As the AFL eclipses the midway point, there is now a large enough sample size to make sense of some of the more telling stats available. One key stat that highlights the nuance of a forward's game is offensive one-on-one contests and the win rate of those contests.
Gold Coast's Bailey Humphrey reigns as the league's best one-on-one forward currently, winning 10 of his 17 contests for a win rate of 58.8%. If he's able to sustain that level of competition in his individual contests, he'll record the best 1v1 win rate of any AFL player this decade (minimum 1.5 offensive one-on-ones per game).
However, what is perhaps more impressive is the success of Patrick Dangerfield, considering the sheer volume of one-on-one contests he's fought in. Dangerfield, like Humphrey, plays a dynamic role for the Cats, shifting into the midfield when needed but has competed in eight more offensive 1v1s. His strength inside 50 has paid dividends for the Cats since his permanent move there, bullying smaller defenders in the air and hitting the ground harder than anyone else on the field.
As a result, Dangerfield is the only other player winning offensive 1v1 contests more often than he loses them, with 13 wins from 25 contests prior to his hamstring injury against Port Adelaide. Only Jesse Hogan has won more (14).
Melbourne, as one of the best marking teams in the competition, perhaps unsurprisingly has three players in the top 20 of offensive 1v1 wins, with Bayley Fritsch and Jake Melksham ranking sixth and ninth respectively. However, ruckman Maz Gawn stands out as an incredible aerial threat, even while often being matched up on the annoying long wingspans of other ruckmen, winning over 43% of his 1v1 contests. In fact, out of the 50 players that qualify in this statistic (minimum 10 forward 1v1 contests), Gawn is just one of two ruckmen to appear on the list. The other is West Coast's Matt Flynn, who has won just two of his 13 offensive 1v1 battles (15.4%)
Hogan, who led this metric in 2024 with a 50% win rate from 62 contests, continues to demonstrate his superiority as one of the hardest key forwards to match up against. His 3.4 1v1 offensive contests per game is only outmatched by Charlie Curnow (4.4), Mitch Georgiades (3.8), Tom Lynch (3.7) and Jonty Faull (3.5), but his win rate of 45.2% is significantly better than all four of those standout candidates, with Lynch closest with a rate of 32.4%. Pairing that ridiculous volume with an elite win rate puts Hogan in good stead to earn a consecutive Coleman Medal, provided he can stay healthy.
Other notable high volume players who are winning offensive one-on-ones above the league average of 25.6% are Mitch Owens (34.3%), Jack Darling (33.3%), Josh Treacy (32.5%) and Riley Thilthorpe (30.6%).
| Rank | Player | Games | Average 1v1s | Total 1v1s | 1v1 Wins | 1v1 Win Rate (%) |
| 1 | Bailey Humphrey | 11 | 1.5 | 17 | 10 | 58.8 |
| 2 | Patrick Dangerfield | 10 | 2.5 | 25 | 13 | 52.0 |
| 3 | Jesse Hogan | 9 | 3.4 | 31 | 14 | 45.2 |
| 4 | Ethan Read | 8 | 2 | 16 | 7 | 43.8 |
| 5 | Max Gawn | 12 | 1.9 | 23 | 10 | 43.5 |
| 6 | Bayley Fritsch | 11 | 1.7 | 19 | 8 | 42.1 |
| 7 | Mitch Owens | 11 | 3.2 | 35 | 12 | 34.3 |
| 8 | Jack Darling | 11 | 2.7 | 30 | 10 | 33.3 |
| 9 | Jake Melksham | 8 | 2.6 | 21 | 7 | 33.3 |
| 10 | Harry McKay | 7 | 2.1 | 15 | 5 | 33.3 |
| 11 | Archer Reid | 10 | 1.5 | 15 | 5 | 33.3 |
| 12 | Josh Treacy | 12 | 3.3 | 40 | 13 | 32.5 |
| 13 | Tom Lynch | 10 | 3.7 | 37 | 12 | 32.4 |
| 14 | Ben King | 5 | 2.5 | 13 | 4 | 32.1 |
| 15 | Callum Brown | 10 | 1.6 | 16 | 5 | 31.3 |
| 16 | Kyle Langford | 6 | 2.2 | 13 | 4 | 30.8 |
| 17 | Riley Thilthorpe | 12 | 3 | 36 | 11 | 30.6 |
| 18 | Jack Gunston | 9 | 2.3 | 21 | 6 | 28.6 |
| 19 | Sam Darcy | 6 | 3 | 18 | 5 | 27.8 |
| 20 | Brodie Kemp | 5 | 2.2 | 11 | 3 | 27.3 |
Players rated for offensive one-on-one contest win percentage, minimum 10 contests (via Wheelo Ratings)
