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Sport Nation
Ranking all 18 clubs by flag contention in 2025
SEN • April 22nd, 2025 2:35 pm
Mark Bickley has grouped every AFL team based on their chances to contend for the premiership this season.
Through six rounds of football, teams have begun to establish their brand of football and present their case for the premiership in 2025.
Bickley separated each club into five categories ranked on their likelihood of success, ranging from flag favourites to hard rebuilders.
“(There is) a lot of discussion around who’s in premiership contention and who is not,” Bickley told SEN SA Breakfast.
“We are a quarter of the way through the season, so we have got a little bit of a sample size now. I know it’s still uneven, some teams have played a lot of good teams, some poor teams but you have got enough now to form an opinion.”
Flag favourites
“Here are my five contenders that I think are most likely to win the flag:
“Geelong, Collingwood, GWS, Brisbane and Hawthorn. They are the top five.”
Something to prove
“Some people might say, why don’t you have Adelaide or Gold Coast in there? The reason is, even though I think they’ve played really good footy, both of those clubs, Adelaide have played finals for seven years, and Gold Coast have never played finals.
“They actually have to prove themselves a little bit more. The other teams that I mentioned all won a final last year, and some went really deep and played in the prelim final.
“You’ve got the five contenders, Adelaide and Gold Coast who have still got some convincing to do to win me over and say that they are capable of sustaining this form for 24 weeks and then are good enough to play finals.”
There’s a chance
“The next group is a group of four, which is Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs, Fremantle and Carlton.
“Port Adelaide, over the last two weeks… it has really coincided with Zak Butters coming back into the side, he is a star.
“Even though they lost contested possessions by 46, he had 17 on his own. Without him they are just not the same team so contingent on him continuing to play well.
“The Bulldogs - losing (Sam) Darcy is a blow, getting (Marcus) Bontempelli back helps but I’m not sure that their list is going to get them to where they want to get to without Darcy.
“Fremantle have been disappointing. I’ve lost faith and confidence in them.
“Carlton, whilst they have got the players, the inconsistencies they have between their best and their worst (is a problem).
“They’ve had two really good wins, two massive wins, so now they’ve got really good percentage which will help them going forward, but we will find out a bit more about them as they start to play some better teams.”
State of uncertainty
“Then you’ve got the other ones. There are five teams where I don’t think they actually know where they are right now.
“Essendon, are they rebuilding or are they not rebuilding?
“Sydney are in a bit of the same state at the moment. They’ve got a new coach, come off the Grand Final… I know they’ve got injuries but I’m not sure what’s happening.
“St Kilda, same thing. Are they rebuilding or are they challenging?
“Melbourne are in a similar phase. They’ve had six or seven debutants this year, but they’ve still got those older players that are in a transition phase.
“North Melbourne are perpetually rebuilding. They just haven’t seemed to be able to make any ground even though they brought in (Caleb) Daniel and (Luke) Parker and (Jack) Darling to give them some stability to assist the younger players.
“That move was meant to take away performances like we saw on the weekend, where they were just non-competitive.”
Rebuilding
“Then you’ve got Richmond and West Coast.
“You know exactly where they are and that is that full rebuilding phase.
“Richmond are doing it much better than West Coast, but I think they are under no illusions that this is a journey that they’ve gone on.”
