AFL Rankings: Round 11 2025

Return of the Dees

After Round 3, I wrote about how Melbourne looked entrenched as a ‘bottom four’ team. I noted how their main four midfielders – Max Gawn, Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca, and Jack Viney – were averaging far fewer clearances and overall player rating points than they did at their peak, and as a result were no longer able to carry the Demons into even the middle reaches of the ladder.

Enter Kysaiah Pickett. Pickett has doubled his centre bounce attendances this year, and is averaging 20 disposals and two goals, which is about five more disposals than anyone else averaging two goals per game. He is currently the highest rated mid-forward in 2025 (that has played more than one match). Pickett has re-gained some of the contested ball for the team that Viney is no longer winning, but is more attacking as well.

As important to the Demons’ fortunes though has been the return to form of Gawn and Petracca. Petracca has been moved back to spending more time in the midfield, and while he is not quite back to the player he was at the Demons’ peak, he is certainly travelling better than he was during the season’s first few weeks in winning contested ball. Gawn meanwhile is averaging career highs for disposals, clearances, and intercept marks per game, which given the quality of his career is no small feat.

Melbourne now sits at five wins and six losses, and are looking like finals may no longer be almost completely out of reach. They trail only Carlton (who are a bit of an outlier) for contested possession differential, and the Western Bulldogs (also a bit of an outlier) for differential in centre clearances. They may not be all the way back yet to being a flag contender, but they do at least seem to be some of the way back to what they were good at.

Fall of the Swans

On the flipside, Melbourne’s opponents on the weekend the Sydney Swans do look like finals may now be almost out of reach.

The Swans made the Grand Final last year, which does not happen by ‘accident’, but it perhaps masked a bit that Sydney were not as strong during the second half of last season. In their last twelve games (including finals) their net point differential was actually negative. That has continued on into the first half of this season, and they now sit eleventh on the rankings and thirteenth on the ladder.

Sydney was very effective when they went inside 50 last season, averaging the second most points per inside 50 entry. This year they are third last. (Coincidentally the team that averaged the most points inside 50 last season, Carlton, have also fallen towards the bottom on this measure.) The Swans were never really outstanding at much else last season, and without that forward effectiveness, they have come back to being an average team. They miss Errol Gulden, and Isaac Heeney hasn’t quite been the dominant force he was in 2024. There’s a good chance they still grind out 10+ wins, but they’re a long way off challenging for the flag again, at least this season.

AFL Rankings: Round 10 2025

The Western Bulldogs are the most in-form team in the league, winning four of their past five games by an average of 71 points.* They are doing this in the way we have come to expect from the Dogs, that is through their A-grade midfield. However, their dominance in this area recently has been remarkable even by their standards.

In their past five matches, the Bulldogs have averaged 57 points from stoppages – three goals more than any team expect Geelong, and almost six goals more than their opposition (see table below). Their clearance differential has been +12, where generally a team is doing well to be +5. The Dogs are winning the clearances both in the centre and around the ground.

Since Luke Beveridge began coaching the Bulldogs in 2015, they have a pretty good history of winning the stoppages, particularly in the current decade (see table above). They ranked first for clearance differential last year, and have ranked top three in every season since 2021. They were first in this category when they bulldozed their way to the premiership in 2016. They have also become better at turning this strength into scores, ranking first in differential for points scored from stoppages last season.

Somewhat remarkably, the Bulldogs have achieved this without a dominant hit out ruck – Tim English is an excellent player around the ground and decent clearance winner himself, but usually gets beaten in the ruck contest. They can also seem to do it without being great at winning first possession. They are breaking about even with their opponents in first possession at stoppages this season, yet are still managing to be far better at getting the first effective disposal.

The Bulldogs have also maintained this strength through significant changes in personnel. Jack Macrae, Josh Dunkley, and Bailey Smith have all left the team in recent seasons. Adam Treloar has been injured for most of this one. The mainstays in the middle over the Beveridge years (injuries aside) have been Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore. Beveridge has kept managing to find good support for his leaders, usually from unlikely sources – most recently former half-back Ed Richards, Carlton discard Matthew Kennedy, and second-year player Joel Freijah.

It takes more than just winning the stoppages for a team to win the premiership, as the Bulldogs have found out over the years. It can certainly give a decent boost though. Even if the Dogs cannot maintain this extraordinarily high level of dominance in stoppages, this area should stand them in really good stead over the rest of 2025.

*Yes, I’m aware of your record this year Collingwood, and still stand by this statement.

AFL Rankings: Round 9 2025

AFL Rankings: Round 8 2025