By Lorenzo Di-Mauro Hayes
If anything should be taken away from the first 10 rounds of the 2024 AFL season, it is there can be no doubting the passion footy fans have for the sport, and the numbers do not lie. Entering the 2024 AFL season, only one round, round 1 2017, saw a total overall attendance of more than 400,000. That mark has been breached on three separate occasions in the first two months of the new season — in round 1, the first weekend where every team played following the first edition of Opening Round, round 7, over the ANZAC Day long-weekend and Round 8, highlighted by many matchups between rivals.
Thursday Night games have brought in big crowds averaging 50,650 people in attendance just short of the 51,920 average attendance for Friday Night and gets better TV number 1.823 million to 1.805 million.
The anticipation for the season to come was like never before and there has been a fair share of events that have received animated discussion. Barring perhaps North Melbourne, just about any team can beat any other team come any given weekend, making it increasingly difficult to gauge where each team is at week in or week out. Ten rounds in and no team is left undefeated. Even teams up near the top of the ladder have question marks upon them that may not be answered for some time still.
The premiership contenders entering the season have had quite different experiences with how their seasons have panned out so far. Brisbane’s season has been very rocky, barely getting out of first gear. The Lions are stuck in 12th place, with 4 wins, 5 losses and 1 draw. They sit one game clear of Adelaide, who narrowly missing finals last season, not helped by an incorrect goal umpiring decision. The Crows have also shown form far below their best. Despite a gallant effort to the reigning Premiers over the weekend, they look like a team with a lot of work to do to even get within a sniff off the top eight. Yet, both Brisbane and Adelaide have percentages above 100.
The bottom end of the competition has seen some terrible performances, but teams like West Coast and Hawthorn have some exciting young players and could cause problems for teams who will need wins late in the season should they have to meet them. Melbourne learned that on the weekend, with a big loss to the Eagles, while Port Adelaide narrowly escaped with a one-point win over the Hawks, thanks to two goals in the last 33 seconds of the game.
For as poor as the Adem Yze start at Richmond has been — and it’s been poor — their first win with Yze at the helm was a win over the team now sitting at the top of the ladder. Anyone can beat anyone, except seemingly North Melbourne. The Clarkson coached Kangaroos have not won a game since the last game of last season. And had they lost that game, they would've taken Harley Reid at pick 1, who already has a few highlight moments and regained interested in a West Coast team on the receiving end of some battering's in 2023. For as bad as the Tigers look, the Kangaroos are bound to receive the first overall pick for season 2025.
St Kilda have had a rocky start to the season, losing narrowly to Geelong and Essendon early and almost got by GWS in Canberra. After that, it’s been disappointing match after disappointing match. After being pummelled by the Western Bulldogs, inaccurate kicking on behalf of Port Adelaide keeping them in that game, and a shock loss to Hawthorn, more questions have been asked of head coach Ross Lyon. But a coach who has been in a much hotter seat has been Luke Beveridge. The Western Bulldogs have, with little doubt, one of the most talented lists in the competition but sit with a record of 5 wins and 5 losses. Big margin wins over Richmond and St Kilda have helped their percentage, and the weekend's win over GWS gives Beveridge some breathing room. But with the team's next four games being against Sydney, Collingwood, Brisbane and Fremantle, with all contests being de-facto home games — they are all to be played at Marvel Stadium — poor performances across these will continue to mount pressure on Beveridge. Should that happen, the question then becomes what the club’s leadership will do next.
At the top end of the ladder though, there is not much separating the best teams. Geelong was the last team to lose a game, and the 'too-old, too-slow' mantra never seems to hamper a football club who has not finished in the bottom four since 1986. But three losses on the spin does raise questions about their form. They've had a tough schedule over the last month, and it doesn't get easier, facing GWS this week, a team with the best recent record at GMHBA stadium, which includes a win in Geelong last season.
A team they may face in September is Essendon. After four rounds the team looked a bit of a mess, but in front of a big audience on ANZAC Day, they started off the game so well, at one stage they had more goals than Collingwood had disposals. A brilliant display against GWS saw Essendon right in the thick of things, and they now find themselves second on the ladder. The finals winning drought is well over 7,000 days at this point, but their first finals victory since the 2004 Elimination Final — a game which had Michael Christian in the commentary box alongside Anthony Hudson for Channel 10 — is not out of the realms of possibility. They have been gifted a full three Friday Night games from round 16-23 so the expectation is high to perform in front of the nation.
Sydney has been the class act. Big moves in the off-season put the team on the map ahead of the 2024 season. Having come off a grand final appearance in 2022, Sydney squeezed into the top eight and fell narrowly to Carlton in a Friday night elimination final at MCG. Sydney’s season got off to a perfect start, dispatching Melbourne in the first game. Outside of a surprise loss to Richmond at the MCG, Sydney hardly looked like they would get beaten. They have not had to encounter too many of the top teams, and a Friday Night blockbuster against Carlton on the SCG turf last week put paid to any questions about this team, cruising to a 52-point win.
From an individual player standpoint, Charlie Curnow is joint leader in the Coleman Medal race with 29 goals, alongside Jesse Hogan, Ben King and Jake Waterman. Kyle Langford and Bailey Fritsch sit behind this group on 25 goals.
Isaac Henney looks like he will have a strong lead over the rest of the field on Brownlow Medal night — bookmakers have him comfortably ahead at $4.00 over Nick Daicos at $5.50, Zach Merrett at $7.50 and Patrick Cripps at $9 odds.
There is little room for error from any teams through the middle section of the season. The threat of being detached from a top four or top eight spot could become a real possibility should a team drop in performance for even one week. The competitiveness of the AFL season is sure to keep fans glued to their TV screen and racing to the turnstiles for the rest of the season.
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