This Week In Football is a collection of some of the best in football currently outside the walls of AFL clubs or broadcasters. Each week a curated grab bag from regular contributors and special guests will provide insight into and beyond the game on subjects of their choosing. Got an idea or want to contribute? Email thisweekinaustralianfootball at gmail dot com
Before the bounce
Last week 16 AFL teams played eight games of mostly brilliant football – with an occasional dud quarter or two. At the lower level thousands of games were played, almost all worthy of more than just a footnote in this newsletter.
That’s hundreds of hours of football to analyse and breakdown, with the promise of thousands upon thousands to come this year.
But for much of the week the lead stories in much of the media haven’t revolved around the 2025 season, but instead fantasies of the 2026 one. Trade and free agency chat has dominated the media in the first week of April!
This week football will be played all across Australia and the world. Hell, the world might just be oval shaped.
Why? Is football so boring that we only talk about the game around the game now?
Surely we – as a society – can do better than this.
At least until the second week in April.
This Week In Football we have:
- A History of the Double Comeback
- Recreating Him in the Aggregate
- Small Sample Size Fun – Gold Coast Suns Edition
- Tristan Xerri plays it safe
- The last Ironman
A History of the Double Comeback
Emlyn Breese – CreditToDuBois.com
A quick one from me this week while I’m on holiday (got to see my first game at Adelaide Oval, great stadium!).
This came to my attention from a comment on r/AFL – the idea of a double comeback. Team A gains a significant lead, Team B reverses that into a significant lead of their own, but Team A comes back again and wins the match.
Originally a thirty point margin was floated as the threshold. However, since 2001 (the start of score-by-score progression on AFLTables) there have been 29 games in which both teams have held a lead of 30+ points at some point.
But in none of those did the team who surrendered the initial lead secure the win (including the Essendon v Carlton draw in Round 23 2014.)
If we drop our threshold down to 24+ points we get 5 examples of the double comeback, any of which are well worth a revisit (unless you were on the wrong end and the wounds are still too deep) and some are genuinely classics:
Adelaide v Melbourne 2002 Semi-Final
- Adelaide lead by 40 points
- Melbourne lead by 28 points
- Adelaide win by 12 points
Sydney v North Melbourne 2006 Round 10
- Sydney lead by 27 points
- North lead by 32 points
- Sydney wins by 7 points
Brisbane v Carlton 2008 Round 21
- Carlton lead by 24 points
- Brisbane lead by 32 points
- Carlton win by 6 points
Carlton v West Coast 2014 Round 6
- Carlton lead by 24 points
- West Coast lead by 1 point
- Carlton lead by 19 points
- West Coast lead by 24 points
- Carlton win by 3 points
Brisbane v Melbourne 2023 Round 18
- Melbourne lead by 25 points
- Brisbane lead by 1 point
- Melbourne lead by 5 points
- Brisbane lead by 28 points
- Melbourne win by 1 point
Recreating Him in the Aggregate
Joe Cordy
Who should you rely on in attack? Is it best to keep it narrow, and funnel your offense through a couple of reliable, elite key forwards?
Or should you spread your attack wide, never letting your opponents know for sure where the next shot at goal is coming from?
Every club will exist somewhere on this spectrum, often determined by the talent on their lists. In a league with a draft and a salary cap, it’s difficult for any team to find All-Australian level talent on all three lines. The reigning premiers however were one such team in 2024, managing to overcome injuries, poor results to start the season, a crushing grand final defeat and playing away from home three times in September to lift the cup.
As well as a top-tier coaching outfit that’s shown an ability to adapt and work their way back into games, their dominance was rooted in a spine of elite talent with complimentary supporting acts.
Through a shrewd combination of drafting, trades and free agency, Brisbane lifted themselves off the mat and transformed into one of the perennial contenders of the league, that managed to split the difference of the two philosophies of attack. Going into 50 they were anchored by dominant marking targets that could still rely on contributions from small forwards and overlapping midfielders.
| Year | Average Goal Scorers/gm | League Rank | Average Shots at Goal/gm | League Rank |
| 2017 | 8.6 | 4th | 24.0 | 14th |
| 2018 | 8.0 | 4th | 24.8 | 12th |
| 2019 | 8.2 | 1st | 27.4 | 2nd |
| 2020 | 6.8 | 4th | 22.4 | 1st |
| 2021 | 8.4 | 1st | 27.8 | 2nd |
| 2022 | 8.4 | 2nd | 27.0 | 4th |
| 2023 | 8.0 | 5th | 27.9 | 3rd |
| 2024 | 8.0 | 5th | 28.7 | 1st |
Credit: WheeloRatings.com
They’re now facing their biggest challenge since the beginning of Fagan’s tenure however, with Joe Daniher, the spear tip of this offence, announcing his sudden retirement at the end of the 2024 season.
Through his four seasons at the Lions, no player generated more shots at goal than Daniher, and few had a bigger overall impact on their team.
Credit: WheeloRatings.com
Despite getting off to a 3-0 start, the underlying numbers show an offence struggling to adjust to this loss. Their defence remains in the elite echelon, and their midfield has continued to gain territory, but their offence is currently sitting around league average in most metrics while lingering in 17th for shots per inside-50.
For the first time since their breakout 2019 season, Brisbane aren’t shaping to be one of the dominant attacks of the league. After only bringing in one senior player in Sam Day over the offseason, the challenge for the coaching staff is now how you recreate Daniher’s contribution to the team.
No individual on the list can recreate his output singlehandedly, and their current tall stocks have either proven they’re best utilised as 2nd and 3rd options, or are too young to shoulder the responsibility of being a premiership calibre team’s main avenue to goal. The only remaining answer, aside from treading water for the season and hoping to secure the signature of Jamarra Ugle-Hagan or Oscar Allen for future campaigns, is to rejig the entire offensive scheme to recreate pieces of his contribution from a spread of players.
A feat easier said than done.
Small Sample Size Fun – Gold Coast Suns Edition
James Ives
Across 2024, Damien Hardwick’s Gold Coast Suns showed glimpses of the juggernaut many anticipated. A dominant front half game, a relentless intensity in the contest, and an imposing spine that caused plenty of sleepless nights for opposition coaches. In 2025, Gold Coast has doubled down on their strengths, while adding some polish through personnel and style. If the early evidence is anything to go by, Gold Coast might have finally arrived.
The 2025 version of the Suns are a historically dominant front half team, creating 41% of their turnovers in the front half, compared to their opposition average of 24% (+17%). For all the talk of attractive back half ball movement, this brand is a proven recipe that stacks up in the regular season and big finals.
Gold Coast generates 41% of turnovers in its front half compared to 24% for its opposition.
It starts with their work in the contest, led by the bulldozing Matt Rowell (ranked 2nd for contested possessions) and slice-and-dice style of Noah Anderson (ranked 3rd for uncontested possessions). The Suns are +16.5 for clearance differential per game. A remarkable +8.8 more than the 2nd placed side (Essendon).
The Suns prove that it’s not just about winning clearances but also about how they win them. There’s been a noticeable improvement in Rowell’s explosion from stoppage. In 2024, Rowell averaged 3.1 metres from pre-clearance possession to disposal, which ranked him 41st out of 114 players. In 2025, Rowell averages 5.7 metres, ranking him 4th out of 116 players – a dramatic shift that would rank him alongside the likes of De Goey, Horne-Francis, Reid and Bolton who reached this threshold in 2024.
These high-quality bursts collapse opposition defenders inside the contest and lead to cleaner exits and numerical advantages in stoppage transition.
These cleaner exits also lean into another part of the game the Suns have addressed in the offseason – their entries inside 50. In 2024, the Suns ranked 18th for retention rate and 2nd for distance to goal from kicks inside 50, indicating they were happy to go long and bomb their way inside 50. In the small sample from 2025, they rank 1st for retention rate and 18th for distance to goal.
In 2024, almost 10% of their kicks from the MID-DEF zone went inside 50. In 2025, they’ve barely had one… It’s almost as if Hardwick has implemented a hard and fast rule where players must only kick inside 50 if they are past the halfway line. Part of the improvement can be attributed to the targeted acquisitions of Noble and Rioli. These dynamic half-backs lurk around contests, helping the Suns go from pressured to unpressured at ground level and change lanes in the MID-FWD zone to open pockets of space inside 50.
Gold Coast tends to exit the defensive half along the lines, rather than change angles or switch the ball.
This early in the season, it’s hard to decipher what’s real and what’s not. There’s more noise than ever, with Cyclone Alfred disrupting an already uneven fixture. But the Suns are loud… everyone hears them. Especially the Adelaide Crows. A team who leads the league in marks in between the arcs. The ideal antidote to a dominant front half team.
Buckle up.
Tristan Xerri plays it safe
Sean Lawson
Rucks aren’t always known for their silky skills and they often put fan hearts into mouths when it comes to any sort of complicated disposal. Some new model rucks play more expansive games but Tristan Xerri might be pioneering new ground in terms of playing it safe like a traditional hulking ruck.
Here’s a chart of the metres gained for every player with over ten disposals a game this year, with Xerri’s 1.8 metres gained per disposal standing out as the only player of any disposal volume moving it forward by less than 4 metres per kick or handball.
At 202cm tall, if Tristain Xerri were to simply fall forward onto his face with his arms outstretched every time he got the ball, he would be taking the pill further towards goal than his average disposal does.
This is early days but he’s certainly on historical pace – nobody since 2012 has gained so little ground while having so much of the footy. He is outstripping ruck greats like Aaron Sandilands and Shane Mumford
So how is he doing this? Xerri has used the ball between 17 and 20 times each game this year. Those numbers for possessions are in the top range for a primary ruck. He’s kicking either 4 or 5 times, handballing 13 or 15 times. He’s a model of consistency.
A lot of disposals are of course minimal handballs to nearby opponents, but the short range kicks are also tamping down his gained ground. Here’s a look at his four kicks against Adelaide:
These include two ineffective hack kicks off the ground, an ungainly looking but fully effective kick on the run to a lead inside 50, and a free kick that didn’t travel the required 15. These are not exactly long range roosts.
To be clear, Xerri is being talked about for All Australian considerations. He rates well for score involvements, his hitout stats are near the top of the tree.
His role is clear, his game is effective. He’s just sticking to his strengths and not getting too adventurous.
The last Ironman
Cody Atkinson
Every year someone has to be the last player standing on the ground. The most reliable player not just for his team, but in the league.
With 22 players per team (let’s ignore the sub for a second) a player should be on the field for about 82% of the game if everyone takes an even break.
Of course, that’s rarely how it breaks down. Some players record as little as 60% of their teams’ Time on Ground across the course of a year – such as the Sydney’s Braeden Campbell did last year.
Others barely take a rest.
In 2014 Richmond’s Troy Chaplin spent practically the entire season on field, taking just three or four minutes on the bench in their round 14 match against Sydney. That’s the best mark in the last decade, but are any players on track to match that this year?
Two players are still alive to beat Chaplin’s mark – Rory Lobb and Callum Wilkie. You’ll note a very heavy key position defender representation on the list, but most have at least taken a breath on the sidelines this year.
Having players do extended stints on the ground isn’t just for show, it helps teams operate more smoothly. These anchors allow more rotations to be distributed elsewhere, giving burst players more rest time to do what they do best. It also provides key leadership in roles that desperately need it.
Wilkie (who I’ve written about and interviewed for the ABC) is no stranger to staying on the field. In all of the last four seasons Wilkie has finished the season with the most total time on ground (excluding finals). Not only is he one of the game’s best defenders on the field, he never seemingly wants to get off it.
I mean, at least it stops him from acting.
Many will be hoping that the ever-memeable Lobb can take the crown, but if you come for the king you better not miss…time on ground.
Around the Grounds
Here’s some more stuff that isn’t from here but is good to take in about footy
- The writing of Jonathan Horn is as good as any sports writer in the country right now. This look at the recently deceased Andrew Krakouer is amongst his finest.
- Adam Simpson (and John Longmire) continue to get rave reviews for their weekly segments on Fox Sports. There’s a good reason for that – people are crying out to find out the way the game is actually played. It’s not 100% perfect, and not necessarily how every team plays, but is desperately needed in the landscape.
- The Hobart Stadium continues to draw the focus of the entire Tasmanian political ecosystem. It seems like almost anything could happen from here. If you want to read the report that sparked the current discussion, here it is.
- This look at the Saints from One Percenters is well worth a look, particularly around their different modes of play.
- Finally, this goalkickers ranking game is too good not to recommend here.
This was this week in football