AFL Rankings: Round 3 2021

The Western Bulldogs have been ‘hogging’ the football so far this year.

The Western Bulldogs currently are on top of the AFL ladder, having won their first three matches, including a 128-point belting of North Melbourne on the weekend. As a result of that smashing they were the big mover on the rankings this week, now sitting just below Richmond and Geelong in third spot. They hold the top spot on the two headline ranking systems over at Matter of Stats, and are projected to finish on top based on the systems compiled at Squiggle.

The massive win against North certainly helped the Dogs’ rating, but they have been fairly impressive in their other two wins as well, comprehensively controlling the ball in those wins if not entirely the scoreboard. Against Collingwood in Round 1 they peppered the Magpies’ defence, with around 50 per cent more disposals and inside 50s than their opponents. The Eagles in Round 2 matched them better for territory, but the Dogs still had a lot more of the ball with almost 100 more handballs.

Overall the Bulldogs are averaging 435 disposals over their first three matches, which is about 10 per cent than any other team. Leading the way is their monster midfield. Jack Macrae, Josh Dunkley, Bailey Smith, Tom Liberatore, Marcus Bontempelli, and defender Caleb Daniel are all in the top 50 for disposals and averaging over 25 disposals per game, with five more Bulldogs in the top 100. Before the season with the recruitment of Adam Treloar some may have worried if there were ‘enough possessions to go around’, but the Dogs seem to have solved this by just getting their hands on the ball even more.

It is not just all uncontested possessions for the Dogs either, as they have by far the highest contested possession differential with their opponents (+28 per game, next best team +9), and highest clearance differential (+8 per game, next best +4). There was a question about which of their six main players that are preferred ‘inside midfielders’ would attend centre bounces and stoppages, however this choice was possibly easier than it seemed. Last year Bontempelli, Liberatore, and Macrae were the most successful of the main Dogs at winning centre clearances (though Treloar was about as successful at Collingwood), and they have been the three midfielders the Dogs have most often deployed at centre bounces this season. Liberatore has been a beast at clearances (see table below), leading the league. Meanwhile the ‘other inside midfielders’ – Dunkley and Smith – have won plenty of contested possessions around the ground, particularly Dunkley.

It is a scary prospect for the rest of the league if the Bulldogs have worked this out so quickly. There is still some question how Treloar will ultimately fit into this mix now that he has eased into the side, but it is not a bad problem to have. When this group of Bulldogs won their drought-breaking premiership in 2016 they were ‘pups’ who peaked at the right time; now at the peak of their powers they could end up as the undisputed top dogs.