The leader after round 9 this year is sitting on 21,499. By way of comparison, the leader (not the eventual winner) at round 9 in previous years was as follows:
2021 - 20,649
2019 - 20,674
2018 - 20,967
Without looking at the numbers in detail, it feels like the main factors this year have been some bigger scores concentrated in the MIDs premos and a lot more decent and consistent scoring from viable on field rookies.