ORFFA Round 7, 2026 (AFL Round 9) Review – Part 1 As has been the case with some of my previous ORFFA round reviews the Round 7, 2026 edition will be posted in multiple parts. The review of the eight games themselves will be posted later in the week and are largely focused on the players that scored 120 + SuperCoach points or recorded ORFFA team-highs in Round 7. @Bandit's greedy Spelunkers had two players that ranked first on their line overall in the ORFFA for Round 7 – midfielder Marcus Bontempelli who was the top ranked player for the round overall with 163 points and ruck Luke Jackson (141). @snoz' sGundagai Grasshopper forward/midfielder Izak Rankine was the top ranked forward with 149 points. Bontempelli, Jackson and Rankine were all first round PSD picks, however Rankine is at his second club, having been traded by the Lefties. For the 2026 season the Bont and Jackson are the number two ranked midfielder and ruck respectively for points per game whilst Rankine is ranked 24th among forwards. Defenders led the way with 10 of the 26 120+ plus scores in Round 7 and there were several draft bargains is this group including Archie Roberts who scored 151 to rank first among defenders for the round and ranks first for the season with an average of 115 points. With an extremely astute pick @Jen ’s Lilacs selected Roberts with pick 55 at the 2024 PSD. Points for ranking after Round 7 This post includes an image with the 16 ORFFA clubs sorted by their points for ranking after Round 7. Several other columns from the ladder have been included and I have added two columns, change from points for to ladder rank and points for difference to ave. After Round 7 of the 2026 ORFFA season the average points for per club is 8,285 which works out to 1,183.6 points per game, an average of 78.9 points per game for each player in a 15 player ORFFA team. The team closest to this average are @chris88 ’s Nareewillock Nuffers who are averaging 1,186.3 points per game +2.7 points on the average. It was a close fought battle in terms of nearest to the pin of 1,184 in Round 7. @That KI Guy ’s Lefties finished closest, just two points away with a tally of 1,186 whilst @graeme ’s Cows fell just short of this mark with a score four points shy of this mark, 1,180. @JC ’s Battlers were two points behind the Cows on 1,178 points. Four clubs are averaging less than 35.0 points per game more than the average score of 1,183.6 with the teams joining the Nuffers in this category being the Devils (+32.0), Lefties (+15.8) and Packers (+11.7). Six teams have an average less than 40.0 points per game below the average being Cows (-17.3), Battlers (-22.2), Uglies (-25.6), Tigersharks (-27.7), Wombats (-30.0) and Lilacs (-39.9). It is amazing that on the points for rankings only 71.9 points per game separate the fourth ranked Cradle Mountain (1,215.6 points per game) and the 13th ranked Lovely Bank Lilacs (1,143.7). This equates to a variance of just under five points per player across the 15 player teams. When the two clubs played a head to head game in Round 3 the swing was far greater than this and the Lilacs had a 111 point victory over CMD, 1,144 to 1,033. In terms of points for the gap of 191.3 points per game from the top placed Spelunkers to the fourth placed Devils is actually more than the 170.9 point gap from the Devils to the last placed Codpieces. For the top five teams and bottom two teams on the points for ranking there is a strong correlation between ladder position and points for ranking. Three clubs in these ranges have the same position on both, Charlies Opening (1st), Gundagai Grasshoppers (2nd) and Iron Knob (16th). Three clubs near the top or bottom of the ladder are one position higher on the ladder than their points for ranking, Cradle Mountain (3rd on the ladder), Larrikin Lagoon (4th) and Venus Bay Vultures (14th). Gariwerd Cockatoos drop slightly on the ladder to fifth whilst ranking third for points for. Two clubs in the middle of the ladder are one position higher on their ladder than their points for ranking – Mount Beauty in ninth position on the ladder followed by Shark Bay in 10th. In Australian Rules Football the bounce of an oval shaped ball can lead to some unexpected and unusual results. The ORRFA ladder is following suit and seven clubs have a points for rank that is four or more positions different to their ladder rank after Round 7. For the teams ranked sixth to ninth and 12th to 14th on the points for ranking their ranking in this category has a weak correlation to their ladder position. The quartet of clubs from sixth to ninth on the points for ranking – Wineglass Bay Packers (6th), Nareewillock Nuffers (7th), Waikickamoocow Incorrigibles (8th) and the Birdsville Battlers (9th) have all slid down a snake to be at least four positions lower on the ladder and due to this have their ladder position in red. Conversely luck has been on the side of the teams 12th to 14th on the points for ranking – Wagga Wagga Wombats (12th), Lovely Bank Lilacs (13th) and Junee Jets (14th) with this trio of clubs all being six positions higher on the ladder resulting in their ladder position being green. The Wombats are sixth on the ladder and average 1,153.6 points per game, 41.7 points less than the 11th placed Packers with 1,195.3 points per game. In comparison the biggest difference between points for ranking and ladder position at the end of the 2025 home and away season was three places with the Gariwerd Cockatoos and Wineglass Bay Packers swapping places. The Packers ranked sixth for point for with 1,238.7 points per game, 102.6 points ahead of the Cockatoos 1,136.1 points per game to rank ninth in this category. Gariwerd had the ascendancy on the ladder, finishing sixth with 10 wins and five losses, 10 premiership points ahead of Wineglass Bay who managed to square their ledger even with an odd number of games, finishing ninth with seven wins, seven losses and one draw. All other 14 ORFFA clubs finished 2015 with a points for ranking within two places of their ladder position. The points for gap from fourth to 13th at the end of the 2025 home and away season was 160.2 points, more than double the gap from 4th to 13th after Round 7, 2026. In 2025 the Nuffers ranked 4th with 1,265.5 points per game whilst the 13th ranked Iron Knob Codpieces tallied 1,105.3 points per game. I would expect that as the 2026 season progresses and each club ends up playing each of their rivals once during the home and away season the variances between points for and ladder position will reduce. However with the teams from fourth to 13th being separated by less than 75.0 points per game the likelihood of the team with an inferior points for to that round’s opponent having a victory is more likely than in a typical ORFFA season. Whilst the highest scoring players are recognised the ORFFA is also good at celebrating mediocrity. For several years @anthak ’s Gariwerd Cockatoos and my Cradle Mountain Devils even battled it out for the mediocrity cup in head to head battles between the clubs. At the end of Round 7 of the 2026 season two players have averaged the average ORFFA player score of 78.9 points per game Larrikin Lagoon Lefties forward/midfielder Brayden Cook and Cradle Mountain Devils forward/midfielder Darcy Wilson. Maybe it is a carry-over from the mediocrity cup days but the first ORFFA club to draft these two players was my Devils. With pick 34 in the 2021 PSD Cradle Mountain selected forward/midfielder Brayden Cook. After three seasons the Devils delisted Cook in the 2024 pre-season. At the 2024 PSD the Devils selected forward/midfielder Darcy Wilson with pick 10, resulting in Wilson effectively replacing Cook on the CMD list. In the 2026 pre-season the Lefties recruited free-agent Cook with PSD pick 50.
Some mighty impressive analysis there @dmandrews . The vagaries of the FIXture list mean WKI has already played the top 2 teams. In round 4 we were beaten by COP (1397 v 1368). We would have had a 100+ point win against any other team. Then in round 7 we were smashed (1471 v 1137 ) by GGH. The 'hoppers scored the highest points for for the round by >100, while we were within 46 points of the average score. By way of contrast, our next two fixtures are against VBV and BIB (14th and 13th respectively. Which I think reinforces your point about the deeper we go into the fixture list the more even table positions compared to points for will become. One further observation. Some of the cows have very variable scores. I am unsure what the average is, but I suspect the average would be <20. WKI has 12 of its regular team (including emergencies) players above a standard deviation of 20. Zac Bailey (std dev 29) heads that list .