AFL 2024 Season Winner Betting Preview – Odds, Tips & Predictions

This feels like the hardest season in which to pick a winner in decades. The Swans, of course, established themselves as clearly the team to beat over the course of the first half of the season or so, but five losses in six games – including one by over 100 points at the hands of the Power – made them look a hell of a lot more shaky. They still finished on top of the ladder and will enter the finals series as the Premiership favourites, but not by a whole lot. A whole lot more than usual, it feels as though any team in the top eight could feasibly win the Grand Final – after all, the 8th placed Blues were the second favourite just a few short weeks ago, while the Hawks and Bulldogs in the spots immediately above them are two of the most dangerous in the league. An enthralling finals series awaits, and below we take a look at the chances of every finals team of ending September holding the Premiership cup aloft. 

Updated: 29 August, 2024

As mentioned above, the Swans were clearly the best team in the league over the first half of the season. They won 13 of their first 14 games to establish a seemingly unassailable lead atop the ladder, and with a percentage streets ahead of any other team in the league and no one putting their hand up as their biggest contender, they were streets ahead in the Premiership betting. But a couple of tight losses led to a couple of hefty ones, and their lead at the top of the ladder dwindled to the point where they needed to win a couple of games late to stay there. But win them they did, knocking off the Pies, Bombers and Crows in the last three weeks of the home and away season to finish top with a 17-6 record. But though they recaptured some form in those games, they were far from their dominant best, just sneaking over the line against the Magpies then winning comfortably but not spectacularly against the Bombers and Crows. They also won’t be rewarded as much as they deserve in their Qualifying Final in terms of home ground advantage, with their cross-town rivals in the Giants waiting for them. But for all of those concerns, the best footy that the Swans have played this year is better than any other team in the league. Led by Isaac Heeney, Errol Gulden and Chad Warner, one of the more unique and talented trios in the league, and with the likes of Callum Mills and Luke Parker having returned from long-term injuries to support them alongside James Rowbottom and co, this is a midfield as good as any. They might not have the key position stocks up forward of some other teams, but a midfield that good is more than capable of covering up that concern. It’s been a topsy turvy season for the Swans, but they still deserve to enter the finals as the Premiership favourites.

• What brings them here? The Swans electric first half or so of the season meant that, even with everything that went wrong later in the year, they still finished on top of the ladder, and with a pretty clean bill of health entering September they will be hard to beat.
• What has changed? The Swans had a number of significant retirements, none more so than Lance Franklin, who was joined in hanging up the boots by Tom Hickey and Paddy McCartin. Dylan Stephens was traded to the Kangaroos, but the Swans picked up a couple of big names in Taylor Adams and Brodie Grundy, as well as James Jordon and Joel Hamling.
• Injury update: Justin McInerney and Tom Papley are in a race against the clock to be fit for week one of the finals, though they look more likely than not. Sam Wicks is suspended until Preliminary Final week. 

Bet on the Swans to win the AFL Premiership @ $3.75 with PlayUp 

Wouldn’t the AFL love having the two Sydney-based teams right up the top of the Premiership betting? The Giants, of course, are on the hunt for the first in their short history, and it would surprise no one if they got there. They had a great start to the season but hit a wall for an extended period through the middle parts of the year, and for a time looked as though they might actually miss out on the finals. But seven consecutive wins put paid to that idea and saw them jump inside the top four, and ultimately Brisbane’s tight loss to the Magpies in Round 23 saw them hang onto 4th position and earn themselves a double chance. They will have a tough Qualifying Final against the Swans, but theirs is a super talented list, and while plenty of that is relatively young, they have a large number of experienced stars who have been all the way to a Grand Final in 2019, and a couple of Prelims too – including as recently as last year. At their best, the Orange Team is hard to stop, with midfield bulls like Tom Green running the show in the engine room, one of the best backlines in the league led by Sam Taylor locking down opposition forwards and with Lachie Whitfield making a mess of opposing defensive structures, while Jesse Hogan has established himself as unequivocally the best key forward in the league this year alongside the ever-dangerous Toby Greene. When everything is humming for the Giants, they are great to watch for neutral supporters and frightening for their opposition, and if they can carry through the form that they displayed for the last couple of months then they are every chance of winning their first ever Premiership this year.

• What brings them here? The Giants, like the Swans, have had something of an up and down year, but seven wins in their last eight games saw them sneak into the top four, and earn the double chance in a finals series they enter in some red-hot form.
• What has changed? Not too much changed for the Giants in the offseason. Phil Davis and Daniel Lloyd both retired while Matt Flynn went to the Eagles as a free agent. Their inclusions were all draft picks.
• Injury update: Both Isaac Cumming and Jake Riccardi should return for week one of the finals, as will Lachie Ash from suspension. Josh Fahey will be available later in the finals if they get here and need him.

Bet on the Giants to win the AFL Premiership @ $5.50 with PlayUp 

It’s going to be a theme throughout this article, but Port Adelaide are another side which has endured a topsy turvy year. For much of it, they have been regarded as good but not quite good enough to match it with the best, and at one point Ken Hinkley seemed likely to struggle to make it through the entirety of the season. But indicative of just how tight the season is, it took only a slight uptick in form for them to power their way up the ladder, and wins in eight of their last nine games ultimately saw them climb all the way up to 2nd spot. Which means, of course, that they have earned themselves an all-important home Qualifying Final, and can theoretically march their way into the Grand Final without having to leave Adelaide Oval – something which would have seemed close to unfathomable a couple of months ago. There is plenty of talent in this side, particularly through a midfield which boasts Zak Butters, Jason Horne-Francis, Connor Rozee, Ollie Wines and Willem Drew, while they have no shortage of dangerous forwards floating around – albeit enigmatic ones. Importantly, they enter the finals series in scintillating form – throughout that aforementioned winning run nearing the end of the home and away season, they beat the Dockers, the Blues, are the only team to really pump the Bulldogs in a long time, and most impressively of all, beat the Swans by a ridiculous 112 points. The Power may not be given the respect that they deserve by plenty of people in the AFL world, but they have put themselves in a position from which a Premiership is a very real possibility, and as they have shown, on their day they are good enough to beat anyone. 

• What brings them here?  The Power seemed destined to be battling it out with a host of other teams for positions lower down in the top eight, but with eight wins from their last nine games they climbed all the way to second.
• What has changed? The Power did a bit last off-season, bringing in Esava Ratugolea, Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, Ivan Soldo and Jordon Sweet. Xavier Duursma was traded to the Bombers, while Tom Jonas and Scott Lycett retired.  
• Injury update: Each of Trent McKenzie, Sam Powell-Pepper and Jeremy Finlayson will be unavailable for the rest of the season through injury, while in a big blow, so too will Dan Houston as a result of a lengthy suspension. 

Bet on the Power to win the AFL Premiership @ $6.00 with UniBet

The Lions went agonisingly close to probably entering the finals series as either favourites, or second favourites just to Sydney, with their form over the second half of the season as good as anyone’s and, for a long time, seeming likely to land them a top four spot and subsequent double chance. But as they did on Grand Final Day last year, the Magpies broke their hearts. A one-point loss in Round 23 ultimately cost them that top four spot, with the Lions instead finishing in 5th – just half a game behind both the Giants and the Cats. They would have been every bit deserving of the double chance, something to which their percentage of 121.9% - significantly better than each of the three teams above them – points to, but alas, they fell short and if they want to win the flag, will have to go the long way round. First up is a clash at the Gabba against the Blues, the same fixture which they won in last year’s Preliminary Final, and against a banged up Blues outfit they will be favoured to win that game – though we all know what the Blues can do on their day. But there is no doubting that the Lions are more than good enough to win the Grand Final. There is an argument to be made that they are the best team in the league, but history tells us that it is very, very difficult to win the Grand Final from outside the top four. If ever there was a season where it was going to happen, however, it’s 2024. The Lions are probably the best team outside the top four, and that is saying something given the quality of the other three and in particular the Bulldogs and the Hawks. A lot needs to go right for them to go all the way from 5th spot, but the Lions have the ability to do it. 

• What brings them here? The Lions, after a slow start to the season, gradually hit their straps and eventually looked like the best team in it, but ultimately that slow start cost them a top four spot and potentially a Premiership – though they are good enough to do it from outside the top four.
• What has changed? Jack Gunston and Tom Fullarton were traded and Jack Gunston retired, while their ins included Tom Doedee from Adelaide and Brandon Ryan from Hawthorn.
• Injury update: The Lions haven’t been full strength all year, with each of Lincoln McCarthy, Keidean Coleman, Darcy Gardiner and Tom Doedee out for the season with ACL tears. 

Bet on the Lions to win the AFL Premiership @ $7.50 with UniBet

The team with the least chance of winning the flag of all those in the top four according to bookmakers, the Cats have had a season which pretty closely mirrors that of the Giants. They started off brilliantly, then fell in a heap only to bounce back just in the nick of time to charge back into the top four. They won seven of their last nine games and four of their last five to finish at 15-8, continuing their ridiculous and seemingly endless stretch at the top of the AFL ladder. Of course, they missed the finals last year, but that has proved a real rarity and came just a year after they won the flag convincingly in 2022. No one would argue that the Cats were a clear top four side this year, but as this team always does, they just found a way, and have now put themselves in a position from which another Premiership is within their grasp. This is a different incarnation of the Cats; Patrick Dangerfield is still very, very capable but is no longer the player he once was, with Max Holmes now leading the charge in the midfield. Tom Hawkins has been replaced by Shannon Neale and may not get his way back in, while the Henry brothers cause problems wherever they find themselves. There are, however, still some old hands who may ultimately decide how far the Cats go. Jeremy Cameron is as prodigious as ever, while Tom Stewart has continued on his merry way as one of the game’s very best, and Mark Blicavs continues to forge out one of the best unheralded careers in recent time. They will head to Adelaide Oval in week one of the finals to take on the Power for a spot in the Preliminary Finals, and they are more than capable of winning that game. Obviously they will need to beat plenty of good teams to win the flag, and it’s likely that if they do, they’ll need to have won at least one or two close ones. For a team as professional as the Cats, that is very doable. Plenty of people in the AFL world are sick of the Cats, but it’s hard not to admire their ability to continually compete, and that is exactly what they have done this year. 

• What brings them here? The Cats came home with a wet sail to sneak into the top four, earning them a spot in the top four from where they are very capable of going all the way.
• What has changed? The Cats lost Norm Smith Medalist Isaac Smith to retirement while Jonathan Ceglar also hung up the boots, and Esava Ratugolea was traded to the Power. They didn’t acquire any major names, with their ins all via the drafts. 
• Injury update: The Cats got a couple of key players back on the eve of the finals, namely Tanner Bruhn, while Sam De Koning should be good to go for their game against Port. So too should Tom Hawkins, but he might not be picked. 

Bet on the Cats to win the AFL Premiership @ $8.50 with UniBet

Speaking of topsy turvy, the Bulldogs have long been one of the most erratic teams in the league, and at times this year that has been very true. But for an extended period now, they have been really good week on week with very few exceptions. They won eight of their last ten games to finish 14-9, but this year that was only good enough for 6th spot. But indicative of what this team is capable of, they finished the year with a percentage of 125.1%, second only to the Swans – and only marginally at that. The two losses in the last ten games were pretty hefty ones, coming to the two Adelaide-based teams, though the loss to the Crows was largely a product of inaccurate kicking, something which won’t generally endure week to week. The loss to the Power was their worst performance in that time, and they bounced back from it with a 14-point win over the then-second placed Blues, before they beat the Cats by 47 points and then the Swans by 39 points, while they also ended the home and away season with a 37-point win over the Giants. If ever you needed proof of their ability to knock off the best teams, there it is. Their super talented midfield might be prone to some defensive lapses, but those have been fewer and further between of late and the likes of Marcus Bontempelli, Adam Treloar and Tom Liberatore are more often than not running towards their own goal with ball in hand from stoppage. Their forward line, meanwhile, is finally fulfilling its potential, with Rory Lobb having moved back to great success, Jamarra Ugle-Hagan playing clearly the best football of his career and Sam Darcy emerging as a future star – if he is not one already. Had the Bulldogs managed to finish top four there is every chance that they would have entered the finals as Premiership favourites. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, they have drawn probably the hottest team in the league in the Hawks for their Elimination Final, and realistically it would be no great surprise to see them lose that game and be knocked out in the first week of the finals. Equally, if they win the flag, no one will be too shocked. That’s how close this season is, and that’s how good the Dogs are. On their day they are arguably as good as anyone in the league, and a repeat of 2016 – when they won the flag from outside the top four, incidentally against the Swans – is well and truly on the cards. 

• What brings them here? The Dogs have been really, really good for basically the whole second half of the season, with only a couple of blemishes on their record. 
• What has changed? Josh Bruce retired and Jordon Sweet was traded to the Power, while coming in was James Harmes from Melbourne, Nick Coffield from the Saints and impressive number six draft pick Ryley Sanders.
• Injury update: Bailey Smith won’t play in the finals with his ACL injury, while Jason Johannisen and Rhylee West should be there or thereabouts for the game against the Hawks.

Bet on the Bulldogs to win the AFL Premiership @ $9.00 with PlayUp

Love them or hate them, there is no doubting the fact that the Hawks are a genuine flag contender. They started the year 0-5 after finishing bottom three last year, and even once they got on the board they were pumped the next week by the Swans. Since then, however, there has been no stopping this exciting young team. They lost just three more games for the year, with two of them coming by two points or less, an incredible record for any team, let alone one which seemed destined to finish bottom two a couple of months into the season. On paper this team doesn’t look like it should be ready to truly compete, and maybe we will find out come finals time that they aren’t. But the exuberance of youth – and a hefty dose of talent – has got them a long way already this year, and a la the Tigers back in 2017 there is no reason to think it won’t be able to take them all the way. They play like a bunch of overconfident teenagers and celebrate like it too, but why the hell not – clearly it’s working for them. Their backline is led by the ever-solid James Sicily, their midfield makes up for what it might lack in raw talent with toughness and tenacity, while their forward line is the epitome of a bunch of Gen Z kids having a good time on the MCG in the best possible way. The likes of Jack Ginnivan, Nick Watson and Mabior Chol are proving mighty difficult to stop, and it’s no surprise given how the Hawks get the ball into them. Having affectionately become known as HokBall, the Hawks play a brand of footy which is nearly impossible to stop when it’s up and running. What will be interesting to see is whether they can replicate it in the finals, up against the best teams and with their opposition having put a hell of a lot more time into stemming the momentum which they are so good at creating. It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see them crash out convincingly at the hands of a very talented and more experienced opposition in the Dogs in the first week of the finals, but at the other end of the spectrum, the Hawks could very easily continue on their merry way and prove hard to stop throughout September. Having lost just one game by more than two points since early in the season, there is good reason to think that the Hawks might just be able to go deep into the finals, and maybe even win what would be a remarkable Premiership. 

• What brings them here? Basically everything that they have done since about Round 7. The Hawks have been beautiful to watch and virtually impossible to stop since the Swans pummelled them, proving capable of matching it with pretty much every team in the league.
• What has changed? The Hawks traded Tyler Brockman, Jacob Koschitzke and Brandon Ryan in the off-season, but brought in plenty. Massimo D’Ambrosio has been one of the pick-ups of the year coming over from the Bombers, Mabior Chol another after he was picked up from the Suns, while Jack Ginnivan has been a pivotal part of their talented young forward line after being traded from the Magpies. Calsher Dear and Nick Watson have been quality pick-ups from the draft.
• Injury update: Mitch Lewis will unfortunately be absent throughout the finals with an ACL, joining James Blanck. Will Day is expected to return from a collarbone injury against the Dogs.

Bet on the Hawks to win the AFL Premiership @ $11.00 with UniBet

Finally, to the Blues, way back in 8th position and as clearly the least fancied team to win the flag. They went perilously close to falling heartbreakingly short of making the finals, just as they did in 2022, with a Jack Higgins goal in the dying seconds of their Round 24 game set to cost them a spot if the Dockers beat the Power in the next game. Fortunately for Carlton, that did not transpire, and they just hung onto their spot. But unlike plenty of the other teams in the finals, they do not exactly enter it in great form. A few short weeks ago they looked destined to slot into 2nd spot and earn themselves a home Qualifying Final, but instead they lost six of their last eight to fall to 8th, with the only wins in that time coming against the Tigers and Kangaroos, the bottom two teams in the league. Adding further to their woes is a dreadful injury list which largely came about in their Round 22 defeat to the Hawks, with a huge number of key players suffering short-medium-term injuries in that game and leaving them very short-handed for their last two games of the year. If the majority of those players remain out, it is very hard to see them giving the Lions any sort of a scare up at the Gabba. But plenty of them are expected to return, at the top of that list being Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow. And they will need as many of them as possible if they’re to get past week one of the finals. Of course, we all know about the Blues top end talent, and if the majority of them are playing then they are a damn good side. That makes them a bit of a tough one to pick, but regardless, it is going to be really tough for them coming up against the Lions up north with at worst a huge chunk of their best team missing, and at worst, a huge chunk of them in their first game back from injury. All going right this team could do some serious damage, but they are entering the finals in a difficult situation and will more than likely be ousted in the first week.

• What brings them here? The Blues looked likely to be a lot shorter than this entering the finals, but poor form and a disastrous run of injuries has seen them just sneak into the finals. 
• What has changed? Ed Curnow and Lachie Plowman both retired, while Paddy Dow was traded to the Saints and Zac Fisher to the Kangaroos. Elijah Hollands was a good pick up in a trade with the Suns, while Orazio Fantasia was picked up as a free agent.
• Injury update: Where to start? The Blues have Harry McKay, Charlie Curnow, Jack Martin, Tom De Koning and Adam Cerra to name a few as tests for their game against Brisbane. Sam Docherty surely won’t return from an ACL no matter how far they go, while Jack Silvagni is also out for the year.  

Bet on the Blues to win the AFL Premiership @ $31.00 with BoomBet

Realistically, who on earth knows? This has been one of the closest seasons in recent memory and virtually every teams has seen massive gaps between their best form and their worst, and the winner of the Grand Final is simply going to be whichever team can put it together when it matters most. That’s always the case to some extent, but typically there are two or three standouts, and while the Swans could certainly claim to be that, there is so little separating the top eight teams that it feels more logical to go with a little bit of an outsider. The Bulldogs vs Hawks Elimination Final will likely be a game to remember, and though whoever wins will have to go the long way round, whichever team that is will be extremely hard to stop. It would be absurd for the Hawks to win the Grand Final given where they were last year and two months into this year, but there is something special brewing at Waverley. It might be a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, the Hawks can do something incredible in the finals series at decent odds.