Methodology

Every ladder on AFL Ladder is calculated from match results, then checked before it is published.

Data

Fixtures, results and standings come from an independent public AFL data feed covering every VFL and AFL match since 1897.

How a ladder is calculated

Only completed home-and-away games count; finals never change the ladder. A win is worth four premiership points and a draw two. Clubs are ranked by points, then by percentage (points for ÷ points against × 100). Clubs exactly level on both are shown with an equals sign.

Checks before publishing

Each update is compared, club by club, with independently published standings: games played, wins, losses, draws, points, points for, points against and percentage. If they disagree, the previous checked ladder stays up until they match. Our calculation reproduces the official final ladder for every season from 1897 to 2026.

Ladder after each round

A round's snapshot is published only once every game up to and including that round is complete.

Run home and finals status (method v1)

Each club's finals status is worked out for the top 4, the top 6 (straight into Finals Week 1) and the top 10, only once the season's full fixture is published. A club's most possible points are its current points plus 4 for every home-and-away game it has left; a game in progress counts as not yet played.

• Secured: fewer rivals than the places available can still reach the club's current points. A rival who could only draw level on points is counted as passing, because percentage can't be known in advance.
• Out / can't make: at least that many clubs already have more points than the club can still reach.
• Not yet decided: everything else. We don't predict results, give odds or say a club is "still alive".
• Once every home-and-away game is finished, the final checked ladder decides, except clubs exactly level on points and percentage across a cut, which stay undecided until the official tiebreak.

The method ignores the fact that rivals play each other, so it can be slower than a full analysis to declare a result, but it never declares one that could still change. It was tested against every possible outcome in over a hundred small leagues and against the 2026 season replayed round by round.

Run-home difficulty is the average current win rate of a club's remaining opponents (a draw counts as half a win; an opponent yet to play counts as 50%). It doesn't adjust for home ground or venue.

Results the AFL awards without a game being played, or points penalties, would make our ladder disagree with the official standings; the checks above then hold back the update, and the run home with it.

Times

"Updated" times are Melbourne time.