Prediction Best 23 - 2026

[Dogsfan1]

Wanna add anything to the discussion or just continue being a bald headed flog?

Your not adding anything to it

 

[BomToydd]

Your not adding anything to it

Says you. Feel free to tell me how a cooked treloar, inexperienced croft and louis emmett who apparently could have been a number 1 pick will make us a significantly better team next season champ

 

[BomToydd]

Good discussion.

For the record ...

Average tackles per game for midfielders in 2025 was 3.11
Median was 2.81

So Treloar's historical average was above that each year 2021-2024 (4.3, 3.2, 5.3, 4.7) and over those four years he averaged 4.35. In 2025 he only averaged 1.25 in his four games. But he was struggling with injury and averaged less than 60% game time.

His career average is 4.64.

If you narrow it down to only the AFL's top 100 midfielders (ranking based on Wheelo ratjing points) the average tackles per game is 3.78 and the median 3.61. That's a good deal higher than the number for all midfielders, but Treloar still comfortably exceeded that each year apart from 2022 (and 2025 of course).

As you say, there's no way Treloar would average that as a forward, but then no forwards do.
The 2025 average for forwards (source Wheelo, excluding players they categorise as midfielder/forwards) is 2.16 tackles per game but that includes tackles made outside the 50.
The average for forwards executing tackles inside 50 was 0.78.

For reference here are the 2025 averages for WB players that Wheelo called forwards:

Player----Tackle Avg----Tackle i50 Avg

Rhylee West	3.57	1.70
Aaron Naughton	1.96	1.30
Caleb Poulter	1.86	1.14
Laitham Vandermeer	1.68	1.00
Sam Darcy	1.53	0.59
Lachlan McNeil	1.71	0.57
Josh Dolan	1.18	0.36
Buku Khamis	1.93	0.36
Cooper Hynes	1.13	0.25
Jordan Croft	1.00	0.00

Interesting stats. Are they actually effective tackles? He's always looked kind of poor defensively and seems to run harder with the ball than without it. Regardless at his age and with his injury history I think all his numbers will start dropping.
Can't see how adding a cooked treloar improves the forward line next season

 

[dogwatch]

Interesting stats. Are they actually effective tackles? He's always looked kind of poor defensively and seems to run harder with the ball than without it.

I can't say categorically but I'd assume they are effective tackles. It doesn't make sense (to me at least) for them to include ineffective tackles and then have no other stat that indicates the effective portion.

Perhaps someone who knows Wheelo and AFL Tables better than I do could clarify?

Like you, when I think of Adam Treloar I don't think of a tackling machine I think of his time in possession of the ball. But the same is true of Bont. We typically think of Bont wheeling away from a centre clearance and delivering a long low pass onto the chest of a forward. Until we check his tackle count after the game. Bont (5.4) ranked 22nd in average tackles out of 660 players in 2025, just behind Libba (5.6).

Regardless at his age and with his injury history I think all his numbers will start dropping.

I agree, like any 30+yo his stats will start declining. That doesn't mean he can't play an effective role though. There were seven players 35 or older this year. Some of them had plenty to offer. But an awful lot more have retired by that age.

Treloar is 32. Players succumb to ageing injuries and decline in form at differing rates so it's impossible to know how long he might go on for. If he has another series of soft tissue injuries like this last season then 2026 might be his final year. However he played 24 games in 2024, didn't miss a game and won an AA jacket. So if he gets back to that sort of condition who knows?

Can't see how adding a cooked treloar improves the forward line next season

Agree. Can't see how a cooked anybody improves our forward line. By contrast an Adam Treloar anywhere near his AA form would be a fantastic asset.

The question is whether he's cooked or not.

After his disappointing run of injuries in 2025 I'm not hugely optimistic but I'll keep an open mind for now.

 

[BomToydd]

For reference here are the 2025 averages for WB players that Wheelo called forwards

Had a look at the pressure acts stat here and West is our only player in the top 65 of all afl forwards. Good teams like geelong and pies had 2 players in the top 5

 

[maddog37]

Mattdougie is back. Sigh

 

[BigFloppa]

Is Stephen May still gettable?

 

[NthBondiDoggies]

We are not going to become premiers by being a poor man’s Geelong, Brisbane etc we have to be brilliant at something and make them chase us. We are an outstanding scoring team. This is our key weapon and we need to even go harder on it.

Sure we don’t want to be the 90’s Cats who were all office and always choked in finals but like 2016 - we can plan a system around what we have and improve our defence. Jones is a huge loss but he was gonesky early. Lobb and JOD will improve and we will have some more genuine defenders in Buderick and Chuck Sellwood.

I also hope we use Williams and Friejah more to add star power to the backs. Darcy and Emmett are for 4-5 years away and so we hope Buss comes good or we see the continued improvement of Gardner (we was the no1 FB in the VFL and is definitely improving ) - at least things cover until one of the younger ones comes through as Lobb ages / slows.

Up the ground will matter just as much as we need to play much more pressure - the stand off nature doesn’t suit us and opens us up As a fast flowing team - consistent team pressure is still a winner - especially if you have a weaker defence structurally and want the ball to come in scrappy - rush and be the best at it. Be manic.

If we do we will outscore them. We already have scoring power. Add in Weightman, Trelor and developing Croft, Arty, Dolan and Hynes and we have a great forward mix. I am a fan of KUH but I like that we are more open now - Darcy gets protected by West - Naughty is up the ground with Artie and then Croft, Kennedy/Bont, Hynes and Dolan - is a nightmare. Arguably biggest change is going to be more of Bont up forward - with Richards, Kennedy, Friejah and Sanders we have the size and quality to free him up.

 

[BrisDog]

We are not going to become premiers by being a poor man’s Geelong, Brisbane etc we have to be brilliant at something and make them chase us. We are an outstanding scoring team. This is our key weapon and we need to even go harder on it.

Sure we don’t want to be the 90’s Cats who were all office and always choked in finals but like 2016 - we can plan a system around what we have and improve our defence. Jones is a huge loss but he was gonesky early. Lobb and JOD will improve and we will have some more genuine defenders in Buderick and Chuck Sellwood.

I also hope we use Williams and Friejah more to add star power to the backs. Darcy and Emmett are for 4-5 years away and so we hope Buss comes good or we see the continued improvement of Gardner (we was the no1 FB in the VFL and is definitely improving ) - at least things cover until one of the younger ones comes through as Lobb ages / slows.

Up the ground will matter just as much as we need to play much more pressure - the stand off nature doesn’t suit us and opens us up As a fast flowing team - consistent team pressure is still a winner - especially if you have a weaker defence structurally and want the ball to come in scrappy - rush and be the best at it. Be manic.

If we do we will outscore them. We already have scoring power. Add in Weightman, Trelor and developing Croft, Arty, Dolan and Hynes and we have a great forward mix. I am a fan of KUH but I like that we are more open now - Darcy gets protected by West - Naughty is up the ground with Artie and then Croft, Kennedy/Bont, Hynes and Dolan - is a nightmare. Arguably biggest change is going to be more of Bont up forward - with Richards, Kennedy, Friejah and Sanders we have the size and quality to free him up.

And with that, I am taking my 4 weeks annual leave September 2026. How are the going to stop us?

 

[Bald Headed Flog]

Had a look at the pressure acts stat here and West is our only player in the top 65 of all afl forwards. Good teams like geelong and pies had 2 players in the top 5

Garcia is 34th, Freijah is 35th and Sanders is 37th, while West is 50th. I assume you’ve limited the search to Gen Forwards which removes the other 3 names, despite them playing significant amount of game time up forward. Miers and McCreery are top 5 for pressure acts among general forwards, and both average 4+ CBAs per game (compared to Garcia with 7, Freijah with 6 and Sanders with 3, who are all listed as Mid-Forwards). So the position classification can be misleading.

Four forwards in the top 50 sounds much better than 1 forward in the top 65.

 

[BomToydd]

Garcia is 34th, Freijah is 35th and Sanders is 37th, while West is 50th. I assume you’ve limited the search to Gen Forwards which removes the other 3 names, despite them playing significant amount of game time up forward. Miers and McCreery are top 5 for pressure acts among general forwards, and both average 4+ CBAs per game (compared to Garcia with 7, Freijah with 6 and Sanders with 3, who are all listed as Mid-Forwards). So the position classification can be misleading.

Four forwards in the top 50 sounds much better than 1 forward in the top 65.

Well if you change what you consider a forward it sounds better but if you don't filter by position at all it's a stat that skews in favour of inside mids. Guys like Rowell, Libba and Dunkley are in the top 5 overall with significantly higher averages. Rowell's average is like double West's

I don't think a slow midfielder/half forward like Sanders can play the same role as pressure forwards like McCreery, Schulz, Mannagh and West. Even Garcia and Freijah would be doing most of their pressure acts as midfielders. I think limiting the results to general forwards gives a better indication of who the best pressure forwards are in the comp

 

[Bald Headed Flog]

Well if you change what you consider a forward it sounds better but if you don't filter by position at all it's a stat that skews in favour of inside mids. Guys like Rowell, Libba and Dunkley are in the top 5 overall with significantly higher averages. Rowell's average is like double West's

I don't think a slow midfielder/half forward like Sanders can play the same role as pressure forwards like McCreery, Schulz, Mannagh and West. Even Garcia and Freijah would be doing most of their pressure acts as midfielders. I think limiting the results to general forwards gives a better indication of who the best pressure forwards are in the comp

Miers and McCreery spend more time in the middle than sanders. Why do they count as forwards but not sanders?

Sounds like you’re just shifting goal posts to suit your argument. If a player spends majority of their time forward, they’re a forward. That’s a pretty simple and fair criteria to apply

 

[dogwatch]

Miers and McCreery spend more time in the middle than sanders. Why do they count as forwards but not sanders?

Sounds like you’re just shifting goal posts to suit your argument. If a player spends majority of their time forward, they’re a forward. That’s a pretty simple and fair criteria to apply

West also does occasional stints in the midfield. It's hard to pin the readily available stats down to what we want to investigate.

 

[BomToydd]

Miers and McCreery spend more time in the middle than sanders

Do they though? They might average more CBAs but I don't think Sanders would be spending significantly more time closer to goal than them

Sounds like you’re just shifting goal posts to suit your argument.

That's what you did by including mid-forwards so you could argue we have four forwards in the top 50. Sanders, Garcia, and Freijah aren't full time forwards though. Just look at their goal and tackles inside 50 averages compared to West, Mannagh, Schultz and McCreery

If a player spends majority of their time forward, they’re a forward. That’s a pretty simple and fair criteria to apply

If they spent the majority of their time forward they would be classified as a forward. You can shift the goal posts to make things sound better but I think most people would rate players like West, Mannagh, Schultz, Miers and McCreery as better forwards than Sanders and Garcia

 

[Bald Headed Flog]

Do they though? They might average more CBAs but I don't think Sanders would be spending significantly more time closer to goal than them

That's what you did by including mid-forwards so you could argue we have four forwards in the top 50. Sanders, Garcia, and Freijah aren't full time forwards though. Just look at their goal and tackles inside 50 averages compared to West, Mannagh, Schultz and McCreery
View attachment 2504293

If they spent the majority of their time forward they would be classified as a forward. You can shift the goal posts to make things sound better but I think most people would rate players like West, Mannagh, Schultz, Miers and McCreery as better forwards than Sanders and Garcia

I counted them as forwards because their primary roles are as forwards. McCreery and Miers aren’t full time forwards anymore, why should they count here? You’re selectively choosing data to suit your argument, which leaves it open to being debunked by allowing for different interpretations.

We play these guys as forwards. If they don’t count, it means we’re playing every game with 2-3 less forwards than other teams, so of course we’re not going to match on various stats. There’s no compelling reason for these guys to be excluded

 

[BomToydd]

I counted them as forwards because their primary roles are as forwards. McCreery and Miers aren’t full time forwards anymore, why should they count here?

Would have thought Garcia's and Sanders' primary roles last season were substitute and bench. And when they do play forward it's more as a half forward which is basically a midfielder in our system. And that's just when our first choice forwards like Vandermeer and McNeil who rate very poorly in pressure stats are having a spell.

You’re selectively choosing data to suit your argument, which leaves it open to being debunked by allowing for different interpretations.

Debunked? Okay lol. What exactly are you arguing? Our forward pressure doesn't need to improve? Or Sanders and Garcia are better pressure forwards than West?

You’re selectively choosing data to suit your argument

I mean that's basically what stats are for. Shifting the goalposts to argue we have better forward pressure than we actually do doesn't make it true.

 

[Bald Headed Flog]

Would have thought Garcia's and Sanders' primary roles last season were substitute and bench. And when they do play forward it's more as a half forward which is basically a midfielder in our system. And that's just when our first choice forwards like Vandermeer and McNeil who rate very poorly in pressure stats are having a spell.

Debunked? Okay lol. What exactly are you arguing? Our forward pressure doesn't need to improve? Or Sanders and Garcia are better pressure forwards than West?

I mean that's basically what stats are for. Shifting the goalposts to argue we have better forward pressure than we actually do doesn't make it true.

Most importantly, you made the comment that Pies and Cats have 2 each in the top 5 for pressure. But two of those players, Miers and McCreery, play much further up the ground as half forwards/occasional mids (like Sanders, Garcia and Freijah). Either they all count, or none do.

Our forward pressure is below average, I don’t think many would disagree on that point. It hurts having our best pressure small out for the year. But I don’t agree about it being as bad as you suggested (when you pointed out that West is the only one in the top 65).

There are only 135 players listed as general forwards on Wheelo, or 7.5 per club. We only had 6 (West, McNeil, VDM, Dolan, Poulter and Hynes, with Poulter and Hynes both really only being part timers given they each played less than half the season), so 4 full time and 2 part time. Geelong had 6 full timers listed plus one part timer. Pies were the same.

We essentially have 2 less general forwards in that dataset given they’ve instead been set as Mid-Forwards. For this category, we have 2 full timers, plus 3 part timers. Geelong has a single part timer and Pies have a full timer and a part timer.

So ultimately it’s just a case of players being categorised differently. Pies and Geelong have very few players listed as Mid-Forwards, instead having Gen. Forwards, whereas ours are spread between the two. This is why it’s misleading to filter down to one or the other as it makes things appear worse than they are.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Do they though? They might average more CBAs but I don't think Sanders would be spending significantly more time closer to goal than them

That's what you did by including mid-forwards so you could argue we have four forwards in the top 50. Sanders, Garcia, and Freijah aren't full time forwards though. Just look at their goal and tackles inside 50 averages compared to West, Mannagh, Schultz and McCreery
View attachment 2504293

If they spent the majority of their time forward they would be classified as a forward. You can shift the goal posts to make things sound better but I think most people would rate players like West, Mannagh, Schultz, Miers and McCreery as better forwards than Sanders and Garcia

Champion Data have been open about discussing about how their positional definitions don't really apply in some situations where players don't find a position or get moved around a lot, players like Freijah certianly fit that definition - if you consider wing, centre bounce, half-back, deep forward and high half-forward pushing to midfield to be 5 different positions, he basically didn't spend any fewer than about 10% or any more than about 35% of his actual time on the field in any 5 of those positions, and that was basically unique at AFL level generally, so any stats comparison to him compared to a player in the league generally is going to be an impossible task.

 

[NthBondiDoggies]

Oddly enough - there is probably an argument that our VFL defence is nearly as good as our AFL. Thats Not good but they are the best defence in VFL for a reason - though Jones makes a huge difference:

Jacques Khamis Coffield

Sellwood Gardner Walker

And Adding Emmett, Darcy2 l, Gags and Carmichael

Versus:

Dale Lobb Bramble

Buderick JOD Buss

Losing Jones and JJ

 

[NthBondiDoggies]

Sorry forget Cleary - has has been in AFL rotation. Also have shown success in rotating Williams and Fridge back.

 

[Distinctive_]

Mid Jan update based on training reports

Budarick Lobb Jacques
Dale JOD Bramble

Davidson Freijah Williams
English Bont Richards

Jones Naughton Mennedy
West Darcy Croft

Carmichael, Libba, Treloar, Dolan, VDM

 

[weltschmerz]

Mid Jan update based on training reports

Budarick Lobb Jacques
Dale JOD Bramble

Davidson Freijah Williams
English Bont Richards

Jones Naughton Mennedy
West Darcy Croft

Carmichael, Libba, Treloar, Dolan, VDM

Think there's room for both Jaques and Carmichael?

 

[Distinctive_]

Think there's room for both Jaques and Carmichael?

Don’t see why not, Jacques was pushing for a debut last year and Carmichael is ready made for AFL

 

[Dougs Wing]

Don’t see why not, Jacques was pushing for a debut last year and Carmichael is ready made for AFL

What have you seen to suggest that Carmichael is good to go and play alongside of Jaques and others in the back line?

 

[Inside The Kennel]

Says you. Feel free to tell me how a cooked treloar, inexperienced croft and louis emmett who apparently could have been a number 1 pick will make us a significantly better team next season champ

Treloar is far from 'cooked'. As a regular track watcher, he has been incredibly impressive in the recent match sims and has worked tirelessly to prepare for the season. It's disrespectful to tap out a throwaway line which is the opposite of what he's producing on the track. He was struck down by injury last year, having been an all-Australian the previous season. As all players in their final season, he will need to call upon his experience and continue to find ways of exploiting his strengths. Please use evidence to validate your views.