AFL history says three teams are in 2025’s premiership window. But the current No.1 seed isn’t

It’s the image that confirms teams are premiership contenders, but the club on top of the AFL ladder is missing from the key predictor.

Will Faulkner with Max Laughton

3 min read

April 28, 2025 - 10:27PM

AFL

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One of Fox Footy’s most treasured possessions is back for the 2025 season — the ‘Premiership Window’... and as of Round 8, the competition’s ladder leaders surprisingly aren’t in it.

The graphic, which has proven itself an incredibly accurate indicator of which clubs can win the premiership in any given year, maps out the offensive and defensive profiles of any team in the competition. Teams who rank in the top six for points for and points against, have won 18 of the last 20 AFL premierships.

By extension, the two teams in the last two decades that haven’t ranked inside the premiership window have still ranked inside the top six for defence; meaning that no team in that period has ever won a flag with a defence ranked seventh or lower in the league by the end of the home-and-away season.

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So, at the conclusion of Round 7, who currently sits inside the prized zone?

In short, Gold Coast, Geelong and Hawthorn are the three sides who are ranked top six for both points for and points against and subsequently, have the right profile to take out the 2025 premiership.

Given they have played just six games this season, it’s worth noting that the Suns (as well as Essendon) have played one less game than the competition, and therefore have an even smaller sample size than their rivals.

That being said, they currently average more points per game than any team this season, with only Adelaide’s aggregate greater than their own.

And if you are an Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood or Western Bulldogs fan, there’s plenty of room to be confident in your side’s stability at both ends of the ground, with the five clubs all on the outskirts of the window’s dimensions. As history tells us though, the Crows (seventh-best defence), Lions (eighth) and Bulldogs (10th) will need to improve on their defence to further their flag credentials.

“Interestingly for me is the Dogs, their offence has been okay, but they’re just leaking too many points. But their game seems in good shape; they’ll (still) want to improve that,” Collingwood legend Nathan Buckley told On The Couch.

“Hawthorn, the Cats and the Suns are in there. Collingwood (are the) number one defence, Giants number two defence and Carlton number three defence — they’re going to give themselves a shot, because they’re above the (defensive) line. They just need to improve their offence a little bit.”

Fox Footy's premiership window graphic after Round 7 of the 2025 AFL season.

For the first time in four years, last year’s premier Brisbane weren’t inside the premiership window after Round 8, going against the grain of clubs such as Melbourne in 2021, Geelong in 2022 and Collingwood in 2023.

Geelong and Sydney were the two teams sitting inside the premiership window, this time last year, with both sides making the preliminary and grand final respectively. Interestingly though, neither team was in the same window at the conclusion of the home-and-away season.

Fixturing this early in the season is the only deceptive element of the window this early on in the season. A strong example is Gold Coast, who have played all five of the bottom five teams on the ladder, plus Adelaide to start their season.

“The only rider we put on the ‘Premiership Window’ in the early stages of the season; you don’t know about the difficulty of the draw,” Buckley said later in the show.

Collectively across both metrics, West Coast are the worst-ranked side in the competition, ranking last for points for and second-last for points against.

THE FOX FOOTY PREMIERSHIP WINDOW

Qualifying teams (18 of the last 20 premiers)

Gold Coast Suns (4th for points allowed, 1st for points scored)

Geelong (5th for points allowed, 4th for points scored)

Hawthorn (6th for points allowed, equal-5th for points scored)

Qualifying (via defence only, two of the last 20 premiers)

Collingwood (1st for points allowed, 7th for points scored)

Carlton (3rd for points allowed, 10th for points scored)

GWS Giants (2nd for points allowed, 12th for points scored)

Not qualifying

Adelaide Crows (7th for points allowed, 2nd for points scored)

Western Bulldogs (10th for points allowed, 3rd for points scored)