deanox

So it's clear we are big game players? :P

It's an excellent question and I didn't mean to not answer @Lord Nev there. There are a couple of reasons why I don't think it is that important: 1) Teams play their best ruck most of the time, and most team don't have 2 let alone 3 good rucks. The fact we have our 2 rucks in the top 21 of the comp for hit outs to advantage to me is pretty telling. 2) Total ruck contests for each team is going to be pretty similar at the end of the year, +/- scoring more goals or having more stoppages, it will sort of even out. 3) Personally I am more interested in hit out to advantage vs hit out to disadvantage differential, or perhaps hit out advantage vs opposition hit out to advantage differential, rather then "hit out advantage percentage". This is because I think if we get 10 hit outs to advantage per game and our opposition gets only 7, then we are doing better. I don't really care whether they won the % stat as a factor of their total hit outs, we still had more. @Lord Nevis right in saying that these stats may indicate that our midified isn't getting value for dominance (which may be true) but I'm not convinced that we have the right stats here to support that case. no one else has quoted this post from @binman but I think it is describes the missing analysis when looking at this issue: "quality of clearances".

All good, thanks for the chat. Im not just looking for an argument, I do fundamentally disagree with your interpretation of the stats, and surprisingly mostly for the reasons given: the stats are so general they are meaningless. I don't think we can draw positive or negative conclusions from them is all im saying.

If you kick the most goals you will win your games. Who cares how accurate you are at that point? But again, it's irrelevant because we only have one of the outputs - hit outs to advantage - and not information about whether the remaining hit outs are neutral or to disadvantage. Max is 1st in total hit outs, 2nd in total hit outs to advantage. The MFC ruck combo is also 2nd in total hit outs to advantage. Who cares that Max is 16th in hit out to advantage %? If we knew that Max was also 16th or lower on hit outs to disadvantage, we'd be able to assess his effectiveness.

It's as irrelevant as the original stat. Max gets more hit outs to advantage per game this year than any ruckman other than NicNat (he has had 174 for the year). For GWS Mumford and Flynn combine for 159, for Geelong Blicavs and Stanley combine for 100. NicNat and Vardy combine for 239. Given Jackson sits at 21 on the total list with 47, the Melbourne ruck duo combine for 221 hit outs to advantage, the 2nd most of any ruck combo. We get advantage on hit outs more than anyone except West Coast. We also win more hit outs than almost anyone else. What we don't know is whether the hit outs we won, that don't go to advantage, are neutral result or to disadvantage, because those stats aren't available. Basically, all of these stats are useless and don't illustrate anything because they are incomplete and don't tell the full picture. @binmannails it in their post.

Basically I think that the more important stat here is hit outs to disadvantage (exactly the same criteria as to advantage, but to the opposition gain) and it's missing. Without that stat were cannot assess if a ruckman is simply breaking even or gaining. In Gawns case, it is whether the "not to advantage" taps are neutral results or direct losses.

Ok so I found the stat. Gawn is 2nd in the comp for hit outs to advantage, with 174. Naitanui leads with 202, Grundy and Darcy are in the 170s, Goldstein has 155, but then it drops with O'Brien in 6th with only 137.

I'm not saying this isn't a big part of our issue but I would say the start is misleading. If Gawn wins more hit outs than anyone else, he might still be leading the total "hit outs to advantage" but be 16th in the % column. For example, Gawn has 100 hit outs with 10 to advantage, so 10% to advantage. Another ruck might have 50 hit outs and 6 to advantage, so 12% to advantage. Given Gawn leads the comp for hit outs (528) and the #16 ruck has only 215 hit outs (Blicavs), it is quite possible Gawn sits at least top 10 for total hit out to advantage.

IF the season was abandoned, I suspect they would consider awarding the minor premiership (the McClelland trophy) but not a premiership. I'd ruefully accept. It means nothing.

I think we beat the good teams with structure around the ground. They try to move it deliberately and or some wins. The poor teams, like Hawthorn did today, hack the ball around without the structure and then find the ball bobs up randomly and we can't defend as well in that chaos environment; we like order and control.

He covered the 3rd most ground for us tonight (5th most on ground). 32 disposals, 16 contested, and led us for metres gained and had a DE% of 75%. I'm not sure his work rate dropped off.

One of the few players who used the ball well for us today. 7 score involvements from 11 disposals: if we got the ball to him more often we'd have won.

6 Oliver 5 Fritsch 4 Spargo 3 Petty 2 Pickett 1 Brayshaw Apologies: VDB, Salem, Viney, Lever

Makes sense. This year our plan for defensive roles has typically been to negate the value of possessions, rather then to prevent them all together. Making sure that Mitchell's 30 dont hurt us is probably a stronger play than trying to try someone out of it.

Or Viney goes to negative/tagging midfielder, Jordan steps up minutes in modified rotation, and VDB becomes the rotation/spare parts player on HFF and midfield rotations? Harms played 69% TOG last week, our 6th lowest (Rivers at 62% everyone else >65%). The week before against GWS Harms was our 5th lowest TOG with 72%> Sparrow was the lowest with 55%, and again everyone else >65%.

https://afltables.com/afl/teams/melbourne/season.html This resource might help.

Is this the most "no change" we've had in a season?

In think his value has been recognised by demonland as demonstrated by his performance in the PotY: 151. Clayton Oliver 141. Christian Petracca 111. Christian Salem 87. Jake Lever 84. Max Gawn 69. Steven May 66. Tom McDonald 63. Ed Langdon 43. Luke Jackson 35. James Harmes 31. Kysiah Pickett Everyone has raved about May and Langdon, so for him to sit between them is a strong result. I think the strong performances of the top 3 make them a pretty clear top 3, but after that it is not much between the next 5. Edit: also I think this year to have 3 defenders in our top 6 is an anomaly compared to previous years, but we have definitely built our game plan on defence rather then attack, so it isn't a surprise that our first forward is down the list a little (and positions 7-11 include 3 forwards). In other years, our leading forward would probably be top 4 or 5.

I'm pretty sure I showed up on the old server around 2001/2(?) and remember the swap over, but thinking about that scares me a little! There are definitely a few familiar names still around. If we haven't gotten to Coach status or above in 20 years I guess we never will!

You're probably right. The AFL own 49% of Champion Data. The whole thing is a racket. These two bits of info make sense. Betting agencies won't be paying champion data to suppress the stats, it will be part of their sponsorship agreement.

I think Champion Data need to release this kind of stuff because they keep all their real info secret so they can sell it for big money. In American sports where lots of statistics are released, 3rd party analysts can find real and meaningful correlations, and the public can come up with their own personal key stats. Because the stats aren't available, they need to make up some kind of over complicated metrics to convince they are getting the info.

I think there would be uproar in this case. In 2019 competing clubs got an allocation of 17k for members. I can't imagine that more than 5-7k of those would be sold as GF Guarantee, it's too risky otherwise. So unless we are have capacity of 25k or less, I think we'll be fine.

Yeah fair call. I think there is a big gap between those clubs and the top 4, but under pressure some will come good. I do prefer our fixture of lower tables and top ranked teams. Although I wish one of Geelong or WCE was at the G.

Geelong have a pretty good run except from Freo in Freo, and us last round (they play middle tables teams like Saints, GWS and Richmond). I'd actually like to play them in the finals as I think they will be very beatable with our fitness. We've got a touch run with dogs, WCE and Geelong. Win 2 and we should finish on top I think, but results could really change it, it's tight at the top.

The Superintendent.