What's more important to win a premiership?

[Big Nasty]

Looking at most of the teams to win Premierships, I find they Generelly have the best backline in the comp. Or close to it.
Which do you reckon is more important?

 

[TheBigUnit]

It largely depends on the teams playing style, but for the majority I'd say midfield. An excellent and well-rounded midfield will quite often make an average back or forward line or look good (it definitely did so in 2006 for WCE).

A strong midfield will deliver a lot of good quality opportunities to their forwards and minimise the amount of times and the quality of football that goes the other way (defensive pressure). A strong backline will limit the impact when the ball comes in/'goes the other way' , as well as rebounding effectively, setting up opportunities further up the ground for the midfielders and forwards, but if their are so many opportunities being presented (i.e. midfield getting smashed in the clearances/leaking too many inside 50s) for the forwards their is only so much they can do. A strong forward line will finish opportunities, but what good is that if there is little opportunity coming their way (i.e. midfield not getting enough inside 50s/poor delivery).

In general, I'd rank importance as:

1. Midfield 2. Backline 3. Forwardline

What happens quite often with better teams is that they have very evenly matched midfields (similar amount/quality of clearances and inside 50s), so the team with the better backline tends to come out on top (limiting the impact of entries into the forward line + creating more/better oppportunities further up the ground).

 

[Calthorpe14]

Backlines win flags. All of the good teams have traditionally kept low scores and use there backlines as a way of setting up the play.

 

[HBK619]

I think a good team is important to winning a premiership, also winning matches helps.

A team that is good in all facets of the ground is usually the best.