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2024 vs 2025 Premiership, which is a greater achievement?

Which premiership?

  • 2024

    Votes: 25 22.9%

  • 2025

    Votes: 56 51.4%

  • Both/can't decide

    Votes: 28 25.7%
  • Total voters
    109

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I'd say in 2024, getting to the GF was the amazing part, then the GF itself I expected us to win and it proved to be a piece of cake. In 2025, I expected us to win the SF and PF but not necessarily the GF, and even though the second half was a thrashing, the first was a mostly even contest.

So there's much to enjoy in both. Depends how much you weight grand final day versus the whole finals series. 2024 the better finals series, 2025 the better GF. Both are sweet. Overall I guess I have 2024 slightly ahead.
 
Johnny Bananas said:
I'd say in 2024, getting to the GF was the amazing part, then the GF itself I expected us to win and it proved to be a piece of cake. In 2025, I expected us to win the SF and PF but not necessarily the GF, and even though the second half was a thrashing, the first was a mostly even contest.

So there's much to enjoy in both. Depends how much you weight grand final day versus the whole finals series. 2024 the better finals series, 2025 the better GF. Both are sweet. Overall I guess I have 2024 slightly ahead.
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Yep, no finals series will ever beat the drama of the Semi Final Giants comeback and the comeback, game of the year satus and skill level of the Cats Prelim win.

Been live to all finals the last 2 years and the euphoria and surprise of the Giants win was a once in a lifetime unbelievable experience... we were still sitting around hours later saying how the hell did we win that.
 
Lion_LegacyXL said:
After reflecting on it more the last 2 days I'd say 2025. Someone else summarised it perfectly, last year's flag was built off pure adrenaline and emotion whereas this years flag through resilience and being able to adapt we've established ourselves as a genuine powerhouse in the competition.
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Shall I say a #Lion_LegacyXL
 
Been flat out for a few months and finally had a bit of down time to catch up and peruse all the awesome banter that's been going on in a few of these threads.

It's a great question isn't it... To me the 2024 premiership remains the most remarkable premiership ever won, by any team. Granted, it's not quite the same as the question being asked here, but to be 0-3, 2-5, have 4 wins at the bye, still be 13th after Round 14, to not even be in the top 8 at all until Round 16, THEN have to play 3 consecutive away finals, be 44 points down in an away semi final, 25 down in an away prelim, on our bogey ground no less. It's ridiculous to write let alone think about.

And that's before you take into account the stuff that won't show up on AFL Tables, like the 5 ACL's, Fages' health scare, the fact he was still dealing with the Hawthorn racism situation, the events in "Vegas" which threatened to derail things before they even got going.

It's fair dinkum the sort of script you show a Hollywood producer and they laugh and throw it back at you with a "nobody's gonna believe all that". Remember they went to the trouble of making Moneyball and that team didn't even make it past the first round of playoffs.

2025 is memorable of course for other reasons. The fixture, the injuries, those are things that will probably get glossed over by the masses in time (they probably already have been to be honest). But outside of premierships, there's nothing better than winning on the road, and my word we stacked them together incredibly this year. Every time we thought they were gone, they would dig in and pull out a performance that just reminded us and everybody just how high the ceiling was. Every last venue-team hoodoo we had was not just ended, they were all comprehensively buried.

The most mind boggling feature of the 2025 season tho was saved for the very end. With 4 minutes to play in the 3rd quarter of the Grand Final we led by 1 point. Exactly one quarter later we led by 64. It is mental to think about, probably the most exhilarating 30 minutes of sport I've ever seen live in person. One second it was one of the most gripping, engrossing contests I'd ever seen. Nek minnit, it was all over, with plenty of time to spare.

Ultimately as Viceregal mentioned, we're so fortunate to be in this position to be able to compare these two seasons in such a way. Obviously our chances in 2026 appear strong, but there's no guarantee it ever happens again so enjoy the now folks!
 
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Tough decision, a lot went on leading up to the 1st one......I went with '25 as it's hard enough to win one but then to come

back and do it again is monumental imo

They went in underdogs and came out victors....they BELIEVED they could do it again and they did!

'26 I'm not so sure, will be an uphill battle to get a 3peat but they will give it an almighty effort .... that's one thing we can rely on with this team..
 
2024 - we didn't know if we could even get to win one after the close loss in 2023. 5 ACLs, Ashcroft coming back from ACL and straight into playing 22, almost losing semi-final against GWS, almost losing prelim to Geelong, losing Big O and parachuting Fort in for Grand final... that was just epic effort by the whole group to get there in the end and win one.

2025 had its ups and downs, but we knew our best is good enough. We always knew. And we had a stack of premiership players who knew the formula on how to get it done. 2025 is special in its own way on how we won the prelim and grand final but there was always a flicker of expectation from the supporters to "turn it on and get it done boys". And to their credit, they did and delivered.
 
Defiantly a hard decision.

I voted for 2024. Both paths were difficult for different reasons. In the end my vote boiled down to where we were seating. About 12 rows from the front across the aisle from the cheer squad goal end. I was okay with these seats as the previous year we were back row bottom level and not good really. In 2024 we had a great view of half the ground and a big TV behind and slightly to the right of us.

I was close to losing my voice that day. It was so easy to get involved with the cheering going on in our area and on reflection that ended up being an adrenalin highlight.
So, it was mostly a personal feeling on the day rather than the 2 different paths the boys had to navigate in 2024 and 2025 seasons. Winning our first premiership since 2003 was also special.

In 2025 our seats had better overall viewing of the game on the 2nd level near one goal end. The crowd was also great but not the same as 2024.
 
2025, because flogging Geelong beats flogging Sydney.
 

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So I do love a chart, and using WheeloRatings weekly tweets throughout the season giving his premiership probabilities, here's how our probabilities shifted throughout each season.

(Note this chart is a log scale, otherwise the vast majority of data points appear all squashed towards the bottom and makes it harder to visualise)

1767263678643.png

It's interesting to see that for the first half of 2025, we were considered a better chance to win the flag than at the same stage in 2024, which would have largely been due to our relative ladder position at those times. At the bye in 2024, we had just a 2.2% chance of winning it all.

But then in the second half of the season, things completely flipped. As we established ourselves in the top 8 (and briefly the top 2) in 2024, our probability skyrocketed to 27% before our two late season losses. Meanwhile our inconsistent 2025 form meant our probability flatlined, not helped by our relatively poor percentage. Coming into the Freo game we were rated only a 5.4% chance.

Then come finals, even faced with 3 consecutive away finals, we were rated a 14.5% chance in 2024, compared to just 7.5% in 2025, with a Semi Final at home. These probabilities extended right through to the Grand Final, such that on Andrew's metrics we were actually favoured to win the Grand Final (56%) in 2024, compared to just 30% in 2025. For those who like a punt, these odds would equate to around $1.79 and $3.33 respectively, without allowing for any bookie profits.

Andrew might like to comment further but I imagine the key differences by finals time were due to our profile in both seasons, which was far more compelling in 2024 than in 2025, taking into account matches against all opponents which Andrew's model would.

So we can see it's a real discussion and there are strong arguments for both! We definitely came from a lot further back in 2024, but come finals the 2025 performance was full of merit, and very much against the odds right the way through.
 
As far as the GF team line ups go, to take out 3/5 of your spine from 2024 in:
Daniher, Hipwood and Payne, to be replaced in 2025 with:
McInerney, Gallup and Gardiner.

Plus losing Berry on a wing, replaced by Marshall.

L.Ashcroft came in for McKenna which was a plus.

Then also having Neale under an injury / fitness cloud as sub and only playing the 2nd half.

As well as having a tougher opponent in Geelong,
that definitely all adds up to a more remarkable and unexpected Grand Final performance and result.
 
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MSB ROYS said:
A few months on still 2025. The Cats' supporters meltdowns over the father sons / academy in the following month was icing on the cake.
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Still getting 'we woz robbed' vibes from Pies fans after the 2025 Prelim - icing on the cake imo. That was some win and reward for the faithful fans that evening. Super special.

And all roads on that topic lead to 2002 GF. They just cannot get over that one - Lions Derangement Syndrome.
 

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2024 vs 2025 Premiership, which is a greater achievement?

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