AFL Coleman Medal Winner 2024 Odds – Expert Predictions & Tips

The Coleman Medal race has undergone a few shake-ups throughout the course of the season, but the one constant has been Charlie Curnow sitting at the head of the favourites. For a time he was joined by Ben King as the clear top two, though it’s now Jesse Hogan who has replaced the Gold Coast spearhead atop the list of favourites. Still, it looks like Curnow’s medal to lose as he looks to win it for the third consecutive time, but with a few weeks to go there are still a number of names left in the race, even if most of them are rank outsiders. Below, we take a look at what needs to happen for each of the remaining chances to climb their way to the top of the goalkicking leaderboard – or in Curnow’s case, hang on to their spot at the top. 

Updated: 2 August 2024
 

Winner of the past two Coleman Medals, 2024 hasn’t seen Charlie Curnow consistently at his absolute best – but it’s a testament to what a player he is that despite that, he is still the odds on favourite to win the award for the third time running with just around a month to go in the season. Curnow has not been able to boot the big bags that he managed pretty regularly last year – in his first 19 games of the 2024 season, he didn’t kick more than four goals more than once and never booted more than five – something he did on four occasions last year when he kicked 78 in the regular season. But his consistency from a goalkicking perspective has been unparalleled. In those same 19 games he kicked multiple goals in all but one game – on that occasion kicking 1.2 against the Giants – and a stretch of 3, 4 and 3 in Rounds 19, 20 and 21 saw him hang on to a three-goal lead atop the goalkicking tally – a similar lead that he has held throughout the course of the year. The Coleman Medal is certainly not yet around Curnow’s neck, but it’s looking increasingly unlikely that anyone barring Jesse Hogan can catch him, assuming the Blues’ spearhead doesn’t either miss games or fall in a hole over the last month. With winnable games over the last month Curnow is best placed to win the award, though with such a small buffer his odds aren’t necessarily all that enticing. Still, Curnow certainly deserves favouritism at this point, even if he is not going to kick as many goals as he did last season.  

Bet on Charlie Curnow to win the Coleman Medal @ $1.40 with PlayUp

Jesse Hogan put himself right in the mix for the Coleman Medal early in the season with a brilliant start to the year, but an extended run in which he returned to the kind of goal kicking tallies which he managed throughout the first nine years of his career saw him tumble down the goalkicking tally and out of the Coleman Medal race in the eyes of many – yours truly included. How that turned around between Rounds 18 and 21. Having not kicked more than three goals in a game for 11 consecutive weeks, the Giants’ big man kicked 5 against Carlton, then 4 against the Tigers, 4 against the Suns and 4 more against the Demons in consecutive weeks, that tally of 17 goals in four weeks putting him right back on Curnow’s tail. He closed the gap between himself and the nominal Coleman Medal favourite to just three goals with a month to go and as the in-form forward in the race, has put himself right in the mix to claim what would be an inaugural Coleman Medal. Already this is the first time that he has kicked 50 goals in a season, and he is looking likely to go beyond 60 – and potentially well beyond it. Going against him is a relatively tough draw in the run home for the Giants, but Hogan’s form is undeniable. He is coming for Curnow like a freight train, and with much better odds and such a slim gap between the two he might be the better value of the two favourites.

Bet on Jesse Hogan to win the Coleman Medal @ $3.50 with PlayUp 

Ben King is having the best season of his career from a goalkicking perspective and a few weeks ago looked the most likely player to give Curnow a run for this year’s Coleman Medal. After Round 17 he had booted 42 goals and sat just a couple off the lead, but a quiet patch in the following month saw him fall back to the pack. King managed just four goals in his next four games to go with nine behinds – a departure from the norm for him given he had kicked 42.13 this season up until that point. He remains the focal point of the Suns’ forward line, but those four goals in four games put him ten behind Curnow with just a month of footy to go, so he will need a couple of big bags to get himself back in the mix. Given that he hasn’t managed to kick more than five goals in a single game in his career, that seems unlikely. King is consistently able to kick three to four goals per game, but for players like that to win the Coleman Medal they need to be doing that with incredible regularity, King certainly was doing that for the first few months of the season, but his lean patch from Rounds 18 to 21 has most likely put him too far back. With a couple of games the Suns could be winning easily to come, he might get the opportunity to put some goals on the board and so isn’t completely out of it, but given his track record it seems unlikely he will be able to hit the scoreboard as heavily as he needs to in order to get back into Coleman Medal contention.

Bet on Ben King to win the Coleman Medal @ $26.00 with BoomBet

Curnow’s partner in crime and the last man to win the Coleman Medal aside from his fellow Carlton big man, Harry McKay has had a strong 2024 season after a down year last season in which he booted just 29 goals. That followed 45 the year before that and 58 the year before, but with 44 through Round 20 this season it’s safe to say he has arrested that downwards trend. He kicked goals in all but one of his first 18 games of the season, and a strong patch which saw him boot 15 in five weeks from Rounds 16-20 kept him somewhat within reaching distance of Curnow and Hogan. But like King, in order to catch up he will need to notch up a couple of big bags of goals, and having not kicked more than five in a game since Round 6 of 2021, that seems unlikely. McKay tends to play further up the ground than Curnow which invariably means that he gets less goalscoring opportunity, and playing that role alongside the Coleman Medal leader will make it doubly difficult for him to make any inroads into the lead his teammate holds over him. This has been a strong year for McKay, but it is very unlikely that it will end up with a second Coleman Medal around his neck. 

Bet on Harry McKay to win the Coleman Medal @ $51.00 with BoomBet

Jake Waterman might not win the Coleman Medal, but he has had an incredible season. Entering it as an okay, albeit unspectacular medium sized forward, he had never before booted more than 18 goals in his six previous years in the AFL. He hit that number early in his eighth game of the year, which happened to come in the middle of a spectacular five-week patch during which he kicked 23 goals. Unsurprisingly that kind of form proved unsustainable, but it did put him in the Coleman Medal conversation and he has hung onto a spot in the top five ever since. He kicked at least three goals every game during that period, and though he didn’t manage to pass that number again in the seven ensuing games, he did kick three on three occasions and two a couple of times on top of that. With five weeks to go he had plenty of work to do in order to catch up to Curnow and Hogan, and like with McKay and King it’s highly unlikely he will be able to do enough. A five-week patch like what he had earlier in the season might get him close, but would still likely see Waterman fall a little short. Impressive though his season has been, it’s exceedingly unlikely he will be able to work his way to the front of the goalkicking leaderboard. 

Bet on Jake Waterman to win the Coleman Medal @ $67.00 with PlayUp

Like Waterman, Treacy’s standing in the AFL has skyrocketed this year, even more so than his Western Australian counterpart. The Dockers’ spearhead has catapulted himself into the game’s elite key forwards, with his marking, goalkicking and general presence in the forward half making the Dockers a significantly better team. He is one of very few players to have kicked a goal in every game this season, and in eight of those (out of 19) he kicked at least three. His ability to capitalise on his opportunities has played a big part in that, with the 42 goals that he has kicked up until the time of writing being accompanied by just 15 behinds. But with Curnow sitting on 56 at the same time and Hogan just three behind that on 53, it’s likely too late for Treacy to make a charge for the Coleman Medal. Regardless, he has had a terrific year and will likely have bigger things on his mind, with the Dockers looking to sew up a top four spot if all goes well over the past month, a position from which they will be a legitimate chance to set up an assault on the Premiership – something in which Treacy will play a major role. 

Bet on Josh Treacy to win the Coleman Medal @ $81.00 with PlayUp 

A perennial Coleman Medal contender over the past few years, Jeremy Cameron hasn’t been quite as industrious in front of goals this year as he has in the past couple of seasons, although relative to his very quiet second half or so of the year last season in terms of goals he has actually been a little more productive. Through the first 14 rounds of the season Cameron kicked more than two goals on just two occasions, but on those two occasions he kicked five and six. But since Tom Hawkins went down he has been required to sit a little closer to goal and that has seen an uptick in his number of goals – or at least in his number of shots. In the six games following Hawkins’ injury – inclusive of the game in which he got injured – Cameron kicked 15 goals and 15 behinds (in an irrelevant but kind of interesting stat, he kicked the same number of behinds and goals in every single one of those games). That was a little more than what he had been averaging per game up until that point, but it still hasn’t really been enough to get him into Coleman Medal contention. Had he been kicking a little straighter he could have been a lot closer, but 17 in arrears of Curnow with five games to go is likely to big a mountain to climb. As much as just about anyone in the league, Cameron is capable of kicking huge bags, and him kicking six or more once or twice in the run home is not out of the realms of possibility. But he would have to do that just about every week to get near Curnow, and that simply is not going to happen. 

Bet on Jeremy Cameron to win the Coleman Medal @ $151.00 with PlayUp

Larkey had a phenomenal season in 2023, with his elite accuracy in front of goal and his ability to make the most of his chances putting him within just a few goals of winning the Coleman Medal on a team which won just three games. They are not going to win many more – if any more – than that this season, though they have certainly been more competitive since the halfway point of the season. But while he has had a little more opportunity than last year – not significantly, but a little – it has not been matched by an uptick in goals. As usual, Larkey has been very accurate – in his first 19 games he booted 39.13 – but he just hasn’t been able to hit the scoreboard as regularly as he did last year, with only two games in those first 19 yielding more than three – and those coming in consecutive weeks when he kicked 5.0 and 4.0 against the Eagles and Magpies. Last year, Larkey finished with nine goals in the final game of the season against the Suns to get himself to 71 for the year. He will need to do that and then some this year to get close to Curnow and King. Larkey is a really good player and will play a pivotal role in the development of the Kangaroos, and over the coming years he will very possibly be right in the Coleman Medal mix plenty more times. As for this year, however, it's not going to happen. 

Bet on Nick Larkey to win the Coleman Medal @ $251.00 with PlayUp

Finally to big Joe Daniher, who last year surpassed the 50 goal mark for just the second time in his career and may very well do it again this year. Daniher has had a pretty decent season for the Lions as a versatile key forward, and in fact if he had have kicked straighter then he would be well on track to scoot past the number that he kicked in the home and away season last year. Unfortunately, he has been a little erratic, with his first 39 goals being accompanied by 36 behinds. Impressively – or unimpressively, depending on how you look at it – he kicked a behind in each and every one of those games, and that might be what keeps him from really having a chance at this medal. Last year he kicked 61.37, and if he had been going at a similar accuracy this year then he would have closer to 50 goals and be within reach of Curnow and King. Alas, he has not being going at that accuracy and does not have that many goals, and barring a miracle he will likely fall relatively comfortably short of the leaders in the goalkicking tally this year. 

Bet on Joe Daniher to win the Coleman Medal @ $251.00 with PlayUp

While there are a few players lined up not too far back in this race with a few weeks to go, realistically it is going to come down to Charlie Curnow and Jesse Hogan, barring a complete collapse from both of them and a huge surge over the remaining few weeks of the season from one of the members of the chasing pack. Curnow has been leading all season and deserves to be favourite to win what would be his third Coleman Medal in a row, but Hogan is right on his heels and is the in-form forward in the competition right now. If it was an even money bet then Curnow would be the man to tip, but it isn’t, and Hogan’s odds are substantially better than the man he is chasing despite the two being on relatively similar tallies at the time of writing and Hogan being in better form. Things could easily change very quickly, but with a few weeks to go, Jesse Hogan looks like the value pick to win what would be his first ever Coleman Medal.