AFL Rankings: Round 13 2022

Making the opposition look better

After this week, 12 out of 18 AFL teams have a positive ranking, meaning they are ranked as ‘above average’. The same number of teams have a percentage of over 100 (more points scored than against) this season. It seems like the competition is looking pretty strong, right?

Well, AFL is a zero-sum competition. And a large part of the reason we have so many teams rated above the average is that there are two teams that are way, way below it: North Melbourne and the West Coast Eagles.

North Melbourne and West Coast are not just the ‘worst’ teams in the AFL this year, they are two of the ‘worst’ teams there have ever been. On average they have scored almost nine goals per match less than their opposition so far this season. In comparison, North Melbourne in 2021 when they were the bottom team ‘only’ averaged about five goals less per match than their opponents (see below).

The 2022 Kangaroos and Eagles are much worse than your ‘standard’ bottom team like the 2021 Kangaroos on almost every major measure. Their opponents are averaging over 20 more inside 50s per game, compared with the eight more inside 50s opponents averaged on the 2021 Roos (see table above). They are also averaging 55 more disposals per game, compared with around 25 per game for the opponents of last year’s Roos. Teams are easily winning both the contested and uncontested battles against these bottom two sides, averaging around 16 more contested possessions per game (2021 Roos: 11 per game).

So teams are benefitting this season not only from a worse North Melbourne, but another team that is performing just as poorly. Collectively the Roos and Eagles have this year lost 57 ranking points, meaning there is over three extra rankings points per team for the other teams to go around. (Gold Coast, Carlton, and Collingwood all have a current ranking of less than three points.)

All that said, Melbourne’s drop over the past few weeks has suddenly made the competition a fair bit closer. Some teams may be looking better due to the historically poor performances of the bottom two teams, but they are not ‘a world away’ now from the top teams either.