Which Club has been more Successful in the AFL era Geelong or Hawthorn?

[randyzany]

No one gives a shit about winning percentage.

A little bit of nuance needs to be applied. The biggest difference Collingwood (why they are remain the biggest out of these clubs) and the other Big 4 in Carlton, Essendon and to a lesser extent Richmond is that Collingwood similar to Geelong has being able to remain competitive in most seasons in every decade even though they haven't translated that consistency to flag success at the same rate as those other Big 4 clubs. But as a result of and reward for that consistency, rarely ever bottoming out and being and out and out embarrassment, most children born to Collingwood parents have stuck with Collingwood and have likely also gained new fans.

Whereas a significant portion of newer generation of kids born to Carlton and Essendon (and again to a lesser extent Richmond given their recent flag success) supporters can't stomach the lack of success in the past 20 years of those respective clubs and have abandoned the clubs their parents follow in favour of other clubs that consistently win more games than not every year and occasionally taste flag success.

So yeah in a vacuum 'winning percentage' is of secondary importance behind winning flags but for the livelihood and general health of a club having more winning seasons than losing ones does have significant benefits and advantages, evidenced by how much Collingwood are favoured by the AFL because of their large following and constantly and consistently win more games than not in most years. They are rewarded with prime time timeslots and other outrageous leg ups that smaller clubs can only dream of.

North can also attest that, being a dominant team in the mid to late 90s winning multiple flags in that period, the ultimate success in isolation does not guarantee survival of a club. I'd argue that if North had more winning seasons without flags (say 16 seasons out of 20) in the past 2 decades they'd have more fans than they do now (securing their place in the AFL or at least feel a lot safer that they won't suffer the same fate as Fitzroy) or even at the end of the late 90s.

 

[Frappe]

Dew stayed on of his own accord too. Greatest day

Despite geelongs magnificent 2008 season including massive scoring, what geelong served up as fwds was among the worst ever to take up a grand final stage.
Hawks was notably excellent. Particularly Buddy and Roughy

I’d always thought Dew tried to come off but you folks had run out of rotations. The rest is history I guess.

 

[Lion for Life]

1. Hawthorn
2. Geelong & Brisbane

the rest

I think we deserve at least a little recognition, yeah we had a lengthy downtime but if were to salute again this year we end up equals on the flag front with the Hawks in the AFL era, that would be an impressive achievement.

 

[SSSSSS]

Would you rather have been a Richmond or Sydney fan for the last 35 years?

Richmond. Easily.

 

[The Jet From Poowong]

Might have to revisit the conversations once the current self-assessment on salary cap compliance is completed.

They say players get ahead of themselves as did the 2007 premiers. But that was equally matched by their supporters and the infinite Geelong media types that have had a lemon in their mouth ever since.

The arbitrary justifications ever since that beautiful day have been hilarious. Even Richmond was able to go back to back

 

[iameviljez]

Richmond. Easily.

Completely disagree, I'd rather have 2 flags and only three years of being terrible, over 3 flags and being consistently awful to mediocre (with a short blip in 1995 and again in 2001 notwithstanding) throughout.

Premierships do matter, but so does how depressing the decades are in between them.

Don't get me wrong, as I said before, I would happily swap all Geelong's non-flag years for the 2008 premiership - this isn't a Hawthorn/Geelong thing. But the old attitude that finishing second is as bad as finishing last is a VFL-era hangover from when there were only 12 teams and only 7 of them had a shot of winning a flag.

 

[sherb]

Hawthorn have more Flags but Geelong lead Head to Head and have a superior Win Percentage, more Grand Final appearances, more Preliminary Final appearances, more All Australians, more Top 2 and Top 4 finishes on the Ladder. Who's been more Successful in the AFL era?

There's your answer.

 

[HairyO]

This is a left field debate that I've never heard discussed

We should be seeing some fantastic, previously unseen analysis too !

 

[T2B_]

Hawthorn, that 2008 era onwards was just incredible. Yes they might have had times in between more up and down but one had to begrudgingly admire them, got the flags but also their style of footy... Just fast, tough and ruthless.

 

[Scotland]

Hawthorn never went to the bottom of the ladder to rebuild on purpose

Indeed they tried to do as Geelong have done with Mitchell omeara and wingard

Where is the slew of talent taken with early picks? There’s been a couple around #6 and unfortunately DGB is no longer playing

Did you start watching football in 2008?

 

[Robroy22]

None of Geelong's flag teams would have gone anywhere near Brisbane of the 2001-4 era, neither would have Richmond's. Both those sides would have been brutalised by Lethal's Lions. The Hawks sides pre- 1990 (with Derm and Dipper and Conan) might have stood a chance but the Clarkson coached Hawks sides would have suffered against that great Brisbane side as well. In full cry, the Brisbane side of 2001-4 was the best side I've seen (and that includes Norm Smith's Dees)

 

[peetoo]

None of Geelong's flag teams would have gone anywhere near Brisbane of the 2001-4 era, neither would have Richmond's. Both those sides would have been brutalised by Lethal's Lions. The Hawks sides pre- 1990 (with Derm and Dipper and Conan) might have stood a chance but the Clarkson coached Hawks sides would have suffered against that great Brisbane side as well. In full cry, the Brisbane side of 2001-4 was the best side I've seen (and that includes Norm Smith's Dees)

And yet much the same team won the spoon just before

Tells me Martin Pyke is a transformational player

 

[PhatBoy]

None of Geelong's flag teams would have gone anywhere near Brisbane of the 2001-4 era, neither would have Richmond's. Both those sides would have been brutalised by Lethal's Lions. The Hawks sides pre- 1990 (with Derm and Dipper and Conan) might have stood a chance but the Clarkson coached Hawks sides would have suffered against that great Brisbane side as well. In full cry, the Brisbane side of 2001-4 was the best side I've seen (and that includes Norm Smith's Dees)

You know that the Geelong team went within a kick and a half of the lions in 2004 in a prelim when we were miles off what we became in 2007 right?

We were 3 points behind them 21 minutes into the final quarter. They were a 16-6 team (they were a 14-7-1 team the year before, for a relative comparison, and a 17-5 team in 01-02) and 14 of the players we had that night would go on to play in the 2007 grand final. They would be joined by:

Joel Selwood
Brad Ottens
Andrew Mackie
Matthew Stokes
Nathan Ablett
Max Rooke
Shannon Byrnes
James Kelly

The players who went out:

Charlie Gardiner
Ben Graham
David Haynes
David Johnson
Kent Kingsley
Paul Kouloriotis
Brent Moloney
Peter Riccardi

Yeah, so, just a few upgrades and a little bit of an improvement across the board from a team already starting to challenge the Lions….
Something tells me we might have been able to ‘get anywhere near them’ with our 2007-11 team.

 

[Black Haze]

You know that the Geelong team went within a kick and a half of the lions in 2004 in a prelim when we were miles off what we became in 2007 right?

We were 3 points behind them 21 minutes into the final quarter. They were a 16-6 team (they were a 14-7-1 team the year before, for a relative comparison, and a 17-5 team in 01-02) and 14 of the players we had that night would go on to play in the 2007 grand final. They would be joined by:

Joel Selwood
Brad Ottens
Andrew Mackie
Matthew Stokes
Nathan Ablett
Max Rooke
Shannon Byrnes
James Kelly

The players who went out:

Charlie Gardiner
Ben Graham
David Haynes
David Johnson
Kent Kingsley
Paul Kouloriotis
Brent Moloney
Peter Riccardi

Yeah, so, just a few upgrades and a little bit of an improvement across the board from a team already starting to challenge the Lions….
Something tells me we might have been able to ‘get anywhere near them’ with our 2007-11 team.

This is like Richmond supporters who think their 2017-2020 sides would beat the Hawthorn sides of 2012-2015 based on Richmond having the wood over Hawthorn during the 2012-2015 period.

 

[NetworkNerd]

Get to 5 AFL era flags and they are in front in pretty much every metric

 

[PhatBoy]

This is like Richmond supporters who think their 2017-2020 sides would beat the Hawthorn sides of 2012-2015 based on Richmond having the wood over Hawthorn during the 2012-2015 period.

Except it’s not, is it. It’s pointing out that Geelong were already going deep into finals (rather than finishing low in the 8 or missing it altogether) when Brisbane were still a powerhouse, and adding players who would form a squad that were almost All Australian from 1-18 and at one point went 52-3. But na we’d be no chance

 

[speedpeck23]

Get to 5 AFL era flags and they are in front in pretty much every metric

Except Hawks won more Flags in VFL era ....Cat's won't beat that !!

 

[peetoo]

Get to 5 AFL era flags and they are in front in pretty much every metric

Lions