Each week of the 2026 AFL season, ESPN.com.au's Jake Michaels looks at six big talking points.
This week's Six Points feature a list of the five most disappointing teams of the year, why Brayden Maynard and Touk Miller should have been suspended, the wild stats behind Carlton's season, and the longest goal in recorded history?
1. The five most disappointing teams of season 2026
Every side inevitably disappoints at some stage throughout the rigour of an AFL home-and-away season. But who disappoints the most? And who has failed in meeting their preseason hype and expectation by the greatest margin?
Granted, we still have a month and a half for the fortunes of these five clubs to change, but as things stand right now, these are the five most disappointing teams of the 2026 season.
5. CARLTON - You might be thinking, huh, seven wins in a row qualifies for most disappointing?! Well, yeah, when the rest of the season reads an abysmal 1-8 and leads to a coach sacking. The Blues have hit top form now and could very well play finals, but what could season 2026 have been without such a diabolical start to the year under Michael Voss?
4. ST KILDA - There were many who truly believed the Saints were in the premiership window after a busy offseason. At worst, they were widely viewed as finals certainties. And yet at Round 17, the Saints are 7-9, currently losing the season and sitting outside the top 10. Yeah, I'd call that pretty disappointing.
3. GWS - Sure, the Giants just became the first team in four months to beat the ladder leading Dockers, but that only proves how frustratingly inconsistent they are. Adam Kingsley's side sits 13th on the ladder with a percentage bang on 100 and even with that shock win remain more likely than not to miss the September action.
2. ESSENDON - Few were expecting much from this side, but one win at Round 17 sums up just how dire it's been. In fact, you can rewind even further. The Bombers have managed just one win from their last 29 games! Brad Scott has been shown the door. Zach Merrett still wants out. There's not much to make even the most rusted-on Essendon fan smile in 2026.
1. GOLD COAST - Three weeks into the season, the Suns were flag favourites. Now, they're one more loss from potentially falling into the bottom four. It's been a disastrous season thus far for Damien Hardwick's side. Winless since mid-May. Winless on the Gold Coast since the beginning of May. Just one win to their name as the away team for the year, and even that was against Richmond! So much promise, so little to show for it.
2. Protect the umpires; Brayden Maynard and Touk Miller should have been suspended
The AFL dished out $31,000 worth of fines to Collingwood and Gold Coast players after the heated clash between the two teams on Saturday afternoon at People First Stadium. The two players hit hardest in the hip pocket were Brayden Maynard and Touk Miller, the pair fined $7,000 and $6,000, respectively -- including $5,000 each for making contact with a field umpire.
On the stroke of halftime, Maynard and Miller made a beeline towards a swarm of players engaging in a melee, in the process storming through umpire Nick Brown. You can rewatch the vision here:
"Appeared to make intentional contact with an umpire ..." 😬
— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) July 4, 2026
Brayden Maynard could be facing a lengthy suspension after this incident at half-time on the Gold Coast.
📺 Watch #AFLSunsPies on ch.504 or stream on Kayo: https://t.co/f6TcuhiaD9 pic.twitter.com/KelMegLtx5
Under the current AFL guidelines, careless contact with an umpire cannot be met with a suspension. Umpire contact can only be reportable if the contact is intentional, such as the case with Toby Greene in 2022. Instead, careless contact generally carries a $1,500 fine. However, according to footy reporter Tom Morris, the AFL felt that such a fine wasn't severe enough for the Maynard and Miller incident. Instead, the league opted to dish out "misconduct fines" of $5,000 apiece.
This decision has had a three-fold effect. First, both Maynard and Miller have avoided a tribunal hearing and possible suspension. Second, the Suns and Magpies avoided $20,000 fines for what would have been at least a fifth instance of umpire contact throughout the year for both. And third, the AFL gets to fine the players more than the $1,500 it felt was inadequate.
Sorry, It's simply inexcusable for players to make this type of contact with umpires, and a heftier fine still doesn't cut it. I'm not saying this should be a six-week ban ala Greene's intentional contact with Matt Stevic four years ago, but a fine just doesn't work as the deterrent we think it does. It's barely a slap on the wrist. There needs to be a fitting penalty for the avoidable incidents that fall between the Greene example and the standard careless umpire contact, such as this one.
Even Maynard confessed the contact was avoidable, even intentional, in a bizarre, self-incriminating interview on the Ausmerican Aces podcast.
"When I got hit from behind and I didn't know who it was, it sort of rattled me. I got up and thought 'I've got to get my revenge back ASAP'," said Maynard. "I just looked at [Ben Long] and said 'you're mine.' It was on for young and old.
"When I was running over there I came from about 50m deep, so I probably should have been aware of what was around me, but I had my eyes on one man and one man only. Unfortunately the umpire was in the way. Look, it was careless. I didn't mean to touch him, he sort of just was there in the middle and I had to get him out of the way. If I didn't move him out the way I probably would have bulldozed him over, let's be honest."
Wait, so Maynard knew he was going to touch the umpire? How's that not intentional?!
At the end of the day, we're supposed to be looking after the umpires. It's not the job of the umpires to brace themselves for contact coming from behind, and at a decent clip. It's no surprise we have consistently seen a decline in those entering umpiring pathways.
3. The unimaginable stats behind Carlton's last 14 weeks
From 1-8 to 8-8, the Blues' mid-season turnaround has certainly been well documented and will go down in footy history as one of the most remarkable we've ever seen. In fact, it is now the most remarkable we've ever seen!
Prior to Carlton's two-point win over Richmond at the MCG on Saturday evening, no team in league history had ever lost seven games in succession and immediately followed that stretch with seven consecutive wins. It's a truly mind-boggling stat.
4. The strangest footy game ever played?!
The Blues might well win the award for strangest season on record, but the gong for the strangest game I've ever seen has to go to Saturday afternoon's Hawthorn vs. Melbourne clash in Launceston.
It seemed as if the Demons were playing with four extra players on the ground for much of the first half, opening up a whopping 96-point lead early in the third term to leave everyone at the ground in utter disbelief. And yet somehow, with six minutes to play, the Hawks, with all of the momentum, felt close to a 50-50 chance of walking away with the four points.
During the stunning second-half comeback, Hawthorn booted 12 unanswered goals to close the margin to 23 points. That's the longest consecutive goal streak by a team in a game they lost (the next longest was nine). Not only that, but the 90 points the Hawks finished on was the highest ever score by a team that was sitting on 10 points or fewer at halftime.
On the flip side, Melbourne's +17 clearances in the first half was their third best half on record. Their -43 point second half was the seventh worst second half score differential for a winning team in league history.
5. Something quirky I noticed
On Thursday night at GMHBA Stadium, Cats forward Shannon Neale booted an ultra long-range goal against the Lions. It was measured by Champion Data at a whopping 74.25m. Turns out that was the longest goal kicked thus far in 2026 as well as the 11th-longest kicked in recorded history!
6. My favourite stat of the week
This week, Nick Daicos joined Gary Ablett, Dane Swan, and Dayne Beams as the only players to record 30+ disposals and 1+ goals in six consecutive games.
It's the 34th time Daicos has finished a game with at least 30 disposals and one goal, meaning he reaches that stat line in 31.2% of games played in his career. That's the highest rate of any player in league history.