AFL Power Rankings: Round 23 2019

There is no clear premiership favourite heading into the finals this year, but that will not stop the rankings making a pick anyway.

After the home and away season Geelong finish on top of the rankings, and the ladder, having spent the better part of the season on top of both. Below that though, things are quite close and muddled, as various teams have heated up and cooled off compared with their overall season form.

The Western Bulldogs are ranked second, but finished seventh on the ladder. Hawthorn and North Melbourne are ranked in the top eight, but did not make the finals. GWS and Essendon are ranked outside the top eight, but did make the finals. Last year’s Grand Final contestants Collingwood and West Coast are ranked outside the top six.

Good luck picking a premiership favourite heading into the finals this year. But we’re going to try and pick a flag winner anyway…

Predicting the finals series

Over the past four years I’ve used the rankings to predict how the finals series will play out. Basically this is done just by comparing who has the higher ranking points, adjusted for any estimated home ground advantage. This method has picked two of the four premiership winners (Hawthorn 2015 and Richmond 2017), and six of the eight Grand Finalists (missing out on the Bulldogs in 2016 and Collingwood in 2018).

This year, the rankings predict that the top two teams on the ladder – Geelong and Brisbane – will meet in the Grand Final, with Geelong prevailing (see table above). Indeed, the rankings are picking the higher-placed team on the ladder in every case, apart from the highly-ranked Bulldogs cutting a path through to a Preliminary Final.

Home ground advantage aside though, there is not a lot separating the four highest-ranked teams. Richmond is the current premiership favourite with the bookmakers, and the Tigers’ probability of winning could be better than indicated above. The rankings may still be underrating them a little due to their injuries earlier in the year, and an extra goal of ranking points would have them as favoured in any match-up outside of Brisbane at the Gabba (and the bookmakers favour them in that as well). That still would not make Richmond a strong premiership favourite however.

Outside of West Coast against Essendon, it would not be surprising to see the above scenario go completely out the window within the first week. Late season form ‘slump’ aside though, Geelong has still performed well enough throughout the year for the rankings to favour them as the premier team of 2019.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 22 2019

The AFL tries to give the weaker teams the easier fixtures, and the stronger teams more difficult match-ups. However, teams rise and fall – who got lucky and unlucky in 2019 from their fixtures being a lot different than expected? (Hint: anyone who played Brisbane twice got unlucky.)

Whenever the AFL fixture for the new season is released there are several ratings of the difficulty of each team’s fixture, including on this blog. These ratings though are primarily based on how strong each team was in the previous season. In this post I re-rate the difficulty of each team’s fixture in 2019, based on how strong each team has been in this season.  

How the fixture was meant to work in 2019

In a season where each of the 18 AFL teams plays 22 matches, each team can only play five others twice. The AFL attempts to make the fixture more equitable by applying a ‘weighted rule’ to these ‘double match-ups’. Basically the 18 teams are divided into three groups of six based on how they finished after finals in 2018. Teams will tend to have more ‘double match-ups’ against teams in their own group, and less against teams at the other end of the spectrum.

This is who each team plays twice in 2019.

Ladder position sometimes hides the ‘true’ relative strength of a side. If we re-rate teams based on my rankings at the end of 2018 though the AFL did not seem to do too badly (see table below).

Fremantle were unlucky, in that they were the only bottom six side not to get to play Carlton or Gold Coast twice. My rankings considered North Melbourne and Sydney to be unlucky as well, as two of their ‘double match-up’ opponents – Geelong and Essendon – were rated more highly than their ladder positions.

(Note that, in the table below, combined ranking points have been reversed so higher points means an easier fixture. Also, points were adjusted so that their sum is zero.)

How the fixture has ended up working in 2019

Teams improve and decline, and so the strength of the fixture at the start of the season is different to how it actually turns out.

In 2019 the teams that have improved the most – based on their improvement in ranking points – include Carlton, the Western Bulldogs, and Brisbane (see table below). Facing these sides twice is now a tougher prospect than it first appeared. Geelong has jumped a lot of spots on the ladder, but the rankings consider that the Cats’ ladder position last season understated their ‘actual’ strength.

Conversely the biggest declines in performance, according to the rankings, have been from Melbourne and Essendon (despite the Bombers moving up the ladder). Sydney has dropped several spots on the ladder, but the rankings do not consider its fall to have been as great.

If we re-rank the strength of each team’s ‘double match-ups’ we see some significant changes for some teams (see table below).

Almost every team that played Brisbane twice is now considered to have had a fixture difficulty of a ‘top six’ side. The exception is Gold Coast, and its fixture difficulty has still moved from that of a ‘bottom six’ to a ‘middle six’ side.

Top sides Richmond, Collingwood and West Coast are now considered to have had much weaker fixtures than originally intended, as they played Melbourne twice. Richmond and West Coast’s fixture difficulties are considered to be closer to ‘bottom six’ or ‘middle six’ sides.

Sydney has gone from unlucky to not as unlucky, helped by playing Melbourne and Essendon twice.

GWS did not play Melbourne twice, but every team it played twice except Gold Coast is rated at least a bit weaker than last season.

Ultimately the fixture doesn’t turn you from a ‘good’ side to a ‘bad’ side, or vice versa. Further, this season the variation in fixture difficulty across teams is less than usual – there are no very strong teams, and with Carlton’s improvement there are no very ‘weak’ teams except for Gold Coast. Still, as Richmond and West Coast are jostling for top four positions, they may be a little bit thankful that their return bouts against Melbourne were a lot easier than they looked at the start of the season.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 21 2019

AFL Power Rankings: Round 20 2019