The rankings (from best to worst) of the 127 VFL/AFL premiership teams

[Pie thon]

No explanation, just a smart ass comment.

We won the grand final by 89 points bruv, you reckon there are 85 premiers better than that?

Formula needs a tinker.

Richmond finished 3rd on the ladder from memory, and won their last 10 in a row to make top 4. That was a great achievement in itself. But to rank it relative to other premiers year, they did have a poor start to the season, hence the need to win all those games at the end of the year. So you would have to have a strong case to argue them higher than other premiers who finished top 2 in a given year, which the majority were. I do agree with you, given it was a dynasty team, that their 2019 year should be up higher

 

[kickazz]

No consideration of the fact Collingwood were 16 and 2, and had the top 4 (and actually top 2) locked away prior to some meaningless home and away losses?

I think you just have to go on results and the fact remains they lost those games at the end there. Meaningless in the context of achieving that year's premiership, sure. But when comparing premiers over the years then they carry meaning. Winning more games and by bigger margins speak to the dominance of a side.

 

[Reg Grundy35]

The efforts to discount Collingwoods flag started just before the siren went when it was apparent that that their worst nightmares were happening. Its just fantastic!!

 

[Fadge]

I think you just have to go on results and the fact remains they lost those games at the end there. Meaningless in the context of achieving that year's premiership, sure. But when comparing premiers over the years then they carry meaning. Winning more games and by bigger margins speak to the dominance of a side.

But what we're seeing in this thread is that winning fewer games but by bigger margins also speaks to the dominance of a side...

 

[Mr Meow]

But what we're seeing in this thread is that winning fewer games but by bigger margins also speaks to the dominance of a side...

14 of the last 30 premiers lost 5 games (like Collingwood) or less for the whole season - including finals.

Of those 14, which ones do you think were stronger/more dominant than Collingwood 2023? Percentage, both in H&A and finals, is a very useful discerning factor when win/loss records are so similar.

 

[Fadge]

14 of the last 30 premiers lost 5 games (like Collingwood) or less for the whole season - including finals.

Of those 14, which ones do you think were stronger/more dominant than Collingwood 2023? Percentage, both in H&A and finals, is a very useful discerning factor when win/loss records are so similar.

I assume you included Richmond 2020 in that '14', with 5 losses and a draw in a 17 game home and away season (plus finals)?

Regardless, that's not what I'm debating.

I'm questioning those who are suggesting other premiers are stronger than Collingwood 2023, despite the fact they won fewer home and away matches, sometimes lost their Qualifying Final, and (IMO) competed against lesser opposition in the finals to what Collingwood encountered this year.

 

[Mr Meow]

I assume you included Richmond 2020 in that '14', with 5 losses and a draw in a 17 game home and away season (plus finals)?

Regardless, that's not what I'm debating.

I'm questioning those who are suggesting other premiers are stronger than Collingwood 2023, despite the fact they won fewer home and away matches, sometimes lost their Qualifying Final, and (IMO) competed against lesser opposition in the finals to what Collingwood encountered this year.

I didn't include Richmond 2020 as I worked backwards from H&A % win rate - 17-5 or better at that point was a necessity, then winning every final after that. And there's a fair chunk of sides who meet that.

I don't mind the logic of minor premier + undefeated in finals weighing more than finishing 2nd and losing a QF on the way to a premiership. You can argue that one either way - e.g if that side was more dominant in the other finals and H&A win margins. But I think 5 total losses or less including undefeated in finals - % should rule the day.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

I assume you included Richmond 2020 in that '14', with 5 losses and a draw in a 17 game home and away season (plus finals)?

Regardless, that's not what I'm debating.

I'm questioning those who are suggesting other premiers are stronger than Collingwood 2023, despite the fact they won fewer home and away matches, sometimes lost their Qualifying Final, and (IMO) competed against lesser opposition in the finals to what Collingwood encountered this year.

Haha how transparent is your Richmond obsession here?

Collingwood's 2023 GF team is not as good as Richmond's 2020 GF team, that Tiger team would rightly start a pronounced favourite in any H2H final, and no amount of invented criteria would alter that reality.

 

[Fadge]

Haha how transparent is your Richmond obsession here?

Collingwood's 2023 GF team is not as good as Richmond's 2020 GF team, that Tiger team would rightly start a pronounced favourite in any H2H final, and no amount of invented criteria would alter that reality.

Yep, a team that won 12 games from 17 to sneak into the top 4 and lost their first final to a vastly inferior Brisbane team to the one Collingwood beat in the Grand Final this year, would beat an 18/5 Collingwood team who had top 2 wrapped up with 5 rounds to go and went through the finals series undefeated against far superior opposition to that which Richmond faced in 2020.

Delusion at it's finest.

 

[adammania9]

Richmond's 2019 flag was clearly the weakest of the three. Look at the sides that made up the competition for the flag.

1. Geelong - arguably the worst minor premiership side heading into finals we've seen, failing to string together successive wins after the bye.
2. Brisbane Lions - first finals series since 2009, a team that had 15 players play their first final that year.
3. Richmond
4. Collingwood - comically ordinary team after the bye, having their season derailed by injuries and off-field scandals. Fortunate to come up against a cooked minor premier and scrape through, lining up with Ben Reid

20

Ben Reid

Age

35

Ht

196cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.3

4star

K

9.5

4star

HB

4.9

4star

M

6.0

5star

T

1.2

3star

G

0.6

4star

No current season stats available

D

14.0

4star

K

8.6

4star

HB

5.4

4star

M

6.0

5star

T

1.0

3star

G

0.0

1star

in the following prelim.
5. West Coast - crumbled under the expectations of going B2B and lost every single game late that gave them a chance to prove themselves as the real deal
6. GWS Giants - a side with all heart that capitalised on a horrid top four and crawled to a grand final only to expectedly be overawed and out of puff.

The sides they beat to win '17 and '20 were significantly better

 

[Taper]

Remember that only 12 of the 127 places are non-Victorian teams, so by virtue of being outnumbered obviously Victorian teams dominate the list because there are simply more of them. The non-Victorian teams are spaced quite evenly throughout the list. West Coast of 1991 probably would have been a top-10 team had they won it, if you look at their dominance that year. None of the other non-Victorian teams won more than 17 home and away games in their premiership years.

You should include the pre VFL era flags.
It would be interesting to see where Essendon's four premierships in a row ranks.

 

[Reg Grundy35]

You should include the pre VFL era flags.
It would be interesting to see where Essendon's four premierships in a row ranks.

What 4 in a row was that?

 

[Meteoric Rise]

What 4 in a row was that?

1891-2-3-4 in the VFA with the likes of Alby Thurgood going ape droppings.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Yep, a team that won 12 games from 17 to sneak into the top 4 and lost their first final to a vastly inferior Brisbane team to the one Collingwood beat in the Grand Final this year, would beat an 18/5 Collingwood team who had top 2 wrapped up with 5 rounds to go and went through the finals series undefeated against far superior opposition to that which Richmond faced in 2020.

Delusion at it's finest.

Put it this way......Markov got a game in that Collingwood 2023 team, couldn't get selected in the Richmond 2020 team. McRae was head coach of 3d printed Richmond in 2023, was seconds coach at Richmond in 2020. You are trying to favourably compare a team who scrambled through 3 tight wins in one finals series with another team who smashed their way through 3 finals series on their way to 3 dominant flags.

In short, you are kidding yourself.

 

[adammania9]

Put it this way......Markov got a game in that Collingwood 2023 team, couldn't get selected in the Richmond 2020 team. McRae was head coach of 3d printed Richmond in 2023, was seconds coach at Richmond in 2020. You are trying to favourably compare a team who scrambled through 3 tight wins in one finals series with another team who smashed their way through 3 finals series on their way to 3 dominant flags.

In short, you are kidding yourself.

Jacob Townsend couldn’t get a game at the Giants in 2015 so logically that team must have been up there with the 2017 Richmond team?

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Jacob Townsend couldn’t get a game at the Giants in 2015 so logically that team must have been up there with the 2017 Richmond team?

Giants didn't win the flag in 2015, so they obviously got their selection wrong. In an event Towner was only 22yo in 2015. Clearly a better footballer 2 years later.

Oleg Markov was already a fully mature player in 2020 at 24yo. He is right in the twilight zone to make him a perfect barometer of how good a team is. If he gets a game in your GF team you are not a quality Premier. But he is just good enough that if he doesn't then you are. So his full name is actually Oleg Markovaqualityteam.

 

[Reg Grundy35]

Giants didn't win the flag in 2015, so they obviously got their selection wrong. In an event Towner was only 22yo in 2015. Clearly a better footballer 2 years later.

Oleg Markov was already a fully mature player in 2020 at 24yo. He is right in the twilight zone to make him a perfect barometer of how good a team is. If he gets a game in your GF team you are not a quality Premier. But he is just good enough that if he doesn't then you are. So his full name is actually Oleg Markovaqualityteam.

its amazing the things the imminent irrelevance of their team makes people say. they hang on tight - fair enough. The bottom line is that Richmond barely met a team who put up a fight in the three flags - except when Mason Cox took it up to them.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Richmond's 2019 flag was clearly the weakest of the three. Look at the sides that made up the competition for the flag.

1. Geelong - arguably the worst minor premiership side heading into finals we've seen, failing to string together successive wins after the bye.
2. Brisbane Lions - first finals series since 2009, a team that had 15 players play their first final that year.
3. Richmond
4. Collingwood - comically ordinary team after the bye, having their season derailed by injuries and off-field scandals. Fortunate to come up against a cooked minor premier and scrape through, lining up with Ben Reid in the following prelim.
5. West Coast - crumbled under the expectations of going B2B and lost every single game late that gave them a chance to prove themselves as the real deal
6. GWS Giants - a side with all heart that capitalised on a horrid top four and crawled to a grand final only to expectedly be overawed and out of puff.

The sides they beat to win '17 and '20 were significantly better

How good a premier is cannot simply be a function of how good you deem their finals opponents to be AFTER they have been beaten by that Premier. From a form perspective, It is hard to tell any great difference between the GWS first 3 winning finals of 2019 and Collingwood's 3 finals in 2023. In the 2019 GF, Richmond scored almost 6 times as many goals as that GWS team, and this factor was the greatest of any Grand Final in history as far as I know, so it was a fearful hammering. Richmond score 47 goals that finals series and their 3 opponents scored 20 goals between them. And you have to remember, as was the case in 2023, without the presence of a dominant team like Richmond in 2019, one of those teams would have been Premier.

Bar for a shocking run of early season injuries, Richmond 2019 would likely have had a very dominant home and away season. 3 leaders Rance, Riewoldt, Cotchin all missed a string of matches together that Edwards had to Captain, and 39 different players played in the AFL team. The best 22 missed roughly 110 games between them due to unavailability and this is not counting any of the games Pickett or Soldo or Baker or Bolton or Ellis or any of these more fringe players in that season missed(they all play in the Grand Final.) This number of games missed by clear best 22 players is very high for any team let alone a Premiership team. You can see the difference this made by reference to the post-bye form of the team after most of the injured players bar Rance had returned. Richmond won those 12 consecutive games scoring 177 goals and conceding 102 goals, so a % up over 170%. A team like Collingwood 2023 has nothing remotely comparable to that on their CV.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

its amazing the things the imminent irrelevance of their team makes people say. they hang on tight - fair enough. The bottom line is that Richmond barely met a team who put up a fight in the three flags - except when Mason Cox took it up to them.

Exactly, it was Mike Tyson like dominance of all the best contenders the AFL could find. The put up a very brave fight against each other, but for some unknowable reason couldn't get near that Richmond team when it mattered.

 

[Reg Grundy35]

How good a premier is cannot simply be a function of how good you deem their finals opponents to be AFTER they have been beaten by that Premier. From a form perspective, It is hard to tell any great difference between the GWS first 3 winning finals of 2019 and Collingwood's 3 finals in 2023. In the 2019 GF, Richmond scored almost 6 times as many goals as that GWS team, and this factor was the greatest of any Grand Final in history as far as I know, so it was a fearful hammering. Richmond score 47 goals that finals series and their 3 opponents scored 20 goals between them. And you have to remember, as was the case in 2023, without the presence of a dominant team like Richmond in 2019, one of those teams would have been Premier.

Bar for a shocking run of early season injuries, Richmond 2019 would likely have had a very dominant home and away season. 3 leaders Rance, Riewoldt, Cotchin all missed a string of matches together that Edwards had to Captain, and 39 different players played in the AFL team. The best 22 missed roughly 110 games between them due to unavailability and this is not counting any of the games Pickett or Soldo or Baker or Bolton or Ellis or any of these more fringe players in that season missed(they all play in the Grand Final.) This number of games missed by clear best 22 players is very high for any team let alone a Premiership team. You can see the difference this made by reference to the post-bye form of the team after most of the injured players bar Rance had returned. Richmond won those 12 consecutive games scoring 177 goals and conceding 102 goals, so a % up over 170%. A team like Collingwood 2023 has nothing remotely comparable to that on their CV.

I think you're the modern incarnation of Dan26 who started this thread - except for him it was Essendon 2000. Every argument was tailored to "prove" they were better than any suggested alternative. The other thing you have in common isthat you are at your most desperate when your team is on the slide. His still haven't come back. Wonder if yours will?

 

[Mr Meow]

How good a premier is cannot simply be a function of how good you deem their finals opponents to be AFTER they have been beaten by that Premier. From a form perspective, It is hard to tell any great difference between the GWS first 3 winning finals of 2019 and Collingwood's 3 finals in 2023. In the 2019 GF, Richmond scored almost 6 times as many goals as that GWS team, and this factor was the greatest of any Grand Final in history as far as I know, so it was a fearful hammering. Richmond score 47 goals that finals series and their 3 opponents scored 20 goals between them. And you have to remember, as was the case in 2023, without the presence of a dominant team like Richmond in 2019, one of those teams would have been Premier.

Bar for a shocking run of early season injuries, Richmond 2019 would likely have had a very dominant home and away season. 3 leaders Rance, Riewoldt, Cotchin all missed a string of matches together that Edwards had to Captain, and 39 different players played in the AFL team. The best 22 missed roughly 110 games between them due to unavailability and this is not counting any of the games Pickett or Soldo or Baker or Bolton or Ellis or any of these more fringe players in that season missed(they all play in the Grand Final.) This number of games missed by clear best 22 players is very high for any team let alone a Premiership team. You can see the difference this made by reference to the post-bye form of the team after most of the injured players bar Rance had returned. Richmond won those 12 consecutive games scoring 177 goals and conceding 102 goals, so a % up over 170%. A team like Collingwood 2023 has nothing remotely comparable to that on their CV.

They were very dominant come finals time, there's no denying that.

Still, Geelong 2022 had a better overall % comfortably (8% lower for finals but 30% higher for home and away) and a comfortably better win rate, while finishing as minor premier. So absolutely a more dominant season across the board. Especially when one of those finals wins came against an MCG tenant, a situation that gave Richmond trouble in the 2018 PF.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

I think you're the modern incarnation of Dan26 who started this thread - except for him it was Essendon 2000. Every argument was tailored to "prove" they were better than any suggested alternative. The other thing you have in common isthat you are at your most desperate when your team is on the slide. His still haven't come back. Wonder if yours will?

Ok so Dan and I are kindred spirits. So he has some redeeming features after all.

I post about facts. You post about me.

I think you know deep down your beloved Magpies are the weakest Premier in living memory and fair enough, you are doing your best to throw mud at much more credible recent Premiers. In your shoes, I would probably do the same if I am honest. Only, I would do it much better than you. As would Dan.

 

[Vankri]

Ok so Dan and I are kindred spirits. So he has some redeeming features after all.

I post about facts. You post about me.

I think you know deep down your beloved Magpies are the weakest Premier in living memory and fair enough, you are doing your best to throw mud at much more credible recent Premiers. In your shoes, I would probably do the same if I am honest. Only, I would do it much better than you. As would Dan.

By any measure we’re not the weakest considering H/A W/L and no finals losses.

Dogs won it from 7th with a dodgy Prelim and dodgy GF umpiring. Great fairytale but they clearly take that descriptor.

I’d also argue Richmond 2020 is a weak flag. Sorry not trying to troll but the comp was reduced, diminished and compromised. It was a bizarre year that you can hardly compare. Put it this way if Richmond hadn’t won the other two flags or some other team had won the cup that year we would all find it impossible to gauge and likely put it at the top of the weak premiers list.

Not that it really matters in the end.

 

[Engimal v3]

There's something very funny about ranking the Roos in '99 123rd, Brisbane in '01 63rd, but then claiming Essendon in 2000 was a clear #1.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

By any measure we’re not the weakest considering H/A W/L and no finals losses.

Dogs won it from 7th with a dodgy Prelim and dodgy GF umpiring. Great fairytale but they clearly take that descriptor.

I’d also argue Richmond 2020 is a weak flag. Sorry not trying to troll but the comp was reduced, diminished and compromised. It was a bizarre year that you can hardly compare. Put it this way if Richmond hadn’t won the other two flags or some other team had won the cup that year we would all find it impossible to gauge and likely put it at the top of the weak premiers list.

Not that it really matters in the end.

I don't agree about 2020 being a weak flag. All 18 clubs were hampered to differing extents, but Richmond were clearly one of the most hampered clubs, if not the most hampered by the Covid arrangements. They had key players in Edwards and Houli excluded from the hub for most of the season due to fatherhood responsibilities. Then the club has had to play finals against a team who had the luxury of barely leaving their home state for the whole season and another club who also had luxuries Richmond didn't enjoy. It was a uniquely difficult season for most clubs but Richmond won that Premiership on absolute merit, and quite impressively in the end.

The Dogs 2016 to me was an impressive Premiership victory right at the pointy end of Premierships I have seen in my lifetime. They won two interstate finals for a start. 4 finals victories at any venues or v any opponents has only been done twice in history I believe, Adelaide 1997 and Bulldogs 2016. Both won 2 home state finals and 2 interstate finals. But Crows 2 home state finals were on their own home ground against teams playing interstate away. And Crows two away finals were against teams playing in their home state, but not on their home grounds.

Crows vanquished 4 teams in the finals who had won 13, 14, 15 & 15 home and away matches that season.

The Bulldogs played two interstate finals against teams playing on their home grounds. And Bulldogs 2 home state finals were not on the Bulldog's home ground, and in fact one of those was on the opponent's home ground. But if you believe in a team's strength being defined partly by its home and away record(you clearly do going by the part of your post I highlighted) then you need to appreciate the Bulldogs effort to beat 4 teams in finals with the following home and away records:

17-5 151%
17-5 119%
16-6 143%
16-6 130%

For comparison, Collingwood 2023 finished the home and away season 18-5 and 127%. Bulldogs basically beat 4 teams in succession whose home and away seasons were of similar merit to that, 2 of those interstate away on those teams' home grounds. A 3rd on another opponent's home ground. Again for comparison, Collingwood 2023 have played 3 finals on Collingwood's home ground, 2 of those against interstate away teams, and Collingwood won those 3 finals by a combined total of 12 points, against teams with 17-6, 16-7 and 13-10 home and away records.

The Bulldogs 2016 flag was far more impressive than Collingwood's 2023 flag. And I wouldn't be talking about dodgy umpiring in favour of the Dogs in 2016 if you are comparing them to Collingwood 2023, the Pies have dead set got rails runs Steve Bradbury wouldn't believe with the tribunal, umps, and venues.