Following the nine-part series ranking each AFL club's positional lines, it is time to review each AFL team's list in its entirety and determine which sides can enter 2025 with full confidence in the talent on their list.
While some clubs may be star-studded in one spot, this list will take the entire squad into account, looking into the depth, firepower, and performances in 2024 across all three areas of the field.
Those who have been consistently at the top of the rankings throughout our series will undoubtedly find themselves at the top of the board once again, but those who popped into the top six just once, or those who had a starkly low ranking in comparison to their other results, may find themselves dropped to midtable or below.
RELATED: FORWARD LINE RANKINGS, MIDFIELD RANKINGS, & BACKLINE RANKINGS
So, here is the concluding chapter to Zero Hanger's pre-season list rankings, signifying the best and worst teams on paper for the year ahead.
9. Melbourne
(Backline ranking: fifth; Midfield ranking: seventh; Forward line ranking: 14th)
If Melbourne don't make finals in 2025, the problems are not to be blamed on the list.
They may have finished 14th in 2024, but this isn't a club like their surrounding counterparts. Essendon and St Kilda lack a superstar or two, Richmond and North Melbourne are young and rebuilding. Melbourne is star-studded.
Easily the best defensive side since the turn of the 2020s decade, Melbourne boast Steven May and Jake Lever as their key backmen pairing.
In the midfield, Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca walk in as two of the competition's best.
But, the midfield duo will have to put their off-field dramas behind them if they are to rise the ladder again in 2025, with a tumultuous 2023 off-season and 2024 in general evidently impacting the pair's, and the club's, on-field output.
The forward line could be in its best shape since the Demons' premiership year too, with youngsters Jacob Van Rooyen and Daniel Turner set to explode alongside familiar names Kysaiah Pickett and Bayley Fritsch. However, its success is unproven as of yet, hence the original low ranking.
One of the more curious watches for 2025, we'll have to wait and see if Melbourne can bury their own demons and make the most of their talented list.
