Nobody rated 90 in the Wild Card round. No other round of 2026 can say that.
Marcus Bontempelli topped it with a raw KICK Game Score of 87.0 — 32 disposals, eight clearances, seven marks and a goal in Western Bulldogs’ three-point win over Collingwood. That is the lowest round-high of the season; the next-flattest week, Round 13, still produced a 91.5. The honest qualifier is that this round had two games where a normal week has nine, so there were roughly a quarter as many chances at a big score. With that said, across all 26 weeks it is still the only one in which nobody reached 90.
The round itself is new. Checking every season page in our dataset — all 130 of them, 1897 through 2026 — the label “Wild Card” appears in exactly one, and it is this year’s. It paired seventh with tenth and eighth with ninth: Melbourne against Carlton, Western Bulldogs against Collingwood, on consecutive nights at the same ground.
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.
Wild Card Round — 28 to 29 Aug 2026
Two games, one venue, 172,769 people through the gates. Friday night went to Western Bulldogs by three points, 14.12 (96) to 14.9 (93) — fourteen goals each, separated only by behinds. Collingwood kicked 6.1 to 4.4 in the last quarter and still finished a straight kick short. Saturday’s was less tense and much less accurate: Carlton beat Melbourne by 19, 10.14 (74) to 7.13 (55), in front of 91,733 — the second-biggest crowd of 2026, behind only the 92,231 at the Anzac Day game. Melbourne led by 18 at quarter time, by one at the main break, trailed by four at the last change, and then kicked 0.3 for the quarter.
Bontempelli’s 87 is his sixth top-five appearance of 2026 and his sixth-best game of the year; his best, a raw 101.7, came in Round 1, and his career best of 123.9 was set last season, in a career now 281 games long. Darcy Cameron was next on 86 with 46 hit-outs, 19 disposals and four clearances in the Collingwood loss — equal-14th-most hit-outs in any 2026 game, and his third top-five appearance of the year. Sam Walsh rated 84 on 39 disposals, matching his own 2026 high, and it is his first top-five appearance of the season — in week 26. Matthew Kennedy took fourth on 81, his best game of 2026 and also his first top-five of the year, though still short of the 85.7 he managed in 2024. Nick Daicos completed the five on 79 with 30 disposals and two goals — only his 13th-best game of the year.
Finals games count toward the season average, and that reshuffled the middle of the table. Max Gawn rated 72.5 on 18 disposals and 31 hit-outs, his 19th-best game of 2026, and his season average slipped from 80.93 to 80.58. Daicos’s crept up to 78.62, so the gap between second and third narrowed from 2.34 to 1.96. Bailey Smith did not play — Geelong finished fifth and were not in this round — so his 81.46 still leads. Bontempelli’s own average rose from 74.34 to 74.89, moving him past Jordan Dawson into sixth.
There were no centuries, which is unremarkable rather than notable: six of the 26 weeks of 2026 produced none, the Opening Round among them. So the 100 Club closes this round exactly where it opened — 38 games from 23 players, 28 in wins and ten in defeats.
- 87
Marcus Bontempelli 32 disposals · 1 goal · 8 clearances · 7 marks
- 86
Darcy Cameron 19 disposals · 1 goal · 4 tackles · 4 clearances
- 84
Sam Walsh 39 disposals · 3 tackles · 7 clearances · 6 marks
- 81
Matthew Kennedy 27 disposals · 1 goal · 5 tackles · 4 clearances
- 79
Nick Daicos 30 disposals · 2 goals · 5 tackles · 4 clearances
The season tally — 26 weeks in
Twenty-six weeks in, with the home-and-away season closed and the finals under way, most of this is settled.
The 100 Club (perfect KICK 100 games, 2026 season)
Bars show raw KICK Game Score, which is not capped. Every game here displays as a perfect 100 because the display score is capped at 100. The dashed line marks raw 100: bars reaching it cleared 100 outright, the shortest rounded up to it.
- R22
- R10
- R19
- R12
- R20
- R2
- R8
- R5
- R24
- R16
- R14
- R23
- R15
- R10
- R23
- R7
- R21
- R6
- R24
- R22
- R24
- R3
- R16
- R22
- R24
- R24
- R22
- R1
- R11
- R10
- R17
- R24
- R8
- R23
- R22
- R15
- R21
- R16
Most top-five appearances across the 26 weeks
Max Gawn and Bailey Smith are tied on 8. Lachie Neale and Marcus Bontempelli have 6 — Bontempelli drew level by topping this round. Then Nick Daicos and Izak Rankine on 5, and Luke Jackson, Tristan Xerri and Harry Sheezel on 4.
Most 90+ KICK games
Bailey Smith still leads on 8. Max Gawn, Nick Daicos, Lachie Neale and Izak Rankine share second on 5, then Marcus Bontempelli, Tristan Xerri, Harry Sheezel, Matt Rowell and Max Hall on 4. Nobody added to this list in the Wild Card round, for the obvious reason.
Top season averages, three games minimum
| # | Player | Team | Season avg | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bailey Smith | Geelong | 22 | |
| 2 | Max Gawn | Melbourne | 24 | |
| 3 | Nick Daicos | Collingwood | 23 | |
| 4 | Isaac Heeney | Sydney | 20 | |
| 5 | Harry Sheezel | North Melbourne | 21 | |
| 6 | Marcus Bontempelli | Western Bulldogs | 23 | |
| 7 | Jordan Dawson | Adelaide | 20 |
Where this is going
The next round-up lands next Tuesday in the same format: match of the round, top raters, and a season tally that from here only moves when a finals game moves it. If you want current form at any time, the live leaderboard re-ranks after every build.
One thing we will not do is guess. This is the first Wild Card round in the dataset, and what it means for the two beaten sides is not something our data states — only that Melbourne and Collingwood did not win. Next week’s fixtures will settle it.
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 are on the methodology page). If you think the rating is wrong — especially if you think forwards are undervalued, which they measurably are — tell us, or check Positional KICK for the within-position view.
See you after the first week of the finals.