Ranking 2022 AFL Premiership Chances From Outside The Top Four

Entering the AFL finals with a double chance is the best way to securing a spot in the final week of September, but a top three finish is what will almost guarantee you a huge shot at winning the premiership.

Since 1998, only the Western Bulldogs have won the flag from outside the top three spot on the AFL ladder, with their magical 2016 run from seventh in the record books and in the minds of every football fan.

Even making the Grand Final from outside that range is difficult – in the last 23 years, fourth place has made the big dance on three occasions, while Carlton, GWS and the Bulldogs made it from outside the top four in 1999, 2019 and 2021.

Still, it’s not impossible and simply finding form at the right time can be enough to give a team the right chance at ultimate success.

With the quality facing immediate elimination in the first week of finals, let’s have a look at their overall chances.

Fifth - Fremantle

The Dockers only had eight games against eventual finalists this season, finishing with a 4-3-1 record. Incredibly, they had three wins and a draw away from home in these games, including extraordinary wins in Victoria over Geelong and Melbourne, meaning playing the hosting role mightn’t be as big an advantage as it appears on paper.

Still, Fremantle was one of the better teams of the season defensively, conceding the fewest shots per inside 50 for the year, while conceding the second-fewest points overall. Crucially, the club is expecting Matt Taberner, Rory Lobb and Griffin Logue to play against the Bulldogs, while Nat Fyfe will ramp up preparation during the bye week to increase his fitness base.

Taking plenty of confidence out of the Round 21 victory against the Bulldogs, the Dockers scored in half of their inside 50s, stretching the undersized defence of the opposition with relative ease.

Fremantle sit in perhaps the easier side of the draw, with a trip to the MCG on the cards should they win their Elimination Final, a venue they’d love to visit multiple times this September.

Sixth - Brisbane

We broke the Lions down and questioned their Premiership credentials post-bye, when they were sitting first on the ladder with a 10-3 record. After that point, the Lions won just five of their next nine games, sliding all the way to sixth on the ladder.

They lost by a combined 121 points to Melbourne, coughed up a 42-point lead to Richmond and conceded 90 points on five occasions post-bye.

The Lions slid ranking fifth for inside 50s, 14th for tackles and conceded the ninth-most points in the league, with the tagging of Lachie Neale ultimately opening the door for teams to overwhelm Brisbane in the midfield and move the ball at will inside 50, to which the team’s defenders underperformed in 2022.

Teams simply don’t win Premierships in shootouts and need to have rock solid defensive structures in order to succeed. 

The Lions are also hosting Richmond in the first week of finals for the third time in four seasons, with the record split between the teams so far. Getting through that tough matchup will force to play at either the MCG or SCG, two grounds they have awful records at. 

Another underwhelming September looms for Chris Fagan and his team.

Seventh - Richmond

The team heading into the AFL finals with the most confidence despite finishing a lowly seventh, the Tigers haven’t lost by more than a goal since Round 6 and have managed to stay competitive against every opposition club they’ve come up against.

Richmond finished 2022 as the highest scoring team in the AFL and defensively, there was significant improvement in the final five rounds of the season, averaging 72.4 points conceded per game, well down on the average of 80.91 on the entire season.

Crucially, Richmond recaptured their best form in scoring, metres gained, inside 50s and inferred pressure, all measuring equally to when they won three Premierships in four seasons.

With all of Shai Bolton, Daniel Rioli and Tom J Lynch making the All-Australian squad, the Tigers have players in great form heading into finals in 2022.

The uptick in scoring and reduction in points conceded has coincided with the absences of Dustin Martin and Dylan Grimes, vital members of the team who will look to return during the final series.

Richmond heads into the first final with an incredibly productive record against Brisbane, losing just two of their last 19 games against the Lions, and will be buoyed by both their comeback win against them in Round 20, as well as the fact the Tigers’ most recent Premiership success came at the Gabba in 2020.

While the draw is difficult, needing to face a combination of Melbourne/Sydney and Geelong/Collingwood to make it to the Grand Final, confidence is high at Tigerland.

Eighth - Western Bulldogs

Luck was clearly on the Bulldogs’ side as coach Luke Beveridge hopes the team can go one better and create history with a Premiership from eighth spot in 2022.

It wasn’t a good season for the Bulldogs, conceding the eighth-most points in the AFL, which included an average of 103.4 points per game to the finalists they came up against post-bye.

There were certainly a couple of high spots, with the Round 19 victory of Melbourne proving to be decisive on the season, but the defensive woes were maintained consistently and simply cannot hold up in finals, although the team has no solution to being undermanned quality-wise in September.

Certainly, an upset victory over Fremantle would give them a strong chance to make it to an unlikely Preliminary Final.

The Bulldogs have won three of their last four against Fremantle while having the same record in Perth which will give them some confidence, while they’ve comfortably handled the Magpies in their last two outings, should that be the following matchup.

The trends are against the Bulldogs having an impact this September but 2016 taught us that sometimes, past stats don’t matter.

(Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)