2018 AFL Season Betting Preview
With the new look AFLX and the JLT community challenge done and dusted it’s now time to gear up for what looks set to be an exciting 2018 AFL Premiership Season. Here, we’ll provide our tips and predictions for the upcoming season, which includes our Top 8, Premiership, Brownlow, and Coleman Medal fancies.
2018 AFL Top 8 Predictions
The top 8 never consists of the same teams as the previous year, due to ageing lists, underperformance, and the natural progression of young players. There are a few teams this year who we feel will find it hard to make it to the finals, but at the top of our list is the West Coast Eagles. They lost over 600 games of experience and 2 Brownlow Medals with the retirements of Matt Priddis and Sam Mitchell and we think it’ll take at least a year of adjusting for their midfield to function efficiently.
On the other hand, we feel that the Melbourne Demons have the best chance of last years bottom 10 to make the jump into the top 8 at seasons end. They had a heartbreaking finish to the 2017 season, where they lost to the 13th placed Magpies in Round 23 to miss September action by just 0.5%. However, they’re a young list with a number of future stars including Christian Petracca and Jack Viney and we feel that natural progression and a bit of good luck should have them feature in the finals at the very least.
TIP: West Coast Eagles to miss the 8 – $1.50 at Sportsbet
TIP: Melbourne Demons to make the 8 – $1.80 at Sportsbet
2018 AFL Premiership Prediction
As we all know and have been reminded by in the past 2 years, the AFL Premiership can be won by just about anyone in any given year. We’ve seen two huge long shots in the Western Bulldogs (2016) and the Richmond Tigers (2017) take home the cup in consecutive seasons, which is sure to give the rest of the league a lot of confidence. However, we’re here to give you a prediction, and our tip for this year’s flag is the Greater Western Sydney Giants. The Giants are now are team with the majority of their players entering or currently in their prime, placing them well and truly inside their premiership window. They now have that much needed finals experience after making back-to-back Preliminary finals, and we now think they’re ready to take the next step.
TIP: Greater Western Sydney to win the flag – $8 at CrownBet
2018 AFL Brownlow Medal Prediction
Probably the hardest of all the AFL future markets is predicting the Brownlow Medal winner for the upcoming season. The favourite leading into the season rarely ever wins, forcing us to think outside the box for this one. We’ve decided to go with GWS Giants Josh Kelly this year. 23-year-old Kelly is undoubtedly a current and future star of the competition and is coming off a superb breakout year. In just his fourth year in the system, Kelly averaged 29.5 disposals, 6.5 tackles and a goal a game. We only see him getting better and after polling 21 votes and finishing 6th in last years count, we see him being right up there this year when it’s all said and done.
TIP: Josh Kelly to win the Brownlow Medal – $15 at Ladbrokes
2017 AFL Coleman Medal Prediction
The Coleman Medal is always another popular futures market for AFL punters. This year we’re predicting Essendon’s young gun Joe Daniher to win the award. He’s coming off a career year where he slotted 62 goals to finish 4th in the standings, behind Lance Franklin (69 goals), Josh J Kennedy (65) and Ben Brown (63). Daniher is now 24 years old and is entering the prime of his career and should be the beneficiary of a stronger Bombers outfit in 2018.
TIP: Joe Daniher to win the Coleman Medal – $6 at Sportsbet
