Kane Cornes rates the last 26 AFL premiers (SEN)

[Hard Roar Tiger]

All good mate.
If the topic is pure talent on the basis of premiership teams then our 2020 team has to be in the top 5.
If it’s talent alone, then make it about the teams that finished 1st in the h&a season.
The thing about the AFL, the best teams and players rise to the occasion in finals so that becomes more relevant.

Look at Dangerfield vs Dusty.
Most superficial analysis has Danger ahead of Dusty but anyone worth their salt knows who the better player has been over their career.

[one-eyed]

Premiership rankings: 12 - 16:

16 - Brisbane (2024)
15 - Collingwood (2023)
14 - Geelong (2011)
13 - Brisbane (2025)
12 - Geelong (2022)

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2026/01/20/kane-cornes-afl-premiership-rankings-2000-to-2025

[TigerLand]

Here lies modern journalism. Pure trolling.

Nobody cares about who the top premiershop teams are except those who have won the flags in them. Can tell you Freo, Saints, Adelaide and others wouldn't even read this article. So here lies Kornes purpose and existence, lets rile up popular fan bases for clicks and engagement.

For those who care about the sacredness of a premiership, the best teams should be based on a combination of H+A dominance and then weighted more so about winning finals when it mattered. The teams that stand out under that theory are the dynasty teams. But lets not let commonsense get in the way of engagement.

The 2020 flag will probably go down as the most underated premiership ever. An entire season away from loved ones and home. Winning interstate, having tyhe least amount of access to experts, and medical support. Sure it was an evenish playing field as other teams had to deal with it as well but still it will forever be enormously underated.

The 2017 team, to be so dominant, to then back up in 2018 with a top table finish, and then a flag in 2019 and 2020. How could you possible not have a team that probably should have won 4 in a row as 2 of the bottom 26 is just embarrassing. Sure we have bias but this is just drivel. Geelong 2022 team would be 26th for mine, absolute ridiculously lucky run in finals and came against the biggest bottle job in Sydney for a walkover.

[mightytiges]

In 2017, we pretty much revolutionised the way footy was played (so much so that subsequent premiers have copied our "chaos footy"). We also won all 3 finals by a minimum of six goals.

Interesting where Cornes puts 2019. We lost Rance in the first round and the media wrote us off. We copped a stack of injuries and pretty much had a team of Lynch with a bunch of untried cubs for the first half of the year. From memory we were 7-6 at one stage and out of the Eight. Once we got our senior players back, we won 12 straight and won the GF by 15 goals.

For 2019 and 2020, we also had learnt to pace ourselves to win flags after learning the hard way in 2018 of the perils of peaking too early in a season.

[Andyy]

In 2017, we pretty much revolutionised the way footy was played (so much so that subsequent premiers have copied our "chaos footy"). We also won all 3 finals by a minimum of six goals.

Interesting where Cornes puts 2019. We lost Rance in the first round and the media wrote us off. We copped a stack of injuries and pretty much had a team of Lynch with a bunch of untried cubs for the first half of the year. From memory we were 7-6 at one stage and out of the Eight. Once we got our senior players back, we won 12 straight and won the GF by 15 goals.

For 2019 and 2020, we also had learnt to pace ourselves to win flags after learning the hard way in 2018 of the perils of peaking too early in a season.

Last sentence is so true.

Some non-Tiger noobs think 2018 was our best year aside from not winning the flag.

I say look again. The results really flattered us.

Without that loss in the PF I doubt we'd win 19-20. Maybe we'd have gone B2B if we got past the Pies, but that would have been it IMO.

[Hard Roar Tiger]

2020 and 2017 were our 2 best flags.
2017 simply because of our dominance in the finals and the arrival of both game plan and key players.

2020 was extraordinary - not just because of COVID. Lost our way early in the season, regaines mojo, lost that first final, won what I thought was our best finals game of the lot against all odds vs Port and then won a truly epic GF with Vlas, Bachar and Broad all going down in that first qtr.
Got owned in that second qtr and then ground our way back into the game with touches of individual brilliance by the games best ever finals player.

How that premiership team isn’t in top 3 or 4 is completely beyond me.
By any measure, it was a remarkable effort by an extraordinary team.

[Andyy]

2017 is untouchable, Dusty absolutely God-like. Drought broken, tears everywhere etc.

2019 showed a lot of maturity and learning from the 2018 f up. Lynch coming on board, the run home after the bye. It's the one year I felt really confident in those finals matches. It also solidified my feeling that we deserved it in 2017 and weren't just a lucky 'flash in the pan'.

2020 was great icing on the cake. Became a dynasty team. I wasn't so confident after losing the QF. The Port game was close, stuff.

[one-eyed]

Rankings: 8 - 11

11 - Richmond (2019)

“If you’re up this end you’re a bloody good team.

“The 2019 Richmond premiership side comes in at 11. I think this was the best of the three (Tigers flags).

“They absolutely smashed teams in the finals. They beat Brisbane in the Qualifying Final by 47, beat Geelong by 19 in the Prelim and then the disastrous Grand Final for the Giants.

“They only had two All-Australians with Dylan Grimes and Bachar Houli, but they finished the season winning 12 in a row. They really kicked into gear when the business end came.

“What a team over a number of years but I think this was the best of them - Cotchin, Lynch, Riewoldt all in their prime, Vlastuin, Houli had an unbelievable finals series, Rioli was up and flying and the one and only Dustin Martin doing what he was doing.

“A very, very good team.”

10 - Hawthorn (2014)
9 - West Coast (2006)
8 - Hawthorn (2015)

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2026/01/20/kane-cornes-afl-premiership-rankings-2000-to-2025

[Hard Roar Tiger]

They all played in 2017 and 2020

[Damo]

 

They all played in 2017 and 2020

No Lynch in 17 is important.

I agree with him that the 2019 side was the best of the three

[Andyy]

They all played in 2017 and 2020

No Lynch in 17 is important.

I agree with him that the 2019 side was the best of the three

Yep.

If you had to pick any of our 3 flag teams to line up on the current premiers (Lions), it would be the 2019 team for me.