her team’s six goals in her first match back from injury. Carlton – who had a relatively easy fixture up to this point – were comfortably beaten at home by a good side in Brisbane. And Melbourne was upset by Fremantle, despite having ten more entries inside 50s than their opponents, as the Dockers kicked six goals and no behinds.

Where does this leave how I rate the teams then?

• Collingwood, who are the only winless team, look to be a step below everyone else. Count the Magpies out for this year.
• Fremantle and GWS – the two bottom sides from last year – seem to have made up some ground. Carlton is probably somewhere near those sides, having beaten GWS at home and Collingwood. All of these teams are still a chance to make the Grand Final, but would need to improve slightly.
• Four sides look to be pretty close at the top: the Western Bulldogs, the Brisbane Lions, Melbourne, and the Adelaide Crows. The Crows, missing Phillips in their first two games, are a win and a heap of percentage behind the others; however they are fortunate that the top sides haven’t got further away from them in the meantime. The Dogs, Lions, and Demons, all have two wins and similar percentages, and as things currently stand I think they all have similar chances of taking home the flag this year.

AFL WOMEN’S Power Rankings: Round 2 2018

Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs – they were the very first two AFL women’s teams, playing biannual exhibition matches from 2013 to 2016. Those matches were effectively women’s ‘All‑Star’ games, and featured many of today’s best AFL Women’s players, including Daisy Pearce, Ellie Blackburn, Darcy Vescio, and Chelsea Randall.

The 2016 clash in particular drew a lot of national attention – along with high ratings – ahead of the inaugural AFL Women’s season last year. Perhaps in part due to the memory of that moment Melbourne and the Bulldogs were two of the most-fancied teams going into the 2017 season, even though many of the players who pulled on their colours for that match were going to be spread out across the eight AFL Women’s teams.

Well it took a season, but maybe Melbourne and the Bulldogs are once again the leaders of the pack. The Demons had a very strong five-goal win on the weekend against last year’s premiers the Adelaide Crows (more on them in a moment). And the Dogs accounted for the other of the grand finalists, the Brisbane Lions, with an impressive nine-point win up in Queensland. The Demons and Dogs are both undefeated after two matches, as is Carlton, but the Blues have had only small wins so far against lower-ranked sides.

Meanwhile 2017’s two best sides seem to have taken a step back, particularly the Crows. Adelaide has been savaged by the injury to co-captain Erin Phillips, who last year had possibly the most dominant AFL season ever, albeit in a season that lasted eight weeks. Phillips’ two-week absence, and the lack of output from last year’s star forward Sarah Perkins (11 goals in 2017, none so far this year), are some of the main reasons that – in a competition of only seven weeks and one final – the Crows’ chances of defending their title are already close to zero.

AFL WOMEN’S Power Rankings: Round 1 2018

Australian Football League followers: in thinking about the first-ever AFL Women’s season in 2017 you likely have some upbeat memories, but do you remember how well each team performed?

You probably recall that the Adelaide Crows won the inaugural premiership, and that they beat the Brisbane Lions in the Grand Final. But how about Melbourne’s strong ending to the season? How about the Western Bulldogs’ string of close results?

Well, the AFL Women’s Power Rankings are back to remind you roughly where each team is at going into the AFL Women’s second season. Basically, the Power Rankings take each team’s last season worth of games – with more recent games receiving a higher weight – and adjust for the strength of the team’s opponent and home ground advantage. (You can find the details of the Women’s ranking formula here.) For example, last year’s runners-up Brisbane had a tough first-round match up travelling to the reigning premiers Adelaide – if they had been beaten, the rankings would still rate them more highly than the ladder would.

Brisbane was not beaten though – on the contrary, the Lions had an impressive two-goal win against their Grand Final conquerors, and have re-joined the Crows as the highest-rated sides in the league. The Lions also leap-frog Melbourne, with the Demons having to fight for a close victory against last year’s bottom-placed team the GWS Giants.

Actual round one ladder leaders the Western Bulldogs are a touch behind, as while the Bulldogs had a big first-up win it was against the bottom-ranked team, and it doesn’t yet outweigh the fact that they won only two out of seven matches last season. Carlton and Collingwood fill out the middle, while the Giants and Fremantle remain as the lowest-ranked teams.

Not surprisingly there are some other rankings of the AFL Women’s teams out there in the blogosphere. For a breakdown of how the AFLW teams rate in each area of the field, and an approximate rating of every player’s value, visit the HPN website. The FootyMaths Institute also has a team rankings system, along with predictions for every match and a team’s likelihood of finishing in each of the ladder positions. (Are there any other systems out there?)