Forward line questions

[Sir Why You Little 37,446]

2 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

You're right about percentage in 2021, I stand corrected.

I'm a little confused as to your overall point. You've posted numerous times that you don't think our forwardline is much of a cause for concern, so where do you think we need to improve to give ourselves the best shot at contending again? I would say our inability to capitalise on the scoreboard has been our greatest weakness for several years now and is the area that has room for the most improvement. I think that we could apply some relatively simple fixes to improve that area, such as cheating forward off the clearance and pulling our press back a bit to open up the forwardline rather than slowly kicking to contests and predictable safe zones like the forward pockets. I think what we'd gain offensively from those sorts of moves would outweigh what we lose defensively.

The only way i can see us improving in the Forward Line this year is if, with the Players we have, is to bring the ball in with more speed. 
We have been to slow moving the ball

[WheeloRatings 1,189]

On 04/03/2025 at 23:08, Adam The God said:

Do we actually have stats on this? I think this might be a bit of a furphy.

The eye test suggests to me that we still generate more than enough set shots from non acute angles, that we should be putting the opposition away, and don't.

@WheeloRatings, do you have anything on this mate?

@Redleg_Knowledge

We certainly take a higher proportion of shots from the pockets than the corridor. Over the last four seasons, of all Melbourne's shots, 18.8% were set shots from the corridor inside 50 metres from goal. The next lowest % was West Coast with 20.8%. In 2024, Melbourne was 19.4%, only above Collingwood at 18.8%.

The table below shows the breakdown of all Melbourne's shots (and the rest of the AFL) by distance, shot category, and pocket/corridor. A much higher proportion of Melbourne's shots are from set position, 30-50m, from the pocket (particularly the left pocket), and general play from 15-50m from the pocket. I have bolded where the difference between Melbourne's % and the rest of the AFL is greatest.

	General Play			Set Position
	Left	Corridor	Right	Left	Corridor	Right
0 to <15 m
Melbourne	0.8%	4.2%	0.8%	0.4%	2.1%	0.3%
Rest of AFL	0.6%	5.1%	0.6%	0.3%	2.1%	0.4%
15 to <30 m
Melbourne	4.0%	8.8%	3.9%	2.0%	3.7%	1.7%
Rest of AFL	2.9%	9.1%	3.4%	1.9%	5.4%	2.2%
30 to <40 m
Melbourne	3.3%	7.2%	2.4%	4.3%	5.0%	4.6%
Rest of AFL	2.4%	7.2%	2.7%	3.5%	6.3%	3.9%
40 to <50 m
Melbourne	2.4%	3.9%	1.8%	7.8%	8.0%	5.9%
Rest of AFL	1.6%	4.5%	1.8%	5.5%	9.0%	5.9%
50+ m
Melbourne	0.8%	1.9%	0.6%	2.5%	3.0%	2.0%
Rest of AFL	0.7%	2.4%	0.7%	2.0%	3.7%	2.2%
All
Melbourne	11.3%	25.9%	9.5%	17.0%	21.7%	14.5%
Rest of AFL	8.3%	28.2%	9.3%	13.2%	26.4%	14.5%

 

You can explore location of shots (for players and teams) at the following page of my site:

https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_xscores.html

[Adam The God 30,704]

19 minutes ago, WheeloRatings said:

@Redleg_Knowledge

We certainly take a higher proportion of shots from the pockets than the corridor. Over the last four seasons, of all Melbourne's shots, 18.8% were set shots from the corridor inside 50 metres from goal. The next lowest % was West Coast with 20.8%. In 2024, Melbourne was 19.4%, only above Collingwood at 18.8%.

The table below shows the breakdown of all Melbourne's shots (and the rest of the AFL) by distance, shot category, and pocket/corridor. A much higher proportion of Melbourne's shots are from set position, 30-50m, from the pocket (particularly the left pocket), and general play from 15-50m from the pocket. I have bolded where the difference between Melbourne's % and the rest of the AFL is greatest.

	General Play			Set Position
	Left	Corridor	Right	Left	Corridor	Right
0 to <15 m
Melbourne	0.8%	4.2%	0.8%	0.4%	2.1%	0.3%
Rest of AFL	0.6%	5.1%	0.6%	0.3%	2.1%	0.4%
15 to <30 m
Melbourne	4.0%	8.8%	3.9%	2.0%	3.7%	1.7%
Rest of AFL	2.9%	9.1%	3.4%	1.9%	5.4%	2.2%
30 to <40 m
Melbourne	3.3%	7.2%	2.4%	4.3%	5.0%	4.6%
Rest of AFL	2.4%	7.2%	2.7%	3.5%	6.3%	3.9%
40 to <50 m
Melbourne	2.4%	3.9%	1.8%	7.8%	8.0%	5.9%
Rest of AFL	1.6%	4.5%	1.8%	5.5%	9.0%	5.9%
50+ m
Melbourne	0.8%	1.9%	0.6%	2.5%	3.0%	2.0%
Rest of AFL	0.7%	2.4%	0.7%	2.0%	3.7%	2.2%
All
Melbourne	11.3%	25.9%	9.5%	17.0%	21.7%	14.5%
Rest of AFL	8.3%	28.2%	9.3%	13.2%	26.4%	14.5%

 

You can explore location of shots (for players and teams) at the following page of my site:

https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_xscores.html

Thank you mate.

I wonder whether you have the stats for 2018 per chance? I'd suspect we were very much corridor and 30m out straight in front team that year.

[WheeloRatings 1,189]

Just now, Adam The God said:

Thank you mate.

I wonder whether you have the stats for 2018 per chance? I'd suspect we were very much corridor and 30m out straight in front team that year.

Pleasure! No, unfortunately I only have these stats since the start of 2021.

[Adam The God 30,704]

30 minutes ago, WheeloRatings said:

Pleasure! No, unfortunately I only have these stats since the start of 2021.

No worries. 

I remember one of the Fox shows talking quite regularly about how we would get the majority of our scores from 30m out in the corridor during 18.

I'm hoping with Chaplin back as forward coach we'll revert to this approach.

[Go Ds 313]

The corridor entries make a lot of sense. But are there are stats for how disadvantaged the forward team is when the opposition wins back possession in the corridor compared to in the pockets? Also it's much easier to get the ball over the boundary line if the ball's contested in the pocket.

If there are actual stats showing the chances are much higher for rebound goals from corridor entries then I can see why we go round the boundary.

[KozzyCan 946]

6 minutes ago, Go Ds said:

The corridor entries make a lot of sense. But are there are stats for how disadvantaged the forward team is when the opposition wins back possession in the corridor compared to in the pockets? Also it's much easier to get the ball over the boundary line if the ball's contested in the pocket.

If there are actual stats showing the chances are much higher for rebound goals from corridor entries then I can see why we go round the boundary.

I don't have the stats but our forward entries have an observable defensive intent to not allow the ball to get back into the oppositions hands for an easy rebound. As you say the pockets are deep and close to the boundary line, easy to crowd and keep the ball in contest, the trade off is you give yourselves a low chance to actually score. It's also very dull to watch.

Was interesting listening to Hird the other night on FC. He worked with Goodwin for years and talked about how much Goodwin hates getting scored against and was never as interested in scoring as much as he was interested in contest and defence.

[Go Ds 313]

1 hour ago, KozzyCan said:

I don't have the stats but our forward entries have an observable defensive intent to not allow the ball to get back into the oppositions hands for an easy rebound. As you say the pockets are deep and close to the boundary line, easy to crowd and keep the ball in contest, the trade off is you give yourselves a low chance to actually score. It's also very dull to watch.

Was interesting listening to Hird the other night on FC. He worked with Goodwin for years and talked about how much Goodwin hates getting scored against and was never as interested in scoring as much as he was interested in contest and defence.

For better or worse winning football is more important than exciting football. Certainly when in the finals only a few teams are left neutral supporters are more likely to choose the exciting team over the boring team as their finals team. But regardless of whether a coach's brilliant new strategy has their team kicking higher scores or conceding lower scores history's not gonna care.

[KozzyCan 946]

8 hours ago, Go Ds said:

For better or worse winning football is more important than exciting football. Certainly when in the finals only a few teams are left neutral supporters are more likely to choose the exciting team over the boring team as their finals team. But regardless of whether a coach's brilliant new strategy has their team kicking higher scores or conceding lower scores history's not gonna care.

The four teams who have made the Grand Finals over the past three years all play more entertaining football than us imo so I think there's room to do both. I also think the football we played in 2021 was more entertaining than it was in the following years because teams started defending against us in a different way and we couldn't adapt.

[monoccular 17,748]

On 04/03/2025 at 16:04, Sir Why You Little said:

It is exactly the same problem it was 3-4 years ago 

Well, the last 3 years anyway.  Things sort of worked somewhat ok in 2021 
 

PS is that the last time TMcD played predominantly as a forward

Edited Thursday at 22:33 by monoccular

[whatwhat say what 23,795]

53 minutes ago, monoccular said:

Well, the last 3 years anyway.  Things sort of worked somewhat ok in 2021 
 

PS is that the last time TMcD played predominantly as a forward

no, the last time plugger mac played predominantly as a forward was as we went 10-0 to start 2022

he bunged his foot in the closing moments of a fairly routine victory over north melbourne under the roof at the carpark, and that was - to be honest - the end of that season for us

we never looked quite the same again without him in the form of his career

[Go Ds 313]

2 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

The four teams who have made the Grand Finals over the past three years all play more entertaining football than us imo so I think there's room to do both. I also think the football we played in 2021 was more entertaining than it was in the following years because teams started defending against us in a different way and we couldn't adapt.

I can't help but think footy will keep changing and evolving. If a coach some time finds a way to restrict oppositions to under 50 that steals their team a premiership they will (and their fans will readily accept the game plan as the wins roll in). If Goody happens to be this coach in 25 and we're 15-0 midyear no one's gonna care about the previous few grand finalists. (Admittedly this is all IF IF IF)

Off on a tangent for years I've heard that good defence wins premierships. Maybe sometime a coach will turn every game into a shootout confident that when  the opposition kicks 17 goals that they'll kick 20, blowing the contention re defence out of the water.

[Roost it far 10,041]

I still think a couple of reasonably mobile tall forwards are the key. JVR and Turner are those guys. AJ can play the pack crasher when balls are lobbed in. Just need Pickett back.

[The Taciturn Demon 619]

12 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

As you say the pockets are deep and close to the boundary line, easy to crowd and keep the ball in contest, the trade off is you give yourselves a low chance to actually score. It's also very dull to watch.

This is super interesting. I never realised the whole wide entry thing was very deliberate. 

It explains a lot from the past few years, namely how boring we are to watch (which is fine by me as long as we're winning) and how often we seem to squander inside 50s (which is not fine by me, because the 2023 Carlton semi final still fuels my nightmares).

I think it was you mentioning in the Fremantle game thread that one of the reasons the Dockers (on the weekend and multiple times previously), seem to walk through us and kick shockingly easy goals with one, two or three blokes free inside 50, is because we press very high, which makes us helpless when a team gets a quick turnover and moves the ball fast. 

It sounds like hugging the boundary inside 50 is directly related to that. 

I was frustrated on the weekend by how the way we move the ball has obviously changed but the inside 50 squandering hasn't. Do you think Goodwin is keen for us to change how we get the ball from deep in the backline to 70-odd metres out but will still stick to wide entries and a high press?

 

[KozzyCan 946]

1 minute ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

This is super interesting. I never realised the whole wide entry thing was very deliberate. 

It explains a lot from the past few years, namely how boring we are to watch (which is fine by me as long as we're winning) and how often we seem to squander inside 50s (which is not fine by me, because the 2023 Carlton semi final still fuels my nightmares).

I think it was you mentioning in the Fremantle game thread that one of the reasons the Dockers (on the weekend and multiple times previously), seem to walk through us and kick shockingly easy goals with one, two or three blokes free inside 50, is because we press very high, which makes us helpless when a team gets a quick turnover and moves the ball fast. 

It sounds like hugging the boundary inside 50 is directly related to that. 

I was frustrated on the weekend by how the way we move the ball has obviously changed but the inside 50 squandering hasn't. Do you think Goodwin is keen for us to change how we get the ball from deep in the backline to 70-odd metres out but will still stick to wide entries and a high press?

 

We play safe football and have for a while. The high press is all about locking the ball in with the philosophy being if it's in your 50 you both get a chance to kick for goal and the opposition can't score themselves. At it's best even if the opposition get's the ball they essentially want to get it out of the forwardline as quickly as possible, so you see a lot of long up and under kicks out of defence which are easy to intercept. However as you mentioned,  if you can break the lines you are basically left with a paddock to run the ball easily to goal.

Transition games like this have become more popular in recent years, which is all about defending deep and slingshotting forward. Probably best executed by Collingwood in recent years. It's why (apart from last year) our games against them have been such arm wrestles, because both teams are kind of playing into each others hands.

I think one of the reasons more attacking gamestyles are working more than they have historically is the stand rule. It's a lot easier to move the ball now that you can't defend the angles off a mark.

It's also worth noting that you can play a high press and be more attacking. It's how we set up in 2017 and 2018 where we cheated forward out of stoppage and left our defenders on an island.

I also think there's something to be said about how our gamestyle affects the team psychologically. I think it would be mentally exhausting to kick the ball inside 50 ten times for no goals only to see the opposition get out the back once and walk it in for an easy goal against the flow. I know I get exhausted watching it!

I have no idea what Goodwin's ultimate plans are for how we go inside 50, from the two praccy matches it does feel like we are keen to move the ball by hand a lot more out of stoppage to potentially get better delivery inside 50 as opposed to just booting the ball out to win territory. It will certainly be interesting now that Chaplin has been given the forwardline to coach. What will he bring to the table and how much freedom Goodwin will give him?

I found it incredibly frustrating last year where even when we got out the back had an open forwardline all our forwards ran to the pocket rather than presenting a lead and what should have been easy goals or at least decent set shots were easily defended by the opposition.

[Docs Demons 1,810]

I reckon the Forward line is working OK. Keep having 35 shots at goal, particularly against a decent back line like the Dockers with quite a few from so called easy range and spots then we will win most games. Also, we had all these chances without JVR. 

[layzie 34,527]

5 minutes ago, KozzyCan said:

We play safe football and have for a while. The high press is all about locking the ball in with the philosophy being if it's in your 50 you both get a chance to kick for goal and the opposition can't score themselves. At it's best even if the opposition get's the ball they essentially want to get it out of the forwardline as quickly as possible, so you see a lot of long up and under kicks out of defence which are easy to intercept. However as you mentioned,  if you can break the lines you are basically left with a paddock to run the ball easily to goal.

Transition games like this have become more popular in recent years, which is all about defending deep and slingshotting forward. Probably best executed by Collingwood in recent years. It's why (apart from last year) our games against them have been such arm wrestles, because both teams are kind of playing into each others hands.

I think one of the reasons more attacking gamestyles are working more than they have historically is the stand rule. It's a lot easier to move the ball now that you can't defend the angles off a mark.

It's also worth noting that you can play a high press and be more attacking. It's how we set up in 2017 and 2018 where we cheated forward out of stoppage and left our defenders on an island.

I also think there's something to be said about how our gamestyle affects the team psychologically. I think it would be mentally exhausting to kick the ball inside 50 ten times for no goals only to see the opposition get out the back once and walk it in for an easy goal against the flow. I know I get exhausted watching it!

I have no idea what Goodwin's ultimate plans are for how we go inside 50, from the two praccy matches it does feel like we are keen to move the ball by hand a lot more out of stoppage to potentially get better delivery inside 50 as opposed to just booting the ball out to win territory. It will certainly be interesting now that Chaplin has been given the forwardline to coach. What will he bring to the table and how much freedom Goodwin will give him?

I found it incredibly frustrating last year where even when we got out the back had an open forwardline all our forwards ran to the pocket rather than presenting a lead and what should have been easy goals or at least decent set shots were easily defended by the opposition.

Totally agree. It was a moneyball approach that played the percentages and thanks to the electric forward pressure we were getting we forced a lot of turnover goals in 50 that year. It also limited potential turnovers in bad areas. 

The high press can definitely be used in an attacking way as you mentioned, just like defending deep can be used in a defensive way with high possession time and controlling tempo, maybe only occasionally hitting the opposition with a counter. Many different ways to play the game and it is fascinating when you really drill down into it. 

The stand rule is a funny one, in the first season I thought it helped us a bit because it threw the opposition off a bit when we setup our zone so quick but before too long they started to take off with angled run and carry or a lateral  handball to a runner in motion, constantly shifting the zone. 

Hard to know how it is going to evolve this year but I'm hoping to see our score source from transition rise a bit. We need to develop the 'break' from the back and move it quick through the air with runners. Some things will obviously always be in our DNA. 

 

[bluey 1,120]

The Forward line is very weak, the weakest link.

Promising players, that have not delivered the goods.

[DeeZone 10,573]

15 minutes ago, bluey said:

The Forward line is very weak, the weakest link.

Promising players, that have not delivered the goods.

Yet!! Bluey, give them time to gel we have to work out who our best fwd’s are, ie, Rooey, Disco, Jefferson, AJ, Langford, Kolt, Tracc, Culley plus what mix of smalls in Kozzie, Chin, Sharpe, Henderson, Pup. We have a lot of options but need to quickly identify the best group going forward.

[Go Ds 313]

1 hour ago, The Taciturn Demon said:

This is super interesting. I never realised the whole wide entry thing was very deliberate. 

It explains a lot from the past few years, namely how boring we are to watch (which is fine by me as long as we're winning) and how often we seem to squander inside 50s (which is not fine by me, because the 2023 Carlton semi final still fuels my nightmares).

I think it was you mentioning in the Fremantle game thread that one of the reasons the Dockers (on the weekend and multiple times previously), seem to walk through us and kick shockingly easy goals with one, two or three blokes free inside 50, is because we press very high, which makes us helpless when a team gets a quick turnover and moves the ball fast. 

It sounds like hugging the boundary inside 50 is directly related to that. 

I was frustrated on the weekend by how the way we move the ball has obviously changed but the inside 50 squandering hasn't. Do you think Goodwin is keen for us to change how we get the ball from deep in the backline to 70-odd metres out but will still stick to wide entries and a high press?

 

This is why teams often go the long way to get to goal. When a team is one point down with a minute to go it's well worth the risk of kicking down the middle in an all-or-nothing attempt at a winning goal. Defence is always connected to attack until a goal is inevitable. There are so many times where a risky pass is not attempted in case the ball is turned over, especially when it looks like the opposition has players loose ready to achieve a good inside-50.

[DeeZone 10,573]

I know this is a Fwd Line thread but I’ll tell you what I believe is a huge improvement on last year, our Midfield setup is looking far superior now that Jones and Radford have taken control. Some of our setups last year allowed the opposition to continually waltz the ball out of the middle with little or no opposition, cost us the last game against GWS. We really missed Adem Yze last year.

[titan_uranus 25,232]

17 hours ago, WheeloRatings said:

@Redleg_Knowledge

We certainly take a higher proportion of shots from the pockets than the corridor. Over the last four seasons, of all Melbourne's shots, 18.8% were set shots from the corridor inside 50 metres from goal. The next lowest % was West Coast with 20.8%. In 2024, Melbourne was 19.4%, only above Collingwood at 18.8%.

The table below shows the breakdown of all Melbourne's shots (and the rest of the AFL) by distance, shot category, and pocket/corridor. A much higher proportion of Melbourne's shots are from set position, 30-50m, from the pocket (particularly the left pocket), and general play from 15-50m from the pocket. I have bolded where the difference between Melbourne's % and the rest of the AFL is greatest.

	General Play			Set Position
	Left	Corridor	Right	Left	Corridor	Right
0 to <15 m
Melbourne	0.8%	4.2%	0.8%	0.4%	2.1%	0.3%
Rest of AFL	0.6%	5.1%	0.6%	0.3%	2.1%	0.4%
15 to <30 m
Melbourne	4.0%	8.8%	3.9%	2.0%	3.7%	1.7%
Rest of AFL	2.9%	9.1%	3.4%	1.9%	5.4%	2.2%
30 to <40 m
Melbourne	3.3%	7.2%	2.4%	4.3%	5.0%	4.6%
Rest of AFL	2.4%	7.2%	2.7%	3.5%	6.3%	3.9%
40 to <50 m
Melbourne	2.4%	3.9%	1.8%	7.8%	8.0%	5.9%
Rest of AFL	1.6%	4.5%	1.8%	5.5%	9.0%	5.9%
50+ m
Melbourne	0.8%	1.9%	0.6%	2.5%	3.0%	2.0%
Rest of AFL	0.7%	2.4%	0.7%	2.0%	3.7%	2.2%
All
Melbourne	11.3%	25.9%	9.5%	17.0%	21.7%	14.5%
Rest of AFL	8.3%	28.2%	9.3%	13.2%	26.4%	14.5%

 

You can explore location of shots (for players and teams) at the following page of my site:

https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_xscores.html

Great stuff, as always.

Your site also tells us that in 2024 we scored more than our Expected Score across the season.

On its face, this tells us that our inaccuracy last year comes principally from taking low-percentage shots on goal. We take far too many shots from angles (and interestingly, mainly the left hand side).

@WheeloRatings Do you have the ability to break down how many games we lost where we ought to have won based on xScore, and vice versa? I'm interested to know whether the xScore across the season is skewed by outliers.

[Go Ds 313]

42 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

I know this is a Fwd Line thread but I’ll tell you what I believe is a huge improvement on last year, our Midfield setup is looking far superior now that Jones and Radford have taken control. Some of our setups last year allowed the opposition to continually waltz the ball out of the middle with little or no opposition, cost us the last game against GWS. We really missed Adem Yze last year.

So much of what happens in one zone affects the others, especially the forward and back lines.

[Bring-Back-Powell 15,527]

15 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

Great stuff, as always.

Your site also tells us that in 2024 we scored more than our Expected Score across the season.

On its face, this tells us that our inaccuracy last year comes principally from taking low-percentage shots on goal. We take far too many shots from angles (and interestingly, mainly the left hand side).

@WheeloRatings Do you have the ability to break down how many games we lost where we ought to have won based on xScore, and vice versa? I'm interested to know whether the xScore across the season is skewed by outliers.

That's a really good question and I'd be keen to know as well.

The Port game in round 3 was definitely one we got away with on expected scores. Whilst the GWS and Carlton losses I'd say we would've won on expected scores. Maybe even the Collingwood loss on Kings Bday as they were nailing everything and we couldn't hit the side of the barn.

[The Taciturn Demon 619]

2 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

We play safe football and have for a while. The high press is all about locking the ball in with the philosophy being if it's in your 50 you both get a chance to kick for goal and the opposition can't score themselves. At it's best even if the opposition get's the ball they essentially want to get it out of the forwardline as quickly as possible, so you see a lot of long up and under kicks out of defence which are easy to intercept. However as you mentioned,  if you can break the lines you are basically left with a paddock to run the ball easily to goal.

Transition games like this have become more popular in recent years, which is all about defending deep and slingshotting forward. Probably best executed by Collingwood in recent years. It's why (apart from last year) our games against them have been such arm wrestles, because both teams are kind of playing into each others hands.

I think one of the reasons more attacking gamestyles are working more than they have historically is the stand rule. It's a lot easier to move the ball now that you can't defend the angles off a mark.

It's also worth noting that you can play a high press and be more attacking. It's how we set up in 2017 and 2018 where we cheated forward out of stoppage and left our defenders on an island.

I also think there's something to be said about how our gamestyle affects the team psychologically. I think it would be mentally exhausting to kick the ball inside 50 ten times for no goals only to see the opposition get out the back once and walk it in for an easy goal against the flow. I know I get exhausted watching it!

I have no idea what Goodwin's ultimate plans are for how we go inside 50, from the two praccy matches it does feel like we are keen to move the ball by hand a lot more out of stoppage to potentially get better delivery inside 50 as opposed to just booting the ball out to win territory. It will certainly be interesting now that Chaplin has been given the forwardline to coach. What will he bring to the table and how much freedom Goodwin will give him?

Wonderful explanation. Thanks so much. 

2 hours ago, KozzyCan said:

I found it incredibly frustrating last year where even when we got out the back had an open forwardline all our forwards ran to the pocket rather than presenting a lead and what should have been easy goals or at least decent set shots were easily defended by the opposition.

Interesting. I've shared a very similar frustration, but have never realised it was a problem of deliberate tactics.

For quite a while now I've been perplexed by how often I watch Melbourne on a Friday and on a Saturday watch an objectively worse team consistently kick FAR easier goals than us, even in bad losses. The best example is exactly the one you've mentioned - even the teams that finish 17th or 18th seem to take advantage of really bad opposition turnovers. We seem not to - or not as often as we could.   

I've always put it down to us being a good (sometimes a very good) team that happens to be mostly poor by foot. Your explanation makes more sense but is possibly even more depressing.