AFL 2023 Least Wins Wooden Spoon Betting – Odds, Tips & Predictions

Hasn’t this market taken a turn!? After seemingly certain to finish last in their unmitigated disaster of a season, the Eagles went and spoiled the Bulldogs party in Round 23 to win their third game and leapfrog North Melbourne. That leaves the Kangaroos sitting in last spot with one round to go and the much coveted pick one – which will be used on Harley Reid – there for the taking for the Kangaroos – if, of course, they lose their last game. So how does the Wooden Spoon race look like unfolding over the last weekend of the season?

Updated: 22 August 2023

Incredibly, the Kangaroos have lost 20 games in a row after winning their first two in a row. All is not completely lost though – they’ve been competitive in a heap of games, but their ability to actually win is non existent and they’ve gone down multiple times by small margins in that time. That means they now boast an undesirable record of 2-20, but despite all those losses they’ve seem destined to finish 17th and just miss out on last spot and Harley Reid as a result.

West Coast’s win has changed all that, and the Roos now sit firmly on the bottom of the ladder. If they lose in Round 24, they are guaranteed bottom spot, but intriguingly they actually have a relatively winnable game. They’ll take on a Gold Coast side with nothing to play for down in Tasmania, and having gone very close against Essendon, St. Kilda, and even taking it up to Melbourne for a time over the past few weeks, this looks like a game the Kangaroos are capable of going very close in.

The question is, just how close do they want to go? Winning this game would most likely cost them one of the most highly touted youngsters in years, and though we all know how much the AFL loves to say no team would ever lose a game intentionally, it would be no great surprise to see a number of the Kangaroos’ best players miss this game with ‘soreness’. The players will no doubt come out and give their all, but it's likely nothing close to their best 22 will run out onto the field. Adding further to the interest is the fact that the Suns have nothing to play for either so their own best foot may not be put forward, but they won’t want to round out their season with a loss to the Kangaroos, and to be perfectly frank the Roos won’t likely want to end it with a win. Harley Reid is theirs for the taking, and it’s hard to see them giving it up now.

• What brings them here? Season after season after season of mediocrity. In this centuries 23 years, North haven’t won more than 14 games in the season once, have failed to make the finals since 2016, and have won just nine games in the past three years.
• What has changed? The most significant departure for the Roos is that of 2021 number one pick Jason Horne-Francis, who lasted just a year with the club before requesting a trade back to South Australia. They have added some welcome experience, with Griffin Logue, Liam Shiels and Darcy Tucker all joining the club.
• Injury update: A lot of players have been out for the remainder of the year for a while, including Callum Coleman-Jones and Charlie Comben, Griffin Logue, Jack Mahoney, George Wardlaw and Cameron Zurhaar. Expect a few names to be added to that list this weekend. 

Bet on North Melbourne for the Wooden Spoon at $3.00

When it’s all said and done, this might be the worst team to ever not win the Grand Final. The Eagles have been an unmitigated disaster all year, with a poorly managed list profile combined with an awful run of injuries making them uncompetitive in virtually every game they play in. But, in an unprecedented run of events, they suddenly turned competitive in the latter stages of the season, and that culminated in the unlikeliest of victories against the Bulldogs in Round 23 to back up a win against the Roos a couple of weeks earlier.

Those two wins came after they managed just a solitary victory in their first 18 games of the season. Also packed into that month of victories was a loss by under a goal to the Bombers, which came before normal programming resumed when they lost by 101 points to the Dockers.

In the eyes of many those two wins will hamper the club by costing them the number one pick, a pick which most expected them to trade for multiple high picks given that Harley Reid doesn’t appear thrilled by the prospect of playing in Perth. But after the year that they’ve had, something has to be said for the return of some enjoyment for fans, players and coaches alike that a couple of wins will do. Adam Simpson’s tenure is still very tenuous, but they have at least shown that the 100-point losses which have been all too common this year are hopefully going to soon be a speck in the rearview mirror.

And as for this year’s Wooden Spoon? It seems like they’ve given it up for a couple of wins. They play Adelaide in Perth this week, a game which they could theoretically be competitive in given the disappointment the Crows will no doubt be feeling about the disastrous, controversial way their finals hopes were ended last week. But despite the fact that Adelaide will have nothing to play for, they should still be far too good for the Eagles.

West Coast’s woeful percentage means that if they lose as expected and the Kangaroos win, they’ll drop back to last place. But as mentioned above, it’s hard to see the Roos giving up the number one pick now.

• What brings them here? The Eagles have been a competitive team for much of the past decade, but after their 2018 Premiership things have gradually gone pear-shaped, seeing them go from 15 wins, to 12, to 10, and last year to 2.
• What has changed? West Coast lost one of their club greats in Josh Kennedy, who hung up the boots at the end of last season, while Jack Redden also retired and Junior Rioli was traded. Not much has come in, with the exception of Jayden Hunt from Melbourne.
• Injury update: Though West Coast’s shocking injury list has gradually got shorter as the season has worn on, they still have plenty unavailable for the final round of the season, including Tom Barrass, Reuben Ginbey, Nic Naitanui, Liam Ryan and Dom Sheed.

Bet on West Coast Eagles for the Wooden Spoon at $4.25

After the Wooden Spoon appeared destined to fall in the hands of the Eagles all year, that has now flipped on its head completely just at the end of the season. The Roos will now finish last unless they win and the Eagles lose in the last round, and though the latter of those is likely, the former is not. North could probably challenge Gold Coast if they wanted to, but they probably don’t, and though they aren’t at great odds to finish last now, that seems the most likely outcome.

Bet on the Kangaroo for the Least Wins in the AFL in 2023

Wooden Spoon teams that failed to win a match

• Thirteen wooden spoon teams failed to win a match during a VFL/AFL season, the most recent being Fitzroy in 1964.

Most Wooden Spoons Won

• 27 – St Kilda Saints, most recently in 2014.

Least Wooden Spoons Won

• Only the Port Adelaide Power have never won the Wooden Spoon. Ironically, the 21st century’s least successful club, the Carlton Blues, has won all 5 of their Wooden Spoons since 2002.

Most ‘successful’ Wooden Spoon team

• The 1976 Collingwood Magpies hold the record for the most wins by a wooden spoon team in a season with six wins.

AFL/AFLW Wooden Spoon ‘Double’

• Carlton are the only team to have both men’s and women’s teams win the wooden spoon in the same season, occurring in 2018.