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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Sport
Jonathan Horn

AFL 2026 predicted ladder part three: Brisbane’s best may be yet to come

Brisbane Fremantle Izak Rankine Gold Coast Collingwood Gold Suns
Composite image of Damien Hardwick, Izak Rankine and Will Ashcroft
Izak Rankine’s Adelaide Crows just make the top six of our 2026 AFL season predictions but Damian Hardwick’s Gold Coast Suns are finally ready to shine. Composite: AFL Photos/Getty Images

6. Adelaide

“It’s definitely not ideal, is it?” Darcy Fogarty said in the days following Izak Rankine’s homophobic slur. And no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t ideal for his AFLW colleagues. It wasn’t ideal for the people running things. It wasn’t ideal for Rankine himself. And it wasn’t ideal for his team, who’d spilled into the rooms after the round 23 win over Collingwood on top of the footballing world. It was a party atmosphere that night, the celebration of a club that had secured a double chance, broken a hoodoo, and finally believed it belonged with the best. What could possibly go wrong?

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