The rankings (from best to worst) of the 128 VFL/AFL premiership teams.

[CrowToon]

The comparison is clearly about how good an achievement it was in its given year. Not whether highly trained professionals would beat part timers who had steak and beer before the game. I thought was a given

Even just accounting for relative difficulty in a particular year is absurd.

1911 where a competition is amateur etc with only 10 teams is infinitely less of a challenge than 2024 with 18 teams and a professionalised industry. It can't even be a question. Youd take the 1911 scenario 100/100 times.

If the list was simply a rating out of 10 for how relatively difficult the achievement of winning it was for each year independently I'd respect it. But as soon as you then take those ratings and rank them, you've added in a totally new dimension and criticism should be levelled at it.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Post yours.

No.

 

[terrybull]

The Premiership team is what shows up in finals and specifically the Grand Final. How many chump teams they beat 20 weeks earlier has no real bearing on how good the actual Premiership team is. On Grand Final day 2019 Richmond proved objectively 456% better than the next best opponent the AFL could throw at them. Has any team ever proven as dominant in winning a Premiership? Probably not. Yet I refer to your list, and you have them the 86th best premier.

I then think, shit, the number one team must have been unbelievably dominant in the Grand Final, so I check....and to my utter astonishment they were only 180% as good compared to the next best team the AFL could throw at them.

180/456 = 39%

So on your list, the number 1 Premier in the history of the competition, was only 40% as dominant on Grand Final day compared to the 86th ranked Premier.

The Premier is decided on Grand Final day, and NEVER in the home and away season. Ergo, your system of grading Premiers is rubbish.

Maybe you could just respect the gigantus work he has done by not saying anything at all.

Or just in a polite way say what you disagree with.

Pretty sure no-one agrees with rankings here 100%, probably not even Dan26 as it’s an impossible task and opinions change from time to time.

But it’s these kind of posts that are very entertaining to read and should be praised while disagreeing.

When I was younger 100 years ago, I do these kind of stats myself, but luckily there was no internet or BigFooty forums for my work to be dissected, ridiculed by negative people who’s life mission is to spit at others opinions that are not close of their own.

Keep up the good work Dan26 although I don’t agree with most of the list, I still look forward reading where the Tigers 26 Premiership fits

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Maybe you could just respect the gigantus work he has done by not saying anything at all.

Or just in a polite way say what you disagree with.

Pretty sure no-one agrees with rankings here 100%, probably not even Dan26 as it’s an impossible task and opinions change from time to time.

But it’s these kind of posts that are very entertaining to read and should be praised while disagreeing.

When I was younger 100 years ago, I do these kind of stats myself, but luckily there was no internet or BigFooty forums for my work to be dissected, ridiculed by negative people who’s life mission is to spit at others opinions that are not close of their own.

Keep up the good work Dan26 although I don’t agree with most of the list, I still look forward reading where the Tigers 26 Premiership fits

Have done exactly that before in these threads. And guess what sort of response that was met with from the person you are now saying I should respect?

In my world terrybull, you call the tune, and I dance to it. Dan26 called the tune, and I am dancing to it. This world didn't commence on Monday when he made the opening post to this thread, but long ago when he showed no respect to myself and others who calmly and respectfully pointed out fatal flaws in his system of grading Premiers.

So forgive me now while I hoist him on his own petard.

It is not just that I disagree with his rankings, which of course I do. I disagree with his method of ranking. Not because of what is included, most of which is somewhat relevant to determine the best historic premiers, but because of what is wilfully excluded from his considerations, for eg....

- it is pretty clear that a team who has the indian sign over the competition for an extended period of years, say Melbourne 1955-60, is better(relative to the competition of the day) than a team with one years dominance to show for their efforts. One of anything can and often is a false sign. Extended dominance is a hell of a lot less likely to be a flase sign of how good a team actually is. Dan26 takes no account of this in his rankings.

- taking home and away "dominance" into consideration to determine the strongest premier is laughable. It is basically like saying a Grand Prix racer who wins from 3rd position on the grid has not done as well as a Grand Prix racer who wins the same race from first position on the grid. Or a Grand Prix racer who wins once after qualifying with a better average lap time is better than a Grand Prix racer who wins multiple times after qualifying with a worse average lap time. The home and away season is merely a qualifying round for grid positions in finals. A winning racer might have certain issues in qualifying, which is akin to a Premiership team suffering disruption due to unavailability during the home and away season. But the winner of the race is determined by who wins the final race only. And so it is that the best Premier would be the team that performed the best on Grand Final day.

So we get nonsense like Essendon 2000 who won one flag is number 1 all time Premier according to Dan. Whilst the Lions team who comfortably beat a reasonable facsimile of the same Essendon team 12 months later, and went on to win 3 flags, each time playing the Grand Final at the home ground of their opponent(another thing not ever mentioned) enters his rankings at 63.

Like let's just get mathematical for a moment. What would be the actual odds of a small cohort of teams, say Richmond, + Brisbane/Fitzroy winning between them approximately 1 in every 5 flags ever won in the competition....without a single entry in the top 24 Premiers of all time? Think about it.

We could go on and on, but his list of ranked Premiers is little more than a list of his own biases. All of this has been convincingly pointed out to him before by many posters. He takes no account of reasonable criticisms. Therefore he is due derision. It would be like a scientist having his theorum absolutely disproven by a fellow scientist only to continue to peddle the same theorum as if it had never been disproven - hoping new fools will be impressed by his nonsense.

 

[terrybull]

Have done exactly that before in these threads. And guess what sort of response that was met with from the person you are now saying I should respect?

In my world terrybull, you call the tune, and I dance to it. Dan26 called the tune, and I am dancing to it. This world didn't commence on Monday when he made the opening post to this thread, but long ago when he showed no respect to myself and others who calmly and respectfully pointed out fatal flaws in his system of grading Premiers.

So forgive me now while I hoist him on his own petard.

It is not just that I disagree with his rankings, which of course I do. I disagree with his method of ranking. Not because of what is included, most of which is somewhat relevant to determine the best historic premiers, but because of what is wilfully excluded from his considerations, for eg....

- it is pretty clear that a team who has the indian sign over the competition for an extended period of years, say Melbourne 1955-60, is better(relative to the competition of the day) than a team with one years dominance to show for their efforts. One of anything can and often is a false sign. Extended dominance is a hell of a lot less likely to be a flase sign of how good a team actually is. Dan26 takes no account of this in his rankings.

- taking home and away "dominance" into consideration to determine the strongest premier is laughable. It is basically like saying a Grand Prix racer who wins from 3rd position on the grid has not done as well as a Grand Prix racer who wins the same race from first position on the grid. Or a Grand Prix racer who wins once after qualifying with a better average lap time is better than a Grand Prix racer who wins multiple times after qualifying with a worse average lap time. The home and away season is merely a qualifying round for grid positions in finals. A winning racer might have certain issues in qualifying, which is akin to a Premiership team suffering disruption due to unavailability during the home and away season. But the winner of the race is determined by who wins the final race only. And so it is that the best Premier would be the team that performed the best on Grand Final day.

So we get nonsense like Essendon 2000 who won one flag is number 1 all time Premier according to Dan. Whilst the Lions team who comfortably beat a reasonable facsimile of the same Essendon team 12 months later, and went on to win 3 flags, each time playing the Grand Final at the home ground of their opponent(another thing not ever mentioned) enters his rankings at 63.

Like let's just get mathematical for a moment. What would be the actual odds of a small cohort of teams, say Richmond, + Brisbane/Fitzroy winning beteen them approximately 1 in every 5 flags ever won in the competition....without a single entry in the top 24 Premiers of all time? Think about it.

We could go on and on, but his list of ranked Premiers is little more than a list of his own biases. All of this has been convincingly pointed out to him before by many posters. He takes no account of reasonable criticisms. Therefore he is due derision. It would be like a scientist having his theorum absolutely disproven by a fellow scientist only to continue to peddle the same theorum as if it had never been disproven - hoping new fools will be impressed by his nonsense.

You make some very good points and I agree with most of you said about the criteria of your ranking.

But if you were to make a list in your criteria, someone will try to devalue it and it will be an endless argument, purely on the fact it is impossible to do!

Don’t take it to serious, it’s one man’s opinion and no need to change his mind or devalue the enormous work he has done. But just open discussions how one sees differently without being harsh.

For entanglement purposes only like the WWE says

 

[Meteoric Rise]

You make some very good points and I agree with most of you said about the criteria of your ranking.

But if you were to make a list in your criteria, someone will try to devalue it and it will be an endless argument, purely on the fact it is impossible to do!

Don’t take it to serious, it’s one man’s opinion and no need to change his mind or devalue the enormous work he has done. But just open discussions how one sees differently without being harsh.

For entanglement purposes only like the WWE says

It is an impossible task, I acknowledge that. I have never criticised Dan26 for undertaking the task, just for the errors in both logic and probability in his results.

And to be fair, I wasn't taking this thread seriously at all. I was happily mocking it, before others intervened.