From the most porous to the AFL's equivalent of Fort Knox, ahead of the bounce of the ball on Thursday night, we've ranked the league's best backlines.
We've already seen the back sixes that forwards across the competition dine out on. We've also seen the units that are making strides towards greatness. Now, we present the backlines that are primed to push for premiership success, the Crème de la crème, if you will.
RELATED: Every AFL club's backline ranked: Part I
SEE ALSO: Every AFL club's backline ranked: Part II
These are the teams with premiership-level defences, units with essentially no holes when healthy. Their key men can stop most opposing threats and their medium-small backs can prevent chaos and hit targets.
Many of these teams also benefit from a deep overall list and plenty of capable midfielders finding a role through the half-back line.
A couple of the sides may appear to suffer from a lack of star power, but the structure and organisation of the gameplan allow their role-players to utilise their strengths to the maximum; see Robbie Fox for Sydney or Jake Kolodjashnij for Geelong.
These are the elite backlines entering the 2023 AFL season, the teams ranked 6-1.
1. 1. Melbourne
When healthy, Melbourne appears to have no holes in their defensive list, meeting all apparent needs in a quality back-line.
In the key defender slot, Steven May is perhaps the number one full-back of the last three seasons, earning two All-Australian blazers and a premiership in that time as the focal point in Melbourne's defence.
Jake Lever became one of the league's best intercept defenders after he was able to string together a full season at Melbourne, ranking atop the league for intercepts in 2021 and top 10 in 2022.
While these two were exploited systematically by the opposition at times last year, expect Simon Goodwin and company to change things up and allow his top defenders to impact big games once again this season.
Providing tall defender back-up, Harrison Petty is a perfect third option on a premiership team as an underrated intercept defender, able to stop any third-string key forward from damaging the scoreboard. Together, these three can routinely prevent chaos and allow clean looks for their smaller ball users.
While he may never receive the external praise of Clayton Oliver, Christian Petracca and the like, Angus Brayshaw continues to be one of the most consistently valuable players in the competition with his aerial presence, elite poise and skill on either side of his body. He is likely in for another year on a half-back flank as a third or fourth marking option and ideal ball user in the back-middle half of the ground.
At ground level, Jake Bowey may be in for a breakout year with his elite kicking, while Trent Rivers should show some improvement from 2021 with his dash off half-back.
Dees fans will hope Christian Salem can return from his illness asap and bring his typical poise and class, their 2021 premiership was won off the back of some notable grand final performers, Salem being one of them.
Finally, we wait and see how valuable Michael Hibberd is at 33, he may still be capable of shutting down dangerous opposing smalls as he has done in recent seasons and rekindling a glimmer of his previous All-Australian form.
