Each year Foxtel pick improvers and decliners based on the previous season's close results. Theyre reasonably good predictions normally and in a nutshell they're tipping Melbourne to go from really average to average.

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Brutally unlucky team set to rise; warning signs finals duo will dip — AFL ladder verdict

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This tip is a bit harder to defend because Pythagoras doesn’t know they traded out two million-dollar (former?) superstar midfielders.

Christian Petracca was pretty good last year, and Clayton Oliver was fine, but their Demons got brutally unlucky in a series of close games. The overall record of 2-6 doesn’t sound historically bad, but did you actually see the games?

Remember the two Collingwood losses, both King’s Birthday and the final-round collapse? Remember Lachie Keeffe, of all people, kicking the winner for GWS? Heck, remember The Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera Game, aka the greatest comeback from a three-quarter-time deficit in V/AFL history?

The Demons were a properly bad team at the start of the season, but after their 0-5 start when Simon Goodwin and his coaching staff made some tweaks, they were simply average. They lost just three games by more than 20 points, and had some very solid wins including knocking off Brisbane in Brisbane.

Now, how much does the fact that they were an OK team by the end of the season matter when you’re projecting forward? Well, that’s the impossible question to answer… but it feels unlikely losing Petracca and Oliver is going to make them immediately better.

Just remember when you’re doing your predicted ladder that they weren’t what their record says they were; they’re not a seven-win team that’s getting worse, they’re a nine or 10-win team that’s likely taking another step backwards in their first year under a new coach."

2 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Each year Foxtel pick improvers and decliners based on the previous season's close results. Theyre reasonably good predictions normally and in a nutshell they're tipping Melbourne to go from really average to average.

Fox Sports

Moneyball theory reveals AFL teams to rise, fall this yea...

Brutally unlucky team set to rise; warning signs finals duo will dip — AFL ladder verdict

Improve

This tip is a bit harder to defend because Pythagoras doesn’t know they traded out two million-dollar (former?) superstar midfielders.

Christian Petracca was pretty good last year, and Clayton Oliver was fine, but their Demons got brutally unlucky in a series of close games. The overall record of 2-6 doesn’t sound historically bad, but did you actually see the games?

Remember the two Collingwood losses, both King’s Birthday and the final-round collapse? Remember Lachie Keeffe, of all people, kicking the winner for GWS? Heck, remember The Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera Game, aka the greatest comeback from a three-quarter-time deficit in V/AFL history?

The Demons were a properly bad team at the start of the season, but after their 0-5 start when Simon Goodwin and his coaching staff made some tweaks, they were simply average. They lost just three games by more than 20 points, and had some very solid wins including knocking off Brisbane in Brisbane.

Now, how much does the fact that they were an OK team by the end of the season matter when you’re projecting forward? Well, that’s the impossible question to answer… but it feels unlikely losing Petracca and Oliver is going to make them immediately better.

Just remember when you’re doing your predicted ladder that they weren’t what their record says they were; they’re not a seven-win team that’s getting worse, they’re a nine or 10-win team that’s likely taking another step backwards in their first year under a new coach."

Thanks Go Ds I am really hoping that our Ins > Outs, apart from Tracc. Can King & Co improve our list in ‘26, that is the burning question. Judging from the Training Reports I am in the affirmative corner, no bottom four for me, it’s pushing for 9-10th for me at this point in time barring a run of injuries.

38 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

Thanks Go Ds I am really hoping that our Ins > Outs, apart from Tracc. Can King & Co improve our list in ‘26, that is the burning question. Judging from the Training Reports I am in the affirmative corner, no bottom four for me, it’s pushing for 9-10th for me at this point in time barring a run of injuries.

It's so hard to know. And sorry for going over old ground here. But the article does discuss other teams too.

It's something to talk about at least.

Props to Max Laughton for mentioning Pythagoras 42 times in the article.

16 minutes ago, layzie said:

Props to Max Laughton for mentioning Pythagoras 42 times in the article.

On the banks of a river sat three American Indian women, sitting on three different animal skins. On a deer skin was a woman with her son, and the son weighed 140 pounds. On a buffalo skin was another woman, and her son who weighed 160 pounds. And on a hippopotamus skin sat an immense Indian woman, who weighed 300 pounds herself.
A Native American mathematician saw this and noted that the squaw on the hippopotamus was equal to the sons of the squaws on the other two hides.PM

3 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Clayton Oliver was fine

People rely far too heavily on stats.

13 minutes ago, monoccular said:

On the banks of a river sat three American Indian women, sitting on three different animal skins. On a deer skin was a woman with her son, and the son weighed 140 pounds. On a buffalo skin was another woman, and her son who weighed 160 pounds. And on a hippopotamus skin sat an immense Indian woman, who weighed 300 pounds herself.
A Native American mathematician saw this and noted that the squaw on the hippopotamus was equal to the sons of the squaws on the other two hides.PM

Squawk, squawk, squawk!

Tracc and Oliver were down in disposals in 25 compared to the premiership days. They were no longer the dynamic duo , perhaps they wanted out for some reason or other. Perhaps they just gave us the bare minimum. Oliver hasn't kicked a great deal of goals .Compare Season 24 and 25 Tracc 14,18 respectively, Oliver 3,4 respectively, Bont 19,32 respectively and Heeney 30,35 respectively. I know stats can be misleading.

This year we have a lot more fire power, our defence looks good. Culley should do well as a forward or a mid. Top 4 is on the cards.

1 hour ago, layzie said:

It's something to talk about at least.

Props to Max Laughton for mentioning Pythagoras 42 times in the article.

Archimedes was taken.

47 minutes ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

People rely far too heavily on stats.

...and wasn't actually me who said this. 😂

14 minutes ago, Coolx2 said:

Tracc and Oliver were down in disposals in 25 compared to the premiership days. They were no longer the dynamic duo , perhaps they wanted out for some reason or other. Perhaps they just gave us the bare minimum. Oliver hasn't kicked a great deal of goals .Compare Season 24 and 25 Tracc 14,18 respectively, Oliver 3,4 respectively, Bont 19,32 respectively and Heeney 30,35 respectively. I know stats can be misleading.

This year we have a lot more fire power, our defence looks good. Culley should do well as a forward or a mid. Top 4 is on the cards.

Don't forget Tracc only played half of 2024 and still almost kicked as many goals as he did in 2025. Apparently he dropped from 1.08 goals per game in 24 to 0.78 last year.

20 minutes ago, Coolx2 said:

Tracc and Oliver were down in disposals in 25 compared to the premiership days. They were no longer the dynamic duo , perhaps they wanted out for some reason or other. Perhaps they just gave us the bare minimum. Oliver hasn't kicked a great deal of goals .Compare Season 24 and 25 Tracc 14,18 respectively, Oliver 3,4 respectively, Bont 19,32 respectively and Heeney 30,35 respectively. I know stats can be misleading.

This year we have a lot more fire power, our defence looks good. Culley should do well as a forward or a mid. Top 4 is on the cards.

Petracca was returning after a life threatening trauma caused in the course of playing his usual game style. Oliver after unknown personal issues was also playing with a broken hand. Both were playing in a dysfunctional environment, which hopefully has been fixed.

52 minutes ago, dpositive said:

Petracca was returning after a life threatening trauma caused in the course of playing his usual game style. Oliver after unknown personal issues was also playing with a broken hand. Both were playing in a dysfunctional environment, which hopefully has been fixed.

Were they the cause of the dysfunction though that's the burning question??

32 minutes ago, Young Angus said:

Were they the cause of the dysfunction though that's the burning question??

That is a good question. But the coach and management must deal with that. That is what they are there for.

Pythagorean wins works well for the NFL because so many games are one score results decided by just a very small (often 1) number of defined plays. A hit or miss field goal or touchdown catch.

That can be true for close games of footy as well. A set shot hits or misses and that’s the ball game.

My concerns with using it for Melbourne 2026 is we lost a lot of close games last year because of lack of on field leadership, lack of fitness and lack of scoring power and I doubt any of those issues will be fully resolved.

We’re also going to be a drastically different side so it’s hard to predict we’ll be a tough opponent involved in a number of tight finishes. Our new game is designed to have a lot less gritty tight games too, it’s a lot more variable, it will hopefully work some days but there will be plenty it doesn’t work too.

2 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

People rely far too heavily on stats.

52.3% of people agree.

I'm not surprised we're second highest on the Pythagorean table. We haven't been able to win a close game to save ourselves over the last two years.

Even under Chaplin, two of the three games were a close loss.

I hope we do not continue to be the 'honourable loss' kings.

4 hours ago, Coolx2 said:

Tracc and Oliver were down in disposals in 25 compared to the premiership days. They were no longer the dynamic duo , perhaps they wanted out for some reason or other. Perhaps they just gave us the bare minimum. Oliver hasn't kicked a great deal of goals .Compare Season 24 and 25 Tracc 14,18 respectively, Oliver 3,4 respectively, Bont 19,32 respectively and Heeney 30,35 respectively. I know stats can be misleading.

This year we have a lot more fire power, our defence looks good. Culley should do well as a forward or a mid. Top 4 is on the cards.

Top 4? No [censored] way

Its more likely a pies fan will pay child support

I don’t really mind what our win/loss ratio is this year to be honest. I’d rather us cop a bunch of losses if it means it’s in service of cementing the foundations of a winning game plan (and list) for future seasons. Mitchell was copping loads of criticism in his second of two years at hawthorn because they were getting belted, but he didn’t blink and he didn’t change what he was doing to try and mitigate losses. And now they’re back to being a strong team.

Get another year into the kids, get a new midfield mix working together, get our forward line functioning, fix our forward connection and give Max Heath a full season.

This isn’t all going to click in 1 season, let alone, 1 pre-season IMO.

16 hours ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

People rely far too heavily on stats.

How many times have you said that?

3 hours ago, BoBo said:

I don’t really mind what our win/loss ratio is this year to be honest. I’d rather us cop a bunch of losses if it means it’s in service of cementing the foundations of a winning game plan (and list) for future seasons. Mitchell was copping loads of criticism in his second of two years at hawthorn because they were getting belted, but he didn’t blink and he didn’t change what he was doing to try and mitigate losses. And now they’re back to being a strong team.

Get another year into the kids, get a new midfield mix working together, get our forward line functioning, fix our forward connection and give Max Heath a full season.

This isn’t all going to click in 1 season, let alone, 1 pre-season IMO.

I partially agree with the sentiment, but:

1. I don't think King has as much capital at the MFC to tolerate as many beltings as Mitchell did at Hawthorn, comming off decades of sucess, the last one in particular. Hawthorn also conceded that they needed to pretty much gut the place and that they were going full rebuild, where as I think we're more rebuilding on the run Geelong style.

2. As much as King talks about attacking and taking on the game, I've also heard him talk that we need to also defend well in that phase. I also feel we have a much stronger defence that Hawthorn did during their rebuild, so hopefully we're not as exposed to the blowouts as they were.

I'm also not convinced that Hawthorn are the real deal either. They haven't actually won a premiership under Mitchell yet and although they've made finals a few time and played OK in those games, they could just as easily regress or go nowhere for a few years and big question marks will hang over Mitchell's ability to coach.

14 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I'm not surprised we're second highest on the Pythagorean table. We haven't been able to win a close game to save ourselves over the last two years.

Even under Chaplin, two of the three games were a close loss.

I hope we do not continue to be the 'honourable loss' kings.

I still hold that we were beaten by the umpires on Kings Birthday, so there's always that variable as well.

13 hours ago, deemoralizing67 said:

Top 4? No [censored] way

Its more likely a pies fan will pay child support

If they must breed, at least not paying child support will mean there's less likelihood their spawn will follow that despicable team of their father's.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

18 hours ago, Go Ds said:

Archimedes was taken.

Well at least Archimedes could have worked out the thing about a deer, buffalo and hippopotamus sitting on the river bank!