It’s already Round 14 of the 2015 AFL Season, and each team has played 12 games. By now, we’ve got a very good idea of where everyone is at, both from a look and feel perspective and by the numbers.

There’s been a week’s delay, so without further ado here’s the latest stab at the 2015 regular season ladder.

Improper Projections: Round 13

So I said the last run was our big mid-season adjustment. Bah! There’s some more big moves in the latest run of Improper Projections.

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Yes that’s right, I have West Coast near the top four now. And I’ve finally given up on Essendon – it would be a bit naïve and idiotic of me to hold my “they’ll still make it” line in the face of the evidence we’ve seen.

This week, lets have a quick fire look at how teams are faring ahead of the final 10 games of the season. I spent a lot of kilobytes laying our Carlton’s Starting with perhaps the most interesting team from a scheduling perspective, North Melbourne.

North Melbourne are firmly in frame for the Top Four…

And yes, I’m serious.

I’ve had the ‘Roos my four seed since Round 8, despite the fact they’ve only been above 0.500 for one round so far in 2015 (Round Seven). Their defensive woes are well documented, and it hasn’t really gotten any better for them despite some positional tweaks – specifically their new-found penchant for playing a spare man for much of the game.

At seventh and 11th respectively on the offensive and defensive charts, and sitting two wins outside of the top eight, North Melbourne might be battling just to make it to the second week of September.



Except guess what? North Melbourne have what may be the cushiest run home of any side in recent memory. If they’ve managed to play their draw to chalk in the first 12 games, their final 10 are most certainly cheese.

In their first 12 rounds, North Melbourne’s opponents averaged an Offensive Efficiency Rating (OER) score of 89.7, and a Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER) score of 74.9; the second hardest and hardest on these metrics, respectively. Over their remaining 10 games, North Melbourne face an average OER of 79.7 and DER of 84.7; both ranked easiest.

Does the chalk and cheese metaphor make more sense now?

Essendon face a similar scenario (OER and DER ranked first and third over the first 12 rounds, and 15th respectively over the final 10), but are coming from way too far back to be entertaining a finals spot. And if we’re talking about the ‘Dons making a run, we have to have a conversation about the Saints, too. Richmond c. 2014 doesn’t happen every year.

North Melbourne have this slate of games coming up over the next 10 weeks:

@ Gold Coast

v Geelong

v Essendon

@ Brisbane

v Carlton

@ Melbourne

v St Kilda (Tasmania)

v Fremantle

v Western Bulldogs

v Richmond (at Etihad)

I give them six of those comfortably (GCS, ESS, BRI, CAR, MEL, STK – which are the bottom six right now just quietly), three leaning heavily North Melbourne (GEE, WBD, RIC) and one probable loss (FRE). Splitting the leaning games would give North Melbourne 13 or 14 wins for the year.

Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them sweep the three against the Cats, Dogs and Tigers, and finish the year at 15-7 – in any case, 14 wins should be enough to be in the frame for a top-four spot.



Speaking of which…

West Coast aren’t a lock for the Top Four, and the Pies may drop out all together…

What do two of the AFL’s surprise packets have in common? In the case of West Coast and Collingwood, it’s the peculiar statistic of having played a set of teams that a net negative efficiency rating over the first 12 rounds of the season. That’s a fancy way of saying the schedule, and year-to-year fluctuations in form, have been very kind to these two teams in the opening half of the season.

Newton’s law of gravity says what goes up must come down. In the case of two high flying birds – West Coast, currently second on the ladder, and Collingwood, fifth – will they be able to withstand much tougher second half draws?

A lot has been made of West Coast’s strong start to the season, both because of and regardless of its draw. Champion Data seems to have lost interest in their weekly “Premiership Standard” trolling just as West Coast look to have thrown off the shackles of doubt. There’s irony in there somewhere.

As Cam Rose noted last week, the Eagles look to be the real deal. Their transformation under President Adam Simpson (hat tip to anyone that gets that reference) has been remarkable. The draw has conflated things somewhat, but when adjusting for the schedule West Coast are still second on the percentage table. Notwithstanding, West Coast have thrown up some very solid offensive numbers, clocking in at +31.7 on OER – behind another big bird (more on them in a minute).

But it gets tougher in the final ten games, with the Eagles flying headlong into the fourth-toughest defensive run home in the league. The average DER of their opponents ups from 83.6 (17th) to 77.1 (fourth), with dates against the top four defensive units not named West Coast to come.

The Eagles have exceeded expectations so far this season. (Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media)

Do West Coast have the chops to capitalise on their nine-win start to the year, and book the five wins (likely) required to get the double chance? With just two more trips to Melbourne, it’s probable, and I’d back them in. But the test will be sterner than it has been to this point.



It’s a similar story for fellow high flyers Collingwood, with the Pies going from a draw clearly ranked easiest in the league to something more akin to their position on the ladder. Collingwood play five of the current top eight in their last ten, sprinkled with a few cellar dwellers and mid table adversaries.

In their favour is travel. Collingwood leave the wide expanses of the Melbourne Cricket Ground just four more times; two of those mere tram trips to Docklands. That’s right, trips to Adelaide and Sydney are Collingwood’s lone jaunts out of Melbourne. Five of Collingwood’s last six games are at the ‘G, four of which are considered Collingwood home games.

So how do they go? Eight wins is a very solid platform, to be sure. Four more wins is likely to get them into September, with Round 17’s Docklands throwdown against the Dogs looming as a mini elimination final. Lose that, and finals become a more challenging equation.

Fremantle are still favourites, for now…

But let’s not kid ourselves, Fremantle, Hawthorn and Sydney (in that order) are the best three sides in the competition. And it’s between these three that the Premiership will be decided.

Fremantle’s biggest concern is the lack of forward-line potency that has crept in over the past few weeks – specifically the tall-small combination of Matthew Pavlich and Hayden Ballantyne. The two have scored just 0.6 and 0.8 goals per game respectively over the past five weeks, with the team scoring just 77 points per game (and that includes their 115 point performance against North Melbourne in Round 8).

That’s dragged their offensive efficiency to bottom four levels over that stretch, which has been enough to see Fremantle drop all the way to 10th in the season-long standings. Now it does include two rain-soaked games (against Adelaide, 68 points, and Gold Coast, 53 points), but it’s still clear the Dockers are in an offensive rut.

But guess what? To this point in the season, Fremantle has managed to up their defensive efficiency to +31.2, which is above St Kilda’s all-time record of +30.5 in 2009. And that’s been without mid-season All Australian full back Michael Johnson. Good luck scoring on these guys once he’s back.

The combination of poor form – which I’m calling transitory but let’s wait and see – of their full-time forwards, and their record setting defensive unit, plus some guy with a unisex name in a headband, still put them as Premiership favourite for me. That, plus that they face the third-weakest defensive schedule in football over their final 10 games. Plenty of chances to get that offence clicking into gear.



Speaking of clicking into gear…

Lachie Neale is just one part of the Dockers’ five-prong midfield. (Photo: Daniel Carson/AFL Media)

Hawthorn are still here, everybody

The Hawks haven’t had the same start to the year as Fremantle in the Ws column, but there are a few statistics that hint at just how good they have been thus far in 2015.

In a season where the average game-winning margin is hovering right around six goals (35.5 points), Hawthorn’s average winning margin to this point in the season is an even 10 goals, and average losing margin is just six points. Yes that’s right: Hawthorn have conceded their four losses by a combined margin of 24 points – two thirds of the average losing margin of a single game for everybody else.

That not impressive enough for you? Well, this one will be. I’ve dusted off a favourite stat of mine: Pythagorean expected wins. You can read about it here. This model uses a team’s points for and against in the context of how everybody else is doing to allocate wins. My system also accounts for close wins and losses, because winning (or losing) games decided by less than two kicks is somewhat random.

How to Hawthorn do on this front? They should be allocated 12.4 wins.

Yes, 12.4.

Yes, I am aware they have only played 12 games.



It’s a quirk of the model that Hawthorn have been allocated more wins than is mathematically possible in the real world – Hawthorn has lost all four of its close games, to which my model is saying “if we played the last two minutes of these four games 1,000 times over, you’d expect to win two of them, so here you go”. What a nice model.

And of all the teams in the AFL, Hawthorn’s injury list is far and away the smallest – and least significant in terms of the players they do have out (sorry, Kaiden Brand).

Point is, count out the Hawks at your peril. Fremantle travel down to Tasmania in Round 15 to play the Hawks. This looms as a game to decide who the real premiership favourite is heading into the final rounds of the season.

It’s a shame it’s not at the ‘G, but I guess you’ve got to stash those unpopular teams somewhere, right?

Just one last one. You know how Hawthorn won last year’s premiership? It hasn’t been reflected in their draw; the first 12 rounds of the season suggest that Hawthorn will have played the league’s third easiest slate of games in 2015, based purely on the OER and DER of their opponents (ie not adjusting for home field, number of days break and the like). How can that be?

Hawthorn are looking the goods, without playing their best footy. (photo: AFL Media)

Geelong and Port Adelaide are (probably) cooked

Its not really the AFL’s fault. They didn’t know Hawthorn playing Geelong and Essendon twice would be advantageous to the degree it’s proven to be in 2015.

Speaking of Geelong, I’m sorry to break it to Cats fans, but it’s looking really likely that your team is going to miss the finals for the first time since 2006. Its been a good run: three Premierships, two Brownlow medallists, and a shiny new stadium. But with a draw that sees your boys take on the league’s best offensive units, and with your defensive efficiency running at 13th in the league, it’s hard to see you getting the six wins you’ll need to break into the eight.



Ditto Port Adelaide, although the task at hand for the Power is even tougher. The Power rank 12th for offensive efficiency and ninth for defensive efficiency over the first 12 rounds of the season, and in both instances it’s a failure of their forward and back units to do things with the ball once it ends up in their area of the ground.

The Power rank second last on forward 50 conversion (converting inside 50s to scoring shots), and dead last on stopping sides from converting inside the arc. That’s quite remarkable – no other side comes close to matching them in this regard. Unfortunately for Port, their final ten games sees them play the sixth-most defensively efficient slate of games, including match ups with Sydney, Essendon, Hawthorn and Fremantle. At 5-7, I can’t find the seven wins required to get them into the eight.

Sydney could sneak into the double chance

Port’s Thursday night opponent, Sydney, are still a very big chance to end the year in the top two, despite Hawthorn rising up the ranks. The Swans play a slate of games very amenable to their abilities: the third strongest offensive slate of games (which match up well to their second-in-the-league defence) and the fifth-weakest defensive set (meshes with their sixth-ranked offence).

Sydney haven’t really made me proud since I stood like a shag on a rock and said Kurt Tippett was Sydney’s most valuable player, turning in a three game OER of +1.9, ranked 11th in the league. But it’s not been the Franklin-Tippett pairing, who have averaged five goals a game between them over that stretch (and over the season). As I said in last week’s Friday Night Forecast, it’s been the Swans’ midfield letting the team down on the offensive front.

So if that’s the case, it’s quite possible that the Swans midfield brigade start hitting the scoreboard again over the final ten rounds as a function of their weak schedule, giving Sydney the scoring power then need to rack up another seven or eight wins. That would put them in the frame for a double chance.

Sifting through the bottom of the eight

So I’m pretty comfortable locking in Fremantle, Hawthorn, Sydney, North Melbourne and West Coast as the league’s top five. Collingwood are there now, but as above I can see the Pies being swallowed up by a very tough second half of the year.

If we assume the Pies fall out of the eight – and it’s certainly not a guarantee – that leaves three spots to be decided, and by my reckoning four teams to squish into them. Those teams are the Crows, Dogs, Giants and Tigers.

Richmond may just be the hottest team in football right now, having knocked off Port Adelaide, Fremantle and Sydney away from home in recent weeks. Their run built on a new-found defensive identity, with the Tigers ranked second in DER since their gritty win against the Power (behind Fremantle). Richmond have conceded scores on just 42 per cent of inside 50 entries against them in that stretch, a mark that would be second in the league if maintained over the course of a season.



With eight wins already banked, I think it’s almost certain the Tigers make it to September. The question becomes can they keep their recent run of form going and challenge for the four? It’ll take six wins, and there are definitely six winnable games on offer.

Adelaide, like Fremantle, have gotten themselves stuck in an offensive rut in recent times, with a woeful 44.1 per cent scoring accuracy killing their scoring power in the past five rounds. The Crows have also dropped off the pace defensively, conceding an average score of 90 points, including tons against GWS and Hawthorn.

Fortunately, the Crows’ draw opens up over the last 10 rounds relative to their recent run (which included Hawthorn, Fremantle and a then-rampant Giants), and with six games within the confines of Adelaide Oval – where the Crows have scored an average of 95 points per game – should help lift Adelaide from seven wins to 13.

To my mind, that leaves eighth spot open, and it’s a race between the wounded Giants and the volatile Western Bulldogs.

I eulogised the Giants season on the occasion of Shane Mumford’s untimely ankle implosion a few weeks back, and their performance against the ‘Roos in the weekend following his injury largely met expectations.

From this point, I think they’ll be struggling to crack the five wins they need to get to the magic 12 wins required to put themselves in contention for finals over the remaining part of the season. In their favour is an amenable draw – ranked 17th in OER and 13th in DER – but not in their favour is their injury list and relatively low percentage (101.0 per cent). They could still surprise, but I’d be planning holidays if I was on the Giant’s list.

So that leaves the hard-to-read Western Bulldogs. The Dogs have beaten West Coast, Richmond and Sydney, but have lost to St Kilda, Melbourne and Port Adelaide. By my reckoning, those wins and losses cancel each other out in terms of being unexpected, and so 7-5 may actually be a true reflection of where Luke Beveridge has got his team to.



Hands up if you thought the Dogs would be playing for finals with 10 rounds to go at the end of the season?

I wrote that they were on the rise after two rounds of action, but didn’t think they’d be headed for the promised land in 2015. But with the third easiest and second easiest draw from an offensive and defensive perspective respectively, is it possible? It just might be.

And now, a Wins and Losses Forecast…

**gulp**

Here goes nothing (but my reputation…).

Below is a summary of what I’ve just run through above. I’ve allocated four points and zero points for clear wins/losses, three points and one point for games that are leaning one way, and two points for games that look too close to call based on the numbers (and some gut feel, of course), as well as some of the information I’ve used above.

What do you think? Have I got your team where you think they’ll end up? Let me know below!