2025 Round 3: Heroes and Zeros

I do love the convenience of AFL player ratings as they are metrics that purport to aggregate all key statistical measures of footy player performance in any one game into one neat number.

Whether that is easy to understand or not can be up for debate (but if you want to know more on how they work, this blog post by fellow footy stats nerd Emlyn Breese is a must read), however they can also tell an interesting, sometimes different story, to what you see in the mass footy media.

With that in mind, I wanted to share a regular column on those players who were influential and those who may have underperformed from week to week which I've titled heroes and zeros, and I've come up with a fairly rough method for outputting some player rating statistics.

Rough method

• Remove any player who played less than 50% game time. While I haven't done the maths on this, I'm fairly certain that those who are subbed on and off typically always have less rating points. Using 50% is a pretty good rule of thumb to account for this (I may adjust this at a later date).
• Then take the top 5 and bottom 5, and voila, there's a list of who is good and who isn't good week to week.
• Add in some explanatory ranking metrics that might help folks understand why a player was rated high or low. In the case of the zeroes, I still rank them by their highest areas - because I think that also shows why they didn't play all that well.

...And this is what the magic cauldron produced!

Let's dive into why these players bookend the player ratings for the third round of the 2025 season.

The Heroes

I watched quite a few of the games this weekend, but not Fremantle's win over West Coast, and while I heard the usual Monday morning footy media hail the performance of now 4 time Glendinning-Allan medal winner Caleb Strong, the AFL player ratings rated his teammate Luke Jackson as not only the best on ground in that game, but the highest rated AFL player of round 3 with a huge 24.7 ratings points

Jackson rated highest on ground due to his dominant ruck performance, recording 35 hitouts, 4 intercept marks, and 9 score involvements—leading multiple key metrics across both teams. So....perhaps the medal went to the wrong player? Well, at least according to player ratings data it did!

While Matt Rowell did receive many of the plaudits in the Suns domination of the Melbourne Demons, it was actually his midfield compatriot Noah Anderson that rated slightly higher than Rowell, managing to rate 21.8 points to Rowell's 20.7.

Anderson and Rowell were rated among the top performers due to their strong all-round contributions. Anderson amassed 10 score involvements and 20 pressure acts, while Rowell delivered elite pressure with 7 tackles and 23 pressure acts, along with 2 goal assists—highlighting their dominance in both contested work and transitional play.

We shouldn't ignore the contribution of Nick 'The Wizard' Watson in the Hawks come-from-behind victory over GWS in a windy Tasmania, where he racked up 21.2 player ratings point (splitting the Suns duo of Anderson and Rowell).

Watson ranked well due to his well-rounded forward-half impact: he registered 3 shots at goal (1 goal, 1 behind), 9 score involvements, 5 tackles, and 14 pressure acts, blending offensive threat and defensive pressure that made his contributions highly valuable and efficient in the overall team context.

Rounding out the top 5 was emerging tall forward tour de force Sam Darcy with 20.6 ratings points. Darcy was rated highly due to his strong aerial and forward-half impact: he recorded 4 shots at goal (kicking 2.1), 3 contested marks, 2 intercept marks, 8 score involvements, and 12 pressure acts. Weirdly - he didn't poll any coaches votes despite his (statistical) BOG performance!

The Zeroes

So, as mentioned, I was interested also in seeing the 'under performers' - those players who played a lot of game time but seemingly had little influence on the outcome.

Weirdly, while the Free v West Coast game had the best rated performer of the round in Luke Jackson, it also had one of the worst in poor Patrick Voss who polled a -2.7 rating, largely due to inefficient conversion and missed opportunities.

Despite having 6 shots at goal, Voss only kicked 1 goal and 3 behinds, wasting valuable chances; combined with just 1 tackle, no intercepts, and limited overall impact, his rating reflects a highly inefficient and low-impact game relative to opportunity.

Perhaps a bad round all round for folks with the last name of Voss? Maybe, but it was also pretty bad for Melbourne's Steven May, who equalled Voss' rating score of -2.7.

The Demons were pretty bad against a rampaging Suns team, but May had a game to forget. Despite 2 intercept marks and 4 score involvements, May recorded zero tackles, just 1 pressure act, and no influence on the scoreboard—indicating a game where he was largely ineffective both in stopping opposition attacks and generating rebound.

As for the other 'zeroes', here's a bit more on why they rated poorly.

• Noah Long (West Coast): Managed just 4 score involvements and 5 pressure acts with no tackles or goal impact, reflecting a low-pressure, low-influence game from a small forward role.
• Blake Acres (Carlton): Despite being a link-up player, Acres had minimal scoreboard impact (0 goals, 1 behind), only 3 pressure acts, and just 1 contested mark, which limited his rating contribution.
• Mabior Chol (Hawthorn): Had 3 shots at goal but returned only 1 goal and 2 behinds, with just 2 score involvements and zero tackles, indicating inefficient finishing and a lack of defensive pressure. Must be disappointing considering how good he was against Carlton the week before.

Anyway, that concludes my first 'heroes' and 'zeros' for this season - and this blog! I hope you enjoyed reading - and if you want to read more footy analysis - particularly if you follow the Lions - you're more than welcome to sign up for the newsletter version, which can be done at the bottom of the screen.