After a main course featuring three of the absolute best games of the year so far, the Sydney and Melbourne clash was the decadent desert in a wonderful last weekend of footy.
It seemed a throwback to another time, yet it could be a window into the future.
The ball hurtled from one end to another with Gout Gout speed and the scoreboard lit up with 36 goals — the most kicked in a game this season. It was what commentators of yesteryear referred to as ‘champagne football’.
The only differentiation between 2026 and 1986 was the blonde bombshell of the day being Sydney Sweeney in the corporate box, not Warwick Capper in the goal square.
Yet the data from the first eight rounds of 2026 suggests that the rollicking Sunday afternoon might not be an anomaly.
Scoring in the AFL is up for 2026 in a way not seen for a decade.
According to Champion Data’s historical records across the first eight rounds of a season, the 91.2 average points per game from teams in 2026 is the highest average since 2017.
Round 8 in isolation was a marker too. The 97.3 averaged by teams was the highest in a nine-game round since Round 2, 2017. The average losing score (84.5) in the round was the highest under the same measure since Round 1 of 2017.
And while high scoring alone does not dictate fan satisfaction, low scoring tends to correlate with fan frustration.
For neutrals watching on Sunday, it was a celebration.
And this was not an inconsequential end-of-season game between two teams out of the finals race, prepared to forego defensive structures. This was a match between two teams sitting, at the time, in the top four.
That it was Sydney, a club whose generations of ‘bloods culture’ were based on suffocation of the opposition, and Melbourne, whose similar obsession and associated constipation up forward supposedly robbed them of more recent glory, might be the greatest sign that the game is undergoing a makeover.
This was the eighth game of the season thus far where both teams have reached the 100-point barrier.
A generation ago, this was proof of a high-quality competitive game. In more recent times those scores have aroused more suspicion than rapture, such was their paucity. Last season there were only five games in the full home and away season that notched those numbers.
The eight shootouts of 2026 represent 11.1% of the total games played. The last time we had that proportion of games reaching that scoring abundance was in 2008, which was also the last time we had a century goalkicker. Remember them?
Round 8 also represents the greatest jump in scoring in a season since 2016 (disregarding the artificial jump that occurred after shortened games in 2020).
At this point of the season, it is also the greatest rolling two-season increase this century. The early data indicates a substantial change in scoring patterns, which might be sustainable.
For all the rage against the more strictly policed stand rule, in concert with the last touch lasso, ruck simplification, and the maturation of 6-6-6, it is working to the AFL’s objectives.
While the 50-metre penalty rulings clearly frustrate, the rationale for the stand rule is simple and logical.
If you win a mark or free kick, you should have the advantage of ‘free’ kicking to equal numbers, not be outnumbered by an 18 vs. 17 grid of defence. This is the essence of the stand rule; one of your 18 players must pay the price of equality by standing.
Which means the ball moves forward quicker and with greater space ahead.
Consequently, the game has opened up, and there is a glut of evidence to support that.
The 9.9% of defensive 50 chains resulting in a score is the highest since 2016.
The 13.5 points per game from centre clearance is the most since 2008.
The 46.5% of scores per inside 50 is the highest since 2017.
Even the shot on goal accuracy of 48.5 % is the best since 2017.
The opening up of forward lines is meaning players are marking the ball in more central positions, and in general play have more space and time to nail shots.
And the most illuminating statistic of all is the average of 53.6 inside 50s per team, per game — the most since Champion Data started recording it in 1999.
The game style of 2026 has the ball moving from end-to-end with a freedom not seen this century, no longer mired in the same pockets and flanks for repeat stoppages.
The ‘Free the Sherrin’ campaign coined by Gerard Healy is coming to fruition in 2026.
The pressure rating of 175 is the lowest on record (first kept in 2013) but nobody could say the game has gone soft, or that physical tackling has been eradicated.
When the moment comes, players just have more space to use their pace and skills as opposed to running into walls of players. The likes of Nick Watson and Kysaiah Pickett are showing how rich that experience can be for the footy watcher.
And if there is a final confirmation of something changing dramatically in footy, it is when the broadcasters get caught on the hop.
For years people have run the conspiracy theory that the attempt to lift scoring was purely based on providing more commercial opportunities for those greedy broadcasters.
On Sunday that was flipped on its head.
In case you did not know, the 3:15pm Sunday afternoon start on free-to-air television is designed around the siren sounding as an immediate lead-in to the all-important 6pm News on Channel 7.
Because the Swans and the Demons attacked the goals with the same reckless abandon of the US President on social media, the newsreaders were left twiddling their thumbs until 6:07.
Like the match that preceded that late start, no footy fan complained.
