Port Adelaide and Brisbane have the home finals, but Richmond and Geelong look to be slightly ahead as the leading contenders for this year’s premiership.
After a home-and-away season unlike any other, we have our eight finals teams. Port Adelaide finished on top of the ladder, where they had spent the entirety of the season. The Brisbane Lions took advantage of a season played largely in their home state of Queensland to finish second. The last three premiership teams – Richmond, West Coast, and the Western Bulldogs – are back for another run, along with recent finals stalwarts Geelong and Collingwood. Finally, a much improved St. Kilda team have made it back for the first time in nine years.
Who do the rankings like for the premiership? In what may be good news for Cats fans, or bad news given how last year turned out, the rankings are picking Geelong for the second straight year (see table below). It is not a pick made with much confidence however, with predictions for several very close matches.
Heading into the finals series the favourite for the premiership is Richmond, followed by Geelong and Brisbane. In response, the ‘hip’ pick for the flag this week seems to be Port Adelaide, with people arguing they were being underrated given they had spent the whole season on top.
While this year’s fixture first seemed like it would be more even than usual, with each team playing each other once and many games at neutral venues, in reality it gave some teams a massive net home ground advantage. (Not the greater home ground neutrality previously suggested on this blog.) As Max Barry at Squiggle has pointed out, with home ground advantage based on state, Port Adelaide played six games with home ground advantage this year, compared with two with a disadvantage. Things were even better for Brisbane, although the exact count of how many games they had an advantage in depends on how one treats their away matches on the Gold Coast.
In contrast, teams like Richmond and Collingwood had no games against non-Victorian sides before they had to leave Melbourne and move into their hubs. Some opposition supporters (and media) rarely miss a chance to point out how many games the Tigers and the Magpies usually get at the Melbourne Cricket Ground each year and therefore how little travelling they do, but really the majority of those games are against cross-town teams that have had to do about as little travel as they have. The ‘real’ home ground advantage comes when playing teams from out of town.
Port Adelaide is definitely a decent chance to win the flag. The 2020 Grand Final however will not be played in Adelaide, but in Brisbane. Of the top four sides the rankings currently do not favour Port in a Grand Final match-up with any of the others – Geelong and Richmond because the rankings consider them stronger teams, and Brisbane because of the Lions’ home ground advantage. The Power are still considered a good chance to make it to the Grand Final though, with potentially two home finals.
Overall though, even Richmond is less than a 30 per cent chance with the bookmakers, and it would not greatly surprise to see any of the top four teams hoist the cup at year’s end. Really, would a winner from outside the top four be a surprise either? Perhaps the main surprise of this year’s AFL finals series – albeit a pleasant one – is that we got to this point at all.
