AFL Coleman Medal Winner 2024 Odds – Expert Predictions & Tips

For a long time the days of big men kicking big bags of goals appeared to be over, but in recent years it has gradually begun to come back into vogue, and that was more evident last year than it has been for over a decade. Charlie Curnow won his second consecutive Coleman Medal with 78 goals in the home and away season, while Tex Walker was not far behind with 76 and Nick Larkey booted 71 – an incredible feat in a team which won three games. All of that was after nobody in the league had managed to hit the 70-mark since Josh Kennedy in 2016, so it’s safe to say that the various rule changes the AFL brought into place to improve ball movement have had an impact. With the 6-6-6 rule and in particular the protected area after a mark, the ball has been zinging up the field faster than it has been in previous years, and the result is more open space for forwards to go to work in. This year looks like being no different, with a number of players on track to boot close to 80 goals a few games into the season. It looks likely to be a tight race for the Coleman Medal, and below we’ll take a look at the chances of some of the favourites to take it out. 

Updated: 18 March 2024
 

As the winner of the past two Coleman Medals, it’s no surprise to see Charlie Curnow atop this list. He started there coming into the season and nothing we’ve seen so far has done anything to change that, with 17 goals in his first five games of the season enough to have him sitting in second place in the Coleman Medal standings at that point in time. His start to the year has been super consistent, with multiple goals coming in every game but no more than four on a single outing after five games – though he hit that number three times. With the potential exception of Jeremy Cameron, Curnow is the best forward in the game, and importantly for the sake of this market plays close to goal on a team that is going to win a lot of games this year. His mix of athleticism, marking ability and a lethal right boot, he is a nightmare matchup for opponents, particularly with the Blues’ very talented midfield providing him with plenty of high quality ball. Curnow will hit the scoreboard regularly in most games he plays this year, and a couple of big bags could see him exceed the 76 goals that he managed last season and very possibly win this award for the third time in as many years.  

Bet on Charlie Curnow to win the Coleman Medal @ $3.50

Jesse Hogan hasn’t quite lived up the incredibly high expectations set for him at the beginning of his career by success-starved Melbourne fans, but now 29 years of age and with four years of continuity in a Giants’ jersey behind him, he is playing the best footy of his career on a team that looks set to challenge for a flag. Having never booted 50 goals in a single season in his career – 49 last year was the most he has ever managed – he started the year with multiple goals in each of his first five games of the season and 18 in total in that time. That was enough to have him sitting on top of the goalkicking leaderboard at that point in the season, and has seen his odds to win the Coleman Medal crunched in. After starting the year at $21 to win it he is into second favouritism at the time of writing, and it’s easy to see why. The Giants are going to win a lot of games this year and score plenty of points while doing it, and he has established himself as the clear focal point of this forward line alongside Toby Greene. Hogan’s start to the season has been excellent and if he continues to play the way he is he will not only fly past his highest ever goalkicking total, but he will put himself right in the mix to win the Coleman Medal. The main concern surrounding him at such short odds is the fact that he has never put together a season as complete as he would need to in order to win this award, but early in the year he is playing at a high enough level to suggest he can do just that. 

Bet on Jesse Hogan to win the Coleman Medal @ $5.00 

It’s rare to have two players from the same team so high in the Coleman Medal calculations, but such is the talent of the Blues’ twin towers of Curnow and Harry McKay. After winning the Coleman Medal in 2021 with a relatively low 58 goals, McKay has taken a back seat to Curnow as the number one forward and has also been playing a lot higher up the field for much of the past couple of years, resulting in 45 goals in 2022 and then just 29 in a disappointing year marred by kicking woes last season. But in the early stages of this season, there have been some signs that the Harry McKay of old is returning. A match-winning goal in Carlton’s one-point Round 0 win against the Blues would have been a huge confidence booster for someone who has struggled in that department in recent years, and kickstarted a hot start to the year which saw him boot 11 goals in his first three games. He only kicked two goals across the next two games, but the 26-year-old does appear to be returning to the kind of form which made him one of the best – if not the best – forward in the game for a period a few years ago. Like Curnow, McKay will benefit from the fact that the Blues will likely be a very good team this year, and it would be no surprise to see him surpass the 58 goals which won him the Coleman Medal in 2021. To win it this year, however, he will need a lot more than that. At $8 he doesn’t necessarily look the best value particularly given there is a more potent goalkicker on his own team, but he could very easily find himself in Coleman Medal calculations. 

Bet on Harry McKay to win the Coleman Medal @ $8.00

Halfway through last year, Jeremy Cameron had established himself alongside Charlie Curnow as one of two short-priced favourites to win what would have been his second Coleman Medal, and his first with the Cats. But he tailed off in the second half of the year and finished with just 53, with a combination of a role which saw him spend a lot of time up the field, as well as some indifferent form, resulting in a lot less goals. Cameron’s incredible versatility means he is capable of playing in a variety of different positions and he will again this year spend a lot of time up the field, but what makes him one of the best players in the game is his ability to do that while still being able to get forward and boot big bags. In his first five games of the season he kicked multiple goals in every game and snagged six in a dominant performance against the Kangaroos, and having kicked five or more on four occasions last year it’s likely he will have a few more bags to come this year. Cameron is as capable of anyone in the league of hitting the scoreboard heavily, as he showed last year when he kicked at least three goals in seven consecutive games at the beginning of the year. At $8, he looks like some pretty decent value after a pretty strong start to the season.  

Bet on Jeremy Cameron to win the Coleman Medal @ $8.00 

The King brothers have promised plenty in their first five years in the AFL, and at just 23 years of age both still have plenty of improvement left in them. Ben, in particular, looks set to take the next step this season, at least if his beginning to the year is anything to go by. He’s booted 47 and 40 goals in his last two full years (with one off in the middle of those two with an ACL tear), but with the Suns looking set to compete for a finals spot for the first time in their history this year and another year of development under his belt, he seems likely to fly past those numbers this season. After booting five goals against the Tigers in Round Zero he went scoreless the next week, but nine goals in the next week put him up there with the Coleman Medal leaders a few games into the season. King now has a full year of footy behind him after the ACL injury that saw him miss the entirety of the 2022 season, and is looking as dangerous as he ever has as a towering key forward target. Having only maxed out at 47 in his career he will need to kick a lot more goals than he ever has before to win the Coleman Medal, but while that will be a tough ask he certainly looks set for the most fruitful season of his young career from a goalkicking perspective.

Bet on Ben King to win the Coleman Medal @ $13.00  

After kicking an incredible 71 goals last year on a team that won just three games, Nick Larkey entered this season paying $8 to win the Coleman Medal, behind only Charlie Curnow. Given the Roos’ expected struggles it would take some effort for him to win the award, but he did go pretty close last year and at only 25 years of age still has plenty of room to improve. But a relatively slow start to the season has seen his odds nearly double. His Kangaroos haven’t started the year particularly well, and though that was expected to an extent they would have been hoping to be more competitive than they have been, and an extension of that is clearly that it’s difficult for their star forward to kick all that many goals. Larkey hasn’t been bad by any means, but ten goals in his first five games already put him well behind the rest of the pack. Larkey won’t get as many opportunities as the others in this list, but what he does better than nearly anybody in the league is take advantage of those chances. Last year he booted 71 goals and just 24 behinds while the ten goals he kicked in his first five games this year were accompanied by just three behinds. To work his way back into Coleman Medal he will certainly need to do that. Compared to the other major goalkickers last year, Larkey was much more prone to kicking three or four consistently rather than booting big bags, but with close to 80 goals likely needed to win the award this year and after a relatively slow start to the season, he’ll likely need to change that if he’s to win it. 

Bet on Nick Larkey to win the Coleman Medal @ $15.00 

Joe Daniher has received plenty of criticism in the past for his inconsistency, but after a couple of poor games early he ended up having a terrific 2023, which he capped off by being one of the best players in Brisbane’s heartbreaking Grand Final loss. Like a couple of other players in this list, he spends a lot of time up the field, and that invariably impacts how many goals he kicked. Last year, however, he still managed a respectable 51 while accumulating plenty of touches, and so far in 2024 he looks to be getting even more looks on goal. That hasn’t entirely translated to goals, because through his first five games of the season he booted 12.12, but that is still a lot of shots on goal and bodes well for his ability to go past the 51 he kicked last year if he can start to find the big sticks. But while he is capable of playing up the field and still kicking plenty of goals, there is no doubting that the role he is playing will make it tough for him to win the Coleman Medal. Last year he was able to pretty consistently boot two or three goals, but rarely did he kick big bags, and if he continues to play high this year then that will likely be the case once again. Daniher could easily be on track for more goals than he kicked last year, but whether he can match it with the likes of Charlie Curnow and co for pure goalkicking is another question entirely. 

Bet on Joe Daniher to win the Coleman Medal @ $21.00

Max King was probably the marginally better performed of the King brothers early in their respective careers – something which not rupturing his ACL like his brother certainly helped with – jumping from 22 goals in his first year to 38 in his second and then 52 in his third. But last year he struggled with a shoulder injury and was able to play just 11 games. He still booted 28 goals in those games at a higher clip per game than he had been able to manage previously, but that absence combined with a slow start to this year has seen his odds to win the Coleman Medal blow out to beyond $20. After missing Round 1, he booted just six goals in his first four games of the season – which were broken up by a one-game suspension – putting him well behind virtually everyone else at this point in the season. But King is a really good player and will only get better, and it would be no surprise to see his odds shorten throughout the course of the season. Having never kicked more than 52 goals in a single season he would have to significantly increase that output to get near the Coleman Medal, but at $21 he is far from the worst bet on this list. King’s start to the season certainly doesn’t help, but expect him to gradually work his way up the list of goalkickers throughout the course of this season. 

Bet on Max King to win the Coleman Medal @ $21.00 

Bayley Fritsch has established himself as arguably the best medium-sized forward in the game in recent years, and with Melbourne’s lack of a quality key forward option he has and continues to take on plenty of the goalkicking load for the Demons. In both 2021 and 2022 he kicked close to 60 goals, but last year he missed a number of games and managed only 38. This year, however, he looks set to return to those bigger numbers and potentially then some. Through his first six games of the year Fritsch booted 16 goals, including a five-goal haul against the Hawks and a four-goal haul against the Swans. That put him right up there near the top of the goalkickers at that point in the 2024 season, but while he hits the scoreboard very reliably and consistently, he hasn’t kicked more than five goals in a game since 2021. With the kind of number that will be needed to win the Coleman Medal this year, those big bags are going to be essential. Fritsch is a quality player and will play a key role in Melbourne’s hopes this year, but while he’s close to a certainty to notch up 45 or 50 goals plus if he’s injury-free all year, it's difficult to imagine him getting the extra 30 or so that he will need on top of that to win the Coleman Medal. 

Bet on Bayley Fritsch to win the Coleman Medal @ $26.00

With Buddy Franklin now retired, the Swans need somebody to step up and take the role of number one key forward on a team which is hoping to compete for a flag this year, Logan McDonald isn’t necessarily the prototypical key forward, but he is big enough, athletic enough and certainly has the aerial and kicking ability required to be a dangerous target up forward. To win the Coleman Medal, however, he would need to have the best season of his young career by some margin. Having just turned 22, this is only his fourth season in the league, and the 32 goals he kicked last year was more than double what he had managed in either of the previous two seasons. He will probably kick a fair bit more than that this year if his career trajectory so far is anything to go by, particularly with the increased emphasis on him as a target with Buddy gone. Realistically, however, it would be incredible if he were to top each of Charlie Curnow, Jeremy Cameron, Harry McKay and co for goals this season. Logan McDonald is in for the biggest season of his career and will likely go well beyond the 32 goals he managed last year, but getting all the way to the top of the list of goalkickers in the league is probably beyond him. 

Bet on Logan McDonald to win the Coleman Medal @ $26.00

It looks pretty likely that the Coleman Medal winner will come from the top four in the above list, with each of the rest of the candidates having good reasons why they will likely struggle to win it, even if they do have good years. Curnow is clearly the man to beat having won it the past two years, but the value that stands out to me is Jeremy Cameron. He can boot goals as easily as anybody in the league, and has shown an ability to kick big bags even while he is roaming up the field. Having dropped a little bit in the pecking order courtesy of a strong start by Jesse Hogan, he looks like the best value selection in the market.