Axis of Bob

If Kyah Farris-White develops superhuman speed and flight this preseason then he'll probably win the Brownlow. Am I doing this right?

Only 8 West Aussies first rounders have gone home since 2010. Of those only two players drafted in the 8 drafts post 2013 (up to 2021) have returned back to WA. Those players were Luke Jackson (2019 draft) and Sam Petrevski-Seton (2016 draft - traded for a 3rd round pick at the end of 2021). The only player that has gone back to WA in the past decade that the original team tried hard to keep is Luke Jackson. Drafting for a Victorian team is easy because everyone wants to come here and nobody wants to leave.

It's interesting because there's a lot of that. One of the more interesting things is that more players are drafted from Victoria than other states, so the number of 'flight risks' that need to be taken is also much lower, which was particularly true the further back in time you go. Also, the vast majority of the 'return home' players were those returning to Victoria from other states. Of the 54 players who 'came home', 34 of them were players returning to Victoria (which is 63% of all 'Go home' players, 9 (17%) being players who left Victoria to go to their home state, and the remaining 11 (20%) being players who left a non-Vic club to go to their non-Vic home state. The other interesting thing is how this has changed over time. 20 (out of 34) of the players returning to Victoria did so between 2010 and 2012. Since then only 14 Victrorian first round picks have returned home across the 9 drafts between 2013-2021. Post-2014 no more that two Victorian first rounders have returned home in any given year (and only 1 in total post 2018). I think that there are some players that can't take being away from home and will return however it's generally a very small minority. There were large chunks leaving GC and GWS early in the decade because they were bad clubs that didn't have the culture to retain their best players consistently. They also missed with a lot of their picks and those players got second chances for a small price in Victoria (where the most clubs are). There are now more players in northern state being drafted too (There was only one player, Trent Stubbs, drafted from QLD or NSW in the entire 2010 draft vs 6 in the 2023 first round alone!!). Despite all the talk, the trend for players wanting to go home is definitely downwards. Melbourne just happened to be on the wrong side of an anomaly.

Because once Melksham recovers then he'll come off the LTI list and goes back on to the senior list. Drafting him as a rookie means that he will be on the rookie list once he recovers.

There’s a lot more to this than the ’54 first rounders have gone home’ headline. It’s 19% of first round draftees, which sounds alarming but I ran some of the numbers myself. The data is extremely heavily skewed by a few things. Firstly Gold Coast/GWS. 56% of all the first rounders (30 in total) who went home had been drafted to either GWS or Gold Coast, with only 24 of ‘go home’ players leaving other clubs. Victorian teams have the best retention of all clubs, with each club on average only having lost 0.9 first round players across that 12 year span. This equates to an 8% chance (0.08 player per year) of any particular Victorian club losing a draftee in any individual draft year (compared with Gold Coast/GWS who lost an average of 1.25 first round picks per year to their native state). Those players who ‘went home’ from Victoria were: Reece Conca (106 of his 150 games at Richmond), Jamie Cripps (16/228 at St Kilda), Troy Menzel (40/44 at Carlton), Jimmy Toumpas (who was basically delisted, 27/37 at Melbourne), Blake Acres (who didn’t want to be traded and returned to Victoria, 75/145 at St Kilda), Ryan Burton (who didn’t want to be traded, 47/139 at Hawthorn), Sam Petrevski-Seton (94/121 at Carlton), Luke Jackson (52/75 at Melbourne) and Jason Horne-Francis (17/41 at North). If you look at that list there are really only a couple of ‘we were desperate to keep them players’, being Cripps, Jackson and Horne Francis …. Which equates to one good Victorian first rounder going home every 4 years. Secondly, the data is heavily skewed by the first 3 years of the sample (2010-2012), where a total of 29 players went home, whilst only 25 went home in the next 9 years. The return home rate reduced by 70% after 2012 (0.17 players/club/year) compared with that from 2010-12 (0.54 p/c/y). These were due to the GWS/GC start up priority draft selections where they had great difficulty retaining those players, with GC and GWS losing an average of 8 first rounders each to ‘go home’ across those 3 years. Post 2012, a Victorian club loses 0.06 ‘go home’ first rounders per year …. Only 5 in total, and this includes those that were traded reluctantly (2 of the 5) and one that was given away cheaply. Basically, the go home factor for Victorian clubs is mostly non-existent. It’s slightly higher for WA and SA clubs, Sydney and Brisbane (0.13 players lost/year) and much higher for GC and GWS (0.88 players lost/year) but it is far lower than it was during the formative years in 2010-2012. In short, despite Jackson leaving, I wouldn’t worry much about it. I’ve got my working below for anyone interested.

I have some sympathy for Jasper. ESPN would have required him to do a rating grade for the draft (it's very much part of their brand) and there really isn't any way that you can rate a draft immediately afterwards without knowing where everybody rated each player. ESPN has put him in a really terrible position in order to generate clicks. The only way that you can rate it is by doing so against your own ratings, which is what he's done. He rated Curtin highly, so when we passed on him we picked a player he didn't rate as highly (Windsor at 19), whilst Adelaide got Curtin which means he'd rate our draft result lower and theirs higher. The ratings are just for clicks and to generate arguments, so I wouldn't hold against the author.

Gothard pick changes it up!

I don't have many strong opinions about who we take at 6 but I certainly wouldn't be upset with Windsor.

I think it’s important to note that there’s a difference between ‘didn’t’ win much contested footy and ‘can’t’ win contested footy. Windsor played wing all year and appears to have done so with a lot of discipline. That role will inevitably result in a low contest rate if it’s played properly. When it’s his turn to go he does win contests and I think that the 30% contest rate needs to be considered in this context. If he played as a true mid the numbers might mean something but for a wingman it doesn’t make much sense. The impressive thing about Windsor isn’t just his speed but his ability to use that speed properly. He makes quick decisions to carry the ball and get it forward before teams can set their defence, which is super valuable against disciplined AFL teams. He also uses his speed to defend and is very disciplined. He already plays the game at AFL tempo. He’s a very impressive footballer.

He does have flaws that are important but I totally agree about the Simon Black syndrome aspect. The things he does well are exceptionally good. I think he's got the best chance of all the players likely to be available at our pick to be a genuine star. I prefer him as a midfielder than as a key defender but even his worst case probably see him become a very composed and competent defender.

I think that if we have a player that we want now then why would we risk possibly maybe getting something slightly better next year? If we like Curtin (or another) at 6 this year and want that player, why not just take them? If we don't really rate the players at 6 then sure, trade it away for a lottery ticket, but if we do rate them then grab one you want.

I was with you at the start of your post about Curnow, but this last part is very different to my observations of Caddy. Curnow slipped and I think you're right that it was very little to do with the drink driving and almost entirely about questions regarding whether he could play key forward at AFL level with his size ("only" 192cm) or whether he'd have to be a midfielder/flanker. Ironically, the exact issues people are discussing with Caddy. As for talking about Caddy's athleticism, I think you're completely wrong. Caddy is a very athletic and powerful player, which are some of his real strengths. He jumps at the ball, is strong at ground level and strong defensively. He is a powerful kick over distance and wins contests that are very difficult to win. Like Curnow he plays taller because he's got long arms. I think you've misjudged his ability because you've started at the wrong spot with his power and athleticism.

This isn't true. O'Sullivan played forward for the first few games this year before moving into defence.

I don't think it's 'someone', but rather that there are a range of players. Taylor has said that he thinks of the draft in tiers/groups of talented players that he'd be happy to select from. He clearly sees this the cutoff of a talent tier as being between picks 11 and 14, and he'd rather get a chance to select one of the good players rather than one of the other players.

Lamb specifically said that we want to play Petty and JVR together as our key forwards next year because they worked really well together this year when they played together.

What was also said is that Taylor believes that the difference in quality between 14 and 11 was quite significant, which is indicated by the price paid to move those picks. There's obviously a big difference between the top 15 (including Academy/FS picks) and then there's a big drop off in quality after that. We've got two picks in that top group, which they're really happy with.

Exactly. There’s no point saying that “pick 6 will slide out to pick 8 and 11 will become 15” because the point of the draft pick is to select a player and the pool of players you can select from will be exactly the same whether that pick is 11 or if it slides to 15. Drafting isn’t about the picks you have, it’s about the players you (can) select.

I think that we're in a good position now with minimal positions to fill and two picks in the top 11. There was an article a day or two ago speaking about how recruiters generally believe the top 15 picks (including the Academy/FS picks) are on a different level to the rest of the draft, with a big drop off happening after that initial group. I'm sure that we would be keen to trade further up into the pointy end of the draft however as it is we have 2 picks within that core group. Pick 14 wouldn't have had us in that group whilst 11 does, so I'm sure we'd be pretty comfortable taking 6 and 11 to the draft (far more that we would have with 6 and 14). That's probably the reason for the price difference between trading up to 14 vs trading up to pick 11. If we can get one of the first couple of picks then great but I'm sure they'd be content with where they are now at 6 and 11 if that doesn't happen.

100% this. You don't play footy with picks, you play it with players. Whilst it's tough to think about during trade week, each draft pick is a player and some are worth more than others. If we think that the first 3 players will be Hodge, Ball and Judd, whilst the next 3 are Polak, X Clarke and Sampi, then you'd be tempted to trade picks 4 and 5 for pick 3. It just depends how we rate the players and where we think those big drop offs occur.

Look out, lads! Hot Takes over here thinks that early picks are better than later picks. Absolute edgelord.

It's about the focus on contested football vs uncontested football. Collingwood is a less contested team through the midfield than we are, so it obviously leads to better kicking efficiency. Of those midfielders that were included in ANG13's stats, Melbourne's players averages 16% more contested disposals per game (10.0 vs 8.6) and their contested/uncontested possession % was +5 (ie, 44% of disposals were contested vs Collingwood's 39%). The top 3 contested players (by total and ratio) were Melbourne players (Oliver, Petracca and Viney). The efficiency stat doesn't tell you how good a kick a player is because the bar for an 'effective' kick is incredibly low in certain circumstances and is therefore almost entirely reliant on the situation in which you are being asked to kick. Contested midfielders and forwards are under the most pressure with the ball so they have the lowest efficiency. That's the story. Using kicking efficiency as the measure of kicking ability is wrong. Either that or someone's going to have to convince me why Dougal Howard is the 4th best kick in the league.

This is the problem with statistics - they mean nothing if you don't know what you're measuring and why/if it's important. The kicking efficiency stat is practically worthless, IMHO, because of what is measures and how it assumes all situations where you kick the ball are the same. Kicking efficiency is just whether or not a kick finds a team mate or if the kick goes to a contest 40+ metres away. So James Harmes' diagonal kick from the stoppage to Fritsch inside 50 midway through the 3rd quarter of the 2021 GF is judged as being exactly the same as a 40m backwards to a contest between Spargo and Tom Lynch 10m from your own defensive goal. Both kicks = effective. Also a centering kick over your shoulder to the top of the square is only effective if you kicked the ball over 40m, even if you intended it and it is 100% the right kick to do - and a chip backwards to an open player 15m away in defence is effective. If you look at the top 10 players in disposal efficiency (minimum 10 games) all of them are defenders. Same with the top 20, and 30, and 40 and 50 ...... THE TOP 50 PLAYERS IN DISPOSAL EFFICIENCY IN 2023 ARE ALL DEFENDERS!!!! What are the chances of the top 50 kicks in the league playing in the backline? It goes further .... of the top 100 in disposal efficiency, 95 of them are defenders. The exceptions were Jackson Macrae, Jaspa Fletcher, Matt Johnson, Sam Petrevski-Seton and Eddie Ford. If you look at that, disposal efficiency is far more a function of where you play and the situation you play in than it is of your ability to kick the football. This is the only real information that you can take from the Collingwood vs Melbourne kicking efficiency statistic: that the two teams play differently and put their midfielders into different situations than each other. I'd recommend this excellent article about kicking statistics if you want more information on what good kicking is and how bad kicking/disposal efficiency is as a statistic: How defining what makes a good kick in the AFL is always up for debate - ABC News

Like Peter Ladhams, Lewis Taylor, Daniel Menzel, Jackson Thurlow and Michael Talia?

But it's a very noisy statistic. When you have a small sample size (ie, 26 shots in the SF) then you end up with weird results (ie, goal accuracy of 34.6%) which looks bad but that's because of the small sample size. There's a lot of luck and randomness that happens within a single game and especially with a single skill like goal kicking. On March 29, 1992, Tony Lockett kicked 3 goals 7 behinds against Footscray - even though he was a career 70% accuracy goalkicker because small sample sizes create weird results. When we look at the full year with all teams, we get a much better representation (ie, 8,888 shots across the full season from all teams). The average accuracy for all teams in 2023 was 58.8%. The difference between the best and worst was only 7 percentage points (63.1% first and 56.1% last). Interestingly, Melbourne was above the AFL average in terms of accuracy for the year (7th, with 59.1%) and Carlton were below average (12th, with 57.6%). These things play out over the long term but finals are played one time with a small sample size, so you can get some weird results. In this case, a generally less accurate Carlton who had 18 shots at goal managed to beat a generally more accurate Melbourne who had 26. But it's the randomness of these things which makes games interesting.

Oliver ranked first at Melbourne with 2.67 centre clearance per game. Viney second with 2.54 per game, and Petracca third with 2.00. No other midfielder came close to them. This puts Oliver 13th in the league (min 10 games). In terms of non-CB stoppage clearances, Oliver had 4.2 per game, Petracca 3.96, Brayshaw 2.50 and Viney 2.42. Oliver is 7th in the AFL for total clearances per game, just ahead of Patrick Cripps. Petracca is 16th and Viney is 29th. I don't think our weakness is in quality stoppage players.