You
have to beat the good sides to win the premiership. Based on their form so far
against the likely finalists, which teams should be a bit worried?
Melbourne’s
bizarre season
Today Melbourne qualified for
its first AFL finals series since 2006 with an excellent win against the West
Coast Eagles. That win aside though, Melbourne’s
struggles against the top sides in 2018 have been well noted. They’ve had
twelve wins and one loss against teams that are currently in the bottom half on
the ladder. Against teams in the top half they’ve had seven losses and just the
one win.
Prior to the Eagles match the
gap in the Demons’ relative performances against top and bottom half teams was
one of the largest in VFL/AFL history. (See this helpful
graph from Insight Lane – by a nice coincidence I had already
chosen the topic for this week’s post when this insight was given.) Usually
good performances against good sides and not-so-good sides tend to go together.
Strangely, two of the largest gaps ever in relative performance have come in
the past two seasons – last year it was Port Adelaide who confounded rating
systems by destroying ‘bad’ teams and capitulating against the good ones.
Melbourne has been highly
rated by my ranking system for most of the season, because of its ability
to annihilate lower teams. This has left me feeling more and more
sheepish as the Demons have racked up losses against the top sides.
The best way to explain
Melbourne’s high ranking is this: the Rankings take into account performances
against the whole league, not just
the top half. It is true that the Rankings have tended to overestimate
Melbourne’s chances against the top teams this season. By the same token
though, they have tended to underestimate the Demons’ victory margins against
the lower teams.
It’s
beating the top teams that matters now – which likely finalists should be
worried?
However as we get to the
finals series, it’s only a team’s performances against the teams that remain that
matter. Based on this, once they get past the joy of qualifying for their first
finals series in twelve years the Demons should be a bit concerned about their
ability to progress.
Melbourne’s average adjusted
net margin this season against the other likely finalists is -8 points. After
adjusting for opposition strength and home ground advantage this makes them the
equivalent of a below average side when they come up against the best (see
table below). Richmond, Hawthorn, and Collingwood all won by large margins
against the Demons, and Sydney beat Melbourne last week on its home
ground.
For the other likely finalists,
Collingwood’s inability to beat the top
eight teams has also been well noted. The Magpies have only beaten one top
eight team: Melbourne (although they came close to beating Sydney). Their best
performances have come against the next tier of sides that are just outside the
eight – Port Adelaide, North Melbourne, Essendon, and Adelaide. Against the
likely finalists they have been the equivalent of an average side. Collingwood
and Melbourne are two of the better sides overall, but their
ladder positions have been helped a little by friendly fixtures.
Less well noted is GWS’ struggles against the better sides earlier
this season. The Giants were thrashed by Geelong, and were also well beaten by
West Coast. They have also lost to Sydney twice. Some of those performances may
have in part been affected by injuries, but that may not be much comfort to the
Giants as
injuries have recently hit them again.
Who
has done well against the best?
Minor premiers-elect Richmond has performed the best overall
against the top teams. The Tigers have had some struggles outside of Victoria,
but they have beaten every team they have played in their home state. Unless
they lose in the first week of the finals they will play at the MCG for the
duration of the finals series.
Also doing well against the
top teams are Sydney, West Coast,
Hawthorn, and Geelong, although for somewhat different reasons.
West
Coast’s best win for the season was their big win against Richmond at home. They have also shown they
are capable of winning in Victoria against good opposition by beating Hawthorn
and Collingwood there.
Hawthorn
thrashed Melbourne, and also easily beat Collingwood in the first match of the
season. The Hawks beat Geelong twice (albeit narrowly), and have generally been
close in their losses against the top sides.
You
may step it up though
So should we just be waiting
for the seasons of Melbourne and Collingwood to come to an abrupt end? Of
course not. Last year for example we saw Richmond play considerably better against
teams in the finals series than they had done earlier in the season, including
a massive (home ground advantage aside) 124 point turnaround against Adelaide.
The Western Bulldogs substantially stepped up their performances in September
the year before.
Melbourne and Collingwood are
good teams. They may even be capable of matching it with the best teams. They just
haven’t given a whole lot of evidence during the season that they can yet.