Is ladder volatility a saviour or cause for concern?

Brisbane coach Chris Fagan and co-captain Harris Andrews after Brisbane’s loss to GWS in Canberra. Photo: AFL MEDIA

Look at the AFL ladder seven rounds into the season and what comes immediately to mind is the old aphorism “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.

Occupying the top two spots are Geelong and Sydney. Viewed in isolation, their ascent from finishes last year of 12th and eighth respectively is a major leap. But is it, really? They were, after all, grand finalists the September before last.

They’re also arguably the two best examples in the AFL era of clubs for whom whatever happens in the immediate term is never enough to distract their gaze from the broader focus of enduring success.

The Cats, who won a high-standard, gripping tussle with Carlton on Saturday, have seemingly defied the prophets of doom yet again. And the Swans might have had their challenges last year, but are flying again in 2024, imperiously sweeping Hawthorn aside on Sunday by 76 points.

Are theirs examples which should encourage last year’s grand finalists Collingwood and Brisbane, or have the Pies and Lions worried? Good question. And again, the answers depend on which perspective you choose, short or longer term.

Currently sitting 10th and 13th on the ladder respectively, neither has had the follow-up from that epic 2023 grand final you might have envisaged, though the Pies are at least finding some sort of groove, three wins and a draw the sum of their last month.

Collingwood has the oldest list in the competition in 2024, and the likes of Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom have had their struggles this season. Are the Pies still coming or going? The next few weeks, starting with Friday night’s blockbuster against Carlton, are going to be telling indeed on that score.

But it’s Brisbane, clearly, which may be more in need of encouragement from the example of its grand final predecessors. Because, while there’s still plenty of time left in the season, at 2-5 and struggling for any sort of connection or confidence, the Lions are in a world of trouble.

Can they recover the lost ground? History, certainly, isn’t their friend.

Those of us in the AFL prognostication business talk each year about the “Round 7 Rule”, the arbitrary “line in the sand” which suggests if you’re not in the eight now, the odds are you won’t be when it counts.

In 21 of 23 completed AFL seasons since 2001, the top eight has changed by a maximum of just two teams from the end of round seven to the end of the final home and away round.

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Superficially, you might think last year was something of an outlier, given that three eventual finalists in Sydney, GWS and Carlton were occupying 13th, 14th and 15th spots on the ladder respectively as late as Round 15.

Even they, however, had managed to put some early runs on the board, the Blues then sixth at 4-2 with a draw, the other two both 3-4 and only a game outside the eight.

Apply that rule of thumb to the current ladder, and you’d have Gold Coast, Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs as the only teams outside the top eight with a decent chance of forcing their way in, and already as good as scratching Adelaide, Brisbane, St Kilda, West Coast, Richmond, Hawthorn and North Melbourne.

Funnily enough, though, while an old rule of thumb about making the finals has largely held up in the new millennium, there’s not much doubt there’s greater volatility within the eight itself once teams get to September, and now also from one finals campaign to the next.

Over the past six seasons, six top four teams (Melbourne and Brisbane twice each, Port Adelaide and Hawthorn) have all bowed out of finals campaigns in “straight sets”.

And of eight grand final teams between 2020-23, two premiers and a runner-up (Geelong, Richmond and Greater Western Sydney) have failed to even reach finals the following season, with five of the eight finishing eighth or lower the next year.

That’s some contrast to the seven seasons from 2010-16 during which every single one of 14 grand final teams would go on to also play finals the following season.

Is the effort expended over the course of an AFL season now so great it’s harder to sustain for more than a year, or is it simply about the further closing of the gap between all AFL teams (at the top end of the ladder at least)?

Whatever, in the current context, Brisbane’s struggle to back-up from its near premiership-winning 2023 perhaps shouldn’t be that great a shock.

And if the Lions do miss out? Well, it’s not necessarily the end of the road for Chris Fagan’s team.

Indeed, maybe once again Geelong is showing us that when it comes to pronouncing a good AFL team’s salad days over, it’s pretty easy sometimes to put two and two together and somehow incorrectly end up with 567.

This article first appeared at ESPN.