PLAYING STYLES OF AFL TEAMS IN 2025 PART 2

                                          

Before the commencement of the 2025 AFL season, a bunch of Twitter football stats accounts posted reviews of each team based-on the season previous which I did link to in this particular post back in February.

After the shit show that was AFL-media in 2025 and the just-passed trade period, if it's real game analysis you're after then you should be following these guys:

Ricky Mangidis, James Ives, Cody Atkinson, Emlyn Breese and One Percenters

There's a few others that popped up through the course of the year but for the sake of this post, I'll keep at this lot as this information mostly comes from them with some other bits from other sources like Fox Footy etc.

What you'll see is little tid-bits I've chosen from most AFL teams that describes how they play, why they play like that and the results they get from doing so posted prior and during the 2025 AFL season.

For community coaches, you might recognise a team's traits in your own team's and then gather some idea's on how to make it more effective for your own team.

FREMANTLE

• Defend with the ball
• No team needed more possessions to go from defensive 50 to forward 50 and by the time they made it there the opposition had all their defenders in there

GEELONG

• More ruck contests than any other side – very stoppage heavy and now rely on the post-clearance game v actual clearances by taking a player out of stoppage and dropping them a kick behind play, using stoppages to establish structure around the ground
• Dempsey starts on the wing but then at a mid 50 stoppage a half forward (Mannagh/Miers) comes up to take his man. Even if Geelong lose the clearance they are covered with their spare defender + the half forward covering the opposition wing. If Geelong can win the ball back quickly then Dempsey leaks out towards goal on his own

GOLD COAST

• In 2024 their poor mid-forward connection comes from not having a true link at half forward
• Were 16th for kick:handball ratio in 2024
• Had the highest % of long kicks in 20241
• Were 8^th for forward 50 retention in 2024
• Rowell averaged 3.1m from pre-clearance possession to disposal in 2024 (41^st) v 5.7m 9 (4^th) in 2025 which collapses the opposition into the contest leading to cleaner exits + number advantages on the outside. This also resulted in higher quality inside 50’s in 2025 where they were 18^th for retention in 2024 v 1st in 2025 + 2^nd for kick length going inside forward 50 in 2024 v 18th in 2025

GWS

• At stoppage their fast high half forwards sit just outside the contest available for handball receives or to disrupt the opposition doing the same
• Finn Callaghan v Colingwood had 11 carries over 5m from handball receives or groundball - 4 more than any other Collingwood player and almost all in the corridor - for 186m gained alone

HAWTHORN

• Flooded corridor to deny opposition space in the central zone with half forwards pushing up high but also wide, preventing the opposition from handball receives on the boundary side of the mark and limiting overlap opportunities. This forced the opposition to funnel the ball into contested areas in the corridor where they created kill zones via numbers/superiorities at ground level to force turnover’s and spread rapidly. With turnovers occurring closer to the middle of the ground than the wing they were much harder to stop
• Forcing wide is great defensively but it makes equally as hard for you offensively v forcing them corridor to your numbers is great for you offensively
• High half forward’s stay wide allowing the Hawks to circumvent opposition corridor defensive schemes
• All their defenders are 3^rd tall types who can compete in the air and at ground level, that can intercept and get involved in transition offense
• Love feeding back out of contest with tacklers overloading the opposition ball carrier
• On kick out they position 14 players on 1 side of the ground and if the defense fails to react then they have great numbers there but if the defense does react/shift to counter it then they'd have 1 - 2 of their quickest players sprinting into space on the weak side that just opened up from the defense shifting