Collingwood2
Geelong2
Adelaide1
Fremantle1
Melbourne1
West Coast1
Brisbane
Carlton
Essendon
GWS
Gold Coast
Hawthorn
North Melbourne
Port Adelaide
Richmond
St Kilda
Sydney
Western BulldogsPut every act in football next to what a club pays to produce it, and a hidden market appears — one that prices the rare, scoreboard moment at a fortune and the work in between at almost nothing.
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He is, in practical terms, untaggable on the ball: nobody has kept him away from it. But the ball he wins isn't always the ball that hurts you — and five teams have found the difference.
Not voted by umpires — measured in every game. Ranked by contribution across all 166 matches so far, three points to the best player on the ground each week. Nick Daicos leads it, four clear; the round-by-round and club tables tell the rest.
The goalkickers got the headlines, but the round's four elite defenders are the reason there was anything to finish.
Talor Byrne's number is one we should all be talking about — and there's even more to find, because Round 20's biggest young performances are a story in themselves.
After Round 20 the medicare ladder has two clubs beyond 200 estimated games for the first time — Port Adelaide on 240 and Essendon on 200 — while Richmond had three seasons end in a single week and the competition's bill grew by roughly 150 games, to an estimated 2,296. Fifty seasons have now ended league-wide. Every figure is a modelled estimate, not an official club count.
We found the untaggable one. The inverse read finds the best at the tag — and it isn't the player who racks up the most tackles. It's the one who trades his whole game to shrink someone else's.
Every October the conversation is about who's coming in. It's the wrong half of the equation — and the half that decides seasons is the half nobody prices.
A reigning best-and-fairest, an All-Australian defence, one player prised from all 18 rivals — and the whole 40-man Tasmania Devils list still slides under the salary cap, with the $5m signing bonus untouched. So could you build a better one?
How Fremantle earned it: 52 inside 50s to 35; 34 scoring shots to 13. The 112–42 was the fair end of it.
How Geelong Cats earned it: 62 inside 50s to 51; 32 scoring shots to 31. The 117–97 was the fair end of it.
How Collingwood earned it: 49 inside 50s to 47; 33 scoring shots to 23. The 108–74 was the fair end of it.