Form ladder 2019

[David]

You can argue Sydney could be a little higher – they’ve certainly turned things around over the past few weeks. Wouldn’t have West Coast lower than 4th, though.

[tbaker]

[David]

I think I was a little too hasty here – having another look at the results of the season so far, Sydney definitely deserved to be higher than where I had them. I’ve moved them up to 12th and North to 13th, while the Bulldogs drop to 14th.

[David]

Easy one this week, with few changes:

Round 13 form ladder:

1. Geelong
2. Collingwood
3. GWS
4. West Coast
5. Adelaide
6. Fremantle
7. Brisbane
8. Richmond

9. Essendon
10. Port Adelaide
11. Hawthorn
12. Sydney
13. North Melbourne
14. Western Bulldogs
15. St. Kilda
16. Melbourne
17. Gold Coast
18. Carlton

[K]

R12 injury ladder (1 = best; 18 = worst):

1. Brisbane
2. WB
3. Geelong
4. WCE
5. GWS
6. Fremantle
7. Adelaide
8. Carlton
9. Port
10. GC
11. Sydney
12. Essendon
13. NM
14. Hawthorn
15. Collingwood
16. Richmond
17. Melbourne
18. StK

This is before the latest weekend. (Adelaide e.g. had a horror game for injuries.) Many clubs in the middle are hard to separate. When Richmond lose a mediocre role player like Vlastuin for a week, the media shriek about an injury crisis, but when GWS lose Whitfield to a broken collarbone for a month they just shrug their shoulders. Go figure.

[K]

The HPN guys did a 'form ladder' after R10:

1. Geelong
2. GWS
3. Collingwood
4. Adelaide
5. WC
6. Fremantle
7. Richmond
8. Hawthorn
9. Essendon
10. Brisbane
11. Port
12. WB
13. St Kilda
14. NM
15. Sydney
16. Melbourne
17. Carlton
18. GC.


I thought it was quite different from David's, but now I think it's quite similar.

[K]

^ I compared this with David's R10 ladder, and I reckon this one may be a bit more accurate.

[David]

Yeah, doesn’t seem too far off! Where did you find this, K?

[David]

Round 14 form ladder:

1. Geelong
2. Collingwood
3. GWS
4. West Coast
5. Adelaide
6. Brisbane
7. Fremantle
8. Richmond

9. Port Adelaide
10. Sydney
11. Essendon
12. Hawthorn
13. North Melbourne
14. Western Bulldogs
15. Melbourne
16. St. Kilda
17. Gold Coast
18. Carlton

[David]

Round 15:

1. Geelong
2. West Coast
3. GWS
4. Collingwood
5. Adelaide
6. Brisbane
7. Richmond
8. Fremantle

9. Sydney
10. Essendon
11. Port Adelaide
12. North Melbourne
13. Hawthorn
14. Western Bulldogs
15. Melbourne
16. St. Kilda
17. Carlton
18. Gold Coast

[Skids]

Collingwood, top 4 on a form ladder? Please, on form, we're not in the top 8.

North Melbourne would be in the top 8 for sure, look at their recent 'form'.

[David]

Skids, as I've (I think, rather patiently ) explained over the past few years, this exercise takes into account whole-season form – it's not a snapshot of an arbitrary few weeks. Otherwise, I would agree that North have had a very good past month, as have Sydney; but, equally, both were in my bottom 4 not all that long ago, and it's really quite a turnaround that they've managed to travel so far up my form ladder in such a short time. So I think where they are now is about right.

Now, some might argue that even under that criteria we still don't belong in the top 4, and they might be right; personally, I don't think there have been any consistently stand-out teams this year beside Geelong; even GWS and West Coast have looked pretty average at times. It's quite an even year: teams from positions 5–14 have all been up and down throughout the season, and have all been able to look like a finalist or also-ran on a given day. Our last few weeks possibly drop us into that pack, but I still think we've been consistently slightly above that category throughout the season so far. That'll change if we're not competitive against GWS and West Coast and can't get it done against Hawthorn and Richmond.

[Skids]

Here's a form ladder, using the last 5 weeks results.

WCE - 16 - 141 %
Roos - 16 - 131 %
Bombers - 16 - 111%
GWS - 12 - 131 %
Cats -12 - 128 %
Power - 12 - 127 %
Lions - 12 - 126 %
Swans - 12 - 121 %

Dogs - 12 - 93 %
Crows - 12 - 93 %
Pies - 8 - 99 %
Tigers - 8 - 97 %
Blues - 8 - 92 %
D's - 8 - 87 %
Freo - 8 - 80 %
Saints - 8 - 70 %
Hawks - 4 - 85 %
Suns - 0 - 54 %

[David]

Round 16:

1. Geelong
2. West Coast
3. GWS
4. Collingwood
5. Brisbane
6. Richmond
7. Adelaide
8. Port Adelaide

9. Essendon
10. Sydney
11. Fremantle
12. Western Bulldogs
13. North Melbourne
14. Hawthorn
15. Melbourne
16. Carlton
17. St. Kilda
18. Gold Coast

What a mess! Teams that I had 11–14 last week all had great wins, while top 8 teams Adelaide and Fremantle were made to look ordinary. I’ve actually had to drop North and Hawthorn a place each because the Bulldogs have been so impressive over the past few weeks – at this stage, though, I reckon you can throw a blanket over teams 7–14, so I’m honestly not all that confident that I’ve got those teams in the right order.

West Coast are very close to going top; I still have Geelong ahead, but only narrowly. Big gap between top 2 and 3–4 now.

[didick]

I'd have us easily in the bottom half on form over the last month.