AFL footy is back.
All eyes of the football world were peeled toward Round 1 to see whether or not their sides looked the part.
Typically, Round 1 is viewed by fans as a time for sides to glide into the season, run out the game hard and either improve upon or kickstart a new playing system learned and perfected in the off-season.
Whilst it is still seen as important, it is just seen as "another game" seeming though there are 21 others left to win.
The general stance about the AFL ladder is that it only becomes important by the time Round 6 has begun.
However, after carefully examining the numbers for all seasons this century, this common perception seems quite flawed.
The average winning side for a Premiership team during the Home and Away Season since the year 2000 is 76.4% (approximately 16.8 wins). Excluding Round 1, this percentage drops down to just 75.9%.
Meanwhile, the average winning percentage for an eventual Premiership team in Round 1 is a whopping 85.7%. In fact, all of the last eight Premiers have won their first game of the season.
This demonstrates quite a large correlation between winning in Round 1 and winning the Premiership. And whilst, as every statistician and maths teacher echoes, correlation doesn't equal causation, it seems as though it is quite important for a Premiership side to win their first game.
To a lesser degree, the first five rounds also seem quite important for flag hopefuls, with the average winning percentage for a flag team during these games standing at 77.2% (with a much larger data set).
Acknowledging that there are multiple independent factors that could intervene, such as the difficulty of the games played, injuries and all sorts of random occurrences, such a correlation leaves us with the question; 'why?'
Our estimation is that winning the first game of the season provides momentum and confidence for flag hopefuls. It helps reinforce the belief that was constantly preached to them during the pre-season.
Every year, a team seems to stealthily jump to a great win-loss record after the first few rounds and, despite a slide down the ladder appearing inevitable, they finish with a strong record.
To see this, we have to look no further than last year when both Melbourne and Sydney jumped out to 4-0 starts, picking up some big scalps along the way.
On one hand, Melbourne appeared to be an average side that was a 50-50 shot of playing finals, whilst the Swans were tipped to be in the bottom six by almost all football fans.
Ultimately, as is familiar to most football fans, the Demons ended up convincingly winning the flag whilst the Swans eased their way into the top eight.
Such early-season surges from average to below-average sides have become a common feature of the AFL and it is likely to stay that way in the coming years.
Furthermore, recent Premiers Richmond, West Coast and the Western Bulldogs all started off with four or more wins in the first five rounds to kickstart their seasons and rise to the summit. This was despite very low expectations from the football community.
With Melbourne, Brisbane, the Bulldogs, Port Adelaide, Geelong and others in strong contention going into 2022, a good start would set the foundation for a successful year.
Meanwhile, for those who are trying to sneakily creep up the ladder such as Carlton, Richmond, Essendon, St Kilda and more, Round 1 could make or break them.
So, who will rise up the ladder in the 2022 home and away season after a fantastic start?
