Top 5 Midfields 2024

[Drexl 31]

Center line: Serong, Brayshaw, Young, Fyfe, O'Meara

Wings: Aish, O'Driscoll, Johnson, Sharp

Rucks: Darcy and Jackson

In the 2's: Brodie, Erasmus, Simpson

Saturday will be very interesting.

 

[kreglze]

Suns have Witts, Miller, Rowell, Anderson and Flanders as the top shelf mids which is a strong starting group, our issue is the depth after that, hoping a Humphrey and someone else will come along. Used to be Swallow but the poor bloke is almost cooked.

 

[kreuze_missile]

Cripps, Walsh, Cerra, Hewett.

Thread over.

 

[Andyy]

Sydney has

Grundy (AA)
Mills (AA playing as a 2-way / defensive mid)
Parker (past AA but ageing)
Adams (past AA but ageing)
Heeney (AA forward, on track for AA mid, ahead in coaches votes and likely brownlow, super damaging)
Gulden (AA, top 5 brownlow, one of the best young players in comp, super damaging)
Warner (top 30 player, top 3 B&F, one of the best young players in comp, will be AA and is super damaging)
Rowbottom (top 50 player, top 3 B&F, defensive player)

With McInerney, Paps, Jordan rotating and Sheldrick showing a lot of promise.

My top 5 would be (not in order)
Swans
Carlton
GWS

Port, Demons, Suns and Freo have strong ruck and 3 mids but feel they don't have as much top quality depth. I'd probably pick Demons and Freo based on current performances.

Lions and Collingwood mids are underperforming and Doggies always look super solid on paper (Bont, Libba, Smith, Treloar and Mcrae and English is solid and Sanders will be a jet), as does Richmond (Naismith, Bolton, Hopper, Taranto, Baker, Prestia), but have injuries / outside of peak.

Sent from my Pixel 8 Pro using Tapatalk

Yet they got beat by an injury ravaged Richmond.

There's a good chance that every midfield in the league is top shelf and it's all about form/mindset on the day.

 

[citizen-erased]

Suns have Witts, Miller, Rowell, Anderson and Flanders as the top shelf mids which is a strong starting group, our issue is the depth after that, hoping a Humphrey and someone else will come along. Used to be Swallow but the poor bloke is almost cooked.

Davies is one i'm a fan of too.
Humphrey, Rogers and Read should add some depth to your centre line as well

 

[Morro]

Yet they got beat by an injury ravaged Richmond.

There's a good chance that every midfield in the league is top shelf and it's all about form/mindset on the day.

we actually beat both Swans and Blues midfields, sometimes its just about matchup and the day.

 

[citizen-erased]

I did a top 10 instead, sue me.
This is not how I personally would rate the teams, but I basically looked at teams contested possessions, Centre clearances, stoppage clearances as whole. I then also looked at the differencials they give up in those areas, I then devised a points system based on how they preformed in said statistics. I also proceeded to sprinkle in some tackles, Hit outs to advantage, Score launces etc. with just a hint of bias in there for good measure and this was the outcome.

1. Bulldogs
2. Brisbane
3. Melbourne
4. Gold Coast
5. Adelaide
6. Carlton
7. GWS
8. Hawthorn
9. Port Adelaide
10. Fremantle

It's worth mentioning that Essendon and St kilda both scored well using this arbitrary points system I cooked up, But I don't believe they should be in this discussion so I purged them.

would love to see this re-done based on first few rounds.

suspect Freo would vastly enhance their ranking and you might have the dons in there
Crows, lions and Hawks have been well off the expected pre-season pace

Also keen to see how/where the dogs shake out.

 

[TheUnicorn]

would love to see this re-done based on first few rounds.

suspect Freo would vastly enhance their ranking and you might have the dons in there
Crows, lions and Hawks have been well off the expected pre-season pace

Also keen to see how/where the dogs shake out.

1. Greater Western Sydney
2. Gold Coast
3. Western Bulldogs
4. Essendon
5. Melbourne
6. Sydney
7. Collingwood
8. Carlton
9. Geelong
10. Port Adelaide

Adelaide and Fremantle miss out by a tiny margin followed slightly by North Melbourne and St Kilda.

 

[BuffDog]

I certainly wouldn't say Essendon has the best or even a top 4 midfield, but getting Setterfield (1.92m) and Perkins (1.88m) in there helps give us some height. Durham (1.85m) and Hobbs (1.83m) aren't overly tall but are pretty solid.

Helps out Parish, Merrett and Caldwell who are relatively undersized and has given us a good mix so far this year.

Tsatas at 1.87m is also a decent size and should integrate into the midfield over time.

Still would absolutely love a bull like Green or Bont.

 

[who_let_the_dogs_out]

There's daylight between Melbourne's midfield and the rest of the comp. Can just turn games at will.

 

[danster168]

1. Greater Western Sydney
2. Gold Coast
3. Western Bulldogs
4. Essendon
5. Melbourne
6. Sydney
7. Collingwood
8. Carlton
9. Geelong
10. Port Adelaide

Adelaide and Fremantle miss out by a tiny margin followed slightly by North Melbourne and St Kilda.

May I ask how you have essendon above Melbourne? Or are you referring to the depth of midfield or something?
Gawn > Goldstein
Petracca > Merrett
Oliver > Parish
Viney > Setterfield.

 

[TheUnicorn]

May I ask how you have essendon above Melbourne? Or are you referring to the depth of midfield or something?
Gawn > Goldstein
Petracca > Merrett
Oliver > Parish
Viney > Setterfield.

I wouldn't take it too seriously it's a random Bulls**t formula I made up one time, only based off of 4 games. It's not my actual opinion.

I did a top 10 instead, sue me.
This is not how I personally would rate the teams, but I basically looked at teams contested possessions, Centre clearances, stoppage clearances as whole. I then also looked at the differencials they give up in those areas, I then devised a points system based on how they preformed in said statistics. I also proceeded to sprinkle in some tackles, Hit outs to advantage, Score launces etc. with just a hint of bias in there for good measure and this was the outcome.

1. Bulldogs
2. Brisbane
3. Melbourne
4. Gold Coast
5. Adelaide
6. Carlton
7. GWS
8. Hawthorn
9. Port Adelaide
10. Fremantle

It's worth mentioning that Essendon and St kilda both scored well using this arbitrary points system I cooked up, But I don't believe they should be in this discussion so I purged them.

 

[Yoda_]

In terms of top 3 midfielders at each club. IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

1. Port Adelaide

• Zak Butters
• Conor Rozee
• Jason Horne-Francis

2. Gold Coast

• Took Miller
• Noah Andersen
• Matt Rowell

3. Brisbane

• Lachie Neale
• Josh Dunkley
• Hugh McCluggage

4. Western Bulldogs

• Marcus Bontempelli
• Tom Liberatore
• Adam Treloar

5. Carlton

• Pat Cripps
• Sam Walsh
• George Hewitt

HM. Fremantle (Serong, Brayshaw, Fyfe?), North Melbourne (LDU, Simpkin, Wardlaw), Sydney (Heeney, Rowbottom, Gulden)

 

[bungalow_bill]

There's daylight between Melbourne's midfield and the rest of the comp. Can just turn games at will.

The same midfield that Rayner almost single-handedly destroyed.

 

[bungalow_bill]

With the emergence of Rayner as a midfield gun the Lions are in contention.

Rayner, Neale, Dunkley, McCluggage, Berry. + Ashcroft in a month or two

 

[ClintEastwood]

Sydney has

Grundy (AA)
Mills (AA playing as a 2-way / defensive mid)
Parker (past AA but ageing)
Adams (past AA but ageing)
Heeney (AA forward, on track for AA mid, ahead in coaches votes and likely brownlow, super damaging)
Gulden (AA, top 5 brownlow, one of the best young players in comp, super damaging)
Warner (top 30 player, top 3 B&F, one of the best young players in comp, will be AA and is super damaging)
Rowbottom (top 50 player, top 3 B&F, defensive player)

With McInerney, Paps, Jordan rotating and Sheldrick showing a lot of promise.

My top 5 would be (not in order)
Swans
Carlton
GWS

Port ..... have strong ruck and 3 mids but feel they don't have as much top quality depth. I'd probably pick Demons and Freo based on current performances.

I dunno, I reckon we're going okay.

1. Rozee
2. Butters
3. Horne-Francis
4. Ivan Soldo (as you included ruck)
... then
5. Willem Drew (currently rated top 10 players in comp, which even if you don't subscribe to, is a hell of a solid fourth musketeer)
6. Ollie Wines (Brownlow medalist)
7. Travis Boak still solid in-and-under, crazy experienced

then
8. Sam Powell-Pepper (bull) and
9. Dan Houston (AA 2023)

both rotate through there.

 

[danster168]

With the emergence of Rayner as a midfield gun the Lions are in contention.

Rayner, Neale, Dunkley, McCluggage, Berry. + Ashcroft in a month or two

emergence? averaging 17 touches a game. get outta here. He's a C grade. Even C graders play well from time to time.

Berry? See Tom Sparrow and Ashcroft will be good in a couple of years but he has no hurt factor and plays for frees.

Melbourne's is the best in the comp and it aint close. Especially if you include 6 time AA ruckman in Gawn.

 

[danster168]

I dunno, I reckon we're going okay.

1. Rozee
2. Butters
3. Horne-Francis
4. Ivan Soldo (as you included ruck)
... then
5. Willem Drew (currently rated top 10 players in comp, which even if you don't subscribe to, is a hell of a solid fourth musketeer)
6. Ollie Wines (Brownlow medalist)
7. Travis Boak still solid in-and-under, crazy experienced

then
8. Sam Powell-Pepper (bull) and
9. Dan Houston (AA 2023)

both rotate through there.

If we're including rucks, it's Melbourne automatically. 6 time AA, on his way to a 7th. Rozee and Butters are top of the line jets. Personal gripe with Rozee is that he loves to change directions unnecessarily to show off his agility. To no benefit to anyone. I literally know every time he's going to change directions when he has the ball in hand. He's like a point guard that loves doing multiple crossovers without ever going anywhere. Still a jet though.

Drew is a defensive midfielder, not a top 80 player in the comp. He's just been given the role with plenty of cba's. Wines was good during his Brownlow year but has been a real plodder since and not a top 50 player in the league since his Brownlow. Hence not coming close to sniffing an AA squad of 44 selection.

Horne-Francis is too inconsistent at this stage but has potential.

 

[ClintEastwood]

If we're including rucks, it's Melbourne automatically. 6 time AA, on his way to a 7th. Rozee and Butters are top of the line jets. Personal gripe with Rozee is that he loves to change directions unnecessarily to show off his agility. To no benefit to anyone. I literally know every time he's going to change directions when he has the ball in hand. He's like a point guard that loves doing multiple crossovers without ever going anywhere. Still a jet though.

Drew is a defensive midfielder, not a top 80 player in the comp. He's just been given the role with plenty of cba's. Wines was good during his Brownlow year but has been a real plodder since and not a top 50 player in the league since his Brownlow. Hence not coming close to sniffing an AA squad of 44 selection.

Horne-Francis is too inconsistent at this stage but has potential.

Try reading what I was responding to.

"Port ..... have strong ruck and 3 mids but feel they don't have as much top quality depth. I'd probably pick Demons and Freo based on current performances."

 

[ClintEastwood]

Personal gripe with Rozee is that he loves to change directions unnecessarily to show off his agility. To no benefit to anyone. I literally know every time he's going to change directions when he has the ball in hand.

You're a wizard, Danny. Everyone knows when he's going to shimmy, including his opponents, and they STILL can't stop it.

Not responding to the rest of your post, which consists of cheap serial one-liner opinions with little to nothing to back them up.

 

[danster168]

You're a wizard, Danny. Everyone knows when he's going to shimmy, including his opponents, and they STILL can't stop it.

Not responding to the rest of your post, which consists of cheap serial one-liner opinions with little to nothing to back them up.

He's shimming when he's turned his back on the opposition and running the other way. The shimmy's achieve nothing when he's running towards the other teams goals.

Do you honestly think that Willem Drew is a top 10 player in the comp?

Regarding Wines, he didn't make the AA squad so that immediately puts him outside the top 44 players last year. And he wasn't ever in consideration. He's not close to a top 100 players anymore. At Port, at very best he's your 6th best player because he's behind Butters, Rozee, Dixon, Drew and Horne-Francis. But he's also probably behind Aliir, Houston, Marshall and Boak. So he's the 6th-10th best player at your club. Extrapolate that out to all 18 clubs and that's 90-180th best player in the comp.

Dees have: Oliver, Petracca, Gawn, Viney, May, Lever, Fritsch and Pickett and arguably McVee and Rivers. So he'd be as low as 11th in the pecking order.

https://www.statsinsider.com.au/sport-hub/afl/player-ratings

Wines at 136 is about right.

 

[who_let_the_dogs_out]

The same midfield that Rayner almost single-handedly destroyed.

Not a chance Bris are in this discussion. I haven't seen the Dees play as badly as that in a long time.

You got them on a good week. I'd much rather come up against Brisbane's midfield than Melbourne's.

 

[Cleansweep17]

On paper maybe dogs or Dees

In practise I like Carltons.

 

[who_let_the_dogs_out]

On paper maybe dogs or Dees

In practise I like Carltons.

Dogs? We're a million miles off this discussion.

We barely have a ruckman now, Macrae is no certainty to line up, Bont, Libba and Treloar have to play out of their skin for us to have any chance. Most weeks we get beaten in there, clearances down.

If we had a ruckman that could give us first use of the ball we may be having a different discussion. Timid English had checked out.

 

[Cleansweep17]

Dogs? We're a million miles off this discussion.

We barely have a ruckman now, Macrae is no certainty to line up, Bont, Libba and Treloar have to play out of their skin for us to have any chance. Most weeks we get beaten in there, clearances down.

If we had a ruckman that could give us first use of the ball we may be having a different discussion. Timid English had checked out.

On paper you get all the stats when fully fit. But in practice you aren’t effective with them.