AFL Power Rankings: Round 8 2017

I don’t know what is going on with this season anymore …

AFL Power Rankings: Round 7 2017

After making my proclamations last week about which teams were likely to make the top eight and top four at season’s end, most of those teams lost over the weekend. The top two clubs, Adelaide and GWS, both had losses that were surprising to many observers. The other two teams I had marked for the top four, Geelong and Port Adelaide, also lost. Port marked my statement that, contrary to the bookmakers’ odds, it was a better bet to make the top four than West Coast by promptly losing to the Eagles (although it did have a lot more of the attack), which may prove enough to swing their respective positions at season’s end. On the other hand the top eight teams may have become a bit more set with St. Kilda winning against GWS and Melbourne losing to Hawthorn, which gives the Saints a stronger advantage in grabbing what may be the last available finals spot.

Another consequence of the top teams falling – particularly Adelaide’s big loss against North Melbourne – is that the top seven clubs at the end of 2016/start of 2017 (including Hawthorn rather than Port) have now lost ranking points over the course of the season. This is an indicator that the competition has become a bit more even this year. Indeed, based on the standard deviation of ranking points, this is shaping up as the most even season of the post-expansion (Gold Coast and GWS) era. Still I think the finals spots are pretty much settled – there may just be a few more unexpected results than usual along the way …

AFL Power Rankings: Round 6 2017

After Round 6, about a quarter of the way through the AFL season, we have a pretty good idea about the likely finalists in 2017. Adelaide and GWS are almost certain to make it. Geelong and Port Adelaide look the most likely teams to round out the top four, at least according to the rankings (and here as well), though the betting odds slightly favour West Coast and the Western Bulldogs over the Power. (Does this mean I will put some cash on Port for the top four this week? Maybe I will …)

As for fifth to eighth, West Coast and the Bulldogs look the most like filling two of those positions again, with both clubs currently in that range in both the rankings and on the ladder. Sydney, the fifth ranked side (and that seems too high), has very little chance of making the finals after starting the season with six straight losses. Conversely Richmond is still ranked down in twelfth, but has a good chance of making the finals after having won their first five games. So lock in (without actually locking in, as each of these teams can still miss): Adelaide, GWS, Geelong, Port Adelaide, West Coast, Western Bulldogs, and Richmond.

The final spot looks to be a fight between St. Kilda, Melbourne, and Collingwood, with the Magpies being a win back from the other two. North Melbourne, like Sydney, is probably too far away after starting the season 1-5. The betting markets also seem to like Fremantle and Essendon to give the finals a shake, but I don’t. Anyone else – unless something really strange happens … forget it. The Gold Coast Suns though, if they hold form, may at least get some significant improvement out of the season.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 5 2017

Now that we are five rounds into the season I have added back to the Power Rankings the ‘change over the season’ column to show how each club has improved or declined over the season to date.

And the big improvers are:

Essendon – The Bombers were always expected to improve this season as half a dozen of their best players returned from their season-long bans. They haven’t been among the best performed sides so far, but certainly better than the depleted side they fielded last year.

Richmond – The Tigers were awful over the second half of 2016, but they have been consistently solid over the first five matches of 2017 without having had a standout match. In terms of actual wins and losses ‘consistently solid’ has been good enough as the Tigers have won their first five matches over generally average to weak opposition. Because of their poor ending to 2016 they are still ranked as below average, but on 2017 form alone they would easily be a top eight side as they were during 2013 to 2015.

Port Adelaide – After having missed the finals last season Port Adelaide has been up there with Adelaide, GWS, and Geelong as the best sides so far in 2017. The Power opened up by beating Sydney on their home turf, and they destroyed both Fremantle and Carlton. They also put in solid showings against both Adelaide and GWS, indicating that they are on pace for a finals position.

On the other hand, the big decliners have been:

Hawthorn – It’s not as bad as it looked last week, with the Hawks having an excellent win against the West Coast Eagles on the weekend. That aside Hawthorn is clearly nowhere near the side it has been the past six years. I covered Hawthorn’s dramatic fall last week so I won’t say any more on this here.

Sydney – It’s been a big drop for last year’s runners-up and top ranked team – not so much on these rankings which still take into account last season’s form, but on the actual 2017 ladder with the Swans having lost their first five matches. Generally they have been below average in most of their matches so far, which given the heights they scaled last year is a huge drop in performance.

Western Bulldogs – Last year’s premiers the Bulldogs have also been off the pace they set last season. Or at least they are off the pace they set during their phenomenal September run. Before that amazing finals series they were actually only an average side – particularly in the second half of the year – and that seems to be what they have reverted to so far in 2017.

Carlton – The Blues were bad last year. This year they have been even worse, with a thrashing by Port Adelaide and a home loss against Gold Coast their worst performances.

Not on that list is North Melbourne, the other side currently without a win. The Kangaroos have dropped off a bit from last year, but as Rohan Connolly pointed out this week they haven’t been as bad as their ladder position suggests. They’ve had very close losses to Geelong, the Bulldogs, and Fremantle to Perth, and so could have easily had at least one win to date. If you’re looking for the team that is most likely to finish last Brisbane or Carlton seem a safer bet.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 4 2017

There are likely many factors that have contributed to Hawthorn’s huge decline this season, but one factor that captured a lot of attention was their somewhat questionable moves over the off-season. The Hawks traded away their two highest disposal winners, four-time premiership heroes Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis, and threw a lot of money and draft picks at bringing in three players from other clubs: Jaeger O’Meara (Gold Coast), Tom Mitchell (Sydney), and Tyrone Vickery (Richmond). The early returns haven’t been good, both for the new recruits – or for O’Meara and Vickery at least – and for the team as a whole.

Hurling People Now did a great analysis of each of Hawthorn’s moves. They said that the trade for Tom Mitchell was a good one, and in his four matches so far Mitchell has done relatively well. They also said that the Hawks got fair value for Sam Mitchell, who likely only has a year or two of football left.

By their assessment however the Hawks lost out badly by trading Jordan Lewis – who should have a good few years left – for virtually nothing. That is nothing though compared to what they gave up for O’Meara; as HPN pointed out Hawthorn gave up more than an entire draft of picks to eventually land their man. The Hawks had a low expected stock of future games within their list anyway, and these trades dropped them even lower in this regard. If the first round pick they gave to St. Kilda turns out to be a high draft pick, which currently looks very likely, Hawthorn’s 2016 off-season could be seen as a disaster.

The Beitzel Review has a more optimistic view. This article points out that the Hawks haven’t built their list on high draft picks anyway, and instead enhanced it by bringing in several proven players in exchange for late first round picks, which used to be generally overvalued. It also points out that Hawthorn can strengthen its list in the coming years through free agency. All true – but based on what we have seen so far the Hawks look like they are starting from much further back than they, or anyone else, could ever have expected.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 3 2017

We’ve got some colour into these AFL Power Rankings … Usually I don’t care too much about making my tables and charts look colourful after having worked out the main result I want to show. If I’ve got that and then someone suggests adding some colour changes I’m generally thinking something like: ‘WHY? Can you NOT SEE that the RESULT IS CLEAR?’ (Also, I’m colour blind …)

But somebody has been experimenting with the conditional formatting in Excel this week. You’ll see that the ranking point column now has a colour scale, which I think is pretty nifty. What I like is that it gives a better picture of the distance in quality between teams (as determined by the rankings) than the ranking position does. For example, based on its ranking points seventh placed Port Adelaide is much closer in quality to fifth placed West Coast, and even to third placed Sydney, than it is to eighth placed Collingwood. I reckon the AFL Ladder should be coloured this way, particularly after the season’s half way mark. I definitely suggest using a colour scale on the ladder when doing your footy tips.

You’ll also see that the next column has been coloured red and blue to more clearly indicate which teams gained or lost ranking points this week. Though for Gold Coast and Hawthorn a simple shade of red or blue does not really do justice to how much our assessment of them shifted this week. Gold Coast, who gained a whopping ten ranking points, should be a more volcanic red, and Hawthorn should be as blue as the Arctic seas. Unsurprisingly as I’ve only been doing these rankings since 2011 the Hawks have never been ranked anywhere near as low as they are now. And if anything I feel like that their ranking isn’t falling fast enough …

AFL Power Rankings: Round 2 2017

Last year’s top ranked team Sydney falls a bit further this week after losing again to its Grand Final conquerors the Western Bulldogs. Despite its 0-2 start to this season the Swans are still highly regarded by the rankings, and are still considered a good chance to play in the finals. Matt Cowgill showed over on his column on ESPN that Sydney was – by his ratings – still a 60 per cent chance to make the finals even if it lost this week, and would probably still be considered a better-than-even chance of making it after Round 4 as long as it did not lose its first four matches. That’s a fair bit better than the 2 per cent chance Herald Sun journalist Jon Ralph gave teams starting 0-2 this week. I’d say that Ralph’s figure, which is based on the amount of teams that have recently made the finals after starting 0-2, probably indicates that it’s rare for top teams to start the season with two straight losses.

At the other end of the rankings Essendon remains near the bottom despite winning their first two matches, albeit this week’s win was against the bottom-ranked club Brisbane. No adjustment has been made in the rankings to account for the Bombers having regained some of their best players who were banned from playing last year by the World Anti-Doping Agency. In general because I use a simple formula I don’t make any adjustments for player movements, departures and returns.

I think this works fine in most cases but is probably much less accurate in a significant case like this one. Another consequence is that teams that play Essendon are perhaps penalised more than they should be. For example, Brisbane’s modest 27 point loss this weekend was considered equivalent to a whopping 74 point loss once home ground advantage and Essendon’s relative ‘strength’ – still largely based on its depleted side from last year – was taken into account.

Of course if Essendon performs above its level of last year – which most people expect they will – then it will move up the rankings to its ‘true’ level of competency soon enough. (Similarly the performances of clubs that play against Essendon will naturally adjust in the rankings as well.) Note though the Bombers were playing very badly in late-2015 before those players were banned. They are playing much better so far in 2017, but Essendon has a history over the past few years of starting the season off much better than they finish it. It has done this basically every year since 2012 and repeatedly made my rankings look ‘foolish’ until they drop off. So while I definitely think Essendon is better than the current rankings suggest I’m not prepared to say that the rankings are waaaaaaaaay off just yet.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 1 2017

Welcome back to The Wooden Finger’s AFL Power Rankings for 2017. Before we get to this week’s rankings I said in my final AFL Women’s Power Rankings last week that I would give an update on where Brisbane and Adelaide ended up after the Grand Final. As you’d probably expect Adelaide moved to the top of the rankings after beating the Lions on their home turf to capture the first AFL Women’s flag. The Crows ended up with 14.0 ranking points, while Brisbane remained in third behind Melbourne, and dropped a couple of ranking points to finish on 6.5. That would put the two sides on about even terms in a hypothetical rematch in Queensland, which is almost how their Grand Final ended up.

So to recap, here is how the Power Rankings work – each club accumulates ranking points from its past 22 matches like so:

• first, take the club’s net margin for the match – e.g. a six-goal win is +36;
• second, adjust the net margin for home ground advantage – e.g. Perth clubs are considered to have a two-goal disadvantage when playing in Melbourne, so a six-goal win in Melbourne for a Perth club is adjusted to +48; and
• third, weight the match according to how recent it is, with the most recent match having the highest weight.  

One can then interpret a club’s ranking points as its expected net margin in a match if playing a club of average ability on a neutral ground. For example, according to the rankings the Western Bulldogs would be expected to beat a Victorian club of average ability by about three goals, and Carlton would be expected to lose by about four goals in the same situation.

This week Adelaide, having ascended to the top of the women’s rankings, now also tops the men’s rankings. The Crows – despite their relatively early exit from the finals – were really good last year. Unfortunately for them they had a tough draw and an extremely costly loss in the last round of the regular season, which dropped them from second to fifth heading into the finals. However Adelaide re-affirmed its quality this weekend with a comfortable win over the GWS Giants, who were the pre-season premiership favourites.

You may also note that last year’s premiers the Western Bulldogs are only the sixth-ranked team. The Bulldogs’ form actually wasn’t that great heading into the finals series (though injuries may have played a part), but then of course they caught fire in September and raced away to a long-awaited flag. With that in mind the Dogs beat Collingwood on the weekend by about as much as one should expect they would, even though the Pies were lauded for keeping things close against the reigning premiers. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some comments about the Bulldogs having gone off the boil in the coming weeks, even if they are playing at a similar or higher level than they did for most of last year.