It’s time for the final home and away season Notebook!
This week’s entry is more of a summary of the season, touching on three topics:
1) Expected Score rankings (except for Wednesday night’s game)
2) Minutes Played By Age by team (except for Wednesday night’s game)
3) A personal top-five favourite games of the home and away season (except for Wednesday night’s game)
But before we get into it, a reminder…
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For those who missed the announcement, the Finals Dossiers will return for 2025.
In the sixth edition of the series, all of the top four teams will be covered, with each post covering a team’s evolution from week to week throughout the year, how they beat you, how you beat them, along with a couple of other tweaks to previous editions that won’t be revealed until the first post drops.
Depending on an individual’s Patreon subscription level, they’ll receive Finals Dossiers access at different times.
Here are all the details on what to expect.
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The Expected Score rankings
Everyone loves Expected Score, right?
Now we’re (basically) at the end of the home and away season, it feels like the best time to run a season long comparison.
What we have here is three-fold:
1) Every team’s ‘best’ performance against Expected Score
2) Every team’s ‘worst’ performance against Expected Score
3) The league-wide rankings for the season
Of course it doesn’t include the final game of the home and away season, taking place on Wednesday night, but close enough is good enough in this case.
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For those who have missed it, the last five Notebook entries on The Shinboner, plus…
The 2025 Team Structures Page
The different use of uncontested marks: Round 23’s Notebook
Houston’s role, Cameron’s focus, Carlton’s path: Round 22’s Notebook
Melbourne’s list and style assessment: Round 21’s Notebook
Hawthorn’s shift, St Kilda’s list approach: Round 20’s Notebook
Brisbane testing tweaks, a crack in Collingwood’s midfield: Round 18’s Notebook
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Every team’s minutes played by age
A favourite tool of mine to use throughout the year, and also historically, every team’s minutes played by age, broken down into individual age groups.
By now I’m assuming everyone knows the theory behind it so the data for today’s Notebook entry is presented without comment, the focus simply on presenting it for everyone to peruse and make up their own minds.
The first slideshow is the team rankings across the league in four different age categories, followed by each team’s individual breakdown, year-by-year.
Note: At some point over the next few months the above slideshows will either disappear or show an error message as everything is continually updated.
What won’t change is the access for those on the $10 Patreon Tier on this page.
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For those who have missed it, the last five North Melbourne match analysis pieces on The Shinboner, plus…
The 2025 Team Structures Page
North Melbourne’s Round 24 analysis v Adelaide
North Melbourne’s Round 23 analysis v Richmond
North Melbourne’s Round 22 analysis v GWS
North Melbourne’s Round 21 analysis v St Kilda
North Melbourne’s Round 20 analysis v Geelong
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My favourite five games of the season
Although 2025 hasn’t had the genuine quantity of quality games compared to previous seasons, there have still been plenty of matches to enjoy.
Most seasons I keep a running tally of what I’ve enjoyed the most, strictly by personal favouritism rather than any attempted neutral ranking of match quality.
These are my favourite five of the 2025 home and away season.
(Honourable mentions in chronological order: Melbourne v GWS in Round 1, St Kilda v Geelong in Round 2, Essendon v Sydney in Round 9, Geelong v GWS in Round 9, Gold Coast v Fremantle in Round 12, St Kilda v Melbourne in Round 20
5: Round 16, Sydney v Western Bulldogs
There was just so much going on at the SCG.
First there was the surface, looking like something out of Lava Tile Isle from Mario Party 2 with the way it was moving around at random intervals.
There was the desperation from Sydney, knowing they needed a win to keep any lingering hope alive in their season.
The Bulldogs, with their inability to stop anything, contributed their fair share to the ball pinging back and forth at will. The third quarter, split with six goals each, was rapid from all involved.
By the end, it was like two punch drunk boxers swinging wildly and barely able to keep their feet. Top notch entertainment all round.
4: Round 4, Gold Coast v Adelaide
I love games where at a certain point you realise, ‘both these teams are genuinely good’.
That was the reaction in the early season clash on the Gold Coast, the Suns and the Crows both looking to keep their undefeated streak going.
The margin was only above 12 points for roughly five minutes of real time as the two teams went back and forth. The strengths of both structures were on show, it all built to a crescendo, and there was genuine niggle at the end. What more do you need?
3: Round 8, Collingwood v Geelong
While the previous game was realising ‘both these teams are genuinely good’, this one was more ‘I already know both these teams are genuinely good and the game lived up to expectations’.
Watching two very good teams problem solve in real time is a treat. These two already put on one of my favourite games in recent memory with the 2022 Qualifying Final, and this one wasn’t significantly behind that, a constant push and pull throughout.
At various stages it looked like both teams might pull away, but a few tweaks here and there brought the margin closer again. And just when it seemed like Geelong had put the foot down, there was time for one more furious Collingwood comeback leading to a shot after the siren.
2: Round 19, Collingwood v Fremantle
Speaking of Collingwood comebacks, it doesn’t happen to them very often. And especially by a team who tend to play safe with their ball and player movement more often than not.
So when, after a high pressure, high quality three and a bit quarters, Collingwood stretched their lead to a game-high 22 points, it felt like there was only one winner.
Until all of a sudden the game changed dramatically with Fremantle looking to put more speed on the ball wherever possible. In the blink of an eye most of that 22-point margin was erased, setting up for a superb finish.
There were all sorts of game style options toggled through from both sides depending on the scoreboard, ending in Magpies holding off applying a tackle in the final minute, trying to draw prior opportunity free kicks when they did wrap a Docker up.
It all ended with a pulsating MCG and plenty to dissect afterwards.
1: Round 1, Richmond v Carlton
It can’t be anything else, made even more enjoyable by how it all went in stages.
First there was the collective mindset of ‘this is all going to script’ as Carlton jumped out of the blocks.
Then there was the ‘at least Richmond are keeping it respectable’ as they clawed their way back from a 41-point margin.
About halfway through the third quarter it was ‘wait a minute…’ as Richmond’s confidence grew.
Towards the back end of the term there was a collective realisation Carlton were melting down by the minute.
And it all built to a wonderful final term crescendo in front of 80,000 disbelieving fans on both sides, everyone trying to process what they were seeing.
Just tremendous stuff.