Opinion AFL Power Rankings 2017

Power Ranking

1. St Kilda
2. Melbourne
3. Richmond
3. Essendon
5. West Coast
6. GWS
7. North Melbourne
8. Collingwood
9. Sydney
10. Adelaide
11. Brisbane
12. Hawthorn
13. Western Bulldogs (+2)
14. Geelong
15. Port Adelaide
16. Fremantle
17. Gold Coast (-5)
18. Carlton

Defence Efficiency

1. Sydney
2. St. Kilda
3. GWS
4. Richmond
5. Port Adelaide
6. Brisbane
7. West Coast
8. Adelaide
9. North Melbourne
10. Essendon
11. Hawthorn
12. Melbourne
13. Geelong
14. Gold Coast (-3)
15. Western Bulldogs (-1)
16. Collingwood
17. Carlton
18. Fremantle

Midfield Efficiency

1. St Kilda
2. GWS
3. North Melbourne
4. Gold Coast (-2)
5. Melbourne
6. Geelong
7. Adelaide
8. Fremantle
9. Richmond
10. Western Bulldogs (+2)
11. West Coast
12. Port Adelaide
13. Collingwood
14. Brisbane
15. Sydney
16. Essendon
17. Hawthorn
18. Carlton

Attack Efficiency

1. Collingwood
2. Melbourne
3. Essendon
4. Hawthorn
5. Western Bulldogs (+2)
6. West Coast
7. Fremantle
8. Richmond
9. Brisbane
10. Geelong
11. St Kilda
12. Adelaide
13. North Melbourne
14. Carlton
15. Sydney
16. Port Adelaide
17. GWS
18. Gold Coast (-3)

A shootout up in Queensland sees the Dogs and Suns tumble down the defensive ladder, but the increase in efficiency in both midfield and attack from a dominant last quarter performance means that the Western Bulldogs move up to 13th on the Power Rankings for the JLT. Which is about where they deserve to be - they've been pretty poor the entire preseason - if they don't bring the heat they look bog average. And why bother bringing the heat in preseason which is meaningless? They flicked a switch on against an extremely poor Gold Coast that just completely stopped defending and ran away with the match.
 
Power Ranking

1. St Kilda
2. Richmond
3. West Coast (+2)
4. Essendon
5. Melbourne (-3)
6. GWS
7. North Melbourne
8. Collingwood
9. Sydney
10. Adelaide
11. Brisbane
12. Hawthorn
13. Western Bulldogs
14. Geelong
15. Port Adelaide
16. Fremantle
17. Gold Coast
18. Carlton

Defence Efficiency

1. Sydney
2. St. Kilda
3. GWS
4. Richmond
5. Port Adelaide
6. Brisbane
7. West Coast (0)
8. Adelaide
9. North Melbourne
10. Essendon
11. Hawthorn
12. Melbourne (0)
13. Geelong
14. Gold Coast
15. Western Bulldogs
16. Collingwood
17. Carlton
18. Fremantle

Midfield Efficiency

1. St Kilda
2. GWS
3. North Melbourne
4. Gold Coast
5. Geelong
6. Adelaide
7. Fremantle
8. Melbourne (-3)
9. Richmond
10. West Coast (+1)
11. Western Bulldogs
12. Port Adelaide
13. Collingwood
14. Brisbane
15. Sydney
16. Essendon
17. Hawthorn
18. Carlton

Attack Efficiency

1. Collingwood
2. Essendon
3. Hawthorn
4. Melbourne (-2)
5. Western Bulldogs
6. West Coast (0)
7. Fremantle
8. Richmond
9. Brisbane
10. Geelong
11. St Kilda
12. Adelaide
13. North Melbourne
14. Carlton
15. Sydney
16. Port Adelaide
17. GWS
18. Gold Coast

In 3 JLT games, Melbourne hasn't moved their defence ranking at all. They are comically bad at defending scores, so when they come up against a good defensive team like West Coast, naturally they are going to lose. But the added pressure also means that their midfield ranking drops. Get on St Kilda to beat these pretenders in Round 1 IMO, because St Kilda defends better than West Coast does.

Speaking of West Coast - 7th defence, 10th midfield, 6th attack. Just average in everything, but it's enough to have them 3rd in the rankings at this stage.
 
Power Ranking

1. St Kilda
2. Richmond
3. West Coast
4. GWS (+3)
5. Essendon
6. Melbourne
7. Collingwood
8. Sydney
9. Adelaide
10. Brisbane
11. Hawthorn
12. Western Bulldogs
13. Geelong
14. Port Adelaide
15. Fremantle
16. North Melbourne (-9)
17. Gold Coast
18. Carlton

Defence Efficiency

1. Sydney
2. St. Kilda
3. Richmond
4. GWS (-1)
5. Port Adelaide
6. Brisbane
7. West Coast
8. Adelaide
9. Essendon
10. Hawthorn
11. Melbourne
12. Geelong
13. North Melbourne (-4)
14. Gold Coast
15. Western Bulldogs
16. Collingwood
17. Carlton
18. Fremantle

Midfield Efficiency

1. St Kilda
2. Gold Coast
3. GWS (-1)
4. Geelong
5. North Melbourne (-2)
6. Adelaide
7. Fremantle
8. Melbourne
9. Richmond
10. West Coast
11. Western Bulldogs
12. Port Adelaide
13. Collingwood
14. Brisbane
15. Sydney
16. Essendon
17. Hawthorn
18. Carlton

Attack Efficiency

1. Collingwood
2. Essendon
3. Hawthorn
4. Melbourne
5. Western Bulldogs
6. West Coast
7. Fremantle
8. Richmond
9. Brisbane
10. Geelong
11. St Kilda
12. Adelaide
13. GWS (+4)
14. Carlton
15. Sydney
16. Port Adelaide
17. North Melbourne (-4)
18. Gold Coast

After a brief flirtation where it appeared they might actually be better than people rated them, North tumble down the rankings to take their rightful place in the bottom four, while GWS rise to top four.
 
Power Ranking

1. St Kilda
2. Collingwood
3. Richmond
4. Adelaide
5. West Coast
6. GWS
7. Essendon
8. Melbourne
9. Sydney
10. Port Adelaide (+5)
11. Western Bulldogs
12. Geelong
13. Hawthorn (-3)
14. Brisbane
15. Fremantle
16. North Melbourne
17. Gold Coast
18. Carlton

Defence Efficiency

1. Sydney
2. St. Kilda
3. Collingwood
4. GWS
5. Richmond
6. Port Adelaide (0)
7. West Coast
8. Essendon
9. Hawthorn (0)
10. Adelaide
11. Brisbane
12. Melbourne
13. Geelong
14. North Melbourne
15. Gold Coast
16. Western Bulldogs
17. Carlton
18. Fremantle

Midfield Efficiency

1. Adelaide
2. St Kilda
3. Gold Coast
4. GWS
5. Geelong
6. North Melbourne
7. Fremantle
8. Melbourne
9. Port Adelaide (+4)
10. Richmond
11. West Coast
12. Western Bulldogs
13. Collingwood
14. Sydney
15. Brisbane
16. Essendon
17. Hawthorn (0)
18. Carlton

Attack Efficiency

1. Collingwood
2. Essendon
3. Melbourne
4. Fremantle
5. Western Bulldogs
6. Hawthorn (-3)
7. Adelaide
8. Brisbane
9. West Coast
10. Richmond
11. Geelong
12. Carlton
13. St Kilda
14. GWS
15. Sydney
16. Port Adelaide (0)
17. North Melbourne
18. Gold Coast

Port Adelaide moves up to 10th on the Power Rankings simply by improving their efficiency in the midfield while maintaining their defensive intensity. Now seventh for clearance differential (+3) with their best clearance winner only playing one half of football.
 
Geelong have a great midfield but their defence is garbage. Kind of like the anti-Adelaide in a way. Not being able to convert a complete ruck dominance into something substantial means they fail.
 

Sleezy

Premiership Player
Mar 17, 2015
3,365
6,646
Melbourne
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
I mentioned a couple of pages back that i was developing a model of my own. Now that the JLT series is finished, and the model updated with the most up to date data, i thought i'd outline the outputs and how it works here for those interested.

Basis of the model: the score is the only stat that matters. Every other stat is an indicator of how a team scores, or prevents their opponent from scoring.

So how does it work?
For each team i have extracted a set of stats and determined:
- Their average per game
- That stat's correlation with their score
- Their average impact on their opponents performance in that stat per game

These are then combined to predict how each team will impact the scores of their opponent.

For example:
Team A has an average DE% of 68%. Team B has an average DE% of 72%.

Team A's average score changes by 7.6 pts for every 1% point increase or decrease in DE%.
Team B's average score changes by 3.1 pts for every 1% point increase or decrease in DE%.

Teams playing Team A have a DE% of 2% points higher than their average.
Teams playing Team B have a DE% of 1% points lower than their average.

When Team A plays Team B:
Team A's DE% is predicted to be 67%, and their score predicted to be 7.6 pts below their average.
Team B's DE% is predicted to be 74%, and their score predicted to be 6.2 pts above their average.

I have a combination of stats that come together to provide a total predicted score for each team, and margin for each game.

For some teams, not all stats correllate with their score. This allows the model to take into account opposing gamestyles. For example:

Team A is very good at restricting uncontested marks. Team B's score is independant of the number of uncontested markes they take, therefore Team A's ability to restrict uncontested marks, whilst normally a useful skill, will not help them beat Team B.

I've taken the results from the last 22 games played by each team. The last 7 games have a double weighting. I've run the model for the entire season and it predicts the final ladder as follows:

1. Sydney
2. GWS
3. Geelong
4. Port
5. Adelaide
6. West Coast
7. Melbourne
8. Hawthorn
9. St Kilda
10. North Melbourne
11. Collingwood
12. Fremantle
13. Western Bulldogs
14. Gold Coast
15. Essendon
16. Richmond
17. Carlton
18. Brisbane

When i saw that Champion Data ranked us as the 5th best team, that made me feel a little better about the model placing us in 4th spot.

Seeing us up the top, and bulldogs way down, it indicates to me that the model rewards low disposal/high scoring teams, and penalises high disposal/low scoring teams. We'll see how it goes throughout the season.

Is it accurate? NFI. It was fun to build though. Will keep you posted with regular updates.
 
I have also made my own model takings wins, points for and points against into account which I believe is a 100% reliable indicator of the teams that will play finals. I've uploaded it here: afl.com.au/ladder
 
Last edited:

Coobk001

Brownlow Medallist
Mar 26, 2007
19,113
39,653
Adelaide
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Other Teams
SA Spurs, Anaheim Ducks, White Sox
I mentioned a couple of pages back that i was developing a model of my own. Now that the JLT series is finished, and the model updated with the most up to date data, i thought i'd outline the outputs and how it works here for those interested.

Basis of the model: the score is the only stat that matters. Every other stat is an indicator of how a team scores, or prevents their opponent from scoring.

So how does it work?
For each team i have extracted a set of stats and determined:
- Their average per game
- That stat's correlation with their score
- Their average impact on their opponents performance in that stat per game

These are then combined to predict how each team will impact the scores of their opponent.

For example:
Team A has an average DE% of 68%. Team B has an average DE% of 72%.

Team A's average score changes by 7.6 pts for every 1% point increase or decrease in DE%.
Team B's average score changes by 3.1 pts for every 1% point increase or decrease in DE%.

Teams playing Team A have a DE% of 2% points higher than their average.
Teams playing Team B have a DE% of 1% points lower than their average.

When Team A plays Team B:
Team A's DE% is predicted to be 67%, and their score predicted to be 7.6 pts below their average.
Team B's DE% is predicted to be 74%, and their score predicted to be 6.2 pts above their average.

I have a combination of stats that come together to provide a total predicted score for each team, and margin for each game.

For some teams, not all stats correllate with their score. This allows the model to take into account opposing gamestyles. For example:

Team A is very good at restricting uncontested marks. Team B's score is independant of the number of uncontested markes they take, therefore Team A's ability to restrict uncontested marks, whilst normally a useful skill, will not help them beat Team B.

I've taken the results from the last 22 games played by each team. The last 7 games have a double weighting. I've run the model for the entire season and it predicts the final ladder as follows:

1. Sydney
2. GWS
3. Geelong
4. Port
5. Adelaide
6. West Coast
7. Melbourne
8. Hawthorn
9. St Kilda
10. North Melbourne
11. Collingwood
12. Fremantle
13. Western Bulldogs
14. Gold Coast
15. Essendon
16. Richmond
17. Carlton
18. Brisbane

When i saw that Champion Data ranked us as the 5th best team, that made me feel a little better about the model placing us in 4th spot.

Seeing us up the top, and bulldogs way down, it indicates to me that the model rewards low disposal/high scoring teams, and penalises high disposal/low scoring teams. We'll see how it goes throughout the season.

Is it accurate? NFI. It was fun to build though. Will keep you posted with regular updates.
Bulldogs & Port definitely the 2 anomalies. The Bulldogs at absolute worst will only just miss the finals. However it is more likely they'll be in that top 6 bracket. Us on the other hand, I still see us battling for 8th.
 

Coobk001

Brownlow Medallist
Mar 26, 2007
19,113
39,653
Adelaide
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Other Teams
SA Spurs, Anaheim Ducks, White Sox
Power Ranking

1. St Kilda
2. Collingwood
3. Richmond
4. Adelaide
5. West Coast
6. GWS
7. Essendon
8. Melbourne
9. Sydney
10. Port Adelaide (+5)
11. Western Bulldogs
12. Geelong
13. Hawthorn (-3)
14. Brisbane
15. Fremantle
16. North Melbourne
17. Gold Coast
18. Carlton

Defence Efficiency

1. Sydney
2. St. Kilda
3. Collingwood
4. GWS
5. Richmond
6. Port Adelaide (0)
7. West Coast
8. Essendon
9. Hawthorn (0)
10. Adelaide
11. Brisbane
12. Melbourne
13. Geelong
14. North Melbourne
15. Gold Coast
16. Western Bulldogs
17. Carlton
18. Fremantle

Midfield Efficiency

1. Adelaide
2. St Kilda
3. Gold Coast
4. GWS
5. Geelong
6. North Melbourne
7. Fremantle
8. Melbourne
9. Port Adelaide (+4)
10. Richmond
11. West Coast
12. Western Bulldogs
13. Collingwood
14. Sydney
15. Brisbane
16. Essendon
17. Hawthorn (0)
18. Carlton

Attack Efficiency

1. Collingwood
2. Essendon
3. Melbourne
4. Fremantle
5. Western Bulldogs
6. Hawthorn (-3)
7. Adelaide
8. Brisbane
9. West Coast
10. Richmond
11. Geelong
12. Carlton
13. St Kilda
14. GWS
15. Sydney
16. Port Adelaide (0)
17. North Melbourne
18. Gold Coast

Port Adelaide moves up to 10th on the Power Rankings simply by improving their efficiency in the midfield while maintaining their defensive intensity. Now seventh for clearance differential (+3) with their best clearance winner only playing one half of football.
Interesting that even after we've only conceded an average of 68, we're still only 6th ranked in defence. I've watched zero other than Port this JLT but I've definitely felt our defence has been great. Ball movement out of it though has been a whole different story
 

Chrizzt

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 17, 2009
8,895
18,208
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Bulldogs & Port definitely the 2 anomalies. The Bulldogs at absolute worst will only just miss the finals. However it is more likely they'll be in that top 6 bracket. Us on the other hand, I still see us battling for 8th.
While I think that the Bulldogs will make finals, I could quite easily believe that they will miss. Harsher interpretation of disposing the ball/holding the ball combined with their patchy form could see them missing the 8.

Ladder % is often a very strong indicator of form, and they had the second worst of the top 8 last year. They capitalised on their chance with a very strong finals series, but they haven't put together all the pieces yet.
 
Interesting that even after we've only conceded an average of 68, we're still only 6th ranked in defence. I've watched zero other than Port this JLT but I've definitely felt our defence has been great. Ball movement out of it though has been a whole different story

That second quarter against Richmond cost us because the Tigers found it so easy to score from clearances. It was the last nail in the Lobbe/Ryder coffin in case Ken wanted to resurrect that stupid idea.
 
It resets for the real stuff. Have added a new ranking, which is a combination of defensive rating and midfield rating, to measure expected performance in finals due to forwards being limited in those games.

The big surprise for me so far is Richmond. I know they played Carlton who are beyond poor, but they were very efficient with their defence. Port Adelaide wasn't a surprise at all - I told you that defence is the most important thing for us to win. 1 Janus, 0 The Haters.

So far in R1:

Finals Rating (How likely a team is to win the flag)

1. Port Adelaide
2. Richmond
3. Western Bulldogs
4. Melbourne
5. Sydney
6. Collingwood
7. Carlton
8. St Kilda

Team Rating (Likely position at end of H&A season)

1. Western Bulldogs
2. Richmond
3. Port Adelaide
4. Melbourne
5. St Kilda
6. Sydney
7. Collingwood
8. Carlton

Defensive Rating

1. Port Adelaide
2. Western Bulldogs
3. Richmond
4. Sydney
5. Melbourne
6. Carlton
7. St Kilda
8. Collingwood

Midfield Rating

1. Collingwood
2. Melbourne
3. Richmond
4. Sydney
5. Port Adelaide
6. Carlton
7. St Kilda
8. Western Bulldogs

Attack Rating

1. Western Bulldogs
2. Melbourne
3. Richmond
4. St Kilda
5. Port Adelaide
6. Carlton
7. Collingwood
8. Sydney
 
Geez... I thought we killed Sydney tonight in the midfield but your stats have them higher.

They generated 5 more inside 50 entries from 22 less contested possessions. So while we killed them defensively, offensively they were more efficient - hence why they are rated higher.
 
Jan 30, 2013
16,166
16,559
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
I mentioned a couple of pages back that i was developing a model of my own. Now that the JLT series is finished, and the model updated with the most up to date data, i thought i'd outline the outputs and how it works here for those interested.

Basis of the model: the score is the only stat that matters. Every other stat is an indicator of how a team scores, or prevents their opponent from scoring.

So how does it work?
For each team i have extracted a set of stats and determined:
- Their average per game
- That stat's correlation with their score
- Their average impact on their opponents performance in that stat per game

These are then combined to predict how each team will impact the scores of their opponent.

For example:
Team A has an average DE% of 68%. Team B has an average DE% of 72%.

Team A's average score changes by 7.6 pts for every 1% point increase or decrease in DE%.
Team B's average score changes by 3.1 pts for every 1% point increase or decrease in DE%.

Teams playing Team A have a DE% of 2% points higher than their average.
Teams playing Team B have a DE% of 1% points lower than their average.

When Team A plays Team B:
Team A's DE% is predicted to be 67%, and their score predicted to be 7.6 pts below their average.
Team B's DE% is predicted to be 74%, and their score predicted to be 6.2 pts above their average.

I have a combination of stats that come together to provide a total predicted score for each team, and margin for each game.

For some teams, not all stats correllate with their score. This allows the model to take into account opposing gamestyles. For example:

Team A is very good at restricting uncontested marks. Team B's score is independant of the number of uncontested markes they take, therefore Team A's ability to restrict uncontested marks, whilst normally a useful skill, will not help them beat Team B.

I've taken the results from the last 22 games played by each team. The last 7 games have a double weighting. I've run the model for the entire season and it predicts the final ladder as follows:

1. Sydney
2. GWS
3. Geelong
4. Port
5. Adelaide
6. West Coast
7. Melbourne
8. Hawthorn
9. St Kilda
10. North Melbourne
11. Collingwood
12. Fremantle
13. Western Bulldogs
14. Gold Coast
15. Essendon
16. Richmond
17. Carlton
18. Brisbane

When i saw that Champion Data ranked us as the 5th best team, that made me feel a little better about the model placing us in 4th spot.

Seeing us up the top, and bulldogs way down, it indicates to me that the model rewards low disposal/high scoring teams, and penalises high disposal/low scoring teams. We'll see how it goes throughout the season.

Is it accurate? NFI. It was fun to build though. Will keep you posted with regular updates.

are you betting these still? PM me if you want a bit of a hand in what you should be tracking or want to know how it compares to bookmakers expectations.
 

Chrizzt

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 17, 2009
8,895
18,208
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
They generated 5 more inside 50 entries from 22 less contested possessions. So while we killed them defensively, offensively they were more efficient - hence why they are rated higher.
I have to admit that stat did have me a little worried. The addition of Ryder made us too focussed on getting to the footy first and abandoning our defensive structures around the ball perhaps? Not a huge issue if you are winning plenty more of the 50/50s but something to keep in mind.
 
With one game to go for the round, the rankings are as follows (made a mistake with the previous post):

Finals Rating

1. Adelaide
2. Port Adelaide
3. Essendon
4. Gold Coast
5. Richmond
6. Western Bulldogs
7. Brisbane
8. Melbourne
9. West Coast
10. Sydney
11. Collingwood
12. Hawthorn
13. Carlton
14. North Melbourne
15. GWS
16. St Kilda

Team Rating

1. Adelaide
2. West Coast
3. Brisbane
4. Western Bulldogs
5. Richmond
6. Port Adelaide
7. Essendon
8. Melbourne
9. Gold Coast
10. St Kilda
11. Hawthorn
12. Carlton
13. Sydney
14. Collingwood
15. GWS
16. North Melbourne

Defensive Rating

1. Brisbane
2. Port Adelaide
3. Western Bulldogs
4. Essendon
5. West Coast
6. Richmond
7. Adelaide
8. Sydney
9. Hawthorn
10. Melbourne
11. Carlton
12. GWS
13. St Kilda
14. Collingwood
15. Gold Coast
16. North Melbourne

Midfield Rating

1. Gold Coast
2. Adelaide
3. Collingwood
4. Melbourne
5. Richmond
6. Sydney
7. Hawthorn
8. North Melbourne
9. West Coast
10. Essendon
11. Port Adelaide
12. Carlton
13. GWS
14. St Kilda
15. Western Bulldogs
16. Brisbane

Attack Rating

1. West Coast
2. Brisbane
3. Western Bulldogs
4. Adelaide
5. Melbourne
6. Richmond
7. St Kilda
8. Essendon
9. Port Adelaide
10. GWS
11. Carlton
12. North Melbourne
13. Hawthorn
14. Sydney
15. Collingwood
16. Gold Coast

The s**t performance of GWS in every single metric shows that it was more their poor performance rather than Adelaide's play that sees the Crows at the top of the rankings. Brisbane being up so high is a surprise, but again, that's more to do with Gold Coast than them - they won't find it as easy next week.

It will take about 5 rounds to form a crystal clear picture of how sides will go this year...but it's already clear that if you can't defend properly, you're going to get opened up easily this year.
 
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