I know, I know, you’re probably all sick to death of reading predictions for the upcoming AFL season. I haven’t read many myself, however, so I’ve plonked in my own. Take a look…

I wrote that on March 19th, when I wrote my 2016 season predictions. Since then, we’ve had 207 games of football, which has culminated in the Western Bulldogs winning a premiership for the first time in 62 years.

The second part of the introduction, however, was this:

…and feel free to laugh at me on October 2nd when you see how wrong my predictions were.

Now, we get to see how I went.

The Ladder

Hawthorn West Coast Sydney Fremantle Geelong W Bulldogs Richmond GWS Giants Adelaide N Melbourne Melbourne Collingwood Gold Coast Pt Adelaide St Kilda Brisbane Carlton Essendon

That’s what I’d predicted at the start of the season. And the actual ladder finished up like this:

(Thank you, AFL Tables.)

To save you the challenge of working out how I did, I give you this:

(The blue bar is a graphical representation of how I did. The longer it is, the more accurate I was.)

So, I’d say that I was pretty good. Fremantle, St Kilda, and Richmond were the only ones that I was really off on, and I got Melbourne, Collingwood, and Essendon right. (To be fully honest, everyone got Essendon right).

The Brownlow

Nat Fyfe will have another brilliant season, and I’ve got him going back to back, but he’ll be pushed all the way by Patrick Dangerfield, who will definitely win matches for the Cats. Dan Hannebery will be a fair way back in third.

Well, Nat Fyfe got injured, but I did get Dangerfield right being up there. Even if Fyfe hadn’t gotten injured, though, he almost certainly wouldn’t have beaten Dangerfield, who got the most votes in history. Hannebery came equal fifth, so I’d say I was pretty accurate.

The Coleman

Another back to back this time. Josh Kennedy will score at least three goals a game during West Coast’s brilliant year. Lance Franklin will come second, followed by Taylor Walker a dozen goals back.

Spot on with Josh Kennedy there, who got 82 goals for the season, and I also had Lance Franklin in second. Taylor Walker, however, was a lot more than a dozen goals back, who finished equal-seventh, thirty five goals behind.

Miscellaneous

The Rising Star will be Darcy Moore, the Collingwood father-son recruit who will help the Pies become a finals force again in a few years. He has some serious potential. Only one coach will be sacked this year, on my predictions. Justin Leppitsch will end up with a dissatisfied board after another poor season, and will get the chop late in the year. Alan Richardson of the Saints could be if the board becomes a bit trigger happy, and Damien Hardwick would be on the block if Richmond didn’t win a final, I reckon.

Darcy Moore got 9 votes and finished fifth. He did well, but was a fair way off Callum Mills.

And Justin Leppitsch did get sacked late in the year, and he was the only coach to have that happen. However, that happened after Brisbane played their last game. Because my prediction ego is big, I’m going to claim this as accurate.

The Finals

Under my ladder, the first week will be Hawthorn v Fremantle, Geelong v GWS Giants, W Bulldogs v Richmond, and West Coast v Sydney. Hawthorn and Geelong will easily win, Richmond will win for the first time in fifteen years*, and the Swans will upset West Coast. In week two, Geelong will go to the west and comfortably knock off Fremantle, and something similar will happen in the West Coast-Richmond game. The preliminary finals will be Hawthorn v West Coast and Sydney v Geelong. Hawthorn will do what they do best and smash the Eagles by a lot more than we predicted, and Geelong will be out of energy and be overrun by Sydney. And the Grand Final, on October 1, 2016, will result in Hawthorn making history, becoming the first team in 85 years to win four consecutive premierships, and consolidate their position as the greatest team of all time. And I hope to god that doesn’t happen.

Well, I got Geelong losing to Sydney in a preliminary final! That’s pretty good!

The rest, though, is better off not being spoken about.

My final estimation of my predictions: 7/10.