A.F.L. Thread II

[Matt79]

During the longevity of this thread, Ben to achieve continence.

Knights must be hurting a bit. He definitely came to the job with a clear philosophy of how he wanted his team to play, and they've given it a good crack. Would be hard to make the call that either the philosophy is wrong, or that you simply don't have the cattle to execute it.

[benchmark00]

I must admit, I haven't seen all of Essendon's games this year, but the couple I have, their execution of the game plan has raped them.

They're obviously hell bent on the handball at all cost game, and that's fair enough if you do it properly, not just handball for the sake of it. When the plan works, bodies have to be in motion, if you handball to a flat footed team mate it breaks down, simple as that. We saw it on Monday with Geelong where the pressure from Carlton broke their handballing game down (same thing happened in their infamous big loss to Collingwood a couple of years back).

I think they just need to make better decisions and be prepared to run and carry, not just handball and stay there.

[wfdu_ben91]

Originally Posted by benchmark00

wfdu_ben91 and Craigos talking about football. A true meeting of the minds.

Yeah, just about as rare as a Collingwood premiership post 1960.

[vic_orthdox]

Rightio, enough of the Bay 13 posting. Keep it on BF.

[benchmark00]

Bombers_2003 imo.

[Mr Casson]

I've been souping up the spreadsheet I started a few weeks ago to include a few more bits of data. I still haven't got any consideration for home and away performances, but I've added in records of disposal efficiency (a stat I'm prety sceptical at the best of times), tackles for and against and a simple win/loss summary of games played at 'home' (a loose term) or on the road. Coloured cells indicate whether the team won or lost the match.

I've found a few interesting things in it (they are to me anyway). Despite being sceptical of disposal efficiency in terms of what you can glean from it, well, as an absolute number, there's not much, but that won't come as any surprise. For example, Adelaide have a higher DE% than Geelong, but are on totally opposite ends of the ladder, which obviously makes no sense. What I did find interesting was there is some correlation so far this season between disposal efficiency and performance - that is, when a team's DE% is lower than their average percentage, they tend to lose. So it's not a stat you can totally disregard.

In the tackles sheet I've developed a weighted average, as best I can, to account for the amount of time spent in possession and out of possession. It's a bit clumsy I'll admit, but I've used average disposals for and against to come up with a loose way of determining this. If you look at the difference between the weighted averages it tells you some things you'd already know: Adelaide are ****, Richmond are twice as bad, and the Hawks and West Coast aren't far off being the worst sides at applying pressure either. Interestingly, Freo have a negative value as well, which could suggest that whatever they're doing that has them playing so well this season, it isn't pressure on the ball carrier. Ditto the Bulldogs. I think it provides food for thought on how these sides should be countered.

Still early days with only 5 rounds of info to go off, but I'm hoping this comes in handy at some point in the future.

If people like it I'll post updates week to week. (Note the figures on the first sheet do not include the last half of RD5 - left the updated version of it at home.)

[Jono]

I was checking out your spreadsheet last week Casson. I liked it, particularly the ground stats. I'll check your new one out now and get back to you.

Saints, get rid of Raph Clarke ASAP!

[Jono]

Heh, so Saints wont be winning the flag this year. Absolutely no idea what to do without Riewoldt.

[Jono]

What a **** game of footy.

People who talk about it being a good contest, go **** off. I like defensive footy, but that's over the top and rubbish.

Ross Lyon didn't want to win, just wanted to reduce how much they lost by.

[Jono]

Please sneak this Saints. Even though you've been pricks, Doggies have been even more annoying and I'd love to win some big money

EDIT: YES COME ON

[pasag]

Saints $15 and only 3pts behind :|

Edit: down to $6.40, still good value

[Jono]

Yessssssssssss

im so happy to have egg on my face

[Jono]

**** YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Got on at half time. Thank ****ing yeahhhhhhhhhhhh

*calms down*

[Jono]

With 15 minutes left Doggies were 17 pts up and paying 1.10.

[Mr Casson]

Fantastic game (for the last five minutes). I caught the first half before coming to work and couldn't get out quick enough by the time I had to leave. It'd be a weird game for both the supporters leaving there I think - for all the emotion involved, I'd say it's a pyrrhic victory for the Saints, though I'm sure they wouldn't feel like that.

That's five times in a row now St Kilda have lost the tackle count.