Only one can win, but there are 10 sides contending for the premiership

The 2025 AFL season promises more mystery and less certainty than any other of recent times. If you’re looking for a theme that captures the even, unpredictable nature of this year’s competition, the best might be from the current Bob Dylan biopic: it’s a complete unknown.

Only two or three teams can’t aspire to play finals, and there are close to 10 sides who would consider themselves premiership hopefuls, including at least three that missed the finals last year: Collingwood, Fremantle and Melbourne.

In a competition in which many results are decided by a kick, and the margins between first and 14th aren’t what they were, it will be the availability – not just ability – of each team’s best players that determines who rises and falls.

The Brisbane Lions enter this season as the standard-bearers, having shattered a number of previous conventions in their rampaging run to the 2024 flag. One was that a team couldn’t recover from an 0-3 start, another that to win the flag from the lower reaches of the eight is harder than gaining admissions of umpiring blunders from the AFL.

They will be the topweights again in 2025, having gained a kid that many recruiters rate as the best youngster in the draft – a second Ashcroft (Levi).

GWS, shamed by losing the unlosable semi-final to the Lions (blowing a 44-point lead), are my pick to play off against the Lions, and I fancy that the Dockers and Demons will come in to the top eight, at the expense of Port and the now-injured Bulldogs.

It is a measure of the rice paper-thin margins between clubs that Carlton and Collingwood are being discussed as both flag contenders and teams that can miss the eight.

Hawthorn, whose rise from 0-5 to a kick from a preliminary final berth astonished everyone, are the best-placed Victorian team, due to acquisitions and momentum and the good health they enjoy.

What is known? That the Tigers won’t win much and are at Winx odds to take home the wooden spoon; that the Eagles, too, are remote from contention; that Nick Daicos – if he stands upright – will again vie for various awards, headed by the Brownlow.

To borrow more from Dylan: the answers, my friends, are blowing in the wind.

Read Jake Niall’s club-by-club predictions in the interactive below.

Scroll down for his Brownlow, Rising Star tips and more.

The predictions

Brownlow: Nick Daicos (Collingwood). Barring injury, he could start favourite every year until 2032.

Rising Star: Levi Ashcroft (Brisbane Lions). He likely would have been pick No.1 in an open draft and will benefit from going into a good side without excessive responsibility.

Story of the season: Coaching and poaching. Senior coaches’ futures, and the prospect of some switching clubs or walking, with John Longmire in demand.

On the rise: Fremantle and Melbourne. Shai Bolton will add sparkle to a Dockers team that has most bases covered. The Demons have Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver in better nick and Jacob van Rooyen emerging.

On the slide: Western Bulldogs. Injuries to key players – and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan’s absence – put the Dogs in an early ditch.

Headline you won’t see: All bets are off. AFL calls for the end of gambling ads

Fans’ biggest gripe: The continued cacophony and assault on their ears before and during breaks in games. It will be ignored.

Read the predictions from the rest of our experts here.

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