AFL Power List: Round 22 (or, ok, now it’s time to get serious)

So this is the deal:

Saints play Collingwood; the winner goes to the prelim, the loser plays the winner of the Crows and Essendon.

Geelong plays Bulldogs; the winner goes to the prelim, the loser plays the winner of Lions and Carlton.

 

To be honest no side really stands out. The Bulldogs played very well to beat Collingwood, but I can’t say they are favourites. The Saints were not great against Melbourne; Geelong was good, but it was against Fremantle so it counted for nothing. The Crows looked great, but have struggled to get the wins over the top 4 sides.

 

So it is all set up for a great finals series where anyone of five can win – Brisbane or Carlton could go either way given the few Lions’ injuries, but I can’t see either of them beating either the Bulldogs or Geelong, and for Essendon to beat the Crows would require massive changes of form by both teams.

 

When looking at the top 8, it is interesting to look at the Premiership table were it to consist only of matches played by those eight teams.

Position	Team	Played	Win	Loss	Draw	Win Percentage	For	Against	Percentage
1	St Kilda	10	9	1		90.0	1034	736	140.49
2	Geelong	11	7	4		63.6	1144	998	114.63
4	Bulldogs	10	5	5		50.0	984	982	100.20
3	Collingwood	12	6	6		50.0	1019	1050	97.05
5	Carlton	11	5	6		45.5	1043	1141	91.41
6	Crows	11	4	7		36.4	1031	1123	91.81
7	Essendon	11	4	6	1	36.4	1002	1132	88.52
8	Brisbane	11	3	7	1	27.3	957	1044	91.67

Rather interestingly the top 4 is still the same as the actual Premiership table; Carlton is above the Crows even though 2 of the Crows’ wins against top 8 sides were against Carlton. And we can see that Brisbane has been pretty woeful against the top 8 sides. 

In terms of form; the last 4 weeks are:

Position	Team	Win	Loss	Draw	For	Against	Percentage
1	Adelaide	3	1		460	308	149.35
2	Collingwood	3	1		414	283	146.29
3	Bulldogs	3	1		409	358	114.25
4	Carlton	3	1		475	401	118.45
5	Saints	2	2		355	290	122.41
6	Geelong	2	2		344	348	98.85
7	Brisbane	2	1	1	378	373	101.34
8	Essendon	2	1	1	400	435	91.95

All of which suggests it is pretty open, given the stumbles by Geelong and the Saints at the end of the season.

And while Round 22 was a good end to a very good minor season, it will be remembered for one thing – Burton’s great hanger.

 

And so to the final Power List of the year:

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
	1	2↑	St Kilda	20-2	Having commentators wondering if the Demons could still get up with 6 minutes to go in the match is not a good sign.
	2	3↑	Bulldogs	15-7	A strong win by the Bulldogs, and will think they can take the Cats down.
	3	1↓	Collingwood	15-7	So was that a hiccup, or a are the Pies not good enough?
	4	4↔	Adelaide	14-8	The Crows kicked the biggest score by any team this year, and will be thinking they can go all the way.
	5	5↔	Geelong	18-4	Very hard to gauge what the win meant, but at least they have Ottens back.
	6	7↑	Brisbane	13-1-8	The Lions just got over the line and now host a demoralized Carlton – but perhaps without Simon Black.
	7	6↓	Carlton	13-9	The Blues played very well in the first quarter, problem was they spent the whole tank doing it.
	8	9↑	Essendon	10-1-11	The Bombers did well to come back and beat the Hawks, but they don’t look like a finals team.
See	you	next	year
	9	8↓	Hawthorn	9-13	Buddy Franklin will miss Round 1 next year, but expect the Hawks to be fired up to get back into the top echelon.
	10	11↑	Sydney	8-14	A sad end to the year, and now the Swans rebuilding begins – but they don’t have to improve too much to get back in the finals.
	11	12↑	North Melbourne	7-1-14	North won against the only team less supported than they are.
	12	10↓	Port Adelaide	9-13	Bugger all people turned up to see Port lose – so much for Port fans being diehards.
	13	13↔	West Coast	7-15	The Eagles will look to next year with a fair bit of hope.
	14	14↔	Fremantle	7-15	The Dockers were never going to win and played like they knew it.
	15	15↔	Richmond	5-1-16	The Tigers were pathetic, again.
	15	15↔	Melbourne	4-18	The Demons did all they could to make it seem that the kinda, sorta wanted to win.