We’ve had our appetites whetted by a host of practice games and the Community Series – with a few more to come – and now the AFL’s season proper is just days away.
That means only one thing here on The Roar – it’s time for the AFL Oracle to make its return!
Just as I’ve done for the last two years, I’ll be dividing teams up into groups based on where they ended up in 2024, and see who’s on the rise, who’s spiralling downwards, and who should be prepared for more of the same in the new season.
Today, I’ll be taking a look at last year’s bottom five; after that comes the 9-13 bracket (Monday), last year’s finals also-rans from 5-8 (Tuesday), and lastly, the four preliminary finalists (Wednesday).
Think your team is destined for another long season after finishing near the bottom in 2024? Think again.
Since the 18-team competition began in 2012, ten out of 13 seasons have seen a side that finished in the last five claw their way up to make finals – including the last four years, with Hawthorn surging into September in 2024, GWS managing it in 2023 and Collingwood the year before.
And in one of the three others, 2018, both 12th (Hawthorn) AND 13th (the Magpies) from the year prior did it.
Both the Giants and Magpies reached preliminary finals in 2023 and 2022 respectively from the bottom five – the first time that has happened since Adelaide in 2012 – while the Hawks of last season went within a kick of doing likewise, and head into the new year among the flag favourites.
The sky really is the limit from even the lowest rungs of the ladder – so who’s best placed to be this year’s Hawks and make a shock September run? Let’s find out.
Richmond
18th, 2-21, 63.7%
There has surely never been a safer wooden spoon bet, right?
Off a two-win season wrecked by injuries in Adem Yze’s first year in charge, the Tigers hit a scorched earth rebuild so hard that I’m surprised the turf at Punt Road isn’t still singed.
Gone are Liam Baker, Shai Bolton, Daniel Rioli and Jack Graham, while of their swathe of first-round draft picks, none look set to offer an immediate Harley Reid-style burst of excitement for the yellow and black faithful.
Not since GWS in 2013, and before them not since the final throes of Fitzroy in 1996, has a team been a live chance to go through a full season winless – yet I’d argue right now, Richmond are probably only a 60/40 chance to end the year with premiership points to their name, such is the established talent that has been haemorrhaged out of what was already one of the league’s worst teams.
The positive for Yze is that the bar couldn’t possibly be lower – provided the top picks get miles in the legs and show glimpses of a bright future, and the team continues to play with the heart and spirit they showed in spades despite the horror results in 2024, then he’ll more than have succeeded in the toughest job in footy.
My prediction going into the year? The Tigers will win one game, seriously threaten a couple more times, and then be either comfortably dealt with or belted every other week. And given the path they’ve set themselves on, that’s fine… for now.
Prediction: 18th
Adem Yze is set for another tough year as Richmond coach. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
North Melbourne
17th, 3-20, 63.5%
It’s hard to know exactly what to make of North Melbourne’s 2024 – for all the undoubted improvement of their crop of young talent and the slow but definite formulation of a concrete game plan under Alastair Clarkson, they finished with a second straight three-win season and a percentage comfortably worse than in 2024.
This is Clarkson’s third full season in charge after being appointed as the man to turn things around for the Kangaroos after half a decade or more of nightmare performances; it’s time for improvement to no longer be measured in individual performances, but by wins and losses.
Plenty of planets have aligned – the Roos have had a largely injury free off-season, have a handy enough draw on paper, and have bolstered their list with a trio of handy ins in Caleb Daniel, Luke Parker and Jack Darling – Daniel in particular is exactly the classy ball-user North desperately need.
Slowly but surely, a dangerous-looking team has come together: a midfield spearheaded by stars of the game in Luke Davies-Uniacke and Harry Sheezel, their one-man forward line in Nick Larkey now getting a badly needed foil in the form of Darling, and a backline beginning to gel nicely around Charlie Comben, Jackson Archer and co.
I’m putting a minimum pass mark down of seven wins for the season – it might not seem like much, and probably won’t be enough to escape the bottom four, but it’s one extra win than they’ve mustered in the past two years combined.
Over to you, Clarko.
Prediction: 15th
Harry Sheezel. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
West Coast
16th, 5-18, 68.1%
On the one hand, West Coast were nowhere near as terrible in 2024 as in 2023; they won three more games, their percentage improved rapidly, they won a Derby, and in Harley Reid have the most eye-catching, spectacular young gun in the game.
On the other, though, they still only won five games for the season and had a sub-70 percentage. It’s a very low bar they were clearing to be better than the year prior.
Unlike North Melbourne, it’s not immediately obvious where the quick improvement will come from for the Eagles; new recruits Liam Baker, Jack Graham and Matthew Owies would be fine additions to improve a side with a stronger core, but none of them threaten to be game-changing inclusions even to the degree Reid was last year.
Plus, the loss of Tom Barrass leaves the backline almost entirely in the hands of the creaking Jeremy McGovern.
With a new coach in Andrew McQualter taking over, 2025 is a free swing for the Eagles – a chance to get his structures in order, work out what the best 22 is, and build them up from ground zero to once again be the force they’ve been for most of their history.
So if North’s benchmark is double last year’s wins, the Eagles would be more than satisfied with simply treading water on their 2024 returns. And if Reid can light it up a few times again, you’d suspect West Coast supporters would probably accept that.
Prediction: 17th
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Adelaide
15th, 8-1-14, 99.1%
After missing the finals courtesy of a goal umpire howler in 2023, the comedown for Adelaide in 2024, both for those within the four walls and the contingent of supporters without, must have been a tough pill to swallow.
To slump back to 15th on the ladder with just eight wins in Matthew Nicks’ fifth season in the helm is a major concern for both club and coach, and it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t be coaching for his future in 2025.
The Crows’ backline remains concerning, particularly among the talls, while Taylor Walker is fast approaching his use-by date in attack to leave Riley Thilthorpe the all-but-anointed next spearhead, and the midfield lacks superstar talent outside of Jordan Dawson and is reliant on James Peatling being the on-baller he looked like at stages for GWS in 2024.
Here’s the thing, though: someone always makes the eight from near the bottom, and the Crows are the most compelling case I can make of this year’s five.
There is obvious improvement to be had merely in the arrivals of Peatling, Isaac Cumming and Alex Neal-Bullen – the Demons premiership hero in particular is exactly the link man between midfield and attack Nicks has been crying out for.
They should have a far more accommodating fixture, with St Kilda, Essendon (away) and North Melbourne the perfect first three rounds to get off to the flyer they weren’t able to last year.
And the last item to add in their favour is: based on where Nicks has positioned the Crows since taking on the job at the end of 2019, they almost have to make finals for him to see a seventh season in charge.
Sure, it might seem illogical, but in three previous AFL Oracles, I’ve nailed two bottom-five teams to make the eight (Collingwood in 2022 and Hawthorn in 2024), and in 2023 was one hit-the-post decision from having my call for the Cows to reach finals be vindicated.
Please don’t let me down, Mr Nicks.
Prediction: 8th
Josh Rachele celebrates a goal. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
Melbourne
14th, 11-12, 98.5%
Logically, it should really be Melbourne who I tip to make the eight from the bottom five – indeed, I had them in there in my original AFL Oracle draft before pivoting late to the Crows.
The Demons were decent in 2024 if not a shadow of the team coming off three consecutive top-four berths; Clayton Oliver was a shell of his brilliant best, Christian Petracca was injured for the second half of the season then nearly walked out the door, and all the problems that caused their straight-sets September exits in 2022 and 2023 compounded into an annus horribilis for everyone at the club.
Effectively, thanks both to their patchy end to last season and the off-field turmoil that embroiled the Dees shortly after, no team enters the new season with more question marks over them – and it’s for precisely that reason that I can’t justify tipping them to make the eight.
Are Oliver and Petracca guaranteed to return to their best after full pre-seasons? I don’t think so, and I’m sceptical of just how far they can move the needle on themselves.
At some point, the clock will tick on Steven May and Max Gawn – for the former, it might have already started – and if either one of them has a Petracca-esque injury or simply loses five per cent of their top output, it’s hard to see any other Demon picking up the slack.
Max Gawn. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
The Dees were bottom five for points per match, and slid down to eighth-best for points against in the home-and-away season, suggesting they are slipping, too.
An 11-win season and percentage of near 100 is orders of magnitude better than some of the AFL’s dregs, and it’s easy to see how they can improve that substantially in 2025.
But plenty more needs to go right for them to make the eight this season than for Adelaide, in my opinion; so that, plus my prediction from earlier this year that Simon Goodwin will be gone by July, means the Dees miss out on my pre-season top eight.
Prediction: 11th
