2022 Free Kick Differential

[John Crow Batty 8,352]

36 minutes ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Look up Carlton v Melbourne Round 10 1993 and have a look at the free kick count in that game coach. I only remember that game because it potentially cost Greg Williams the Brownlow, he had 44 possessions and didn’t get a single vote.

I was at that game and one of the few I remember clearly from the time. One of the most frustrating games I’ve ever attended. 

[Demonland 66,833]

[Fritta and Turner 3,886]

and still the Dogs cant win

[layzie 30,232]

It's the ladder that everyone loves..

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,534]

7 minutes ago, Jontee said:

and still the Dogs cant win

In fact, if anyone can discern a pattern from this data which shows that free kick numbers are somehow linked to winning and losing, I'd be astounded.

[george_on_the_outer 7,098]

It is equally not the frees given, but the ones that aren't called.  The Hawkins push in the back, gave Geelong a win, but it is only 1 free kick for statistics.

If the umpires start calling throws against the Dogs, or stop calling in the back when they throw themselves forward in tackles, then the stats change really quickly. 

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,534]

10 minutes ago, george_on_the_outer said:

It is equally not the frees given, but the ones that aren't called.  The Hawkins push in the back, gave Geelong a win, but it is only 1 free kick for statistics.

If the umpires start calling throws against the Dogs, or stop calling in the back when they throw themselves forward in tackles, then the stats change really quickly. 

As hard as it is to do, we should avoid blaming a single incident (or mistake) whether it's made by a player or umpire for the result of any game. There are thousands of other decisions made in any game which help determine the outcome. I agree that in this instance it should have been a free kick against Geelong, but given they won by more than a goal, I'm not even sure it was relevant to the final result anyway.

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,534]

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

As hard as it is to do, we should avoid blaming a single incident (or mistake) whether it's made by a player or umpire for the result of any game. There are thousands of other decisions made in any game which help determine the outcome. I agree that in this instance it should have been a free kick against Geelong, but given they won by more than a goal, I'm not even sure it was relevant to the final result anyway.

I should add, though, I agree with your point that free kicks not being paid is as relevant as those that are. It's not dissimilar an argument to comparing the performance of forwards with defenders. We have goals kicked to help us determine if a forward played well, but we don't have a proper metric for goals prevented to help us understand whether a defender played well.

[Mazer Rackham 14,970]

The latest numbers have mean -0.1667 and standard deviation 16. All results are within 2 standard deviations except for Dogs but they are still within 3 standard deviations. Nothing to see here. (In fact last week's table was more anomalous re Dogs.)

[Pates 9,551]

1 hour ago, Demonland said:

I reckon it’s the only ladder the Dogs will be topping. 

[deejammin' 2,096]

Free kicks don’t win games of football, everything evens out etc. 

But this dogs thing is an established trend. Over the last ten years before 2019 the dogs were consistently in the top three in the AFL for frees for and differential. The other two were West Coast and Geelong, teams with strong home crowd advantages, large supporter groups, ‘noise of affirmation’ and clear reasons for the advantage. The dogs have none of those.

This all  went to a whole other level the last two years, they had an average differential of +7 on all other teams in 2021! That’s 7 extra contested marks a game! They get more frees for than the next team (Geelong) by a factor of 6! And give away less by a factor of 4! For what reason? The dogs have no home ground advantage, no Selwood, no clear reason to be so well treated for over a decade. The nice guys thing is just weird. At what point does the AFL look into why one team gets so much better treatment than every other team? It’s pretty weird right?

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,534]

30 minutes ago, deejammin' said:

Free kicks don’t win games of football, everything evens out etc. 

But this dogs thing is an established trend. Over the last ten years before 2019 the dogs were consistently in the top three in the AFL for frees for and differential. The other two were West Coast and Geelong, teams with strong home crowd advantages, large supporter groups, ‘noise of affirmation’ and clear reasons for the advantage. The dogs have none of those.

This all  went to a whole other level the last two years, they had an average differential of +7 on all other teams in 2021! That’s 7 extra contested marks a game! They get more frees for than the next team (Geelong) by a factor of 6! And give away less by a factor of 4! For what reason? The dogs have no home ground advantage, no Selwood, no clear reason to be so well treated for over a decade. The nice guys thing is just weird. At what point does the AFL look into why one team gets so much better treatment than every other team? It’s pretty weird right?

Is it better treatment? Or does Luke Beveridge and his team understand the rules, and therefore how to exploit them, better than everyone else? I'd suggest it's the latter. 

[—coach— 3,473]

11 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Is it better treatment? Or does Luke Beveridge and his team understand the rules, and therefore how to exploit them, better than everyone else? I'd suggest it's the latter. 

I also think there is an element of coaching going on whereby they are coached to exploit the rules through appropriate staging etc.

If they just spent a little more time on gaol kicking however.......

[titan_uranus 23,126]

2 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Is it better treatment? Or does Luke Beveridge and his team understand the rules, and therefore how to exploit them, better than everyone else? I'd suggest it's the latter. 

Time for more people to focus on the latter, not the former.

There isn't an AFL conspiracy to give the Dogs more free kicks. It's far more likely they are better tacklers and better and releasing the ball without being caught in the tackle, and/or better at spoiling opponents without chopping arms or getting them high.

[deejammin' 2,096]

2 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Is it better treatment? Or does Luke Beveridge and his team understand the rules, and therefore how to exploit them, better than everyone else? I'd suggest it's the latter. 

I’d suggest it’s both. 
The latter is also an issue for the AFL, there was a comp wide blitz on umpire information sessions and umpires trainings and practise this pre-season to aid with all clubs understanding the rules better. If one club has enough information to manipulate this to an unprecedented extent then it’s on the AFL to provide info to the other 17 clubs on what they’re doing right and everyone else is doing wrong. There were AFL reviews into interstate bias and ‘free kick hawthorn’ champion bias the findings of which were released to every club and the media and which have aided in these issues becoming much more equal than they were. If the bulldogs play the rules better than 17 other teams to the point they earn 10 frees more a game then clarity should be provided to all other 17 teams and supporters to understand how they’re doing it. The rules aren’t meant to be gamed to the advantage of the few, they’re meant to be equal.

As for the former, the bulldogs average 3.4 goals from a direct free kick a game, 2 goals higher than the nearest in Geelong. That’s a huge advantage, and many of these frees are just plain wrong, in a way very few other teams receive. Weightman vs Essendon EF and on the quarter time siren against us, those frees literally don’t get paid to anyone else, it’s the bulldogs jumper. There’s no fair play there, they’re just plain wrong. Naughton throws himself forward arms flailing to stage for free kicks, he gets them, Mackay gets a fine for staging. The bulldogs are better treated than any other team by the umpires, I think there should be a review into why. Or maybe we should wait until they hit +15 a game first?

Edited April 12, 2022 by deejammin'

[spirit of norm smith 13,573]

Umps again were poor in game v Giants not only due to the [censored] count but the ridiculous 50 metre penalties.  
 

So that’s 18-24 count against us last night. It was 14-23 within 6 minutes to go.  That’s 4 out of 5 games we are behind the free kick count.  

[DeeZone 8,129]

On 4/12/2022 at 10:18 AM, Pates said:

I reckon it’s the only ladder the Dogs will be topping. 

I can’t see the table.!!!

[Pates 9,551]

13 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Umps again were poor in game v Giants not only due to the [censored] count but the ridiculous 50 metre penalties.  
 

So that’s 18-24 count against us last night. It was 14-23 within 6 minutes to go.  That’s 4 out of 5 games we are behind the free kick count.  

The umps were absolutely shocking Sat night, though I’m going to swallow a little pride here and say the Langdon free against that denied Petracca’s amazing goal was there. The ones that really [censored] me off were: free against Harmes for high tackle, he actually did really well not to commit that offence (later in the evening a GWS player did the same thing on us but it was play on). The other one that baffles me was TMac appealing for deliberate, that (from my position at least) was given because he made a flicking motion with his hand and then rocked his head back when it wasn’t given. 

There we’re so many others through the night and funnily enough I noticed in the third quarter we started getting some cheap levellers. 

[Willmoy1947 3,847]

So why are there nearly always cheap levellers.

When are we going to bring this major issue of umpiring into the open.I bet they want it, and so do the players and supporters.

[Leopold Bloom 279]

18 minutes ago, Pates said:

The umps were absolutely shocking Sat night, though I’m going to swallow a little pride here and say the Langdon free against that denied Petracca’s amazing goal was there. The ones that really [censored] me off were: free against Harmes for high tackle, he actually did really well not to commit that offence (later in the evening a GWS player did the same thing on us but it was play on). The other one that baffles me was TMac appealing for deliberate, that (from my position at least) was given because he made a flicking motion with his hand and then rocked his head back when it wasn’t given. 

There we’re so many others through the night and funnily enough I noticed in the third quarter we started getting some cheap levellers. 

Langdon’s push was as much of a push as was Hawkins’ the week before.

Oh … erm 

[alpha33 277]

Richmond are complaining about being on the wrong end of the free kick ledger in Adelaide.

Now watch out. 

They will get the world against us on Sunday night.

[Demonland 66,833]

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,534]

The above table shows 133 free kicks for and 137 against. When can a free kick be given for a team which is not also against another team? I was wondering about 6-6-6 infringements, for example. Two of those were given in our last game, but they are still two against GWS and two for us as their opponents. Can someone smarter than me advise how the 133 v 137 numbers can be correct? Or is it incorrect?  

[DistrACTION Jackson 6,823]

3 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

The above table shows 133 free kicks for and 137 against. When can a free kick be given for a team which is not also against another team? I was wondering about 6-6-6 infringements, for example. Two of those were given in our last game, but they are still two against GWS and two for us as their opponents. Can someone smarter than me advise how the 133 v 137 numbers can be correct? Or is it incorrect?  

I've got a feeling out on the full is a free kick for but not against...

[Mazer Rackham 14,970]

20 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

The above table shows 133 free kicks for and 137 against. When can a free kick be given for a team which is not also against another team?

These tables are never right. This free kick differential bizzo  is a zero sum game, but for the past 3 years, maybe longer, they never add up. Dunno who puts them together but it's sloppy work, so probably someone at the AFL.