Top 5 Midfields 2024

[WalshistheGOAT]

Brisbane
GWS
Carlton
Melbourne (If Clarry is still cooked might drop down a couple of places)
WBD
Pies
Port
Crom

 

[RonnieRaven]

1-Port (soldo, butters, rozee, jhf, houston, drew, wines, boak, bergman)
2-Bris (big O, neale, ashcroft, dunkley, clug, rayner, dev, berry, fletcher)
3-pies (ruck? - daicos, daicos, pendles, sidey, de goey, crisp, mitchell)
4-dogs (english, bont, macrae, libba, smith, treloar, harmes, williams....and quietly I really rate their '23 draft haul)
5-Dees (gawn, tracc, oliver, brayshaw, viney, sparrow, langdon, hunter, billings)
---
To round out a top 8
6-freo (darcy, serong, brayshaw, young, brodie, jaeger, erasmus, o'driscoll, johnson) still young but primed imo
7- Blues (tdk/pitt, walsh, cripps, acres, cerra, both hollands', hewett)
Edit forgot the giants;
8-GWS (briggs, green, cog, kelly, perryman, callaghan, ward, xav)
9- crows (ROB, laird, dawson, sloane, crouch, berry, keays, rankine).

Also, i wanna believe in the suns
Witts, miller, anderson, rowell, Humphrey, davies, flanders...should be top 5.

Dons too
Draper, merrett, parish, tsatas, martin, hobbs, setterfield, duursma, shiel, caldwell, durham, perkins.
Please work

Fyfe may not be the messiah anymore
But track watchers can confirm his fit and still on our list.
If it stays that way he won’t win a Brownlow but will be an extra body/wise head to help the young group

 

[citizen-erased]

Fyfe may not be the messiah anymore
But track watchers can confirm his fit and still on our list.
If it stays that way he won’t win a Brownlow but will be an extra body/wise head to help the young group

probably plays majority fwd though yeah?

 

[ChristianBoy]

Saints with the addition of Henry is up there. Best across the line with Wood Hill and Henry.

 

[RonnieRaven]

probably plays majority fwd though yeah?

Training purely in the guts
Fwd experiment over.
All going well rd1 first bounce will be
Darcy Fyfe brayshaw serong
All bnf winners

 

[smish]

Newcombe doesn’t chase or defend. His opponent regularly gets 25+ and kicks goals. He has a long way to go. He isn’t a plodder but he isn’t close to A grade.

Genuinely baffling take

 

[VinnieB]

Interesting exercise using Wheelo stats for 2023, the best sides when combining clearances won, contested possessions, uncontested possessions, inside 50's, rebound 50's, tackles and hitouts to advantage* - granted this doesn't tell the entire story at all - in order were....

Adelaide (28)
Bulldogs (21)
GWS (18)
Melbourne (17)
Brisbane/GC (12)
Stk/ Frem (11)
Port/Carlton/Syd/Haw/Ess (9)
Colling/Rich (4)

Interestingly or not, Geelong didn’t rate a mention in any metric which surprised me a little, while Collingwood got their solitary 4 votes for being 4th for tackles.


*looked at the top 7 in each category, assigned a 7,6,5, 4 etc vote for each place from 1st to 7th and then recorded the cumulative score in brackets.

So what you’re saying is that you have provided useless stats.

Collingwood, Geelong, Richmond have won 5 of the last 7 premierships and either don’t rate or are at the bottom of your list.

So, what’s your point?

 

[Orange crush]

Saints with the addition of Henry is up there. Best across the line with Wood Hill and Henry.

Yeah …. Saints are awesome

 

[ChristianBoy]

Yeah …. Saints are awesome

Yeah they are coming along nicely.

 

[Orange crush]

Yeah they are coming along nicely.

Yeah ….. Saints are awesome

 

[PowerfulPies2023]

The Last 4 seasons we've had these 6 teams

WCE Pies Richmond Melbourne Hawks GWS
Richmond GWS Pies Geelong WCE Lions
Tiges Cats Power Lions Saints Pies
Dees Dogs Cats Power Lions GWS
Geelong Sydney Pies Lions Dees Dockers
Pies Lions Blues GWS Dees Port

Really for top 5 mids the only one I could see breaking into something unexpected is The Crows.

 

[FlowersByIrene]

1-Port (soldo, butters, rozee, jhf, houston, drew, wines, boak, bergman)
2-Bris (big O, neale, ashcroft, dunkley, clug, rayner, dev, berry, fletcher)
3-pies (ruck? - daicos, daicos, pendles, sidey, de goey, crisp, mitchell)
4-dogs (english, bont, macrae, libba, smith, treloar, harmes, williams....and quietly I really rate their '23 draft haul)
5-Dees (gawn, tracc, oliver, brayshaw, viney, sparrow, langdon, hunter, billings)
---
To round out a top 8
6-freo (darcy, serong, brayshaw, young, brodie, jaeger, erasmus, o'driscoll, johnson) still young but primed imo
7- Blues (tdk/pitt, walsh, cripps, acres, cerra, both hollands', hewett)
Edit forgot the giants;
8-GWS (briggs, green, cog, kelly, perryman, callaghan, ward, xav)
9- crows (ROB, laird, dawson, sloane, crouch, berry, keays, rankine).

Also, i wanna believe in the suns
Witts, miller, anderson, rowell, Humphrey, davies, flanders...should be top 5.

Dons too
Draper, merrett, parish, tsatas, martin, hobbs, setterfield, duursma, shiel, caldwell, durham, perkins.
Please work

Don's midfield would be close to the worst in the AFL i'd say. A lot turns on how good Tsatas and Hobbs are. Tsatas looked goods but Hobbs has done not much in the time he's been given.

 

[FlowersByIrene]

Interesting exercise using Wheelo stats for 2023, the best sides when combining clearances won, contested possessions, uncontested possessions, inside 50's, rebound 50's, tackles and hitouts to advantage* - granted this doesn't tell the entire story at all - in order were....

Adelaide (28)
Bulldogs (21)
GWS (18)
Melbourne (17)
Brisbane/GC (12)
Stk/ Frem (11)
Port/Carlton/Syd/Haw/Ess (9)
Colling/Rich (4)

Interestingly or not, Geelong didn’t rate a mention in any metric which surprised me a little, while Collingwood got their solitary 4 votes for being 4th for tackles.


*looked at the top 7 in each category, assigned a 7,6,5, 4 etc vote for each place from 1st to 7th and then recorded the cumulative score in brackets.

Why would you include rebound 50's in a purported analysis of midfields?

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Why would you include rebound 50's in a purported analysis of midfields?

if you’re going to include inside 50’s it makes sense to counter that by having rebound 50’s?

I did say it’s doesn’t tell the full story.

 

[FlowersByIrene]

if you’re going to include inside 50’s it makes sense to counter that by having rebound 50’s?

I did say it’s doesn’t tell the full story.

Midfielders kick the ball inside 50's, half back flanks rebound the ball out of defensive 50.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

Midfielders kick the ball inside 50's, half back flanks rebound the ball out of defensive 50.

Not always, on both accounts.

 

[DQ 4EVER]

Brisbane
GWS
Carlton
Melbourne (If Clarry is still cooked might drop down a couple of places)
WBD
Pies
Port
Crom

I don't rate the Crom midfield

On SM-G960F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Reg Grundy35]

just had a quick peruse. Cant be a serious thread. More than half the posts are about Hawthorn!!! Its supposed to be "Top" midfields!

 

[Piggy Smalls]

probably plays majority fwd though yeah?

He’s played starting mid in every match sim. I think it’s safe to say the forward experiment is over.

 

[Piggy Smalls]

Saints with the addition of Henry is up there. Best across the line with Wood Hill and Henry.

Henry is going to disappoint a lot of St Kilda fans this year. Bog average player who’s not big or particularly fast. Can’t kick 40m either.

 

[citizen-erased]

Don's midfield would be close to the worst in the AFL i'd say. A lot turns on how good Tsatas and Hobbs are. Tsatas looked goods but Hobbs has done not much in the time he's been given.

Id say wce given its Kelly and yeo then kids
and nothing really excites me about the saints midfield, but we're the same

On paper, Merrett parish shiel stringer and setterfield should be good core midfield with kids in tsatas, Martin, Hobbs, duursma and Caldwell coming through
On the field it hasn't clicked
Best we had was '22 late season with stringer dominating and giving Merrett and parish space to work. It was still defensively poor and the dogs exposed it in finals footy.

just had a quick peruse. Cant be a serious thread. More than half the posts are about Hawthorn!!! Its supposed to be "Top" midfields!

Too much made of Newc imo
Worpel is meh
Ward, mackenzie and Weddle are kids
Will have games where they all spark (pies clash last year an example but pies took that game easy)
But it's a bottom 4 finish midfield quite easily

 

[ChristianBoy]

Henry is going to disappoint a lot of St Kilda fans this year. Bog average player who’s not big or particularly fast. Can’t kick 40m either.

Oh yeah he’s lost pace AND shrunk since getting traded.

 

[Piggy Smalls]

Oh yeah he’s lost pace AND shrunk since getting traded.

He’s 179cm tall. And he’s never been fast. He runs 20m in 3.06 seconds which makes him as fast as Mitch Georgiades.
Why comment on things you clearly have no idea about?

 

[Piggy Smalls]

I deleted the twit comment. It wasn’t a very nice thing to call someone.

 

[BigFrizz36]

Jesus Christ.

Newcombe is one of the most complete midfielders in the AFL. There isn't one part of the game he isn't strong at.

Polling where he did in the coaches votes and Brownlow medal plus making the All Australian squad in his second full season is more proof of his ability than whatever you are seeing when you watch him play.

I'd even cop somebody saying he's overrated if it sounded line a genuine opinion, but 'plodder' is an insane call.

I've seen a bit of Newcombe. Does most things well but I wouldn't say he was a great user of the footy particularly by foot. Doesn't mean that he can't improve or that he can't be a really good midfielder without improving his kicking (e.g. Dangerfield, Adams)

He's got Worpel covered at least. It would be a huge concern if he didn't though.