http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-01-16/revealed-the-afls-most-talented-list

The Tigers are ranked behind 2016 premiers the Western Bulldogs (No.7) and Hawthorn (No.8) and but they leapfrog both clubs when lists are narrowed to assess the best 22 players, jumping to seventh.

Sydney has the most talented full list as well as the best 22, while Port Adelaide comes in second for overall list strength after an aggressive off-season of recruiting, ahead of losing grand finalist Adelaide (No.3) and Greater Western Sydney (No.4).  

Sydney boasts an AFL-high 17 players rated either 'elite' or 'above average', ahead of Port Adelaide, which has 16 players in the top two categories.

Carlton's list is rated the least talented, while Fremantle has the weakest best 22, with captain Nat Fyfe rated as the club's only 'elite' player.   

Nathan Buckley will be attempting to steer Collingwood back into the finals with the 10th-ranked list, but the sixth-strongest best 22, with Essendon (11th overall) experiencing a similar spike to eighth when limited to its best 22.

I wonder where Melbourne's list will be compared to other clubs lists?

Its a disgrace that Sydney get propped out with equivalent no.1 draft picks when in the top 4 through the acadamies

The two sydney teams will be hard to beat over the next 5 years

18 minutes ago, DubDee said:

Its a disgrace that Sydney get propped out with equivalent no.1 draft picks when in the top 4 through the acadamies

The two sydney teams will be hard to beat over the next 5 years

That's the AFL's fault. Out of the $1bill plus tv rights they've had over the past 10 years they won't allocate money to identify and develop young talent in the non AFL States. They leave it entirely to the teams there even though with the expansion there is more need to find more players. The Swans have spent over $1mill per year on their Academy for about 8-10 years now. They seek out every junior athlete initially in the whole of NSW and since GWS in their allocated areas. They have around 500-600 players a year going through it, that's thousands and thousands of players over the period. Out of that massive investment, so far they have Heeney and Mills. That's it. Brandon Jack was the only other player to make it to the list and he didn't make it. Heeney was a rugby league player in Newcastle who would never have been discovered without the Swans Academy work in finding him. 

I was involved in Junior AFL in Sydney for over ten years and know how incredibly hard the landscape is up here for AFL. The Swans Academy is a big deal to all the kids up here who aspire to getting picked in it. I've watched its impact on Junior Clubs like ours since it started and its significant. 

The only way to solve this is for the AFL to set up AFL Academies not Club Academies. 

 

1 hour ago, JAG007 said:

Sydney has the most talented full list as well as the best 22

I think they are overrated...but then again I don't trust the champion data stats on things like this.

Apropos Champ Data. Does Collingwood still have the best rated on-ball brigade?

57 minutes ago, Tony Tea said:

Apropos Champ Data. Does Collingwood still have the best rated on-ball brigade?

This year they have Collingwood listed as 6th strongest 'best 22' LOL

They are so bias towards the filth

I would say we are 5th or 6th.

3 hours ago, Tony Tea said:

Apropos Champ Data. Does Collingwood still have the best rated on-ball brigade?

Jan 2017 Champion Data: Pies no 1 midfield Dees 18th

Grain. Of. Salt.

4 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Jan 2017 Champion Data: Pies no 1 midfield Dees 18th

Grain. Of. Salt.

They've adjusted their metrics and parameters since then.

 

They'll have a new erroneous and eyebrow-lifting list this year. (Inject "wtf?" emoji here.)

4 hours ago, DubDee said:

Its a disgrace that Sydney get propped out with equivalent no.1 draft picks when in the top 4 through the acadamies

The two sydney teams will be hard to beat over the next 5 years

The Giants were apparently meant to win it the last two years.

19 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Jan 2017 Champion Data: Pies no 1 midfield Dees 18th

Grain. Of. Salt.

And remind me who won round 23?

1 hour ago, ManDee said:

And remind me who won round 23?

I'm told that was an aberration after a long and difficult season......how did we lose ???

4 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

I'm told that was an aberration after a long and difficult season......how did we lose ???

Funny how many clubs & supporters complain about long season, young lists, bad draws and sunspots. By and large the season length is basically the same, the average age of players at clubs 2018 oldest Adelaide & Hawthorn 24.6 the youngest GC 23.1- they're all young, good sides win with bad draws and who knows what sunspots do! It has to be the Norm Smith curse, I'm going out to sacrifice another chook, sheep (chops) and cows (steak) haven't worked yet.

53 minutes ago, ManDee said:

Funny how many clubs & supporters complain about long season, young lists, bad draws and sunspots. By and large the season length is basically the same, the average age of players at clubs 2018 oldest Adelaide & Hawthorn 24.6 the youngest GC 23.1- they're all young, good sides win with bad draws and who knows what sunspots do! It has to be the Norm Smith curse, I'm going out to sacrifice another chook, sheep (chops) and cows (steak) haven't worked yet.

watch out for those venison steaks.... I am sure that sacrificing Bambi on the barbie cannot be good for us .. Then again I do like a good piece of 'Roo meat.

Edited January 17, 20187 yr by Diamond_Jim

48 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

I'm told that was an aberration after a long and difficult season......how did we lose ???

Jack Watts

4 hours ago, ManDee said:

And remind me who won round 23?

That does not mean they are better then us, gee the eagles beat the crows in round 23, so that must mean they are better then them, in a season of 22 games we missed the finals by the smallest margin in history, and were in the 8 for most of the year they never got close to it, your response is what a four 4 year old would say.

There are two Statts I believe in from 2017.

Richmond were the best team and  Brisbane were the worst.

The rest is just Champion data trying to justify their existence.

11 minutes ago, old dee said:

There are two Statts I believe in from 2017.

Richmond were the best team and  Brisbane were the worst.

The rest is just Champion data trying to justify their existence.

I'm happy for them to count kicks and handballs too 'old dee', they can also give us the average age of the list etc.

Anything past that is all crystal balls to me...

Edited January 17, 20187 yr by rjay

37 minutes ago, rjay said:

I'm happy for them to count kicks and handballs too 'old dee', they can also give us the average age of the list etc.

Anything past that is all crystal balls to me...

Don't they always say on paper, but sport is not played on paper

6 minutes ago, don't make me angry said:

Don't they always say on paper, but sport is not played on paper

Not sure about that I reckon quite a few have paper for brains.

However you are correct, I have no idea how you quantify desire in the statts.

2 minutes ago, old dee said:

Not sure about that I reckon quite a few have paper for brains.

However you are correct, I have no idea how you quantify desire in the statts.

Past performance don't dictate future performances, who could have predicted that Clayton would become one of the top 5 midfielders in the competition

These lists from Champion are inherently biased towards older lists.  They base their rankings on the team's performance over the past three seasons.  Many of our first side don't even have data from three seasons to put up, and certainly not impressive numbers in the firsts.  This doesn't mean that they aren't a better group than sides like Collingwood.  It's just that those sides are packed full of veterans with big numbers in the past to increase their ranking. 

On 1/17/2018 at 10:21 AM, It's Time said:

That's the AFL's fault. Out of the $1bill plus tv rights they've had over the past 10 years they won't allocate money to identify and develop young talent in the non AFL States. They leave it entirely to the teams there even though with the expansion there is more need to find more players. The Swans have spent over $1mill per year on their Academy for about 8-10 years now. They seek out every junior athlete initially in the whole of NSW and since GWS in their allocated areas. They have around 500-600 players a year going through it, that's thousands and thousands of players over the period. Out of that massive investment, so far they have Heeney and Mills. That's it. Brandon Jack was the only other player to make it to the list and he didn't make it. Heeney was a rugby league player in Newcastle who would never have been discovered without the Swans Academy work in finding him. 

I was involved in Junior AFL in Sydney for over ten years and know how incredibly hard the landscape is up here for AFL. The Swans Academy is a big deal to all the kids up here who aspire to getting picked in it. I've watched its impact on Junior Clubs like ours since it started and its significant. 

The only way to solve this is for the AFL to set up AFL Academies not Club Academies. 

 

completely agree.  I was having a go at the AFL not the sydney clubs. The AFL should 100% run and pay for these academies

it's an unfair advantage imo. Heeney and Mills are both worthy picks 1s and should have gone to struggling teams

17 hours ago, old dee said:

Not sure about that I reckon quite a few have paper for brains.

However you are correct, I have no idea how you quantify desire in the statts.

Tackles, tackle percentage, 1 percenters like smothers and spoils, contested ball and now the all important pressure acts that attempts to grade how much pressure a player applies to an opponent. Combine that with GPS numbers and I think it probably does spit out a decent evaluation of which players are doing what in the old days would be called 'running hard and having a crack'.

If there's a glaring weakness in using stats to evaluate footy games it's that they can't say which players are running to and disposing to the right spots according to a coaches game plan. In fact I doubt think Champion Data have even worked out what they would rank as the best game plan. 

They should focus their stats on the ones that matter and on which players matter.

They might well do that and keep it in house for the clubs because the stuff they release to the media is just a statistical version of fan forum rankings.

1 minute ago, DeeSpencer said:

Tackles, tackle percentage, 1 percenters like smothers and spoils, contested ball and now the all important pressure acts that attempts to grade how much pressure a player applies to an opponent. Combine that with GPS numbers and I think it probably does spit out a decent evaluation of which players are doing what in the old days would be called 'running hard and having a crack'.

If there's a glaring weakness in using stats to evaluate footy games it's that they can't say which players are running to and disposing to the right spots according to a coaches game plan. In fact I doubt think Champion Data have even worked out what they would rank as the best game plan. 

They should focus their stats on the ones that matter and on which players matter.

They might well do that and keep it in house for the clubs because the stuff they release to the media is just a statistical version of fan forum rankings.

We are in 100% agreement on that one DS.