Wanganeen-Milera Leads Five Seasons Ended Before the Finals — the Audited Ledger Now Reads 74

After Round 22 the board absorbs two different things at once: a football week, and an audit. Port Adelaide added eight for an estimated 270 player-games lost — still 38 clear at the top — with Essendon second on 232. West Coast move up one to third on 208, GWS hold 204, and Sydney's corrected count of 180 carries the Swans up to sixth. Fremantle finish the round where they have lived all season, healthiest in the league on roughly 48, so the gap from hardest-hit to healthiest is now 222 games. Across all 18 clubs the season's casualty bill stands at an estimated 2,619. One honest note on the chips: the big rises at Essendon, West Coast, Brisbane and Richmond are the data audit re-benchmarking earlier episodes, not fresh damage — the bill was always that size; the ledger just caught up.

Port Adelaide's week was almost gentle by their standards — eight more estimated games, no new long-term names — and the season total still reached 270, the heaviest in football by 38 clear. Nine ended seasons at Alberton, the most anywhere, with three rounds left in the home-and-away year. Whatever the Power build for September is being built from a depleted room, and has been since autumn.

The week's football story is a heavy one. Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera's hamstring and Mason Wood's calf end both St Kilda home-and-away seasons — five Saints seasons now over. Sydney lost Will Edwards to a badly broken leg in the win over St Kilda and James Rowbottom to a broken hand in the same match; both are gone until at least September, making four ended seasons at the Swans, whose corrected count of 180 climbs to sixth. Tim English's knee ends his home-and-away year at the Bulldogs — finals the target. And the audit recovered five cases the earlier ledger had missed: Jack Lukosius (ten seasons over at Alberton), Sam Cumming and Rhyan Mansell (eight at Richmond), Tew Jiath (five at Collingwood) and Darcy Jones, whose knee is now a 2027 return at GWS. Ten more names on the register in one update — five new, five recovered. Adelaide, Hawthorn and Fremantle remain the only clubs yet to lose a season to injury.

So the count after Round 22, modelled rather than counted, and now audited twice over: Port Adelaide 270 at the top, Fremantle 48 at the bottom, 74 seasons ended league-wide — knees responsible for 30 of them and an estimated 628 games, more than the next three injury types combined. How much slack any of it earns a club is yours to weigh.