For the first time since Round 4, Round 9 produced no perfect KICK 100s. Tristan Xerri’s three-from-five run snapped — North travelled to Docklands and lost to Sydney by 8, Xerri got 19 disposals, 13 hit-outs and a KICK of 69. Nobody else hit the ceiling: the round’s top score was Luke Jackson’s 96 in the Thursday-night opener at Perth Stadium, the second straight week Jackson’s cracked the top five from the relief-ruck role at Fremantle.
Behind Jackson came a midfielder masterclass — Izak Rankine 95 (33-and-9-tackles in Adelaide’s 37-point win at the MCG), Marcus Bontempelli 94 (30-and-10 carrying the Bulldogs to a 2-point boilover at Adelaide Oval), and Bailey Smith 92 from 40 disposals as Geelong belted Collingwood by 54 also at the MCG. Five names in the top five, four of them midfielders, and not a perfect 100 between them.
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 9 — 7 to 10 May 2026
Two MCG headliners on Saturday and Sunday set the tone of the round — Geelong 122 def. Collingwood 68 (a 54-point thumping with Bailey Smith on 40 disposals and Oliver Henry booting four against his old club), then Adelaide 98 def. Richmond 61 with Izak Rankine and Jordan Dawson carving the midfield. The closest finish came at Adelaide Oval: Western Bulldogs 74 def. Port Adelaide 72, Bonta the difference. Sydney edged North by 8 at Docklands; Brisbane held off Carlton by 11 at the Gabba; GWS, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Fremantle all won comfortably enough. The round’s biggest goal-kicking haul belonged to Jack Gunston — six majors from 11 disposals for Hawthorn in their loss to Fremantle — and yet that landed at KICK 67, the exact same number as Malcolm Rosas’s seven-goal bag for Sydney last week. Two consecutive rounds, the round’s standout goal-kicker scoring 67 on KICK. The two players are different archetypes — Rosas a small forward, Gunston a tall key forward — but the pattern is the same: a low-possession day where most of the impact is on the scoreboard rates middling on KICK no matter how many goals it produces. The methodology page is honest about it, and that’s the next real lever.
- 96
Luke Jackson 22 disposals · 10 tackles · 7 clearances · 4 marks
- 95
Izak Rankine 33 disposals · 1 goal · 9 tackles · 4 clearances
- 94
Marcus Bontempelli 30 disposals · 1 goal · 10 tackles · 7 clearances
- 92
Bailey Smith 40 disposals · 2 tackles · 6 clearances · 6 marks
- 90
Lachie Neale 33 disposals · 1 goal · 2 tackles · 9 clearances
The season tally — 10 weeks in
100 Club holds at eight. Bailey Smith takes the most-top-five lead outright on five. Tristan Xerri’s season-average lead survives the first quiet game.
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.
- R2
- R8
- R5
- R7
- R6
- R3
- R1
- R8
Most top-five appearances across the 10 weeks
Bailey Smith leads on 5. Next: Max Gawn, Lachie Neale, Marcus Bontempelli, Luke Jackson with 4.
Most 90+ KICK games
Bailey Smith has 4.
Top season averages, three games minimum
| # | Player | Team | Season avg | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tristan Xerri | North Melbourne | 6 | |
| 2 | Max Gawn | Melbourne | 9 | |
| 3 | Bailey Smith | Geelong | 9 | |
| 4 | Nick Daicos | Collingwood | 8 | |
| 5 | Marcus Bontempelli | Western Bulldogs | 9 | |
| 6 | Luke Jackson | Fremantle | 9 | |
| 7 | Lachie Neale | Brisbane Lions | 9 |
A round without any 100s reshaped the table without breaking it. Tristan Xerri absorbed a KICK 69 — his lowest game of the season, about 22 points below his prior 90.9 average — and his season average dropped from 90.9 to 87.2. That 3.7-point average move from a single game is exactly what we said the small sample meant: every game still shifts the average by a meaningful amount until the games-played column gets bigger. Behind him, Bailey Smith and Max Gawn have all but caught up at 82.4 and 82.5 — both with a full nine games on the board, where Xerri has six. Smith is also the season’s most consistent name on KICK now: the only player on four 90+ games (Xerri and Gawn each have three), now leading the top-five count outright on five appearances, and one of only two players with multiple perfect KICK 100s — Xerri’s three plus Smith’s two between them account for five of the 100 Club’s eight entries. None of those is decisive on its own; together they’re the case for the player who’s been most regularly elite across the first ten weeks. Daicos had a quiet round in the 54-point loss to Geelong — his per-game average dropped from 83.7 to 79.8, dropping him from second to fourth in a single weekend.
Where this is going
Another round-up next Tuesday after Round 10. 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 swept and shelved (results are in the methodology page) and the next real lever for positional fairness is an AFLCA-aware composite. The Rosas-67-then-Gunston-67 pattern is the kind of reproducible undervalue we’d use to validate that work — low-volume forward days where most of the impact lands on the scoreboard and KICK looks past it. If you think the rating is wrong, tell us or check Positional KICK for the within-position view.
See you after Round 10.