Seventh Heaven: The two teams with required stats to win the flag

Ball movement. Territory. Defence.

These are the areas you must be proficient in if you want to win the 2026 AFL premiership.

Champion Data’s numbers tell us that 18 of the last 19 premiers have been in the top seven for these three key statistical areas.

Stats guru Daniel Hoyne described it as ‘Seventh Heaven’, outlining what you need to be a genuine contender in this day and age.

“Seventh Heaven. I’ll back history until history changes,” Hoyne said on SEN’s Sportsday.

“It’s always a bit of a guide, of course history can change and teams can challenge and defy history.

“These are three key areas of the game as a starting point that we tend to dive into to see whether or not your game is in good shape, and as the season goes whether or not you can challenge come Preliminary Final and Grand Final time.

“The reason why we call it Seventh Heaven is because the premier has been top seven in these stat areas in 18 of the last 19 years.

“Ball movement - your ability to be able to go from one end of the ground to the other. You don’t want to rely on it but just to be able to have it there to challenge the opposition. You’ve got to be top seven.

“Territory - inside 50 differential. You don’t want the game living in your back half. You don’t need to necessarily be one, two or three, you just want to have equal share or slightly greater than equal share.

“Defensively we’re bracketing your ability. The points against aspect, points against from turnover, and are you protecting your back half. You don’t want to be giving up easy scores. Make it hard for the opposition to go from one end of the ground to the other.”

Hoyne says there are only two teams that currently have this profile and they sit 1st and 3rd on the ladder respectively - Sydney and Hawthorn.

“You go back over 19 years and 18 of the premiers have been in there. They’ve gone tick, tick, tick,” he added.

“On average each year there’s only two and a half teams that do this. So it’s a small group.

“This year so far we’ve only got two teams in Seventh Heaven. Sydney and Hawthorn. I don’t think that’s a surprise.

“They’re the two teams that are red hot with where their game is at.”

There are a handful of sides who have two of the categories ticked but need improvement in one of the other areas.

And a few of them are quite surprising.

“There’s five teams that have two of the three areas ticked off - Brisbane are really close. Collingwood surprisingly, territory-wise they’re slightly out, but defensively and how they’re moving the footy is tick, tick,” Hoyne continued.

“Gold Coast are defensively a long way off, Melbourne offensively and with ball movement are good but defensively have a long way to go. And Port Adelaide, defensively, tick, territory, tick, but ball movement is just slightly off.

“So Hawthorn and Sydney happy days, if you’re the other five teams you’re not far off.”