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2026 Ladder Predictions

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Warwick said:
This is all rubbish.

Geelong have never taken advantage of the father son rule, have withdrawn from that scheme, and have never, and will never, have an academy.

Please respect that.
Click to expand...
Gary Ablett JNR No 40 father/son, Matthew Scarlett No 45 father/son, Tom Hawkins No 41 father/son, Jed Bews No 86, Other players of less performance note: Woolnough, Nathan Ablett, Fletcher, David Clarke, Callan, Blake, Donohue, Simpson, Brownless, Riccardi......please respect the facts.
 

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MightyBloods said:
Gary Ablett JNR No 40 father/son, Matthew Scarlett No 45 father/son, Tom Hawkins No 41 father/son, Jed Bews No 86, Other players of less performance note: Woolnough, Nathan Ablett, Fletcher, David Clarke, Callan, Blake, Donohue, Simpson, Brownless, Riccardi......please respect the facts.
Click to expand...
The denseness of those who can't detect sarcasm always surprises me.
 
Lions (p)
Crows
Hawks
Suns
Saints
Swans
Giants
 Power
..............
 Cats
Bulldogs
 Dockers
Magpies
Tigers
Kangaroos
Bombers
Blues
Eagles
Demons

Coaches sacked: Voss, B Scott
Coaches resigned: Clarkson, C Scott 11e6de41233b96ef3e862a803e4637b6.jpeg
 
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After finals.

Brisbane
Gold Coast
Swans
Hawthorn
Collingwood
Bulldogs
Freo
Adelaide

GWS
Saints
Geelong
North
Bombers
Carlton
Richmond
Port
West Coast
Melbourne
 
timokane said:
Ok for what its worth this is my bottom 8 in 2026.

9. swans
10.crows
11. carlton
12. dogs
13. port
14. north
15. melbourne
16. richmond
17. west coast
18. essendon
Click to expand...
Which you will no doubt change 777,000 times by the start of the season and 7,000,000 times by seasons end so Zero fwiw.
 

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1. GC

This is basically the AFL’s long-term science experiment finally reaching the “may cause unintended side-effects” stage: another elite academy batch every year, ambassador top-ups, and a three-time premiership coach gets handed a golden parachute. Anderson, Rowell and Touk were already elite; adding Petracca upgrades the midfield to "good luck stopping this." With so many factors in its favour, who knows, JUH may even produce something resembling consistency this year.

2. Brisbane

Still the best, most complete system in the league. Still hard to tip against. Brisbane are proven, brutal, and organised. So why only #2? Only arguments against are the slow creep of old age - Zorko's ancient, Cameron, Lester and Neale are all reaching career twilight stage, so availability could become an issue - and whether they can keep up with the meteoric list development curve of their interstate neighbours.

3. GWS

Absolutely no excuses left. Well... fine, except that Josh Kelly will miss most of the season after hip surgery. Aside from that, you’re out of alibis. Your entire core is smack-bang in their prime, your midfield with Oliver is obscene, Sam Taylor is the best key defender in the league, and Toby Greene the best medium forward. O’Callaghan looks ready to join the top tier. Cadman might not be far behind him. Oh, and on paper, your defence should be the best in the comp. So if Kingsley gets the balance right, you can beat anyone.

4. Hawthorn

The Hawks don’t rely on stars so much as structure, discipline and role clarity. Sam Mitchell is already the best of the younger coaches, and his track record of turning rookie picks, DFAs and unwanted off-cuts into polished role players is threatening to surpass even Chris Scott’s. It actually makes me sick just thinking about it. Fortunately they lost Worpel, and failed to land any a-grade midfielders this offseason, which creates a genuine question about whether their midfield is ready yet to compete at the highest level. But the sum of their parts keeps growing each year.

5. Adelaide

In 2025 Adelaide had the best forward mix in the comp, a backline that held its structure like it was built in a wind tunnel, and a system that somehow disguised their very ordinary midfield... until Rankine was suspended, and took the team's entire x-factor around stoppages with him. But when he returns, no doubt they'll continue to impress, particularly at home.

6. Fremantle

Possibly the most underrated list in the league. Darcy and Jackson is the comp's best ruck duo, while Serong and Brayshaw are brutally reliable. At the right vein of form, Pearce and Brennan Cox could be trusted to lock down just about anyone. Treacy's emergence has changed their entire forward narrative. All this raises serious expectations on Justin Longmuir - can he be trusted to take on the comp's best tacticians?

7. Sydney

A list this good shouldn’t be a question mark, but Dean Cox hasn’t yet convinced the world he’s a top-tier senior coach. Still, Gulden/Warner/Heeney is a disgusting midfield, especially when the selflessness of Rowbottom and Jordon gives them the right scaffolding. Curnow solves their forward problem, and Blakey's defensive transition is deadly. But Tom McCartin deserves a more fitting partner, and they just don’t have the system consistency to put any higher at this stage.

8. Geelong

You can’t say Geelong’s kids “aren’t ready” when they just played in a grand final. The question isn’t readiness - it’s whether the wave of improvement from Dempsey, Bruhn, COS, Henry the younger, can outweigh the inevitable decline from Blicavs, Dangerfield, Stewart and co. For 2026 I'm predicting not quite. But it wouldn't be the first time Chris Scott has proven me wrong.

9. Western Bulldogs

Predicting the Dogs remain the AFL’s most talented shambles. Their A-grade list alone - Bont, Naughton, Dale, Darcy, Richards - suggests they should be top 3. But the same problems persist: their key defenders are a rotating cast of afterthoughts, the inside mid group is ageing fast, and their roleplayers just aren't up to the standard Chris Scott or Fagan would be accustomed to.

10. Collingwood

The backline is still quality, McRae still has a tactical edge, and 80,000 feral supporters still make umpires forget which direction holding-the-ball goes. The Daicos brothers guarantee a competitive baseline, but the list around them is fading fast. Still, they’ll annoy a lot of teams by scraping into the wildcard round.

11. St Kilda

Ross Lyon’s Saints have done the most St Kilda thing of all: they’ve spent their entire warchest on half a dozen B-graders.
Still, their defence remains annoyingly well-drilled. But, generational-star-in-waiting NAS still lacks partners-in-crime to get the job done against top teams with any consistency.

12. Port Adelaide

Spent the last months of the Hinkley era getting smashed by every quality side (until the pyrrhic victory of the final round), with a defence in tatters, and morale leaking like a cracked dinghy. Now the prodigal son Josh Carr gets the chance to carry the weight of an entirely healthy and realistic set of expectations hoisted upon him by the cocklediving faithful. The midfield is elite, but best of luck pulling together a coherent system when everything is run on fumes.

13. North Melbourne

The list profile is still too young, the competent veterans too few. The backline will still leak, and true consistency is probably another season away. But they've got the league's easiest fixture, enough proven elite talent (Larkey, LDU, Xerri, Sheezel and Curtis) and enough high draft picks to reach the "competitive most weeks" stage. But it remains to be seen whether Clarko still has the tactical nous to bring this group all the way back to finals.

15. Carlton

With the loss of Curnow, the most uneven AFL list just polarised even further. Too much will now be asked of Cripps, Hewett, Walsh and Weitering. It has Vossy's last stand written all over it.

16. Essendon

There's only one genuine a-grader here, and he really wants to leave. A historic injury crisis sunk their chances last year, but even with a fully fit list there's no clear identity, a lack of on-field leadership, and a very meh coach at the helm.

16. Melbourne

Melbourne’s reputation for their unexpectedly brief imperial period was based on midfield dominance. Now the two players who made that possible are gone. No Petracca, no Oliver, an unproven coach, and an ageing chassis leaves them well inside rebuild territory. Still, the kids look great, Pickett is worth the price of entry alone, but the on-field identity must be completely reimagined.

17. Richmond

Richmond are doing the right thing giving games to kids, but the price is paid in results. There will be flashes of future promise, but this is the definition of a bottom-four development year. Nothing to panic about, but little to celebrate either.

18. West Coast

Harley Reid is a generational talent, but they’re still two drafts away from building enough pieces to climb out of the bottom three.
 
Makeshift Park said:
13. North Melbourne

The list profile is still too young, the competent veterans too few. The backline will still leak, and true consistency is probably another season away. But they've got the league's easiest fixture, enough proven elite talent (Larkey, LDU, Xerri, Sheezel and Curtis) and enough high draft picks to reach the "competitive most weeks" stage. But it remains to be seen whether Clarko still has the tactical nous to bring this group all the way back to finals.
Click to expand...
Calling LDU a proven elite talent is pretty insulting to all the proven elite talents in the league.
 
Warwick said:
Calling LDU a proven elite talent is pretty insulting to all the proven elite talents in the league.
Click to expand...
If you cobbled together one seasons worth of his best games out of the past three years, he'd be a top 5 midfielder.

He doesn't carry the whole team on his shoulders like Merrett or Bont does. At least, not for more than a few games a season.

But his combination of size, power and agility is definitely elite. Breaks tackles with the best of them. He has enough 10 coaches votes games to be considered elite imo - but only in sporadic bursts, unfortunately.

I think our on-field leadership when chips are down will come from elsewhere.
 
Makeshift Park said:
If you cobbled together one seasons worth of his best games out of the past three years, he'd be a top 5 midfielder.

He doesn't carry the whole team on his shoulders like Merrett or Bont does. At least, not for more than a few games a season.

But his combination of size, power and agility is definitely elite. Breaks tackles with the best of them. He has enough 10 coaches votes games to be considered elite imo - but only in sporadic bursts, unfortunately.

I think our on-field leadership when chips are down will come from elsewhere.
Click to expand...
Top 5 is a reach your telling me he's in the class of Bont Daicos Anderson Neale Bailey Sniff
 
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I can't see how Melbourne isn't spoon favourites.
Outside of Gawn and Pickett there isn't much else.

No key forwards. Lever injury prone, game has gone past May, Viney etc.
 
blueiris said:
Top 5 is a reach your telling me he's in the class of Bont Daicos Anderson Neale Bailey Sniff
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No I'm not saying that.

I'm saying his best games show elite talent.

I'm also saying he has a consistency issue and can't be relied on to carry a team on his shoulders.

Two fairly uncontroversial points I would have thought.
 
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1. Brisbane
2. Hawthorn
3. Fremantle
4. Gold Coast
5. Bulldogs
6. GWS
7. Geelong
8. Adelaide
9. Sydney
10. St Kilda
11. Collingwood
12. Port
13. Norf
14. Carlton
15. Richmond
16. Essendon
17. Melbourne
18. West Coast
 

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