Since our ranking on the number of games missed from the Best 22 showed us looking dire earlier this year I decided to do an end of year ladder for games played by the nominal Best 22 for each club. I admit there is a certain phoniness about this since a team's nominal Best 22 at round one will often be different by round 22. Also, since I don't have much of an idea about other clubs I had to standardise the exercise by adopting the only comprehensive list of Best 22s I could find, which was Fox's.

And any Best 22 is arbitrary and subjective. Note Spargo is included in ours, and I would not have him in my best, for example. In any case here goes, keeping in mind the potential number of games from any Best 22 over 22 rounds is 484, here is the actual number played by the Best 22 according to Fox:

BRISBANE 402 (83%)

WEST COAST 394;

HAWTHORN 381;

CARLTON 380;

NORTH MELBOURNE 366;

BULLDOGS 363;

ESSENDON 362;

PORT 361;

GEELONG 360;

COLLINGWOOD 352;

ADELAIDE 341;

RICHMOND 336;

SYDNEY 335;

FREO 323;

GIANTS 312;

ST KILDA 307; 

MELBOURNE 305 (63%);

 GOLD COAST 294.

I guess the first thing to notice is that the Lions have had plenty of injury luck, but that's not news, and we are much worse off, and that's not news.

St Kilda have done relatively well with almost as many games missed as us, while Carlton, Hawthorn and North might be flattered by their relatively good injury runs.

And what was that about an "injury crisis" at Essendon and Collingwood? They are both right in the middle of the field. Except of course that all are not equal in the Best 22. Games missed by TMac for example are more important than games missed by ANB.

This is only one factor in our unacceptable season. For what it's worth these were the biggest "missing game numbers" from Fox's Best 22 for us: VandenBerg (22), Hannan (16) Jetta (15), May (14), Spargo (14), Lever (14), Weideman (11), OMac (10).

Interesting. Thanks for your hard work, Pitmaster.

Interesting.  What's unavoidably missing from that list is some measure of the depth each club has.    I expect we'd score even worse if that could be taken into account.  

TMac just hit form when he wrecked his knee and missed the rest of the season: we didn't win a game after his injury, was the final straw in a hellish season.

26 minutes ago, sue said:

Interesting.  What's unavoidably missing from that list is some measure of the depth each club has.    I expect we'd score even worse if that could be taken into account.  

Yeah, I too would love this to be expanded out to each clubs best 30. With the thought that there needs to be at least 30 ready to go AFL players to have a decent crack at finals. There was another discussion around the position of the injuries as well, we seemed to have a very good run in the mids - Gawn, Oliver, Harmes, Brayshaw, Viney and Petracca only missed 2 games between them. While the backs missed a lot early in the season then the forwards were all gone late. 

51 minutes ago, pitmaster said:

For what it's worth these were the biggest "missing game numbers" from Fox's Best 22 for us: VandenBerg (22), Hannan (16) Jetta (15), May (14), Spargo (14), Lever (14), Weideman (11), OMac (10).

Other notables not in that list for me would be Melksham and to some extent Sparrow.  Melksham must have missed a significant chunk of games and with Sparrow, it is essentially most of his whole first year of development missed.

That VandenBerg was written off for the season was a huge blow for us in my view, particularly given his preseason format when he was tearing teams apart in the midfield.  The absence of outside run has been often stated, by I also think our midfield has lacked grunt and power this season.

Edited August 26, 20196 yr by Rodney (Balls) Grinter

28 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

Other notables not in that list for me would be Melksham and to some extent Sparrow.  Melksham must have missed a significant chunk of games and with Sparrow, it is essentially most of his whole first year of development missed.

That VandenBerg was written off for the season was a huge blow for us in my view, particularly given his preseason format when he was tearing teams apart in the midfield.  The absence of outside run has been often stated, by I also think our midfield has lacked grunt and power this season.

You're right, Melksham should have been in that list. He missed 10 games, same as OMac. My bad, as the hipsters once said.

Edited August 26, 20196 yr by pitmaster

Spargo .  Best 22??? Ffs

I did almost exactly the same exercise at around round 19 albeit only for the Dees and based on my own best 22 picked in the preseason. 

Basically the same result. We averaged over a third of our best 22 out in every game this year.

Even this does not tell the whole story of our woes. So many of our players were forced back earlier that recommended to cover the losses. 

• Viney couldn't even run in round 1 and IMO should not have got a game until about round 5
• TMac played injured all year and had little impact most games he played
• Hannan played 6 games when it was clear to most that he should have played none.
• Melksham played 12 games after injury and was rushed in with no fitness base
• Jetta got injured. Missed a few games and rushed back before a season ending injury

Honestly,  any reporter who thinks Spargo,  Omac and even Weid are best 22 doesn't have much credibility.

4 minutes ago, Hell Bent said:

Honestly,  any reporter who thinks Spargo,  Omac and even Weid are best 22 doesn't have much credibility.

They were all.in our preliminary side, which is what I presume it is based on.

And let's hope weed is in our best 22 next season

1 minute ago, binman said:

They were all.in our preliminary side, which is what I presume it is based on.

And let's hope weed is in our best 22 next season

Including May n Lever?? The other names makes sense though re prelim 

2 minutes ago, Hell Bent said:

Including May n Lever?? The other names makes sense though re prelim 

Spargo looked miles off on Saturday. Hard to see him making it to be honest. Slow and no tricks a bad combination for a small forward. No goals doesn't help either 

3 minutes ago, binman said:

Spargo looked miles off on Saturday. Hard to see him making it to be honest. Slow and no tricks a bad combination for a small forward. No goals doesn't help either 

Agreed