+12 Contested possessions; +50 Tackles

[Smyth94]

Prior to Round 8 we had the league in:

Contested Possessions: +12 on the nearest club

Tackles: Circa +50 on the nearest club

Source: Stephen Silvagni and GO'D interviews before the Saint's game.

That stat just blows the "Essendon are all attack and no defense" throw away line right out of the water. Those are simply not the stats of a team
who is all about "all out attack".

If you would've told me at the start of this year that by Round 8 we'd be leading the league in these two stats then I would've marked us down to be top 4 by Round 8.

Two things:
1. Our skill levels aren't good enough (we kind've already knew this)
2. We miss Lovett's skill set really badly

Really we should be 5-3, our skills have cost us wins against Geelong and Port.

[Dkid]

Great stats. Great read
Considering that i thought we needed to work on our defensive gameside, thats really reassuring.
Although i guess that stuff has really been boosted by the performances of the last few weeks.
Nonetheless hope it keeps this way for the rest of the season:)

[Ben the Gooner]

We're playing very good footy at the moment and should really be 3/3 since the ANZAC Day debacle. Clearly there was a severe roasting after that los, and credit to the senior players for turning it back on. With guys like Davey, Hille etc basically as inclusions on last year's side, we're looking quite good.

[The Donners]

We're playing very good footy at the moment and should really be 3/3 since the ANZAC Day debacle. Clearly there was a severe roasting after that los, and credit to the senior players for turning it back on. With guys like Davey, Hille etc basically as inclusions on last year's side, we're looking quite good.

This. I fear the dropping the Power game will come back to haunt us.

[WeAreEssendon]

Two things:
1. Our skill levels aren't good enough (we kind've already knew this)
2. We miss Lovett's skill set really badly

Really we should be 5-3, our skills have cost us wins against Geelong and Port.

I read a stat somewhere which showed our clanger and disposal efficiency to be pretty good. Can't recall where but I'm pretty sure we aren't doing too badly in those stakes.

[The Donners]

I read a stat somewhere which showed our clanger and disposal efficiency to be pretty good. Can't recall where but I'm pretty sure we aren't doing too badly in those stakes.

Generally you hit more targets by hand, I'd like to know where our kick to handball ratio stands before the stat you're referring to has any credibility.

[Godzke]

After Round 8, according to footywire.

Averages
Kicks - 9th: 198.2 (1st: WBD 224.8)
Handballs - 6th: 177.5 (Geelong 213.9)
Marks - 11th: 88.2 (Carlton 107.5)
Tackles - 1st: 80.2 (Collingwood 77.2)
Hitouts - 15th: 31.6 (WCE 44.6)
Frees For - 2nd: 21.4 (WCE 22.8)
Frees Against - 6th: 19.9 (Hawks 24.2)

[The House]

I read a stat somewhere which showed our clanger and disposal efficiency to be pretty good. Can't recall where but I'm pretty sure we aren't doing too badly in those stakes.

Disposal effeciency is the most deceptive stat going around by a mile.
It is recorded very loosely and some pretty poorly skilled players can often have a high efficiency.
Peverill was a good example of this.

Eg, you have a set shot from the top of the square and shank it off the side of your boot and it sneaks in for a point.....recorded as 100% efficient.

You're running through the middle under no pressure and your full forward is on the lead and has 15m on his opponent. You kick it over his head causing him to stop, back peddle and his opponent spoils the footy....recorded as 100% efficient.

Similarly if you're kicking to a man on a lead and you land it 2m in front of him and it bounces into his ankles and he fumbles it....recorded as 100% efficient.

Last year's final v Adelaide Slatts had 13 disposals, 6 were clangers, yet his disposal efficiency was 77%. Go figure.

I really wish people would stop quoting disposal efficiency as some sort of evidence. Someone recently told me that Dempsey was listed as one of the top 10 most reliable kicks in the afl going by efficiency:eek:....nuff said!

[Ben the Gooner]

Clangers aren't neccessarily possessions though. I think fumbles, for example, are clangers.

Quote from the 2010 AFL Prospectus:

Clanger: An error made by a player resulting in a negative result for his side. Disposal clangers are any kick or handball that directly turns the ball over to the opposition. Frees & 50 meters penalties against, No Pressure Errors, Dropped Marks and Debits are all included in clangers.

A grammatical disaster, and I have no idea what a Debit is, but that clears it up a bit.

[bipolarbeaR]

Debit is something that puts you in the minuses, so I assume rushed behinds?

[Kong]

Quote from the 2010 AFL Prospectus:
Clanger: An error made by a player resulting in a negative result for his side. Disposal clangers are any kick or handball that directly turns the ball over to the opposition. Frees & 50 meters penalties against, No Pressure Errors, Dropped Marks and Debits are all included in clangers.So wouldn't this:You're running through the middle under no pressure and your full forward is on the lead and has 15m on his opponent. You kick it over his head causing him to stop, back peddle and his opponent spoils the footy....recorded as 100% efficient.Be incorrect?

[lamaros]

So wouldn't this:Be incorrect?

Direct is the key word. You have to kick it into their possession, not just kick it into a contested situation.

[J6shSC]

Those things The House listed are consider ineffective disposals unless the kick is (from memory) greater than 40m in length. A long kick to a contest is considered an effective disposal, a short kick to a contest isn't.

One I've never been sure on is kicking to advantage.. If somebody is leading out to the wing and has 20m on a bloke, if you kick it infront of him so that he can run on to the pill, is that considered ineffective? Realistically it isn't, but as far as maintaining possession you really have kicked it to nobody.

[james_omahoney]

We're #2 for Contested Possies after rd. 8.

Team Total

Collingwood 1097
Essendon 1081
Geelong 1074
Western 1055
St. Kilda 1049
West Coast 1047
Port Adelaide 1042
Melbourne 1025
Brisbane 1019
Carlton 1009
Sydney 1000
Fremantle 999
North Melbourne 961
Richmond 918
Hawthorn 915
Adelaide 844

[Godzke]

Pretty good to be second considering most would regard Essendon as lacking a key inside midfielder to compliment Watson.

[Knight Ryders]

This is the exact reason why I can see us winning more games than losing for the rest of the season. Our forward line will improve with games (I think the timing is perfect to re-introduce Williams - we were not doing him any favours previously) and our players coming up from Bendigo are playing the role required when they come up. We also have plenty of depth, although that would probably get shot down by all and sundry on the main board.

[Mecha]

#1 in Tackles.
#2 in Contested Possessions.

To me this says we have both the hunger and ability.

Are we loosing games because of tactics? :confused:

[Godzke]

Ability to win the ball, not necessarily the ability to use it effectively.

[Slattery_20]

We're losing cos our forward line's still getting it's shit together and we lack finishers. Lovett would be real handy right now. Reimers in his place even.

[Smyth94]

#1 in Tackles.
#2 in Contested Possessions.

To me this says we have both the hunger and ability.

Are we loosing games because of tactics? :confused:

Not at all.

We've lost because of poor skill execution.

[Kong]

Not at all.

We've lost because of poor skill execution.Spot on.

While we still have a way to go with the way we defend on the rebound, I believe our poor skill level doesn't give us much of an opportunity here.

We're running forward through the corridor linking up, when a loopy handball misses a player and goes to two opponents, who kick the ball long and run into a near-empty forward 50. Now while this should be inexcusable, I've seen it happen with Geelong quite a few times times. The difference being that their skill level is say a 9.75/10, whereas ours would be a 6.5/10 most games. It's no coincidence that when they're kicking badly or not linking up the way they normally do, they play below par.

If we improve our skill level (and it won't happen overnight), we'll improve our team dramatically. We'd have won the Geelong and Port games, for a start.

[Smyth94]

Spot on.

While we still have a way to go with the way we defend on the rebound, I believe our poor skill level doesn't give us much of an opportunity here.

We're running forward through the corridor linking up, when a loopy handball misses a player and goes to two opponents, who kick the ball long and run into a near-empty forward 50. Now while this should be inexcusable, I've seen it happen with Geelong quite a few times times. The difference being that their skill level is say a 9.75/10, whereas ours would be a 6.5/10 most games. It's no coincidence that when they're kicking badly or not linking up the way they normally do, they play below par.

If we improve our skill level (and it won't happen overnight), we'll improve our team dramatically. We'd have won the Geelong and Port games, for a start.

I read in the H/S the other week that Champion Data argue that if you win both the tackle and contested possession counts - teams win 85% of the time.

That would put us at 6-2. Although realistically I would say 5-3.
I agree with Whomb that our poor execution has cost us 2 wins (Geelong and Port).

It will be interesting to see how our season pans out if we are able to maintain our tackle and contested possession numbers. A marginal improvement in our skills could see us win a few more games than originally expected (a few weeks ago).

Also another (intangible) thing to consider is by how much our forward line will continue to gel, improve etc - this might be the difference in being a finals side or finishing 9-10-11-12th

[yaco55]

I read in the H/S the other week that Champion Data argue that if you win both the tackle and contested possession counts - teams win 85% of the time.

That would put us at 6-2. Although realistically I would say 5-3.
I agree with Whomb that our poor execution has cost us 2 wins (Geelong and Port).

It will be interesting to see how our season pans out if we are able to maintain our tackle and contested possession numbers. A marginal improvement in our skills could see us win a few more games than originally expected (a few weeks ago).

Also another (intangible) thing to consider is by how much our forward line will continue to gel, improve etc - this might be the difference in being a finals side or finishing 9-10-11-12th

It will be interesting to see if our tackling/contested footy goes down but our skill level goes up.

I suggest that we will be better off as a team.

[james_omahoney]

If you think about it logically, and very simplistically, a goal from a centre break might have a stats path like this.

1. Contested Possession
2. Clearance
3. Effective Disposal(s) resulting in an:
4. Inside 50
5. Effective Shot on Goal


We are clearly doing fine in 1 and 2, but we fall away at getting inside 50 relative to the number of contested possessions we win.

I think our shots on goal are OK in both number and accuracy for the amount of inside 50s, but still could be a lot better.

We need to work on the transition from 3 to 4 for mine, and then worry about 5 after we get them right.

[Ben the Gooner]

Great post j_om.

That's one thing that stood out about Melksham for me. The clearance on his right foot straight down Gus' throat, then the shot on his left from 60m in the same passage of play. It was only a point, but it was a scoring shot purely from Melksham's hard work.

[Godzke]

Might keep this thread running as the theme of the year when it comes to stats.

-Contested Possessions
-Tackles
-Clearances

Are the three I'm focusing on. With an eye on i50 marks as well to see how well our young forwards are progressing. Richmond are, of course, Richmond but they beat us on the stat sheet last night.

Tackles 68-67 Richmond's way
Contested disposals 136-121 Richmond's way again
Clearances 41-37 to Essendon

I believe there would be a positive correlation between us playing better opponents who win the ball more and our tackle count, so I guess we shouldn't read too much into that. However, CPs is a disappointment. I was at the game last night and generally I thought our attack on the footy may've only been marginally harder than Richmond's. That CP count is something we really really should've dominated.

Lonergan got his hand on the pill 23 times, 11 of which were CP, 2 clearances but only 2 tackles. A decent game but he's no NLM. Hasn't got the tank NLM's got either.

i50 marks. 4 Hille, ****ing great game. Imagine how close it would've been had he been suspended?! Jetta with three, needs to straighten up his kicking though,

passage of play of the night: jetta runs at the contest on the 50m paint and punches the ball sideways to Lonergan??? peels away, receives handball back, weights a perfect kick to Hille under pressure right up in the pocket, Hille checksides for a goal.

[lamaros]

passage of play of the night: jetta runs at the contest on the 50m paint and punches the ball sideways to Lonergan??? peels away, receives handball back, weights a perfect kick to Hille under pressure right up in the pocket, Hille checksides for a goal.

That jump and knock by Jetta was excellent. Him and Davey really showed some of their "we can do stuff other than run fast and tackle" quality in the game, and the commitment and hardness and intelligence from Jetta in the knock was really great.

[james_omahoney]

Interesting facts about last night:

1. 14 individual goalkickers
2. Inside 50s: 56 to 46
3. 212 kicks to 178 handballs, a ratio of 1.2:1
4. 90 more uncontested possessions that the Tigers
5. Hille 14 marks

What I did notice when looking at our player stats is that NLM has 27 clangers from 5 games - an average of 5.4 per game. Obviously he was in great form, but it's something he needs to work on when he returns. Part of these 5.4 per game is simply free kicks against (2.6 per game).

[Godzke]

Yeah he needs to bring that down, but I reckon we miss him a lot. 5 clangars a game from averaging 25 possies ain't too bad.

[james_omahoney]

Yeah he's been pretty valuable for us. Just a little note.

[james_omahoney]

ROUND 10 FUN STATS:

> Bulldogs won Contested Possessions +8, Clearances +15, Inside 50s +1

> Bombers won Uncontested Possessions +46, Tackles + 9, Marks +36, Shots on goal + 5

> Our Disposal Efficiency was 75% to 68% for the Dogs

> We had 10 individual goalkickers, the second week in a row of 10 or more

> Leroy Jetta continued his purple patch of form with 25 disposals including 14 kicks, 10 marks, 2 goals, an assist and 5 tackles

> Heath Hocking also continued his great form with a DE% of 95% from 20 disposals, including 7 contested, 6 marks and a goal

> Before this round, the Dogs were the least tackled team in the comp at 62 against. We tackled them 75 times

> We had not beaten Western since Rd. 10 2005!

> We hadn't won 3 in a row since we strung 4 together in 2008, however none of those wins were against top 4 teams, whereas two of the last 3 wins have been against last years's top 4.

> We will beat Geelong in 2 weeks*. Last time we beat the number 1 team (Saints, Rd. 20 last year) we had lost a tight contest earlier in the year. Our boys will go into the Cats match with a belief and hunger to win, something we have not had against the Cats in years. In fact, the last time we beat the cats was also in 2005 (Rd. 18). We have not had a crowd lower than 48,000 at Docklands vs. Geelong since 2007, so book your tix ASAP!


* Not a fact:p

[Call Me Cake]

ROUND 10 FUN STATS:

> Bulldogs won Contested Possessions +8, Clearances +15, Inside 50s +1

> Bombers won Uncontested Possessions +46, Tackles + 9, Marks +36, Shots on goal + 5

> Our Disposal Efficiency was 75% to 68% for the Dogs

> We had 10 individual goalkickers, the second week in a row of 10 or more

> Leroy Jetta continued his purple patch of form with 25 disposals including 14 kicks, 10 marks, 2 goals, an assist and 5 tackles

> Heath Hocking also continued his great form with a DE% of 95% from 20 disposals, including 7 contested, 6 marks and a goal

> Before this round, the Dogs were the least tackled team in the comp at 62 against. We tackled them 75 times

> We had not beaten Western since Rd. 10 2005!

> We hadn't won 3 in a row since we strung 4 together in 2008, however none of those wins were against top 4 teams, whereas two of the last 3 wins have been against last years's top 4.

> We will beat Geelong in 2 weeks*. Last time we beat the number 1 team (Saints, Rd. 20 last year) we had lost a tight contest earlier in the year. Our boys will go into the Cats match with a belief and hunger to win, something we have not had against the Cats in years. In fact, the last time we beat the cats was also in 2005 (Rd. 18). We have not had a crowd lower than 48,000 at Docklands vs. Geelong since 2007, so book your tix ASAP!


* Not a fact:p

Haha, great work man. Loving your posts. :thumbsu:

[BomberGal]

I was surprised to see us do so poorly in the clearances last night. We got smashed, and it's not really good enough since it nearly cost us the game in the end. Perhaps comes back to the skill level though - hands just aren't clean enough sometimes.

[james_omahoney]

Could be just because NLM came in after injury and the change upset the balance/rythym a bit, but I think next game it will trend upwards again given he'll be more settled - plus Dogs have a quality clearance machine.