Emerging Patterns in the AFL
As winter approaches and just over a third of the season has passed, several trends are beginning to take shape across the Australian Football League (AFL). Scoring rates have increased across the board as teams strive for a place in the expanded finals. Clubs typically wait at least six to eight weeks before identifying trends and anomalies. The early part of the season is usually played in drier and hotter conditions with fewer injuries, leading to more high-energy matches. Cooler conditions offer an ideal opportunity to assess what might be different in the 2026 season.
Possession and Position
It’s one thing to get the ball to the end of the ground, but another to maintain control of it. Good teams can consistently achieve one of these goals, while great teams often manage both. The last five premiers have been among the top two sides in terms of ball-control differential. All but one (Brisbane last year) were in the top three for time in front-half differential.
Looking at the teams that have controlled the ball this year, there are a few standout sides. [GRAPH: Control and territory] Only Hawthorn has managed to tick both boxes so far, positioning themselves as early contenders for the 2026 flag. Some teams, like Sydney and Gold Coast, dominate the front half of the ground but don’t necessarily control possession. Others, such as reigning premiers Brisbane, thrive on controlling the tempo of the game.
This split reflects a growing divergence in footballing philosophies. The distinction between surge and control teams highlights how the modern game operates.
[GRAPH: By hand or foot] Teams that control possession tend to move the ball more via foot, preventing their opponents from doing the same. Sides that dominate possession with quick movement use handballs to create runners on the move. Overall, handball metres gained have increased from 255m per game last year to 324m this year. This shift is largely attributed to Sydney’s more aggressive style, the three premiership Tiger coaching offshoots (Suns, Giants, and Pies), and Steven King’s rapid transformation of Melbourne.
Teams are also breaking harder in the opposite direction. Marks per game have risen this year, with growth coming in uncontested marks and marks on lead. North Melbourne has made a strong shift this year, aiming to become one of Alastair Clarkson’s great teams.
“When they win, they take 107 [uncontested marks]. When they’ve lost, they’ve taken 67, or something like that. So taking the easy ball out of their hands is a key focus,” said Adam Kingsley after their win over the Roos earlier this year. “I feel like they’re playing a lot like the 2014 Hawks, they’re playing a lot like the Brisbane team [right now].”
Teams are increasingly shifting to the edges of each footballing ideology. While centrism and balance aren’t dead, it’s becoming harder to stick to the middle without risking being overwhelmed at the extremes.
Launch Zones
This split carries over to where teams generate their scores. [GRAPH: How do they score?] Scoring off intercepts continues to be the main source for all teams. About 60% of all scores come off transition play, but the location and manner in which teams obtain these varies according to their setup.
Across the entire league, teams score about 55% of their intercept points from the defensive half — a rate in line with last year. [GRAPH: Stopping the surge] While teams capitalize more on turnovers closer to goal, they are more likely to win the ball in their own defensive half. This has increasingly encouraged teams to play higher presses up the ground.
There’s an art to turning intercepts into scores. The Suns and Lions turn their front-half dominance into points on the scoreboard, while Collingwood’s chaotic style means they have over-performed when winning the ball close to their goal. Other sides prefer to attack from their back half. GWS, Fremantle, and Sydney have reaped rewards from turning defense into attack so far this year.
Conventional wisdom suggests that back-half scoring dries up at the business end of the season as teams get tighter. That may suggest current ladder leaders Sydney and Fremantle could need other routes to victory, but both will be confident they have other tools. The Swans also sit inside the top four for potency from other sources such as stoppages and forward-half turnover. On the western seaboard, the Dockers lean on their defense and are in the top two for restricting both stoppage and turnover scoring.
As an aside, scores from center bounce are up about 2.7 points per game, but their proportion of total points scored is only up by around 1%. Some optimism exists that the trend will continue, but most are waiting until deep into the second half of the season or even next year to see if the boost will hold.
Defending the Lead
Defence in football often gets overlooked compared to the work done with the ball in hand, but it’s no less important in the modern game. The sheer size of teams and the field means it’s nearly impossible to defend everywhere. Teams usually have to pick what to prioritize with limited player numbers and energy.
Teams that run a zone or a press look radically different from those who decide to go one-out across the ground. Some sides throw a spare at the contest, while others try to add numbers behind the ball. Teams that send multiple players can force easy turnovers, but risk being burned on the overlap if it doesn’t work immediately.
As a result, defensive metrics can look different for every team, and clubs tend to develop their own KPIs to measure success beyond the scoreboard.
A great example of the trade-offs involved in defensive choices can be seen in how certain teams stack up in ground ball and marks conceded in their defensive zone. [GRAPH: Defending in the air and on the deck] The top two, Sydney and Fremantle, sit at the top for most forward-50 ground balls conceded per game while also conceding relatively few opposition marks. This runs against the league trend, which has seen a rise in marks inside 50. Both sides spoil relatively often, creating more ground balls.
A defensive ground ball is usually a chance for opponents to score as the ball hits the deck. But that risk can be balanced by the chance to turn defense into attack from a chaotic play — a choice these sides clearly relish given their ability to score in full-field transition.
Transition scoring has become such a big worry in contemporary football that many teams track this closely as a specific series of metrics. As the top teams become ever more deadly when left with time and space, thinking about how to stop them has had to advance as well.
[GRAPH: Defending the transition] Port Adelaide are still getting accustomed to new coach Josh Carr, but their defensive identity seems clear immediately. Carr’s squad has been very hard to move the ball against. The Power are conceding an inside 50 entry less than one in six times the opposition gets the ball in their defensive 50, with the league average around 25%.
Sometimes there’s no accounting for luck on the defensive end. Scoring accuracy regularly decides games — with bad kicking often equalling bad football. While pressure and gameplay can influence accuracy by affecting the shots taken, sometimes a team just takes their chances.
[GRAPH: Just plain unlucky] So far this year, the Eagles and Hawks defences can count themselves a bit unlucky that opponents have shot the lights out against them more than average. Hawthorn’s draw with Collingwood, for instance, was only made possible because the Pies converted at about 5 goals better than an average team would have from their chances.
Over a season, this luck can add up. Melbourne’s surprise opening to 2026 might have caught less people off-guard if they hadn’t lost all their close games last year, mostly due to opponents turning into dead-eyes against them and snatching wins away.
Tight Race for Finals?
A glance at the ladder indicates that this year seems tight in the march towards a spot in the newly expanded final 10. Thirteen teams are within a win of a current finals spot, with one more side just two points further adrift.
[AFL Ladder] While at first glance this seems particularly large and congested, it’s the same number of teams that were within a win of a finals spot at the same time last season. While the longer-term trend is for about 10-12 teams to be within shouting distance of the last finals spot at this time of the season, so far the expanded finals has yet to expand the finals race.
As a whole, the competition has seemingly been more even across the board so far. While there’s a clear group of four teams at the bottom of the ladder, the remaining 14 sides have some shot of finals still.
Many will look to Sydney and Fremantle, clear at the top of the ladder, but premierships are never won in May. Thankfully, there’s still a lot of footy left to play this year.
