Dees poach Port data analyst

[DeeSpencer 25,723]

9 minutes ago, binman said:

Annoys me so much.

On AFL.com they have some videos posted abut data for each team. Pretty basic stuff. But i guess it is something. 

Here's ours (apologies if this has already been posted):

https://www.afl.com.au/video/2019-11-01/the-data-game-the-one-remaining-query-on-new-demon

That's interesting, and shows the media is slowly warming to it. There's absolutely an appetite from fans to know more. A slow process but in time the commentators who suggest a team needs to 'work harder' or 'win more contested ball' will be edged out by people who can actually say something interesting about the game. Then the coaches won't get away with such easy cliches either.

[Little Goffy 14,583]

I'm really staggered by the people throwing aroudn bizarrely uninformed comments like "how will this improve out goal kicking" or "how will this stop us being a basket-case' and so on.

Let's see now - the data can now tell us, for each player, exactly how well their fiel kicking is going when you look at it for long kicks, short kicks, kicks under pressure, kicks on the run, kicks from different parts of the ground, you can even cut for how and who from they received the ball.

That doesn't just tell you about their ball drop or action, it tells you how they react to the different situations. Is such-and-such reliable when they are playmaking with a little time from half-back but tend to go for blind bombs or dinky low-value options once they are in congestion. Or even if the actual part of the ground changes confidence and behaviour - do they hear footsteps and rush their kicks when in the middle even when they aren't under immediate pressure, but have a little more steadiness with the reassurance that their blind side is covered by the boundaries?

So, there's a tiny fragment of the kind of thing that can be isolated by just one stat area.

You can even answer questions of blame in some ways - is there a particularly player who isn't spreading enough but calls for it and get short pointless little handball receives and then gets tackles or has to dish it off again for just as pointless a next handball? Or is there a particular player who dishes off the pointless short handball without considering better options?  The full package can filter it all out to see which end of the 'equation' is the problem, identify specific weaknesses in specific players when to even the most astute normal observer it just looks like another centre clearance chain breaking down.

Who actually improves when the game in tight? Who loses accuracy and effectiveness quickly after certain amounts of fatigue and who can keep going a bit longer without suffering too much?

The depth of stats now available, combined with GPS, is now like having a hundred extra pairs of eyes all watching the game for any given aspect of every individual player.  And that sheer volume of information is just junk of you don't have someone genuinely skilled to filter it, identify anything interesting and give that feedback to the relevant people.

Absolutely yes. It will improve out kciking. It will improve out inside 50s. Because we will It will have consisent information about where things are breaking down and what needs to be improved. And it definitely can improve our gameplan and even game-day felxibility because it gives us much clearer knowledge of who is best for what roles and who can effectively shift around to make new combinations.

I'll end the rant there but seriously, people, enough with the "I don't need no MRI, just do the brain surgery."

[rjay 24,991]

6 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Absolutely yes. It will improve out kciking. It will improve out inside 50s. Because we will It will have consisent information about where things are breaking down and what needs to be improved. And it definitely can improve our gameplan and even game-day felxibility because it gives us much clearer knowledge of who is best for what roles and who can effectively shift around to make new combinations.

I'll end the rant there but seriously, people, enough with the "I don't need no MRI, just do the brain surgery.

I didn't want to quote the whole post again 'Goffy' but you make your point well.

I like to make opinions on what I see but I'm not stupid enough to deny that stats, particularly well analysed stats are an invaluable aid.

I mean at the end of the day the scoreboard is a stat...in most cases it tells us who was the better team on the day.

If we can break that down with well considered stats & some smart analysis it should help us in every facet of the game including building the list and yes improving the goal kicking...

[Deecisive 1,709]

we had lots of stats last year on how poor our kicking was, how poor or non-existent our tackling was, how often we turned the ball over and were scored against. Knowledge of those stats unfortunately did not really see us address those issues in any meaningful manner. I hope that we now have remediation plans to break players of bad habits.

[rjay 24,991]

1 hour ago, Deecisive said:

we had lots of stats last year on how poor our kicking was, how poor or non-existent our tackling was, how often we turned the ball over and were scored against. Knowledge of those stats unfortunately did not really see us address those issues in any meaningful manner. I hope that we now have remediation plans to break players of bad habits.

This you don't know...

Some of these things take time to fix.

There are no magic bullets, it may take us a few draft/trade periods.

Maybe the changes made on and off field already have been in answer to these problems.

[jnrmac 20,108]

1 hour ago, Deecisive said:

we had lots of stats last year on how poor our kicking was, how poor or non-existent our tackling was, how often we turned the ball over and were scored against. Knowledge of those stats unfortunately did not really see us address those issues in any meaningful manner. I hope that we now have remediation plans to break players of bad habits.

Sometimes they take time. In 2016 we were 18th on defending one on ones. The club knew they had to get better defenders hence the recruitment of Lever and May. This year we are adding runners who can play the wing and assist with our transitions.

 As for poor kicking, its not just technique. Its running to the right spots, kicking to space, getting the ball to someone who is under less pressure etc etc.

 

[dworship 3,342]

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

Sometimes they take time. In 2016 we were 18th on defending one on ones. The club knew they had to get better defenders hence the recruitment of Lever and May. This year we are adding runners who can play the wing and assist with our transitions.

 As for poor kicking, its not just technique. Its running to the right spots, kicking to space, getting the ball to someone who is under less pressure etc etc.

 

My hope is; better analysis plus specific targeted individual programs (think Burgess, Lewis etc), combined with better planning, will equal improvement.

Contrary to what Chookrat says, it is not just words, there are real actions taking place.