GWS Add 46 Games in a Week as Fourteen More Seasons End — Port Adelaide's Bill Reaches 262
After Round 21 the medicare ladder has Port Adelaide on an estimated 262 games and GWS surging to third on a 46-game week — the biggest single jump of 2026 — while fourteen more seasons ended in one window, taking the league's count from 50 to 64. The competition's bill now stands at an estimated 2,439 games. Every figure is a modelled estimate, not an official club count.
After Round 21 the top of the board has a new shape. Port Adelaide added 22 for an estimated 262 player-games lost — still the heaviest bill in football, now 53 clear — and Essendon hold second on 209. Behind them, GWS's 46-game week, the biggest single jump of 2026, carries the Giants up two rungs to third on 199, pushing West Coast (185) and Richmond (178) each down one. Melbourne's 27-game week — the second-biggest — lifts the Demons to sixth. Fremantle remain the healthiest list in the league on roughly 43, so the gap from hardest-hit to healthiest is now 219 games. Across all 18 clubs the season's casualty bill reached an estimated 2,439 — and fourteen more seasons ended in this one window, the most of any update this year, taking the league's count from 50 to 64.
Port Adelaide's lead is no longer just about the names who went down in autumn. Logan Evans' shoulder and Kane Farrell's hip were both ruled out for the year this week — nine ended seasons at Alberton, the most in the league — on top of the long-standing absences of Connor Rozee, Sam Powell-Pepper and Ollie Lord. At 262 estimated games, the Power's toll is 53 clear of Essendon's, and more than six times Fremantle's. Every selection meeting for the run home starts from that arithmetic.
GWS had the week the ladder will remember. Finn Callaghan's ankle and Logan Smith's knee ended two seasons outright, and Leek Aleer's hip and Jesse Hogan's finger were upgraded — four seasons gone in one window, eight in all, with fifteen names out at once, the longest active list in the league. West Coast's pair of upgrades, Sam Allen and Reuben Ginbey, makes it eight ended seasons in the west too — level with the Giants, behind only Alberton. Melbourne's 27 came chiefly from Jed Adams' knee. And the quiet story: Toby Conway's foot is Geelong's first ended season of 2026 — the Cats' clean sheet is gone, leaving Adelaide, Hawthorn and Fremantle as the only clubs yet to lose a season to injury. Thomas Sims (Richmond), Max King (St Kilda), Zane Duursma (North Melbourne) and Riley Garcia (Western Bulldogs) round out the fourteen.
So the count after Round 21, modelled rather than counted: Port Adelaide 262 at the top, Fremantle 43 at the bottom, 64 seasons ended league-wide. Knees own an estimated 628 games — more than the next three injury types combined — and shoulders have overtaken hamstrings for third on the cost sheet. How much slack any of it earns a club is yours to weigh.
That is what each club has lost to injury after Round 21, estimated — offered as context, never an excuse. How much slack you cut a side for its casualty list is yours to weigh.