Matt Rowell scored a perfect KICK 100 in Round 11 — and Gold Coast still lost.
31 disposals, 14 clearances, 7 tackles, a goal against North Melbourne at Docklands; raw KICK Game Score of 101.6, capped at the display ceiling of 100. His first perfect 100 of 2026 — and his fourth-straight season with at least one ceiling game, after 2023, 2024 and 2025. The kind of inside-midfielder line that should win you a game. Gold Coast lost it anyway — North Melbourne 111, Gold Coast 105 — and it’s the same pattern we wrote about with Tristan Xerri’s R7 and R8: a ceiling KICK on the losing side. Rowell now joins eight different players to have hit a perfect 100 in 2026.
A quick refresher: KICK Rating is our open, reproducible player rating — one score out of 100 for every player in every game, computed from the public box score, formula published, code public. A game score of 70 means a quality senior contribution. 85+ puts a player in All-Australian territory. A perfect 100 is the ceiling — once-a-season form. The full methodology is on the site, including where v1 falls short.
Round 11 — 21 to 24 May 2026
A round of close finishes and one large blowout. The Thursday-night opener at York Park (Hawthorn’s Launceston home) went the Hawks’ way over Adelaide by 9. Two more games finished inside 10 points — North Melbourne edging Gold Coast by 6 at Docklands (Rowell’s 100, in the loss), then Collingwood seeing off West Coast by 10 at the MCG with Darcy Cameron and Bailey Williams running parallel ruck-midfielder lines (Cameron 28 disposals/8 clearances/27 hit-outs, Williams 20/12/28; KICK 90 and 96 respectively). The Bulldogs took the round’s tightest finish — 93-90 over Melbourne at Docklands — with Ed Richards the difference at KICK 98 (30 disposals, 3 goals, 10 clearances). Then the only one-sided result: GWS hammered Brisbane 166-88 at the Showground, a 78-point margin and the highest single-game team score of the 2026 season, three points clear of Sydney’s R4 163 against West Coast. Clayton Oliver ran 37 disposals and 11 clearances out of GWS’s midfield — his first season at the Giants after a decade at Melbourne. Carlton, Geelong and Fremantle all won comfortably elsewhere — three 27-to-34-point margins, no upsets.
- 100
Matt Rowell 31 disposals · 1 goal · 7 tackles · 14 clearances
- 98
Ed Richards 30 disposals · 3 goals · 3 tackles · 10 clearances
- 97
Clayton Oliver 37 disposals · 8 tackles · 11 clearances · 4 marks
- 96
Bailey Williams 20 disposals · 12 clearances · 28 hit-outs · 1 goal
- 90
Darcy Cameron 28 disposals · 8 clearances · 27 hit-outs · 6 marks
The season tally — 12 weeks in
A round where the season-average leaderboard shuffled in place. Bailey Smith dipped from 85.0 to 83.7 after a single 70 game; Xerri, Gawn and Grundy all dropped a fraction without changing position. The 100 Club ticked up by one — Matt Rowell’s the eighth different player to hit a perfect 100 in 2026.
The 100 Club (perfect KICK 100 games, 2026 season)
Bars show raw KICK Game Score; every game here exceeded the display ceiling of 100. The dashed line is the ceiling.
- R10
- R2
- R8
- R5
- R10
- R7
- R6
- R3
- R1
- R11
- R10
- R8
Most top-five appearances across the 12 weeks
Bailey Smith leads on 6. Max Gawn next on 4. Five players tied on 3: Tristan Xerri, Brodie Grundy, Lachie Neale, Marcus Bontempelli and Luke Jackson.
Most 90+ KICK games
Bailey Smith has 5. Max Gawn, Tristan Xerri and Brodie Grundy all on 3.
Top season averages, three games minimum
| # | Player | Team | Season avg | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bailey Smith | Geelong | 11 | |
| 2 | Tristan Xerri | North Melbourne | 8 | |
| 3 | Max Gawn | Melbourne | 11 | |
| 4 | Nick Daicos | Collingwood | 10 | |
| 5 | Brodie Grundy | Sydney | 11 | |
| 6 | Isaac Heeney | Sydney | 9 | |
| 7 | Marcus Bontempelli | Western Bulldogs | 11 |
The top three names on the season-average board all dipped in a single round and nobody overtook anyone. Bailey Smith’s 70 against Sydney was his quietest game since R5 but the 11-game sample absorbed it (1.3-point drop in the average, lead intact at 83.7). Tristan Xerri similarly absorbed a KICK 64 to land at 80.3 over 8 games. Max Gawn dipped from 81.6 to 80.2 after a KICK 67 against the Bulldogs. Brodie Grundy — last week’s R10 119.9 hero — managed only KICK 69 against Geelong at Kardinia Park. The marquee name who actually picked up form was Marcus Bontempelli — his KICK 79 in the Bulldogs’ 3-point win was a rebound from R10’s quiet 54 and nudged his season average a fraction higher. Two names worth tracking from this round: Ed Richards, now on two 90+ games and two top-five appearances (both Bulldogs wins he’s been the difference in), and Bailey Williams the West Coast ruck — KICK 96 this round after KICK 93 in R10 — back-to-back top-five appearances from a player whose 2026 form had been inconsistent before this fortnight. Two of the round’s top five contributed entirely in the ruck (Williams, Cameron). The round’s joint-biggest goal haul — there was no six-plus — went to GWS’s Toby Greene (five from 21 disposals, KICK 67) and Jake Stringer (five from 13, KICK 62), both in the 78-point demolition of Brisbane.
Where this is going
Another round-up next Tuesday after Round 12. One match of the round, one season tally refresh, same format. If you want the current form at any time, the live leaderboard re-ranks after every build.
As always: formula here, failures published too, code open-source, no paywall. The current shipped version is v1.1; v1.2–1.4 were held after sweeps (results in the methodology page) and the next lever for positional fairness is more likely to be a separate AFLCA-aligned lens than a single composite. Greene’s R11 67 from five goals is the third standout multi-goal forward in four rounds to land at exactly KICK 67 — Rosas’s seven in R8 and Gunston’s six in R9 hit the same number from the same kind of low-volume forward line. That repeated specific number is the kind of reproducible undervalue signal that would inform that work. If you think the rating is wrong, tell us or check Positional KICK for the within-position view.
See you after Round 12.