Analysis List analysis. Bright Future

[bhys16]

Is there a single person at this time of the year who doesn't think their club has a bright future ahead of them?

this off-season I would think Doggies, Dees, Saints and Bombers fans are not in the best frame of mind..

 

[a mayes ing]

this off-season I would think Doggies, Dees, Saints and Bombers fans are not in the best frame of mind..

I am sure their supporters still think like we do, that their own club has a bright future.

 

[bhys16]

I am sure their supporters still think like we do, that their own club has a bright future.

wife is a dees fan, they gave up about 3 years ago..

 

[QAFL_Fan]

Didn't read it all, but not sure Mayes is anything like Luke Power?!

 

[bhys16]

Didn't read it all, but not sure Mayes is anything like Luke Power?!

not comparing as players, but their contribution being overshadowed by more noticeable players.. with that being said they are both versatile with great kicking skills and good around goals, so they have a bit in common..

 

[Haso]

not comparing as players, but their contribution being overshadowed by more noticeable players.. with that being said they are both versatile with great kicking skills and good around goals, so they have a bit in common..

I suspect that when Mayes earns his way back into that high half forward position that he prefers, he will show a lot more flash. We saw glimpses of it in his first season.

 

[Caiphus]

And when he was our leading scorer over the first few rounds this season.

 

[GOTHELIONS16]

Yes we have a bright future in 2015 will win a premiership by 2018.
like port did a couple of years back the lions will make the eight in 2015 and then up to 5th by 2016. Premiership by 2018. And the grand final will be against the suns.

 

[Panthera]

Whilst I, like many, see a bright future at the Lions, there are some glaring deficiencies in our team that we need to address over the next 2 - 3 seasons. When looking at many of the important statistics that decide the outcome of games; it's amazing that we won 7 games in 2014

This can be seen as a positive when looking at the below horror show, considering that 12 games usually gets you into finals

Quarters won 18th (3 less than St.Kilda with only 21 from 88 played)
Contested possessions 18th
Contested marks 17th
Goals 16th
I50's 16th
Disposal ave. 15th
Disposal efficiency 14th
Clearances 14th

The bolded are the areas where I'd expect to see vast improvement in 2015

 

[WhiteLionFeva]

wife is a dees fan, they gave up about 3 years ago..

I think a lot of Dees fans would be pretty excited by the prospects of Petracca, Brayshaw, Hogan, McDonald, Stretch, Tyson et al. Just as we would be had we drafted/traded for any or all of them.

 

[carnthemlions]

I think a lot of Dees fans would be pretty excited by the prospects of Petracca, Brayshaw, Hogan, McDonald, Stretch, Tyson et al. Just as we would be had we drafted/traded for any or all of them.

I think a few would be tempering their enthusiasm too. They've been there before...

 

[Last of the Roys]

I don't think this has been posted on the Lions board anywhere yet - the following is a link to an article from Monday about the average age of each team's list

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...says-latest-data/story-fni5f22o-1227149047364

1. Fremantle 25.40
2. North Melb. 25.35
3. Essendon 24.96
4. Hawthorn 24.84
5. Sydney Swans 24.64
6. Geelong Cats 24.60
7. Carlton 24.45
8. Adelaide 24.21
9. Richmond 24.19
10. Melbourne 23.95
11. West Coast 23.91
12. Port Adelaide 23.61
13. Collingwood 23.61
14. St Kilda 23.42
15. Brisbane 23.36
16. West Bulldogs 23.21
17. Gold Coast 22.90
18. GWS Giants 22.42

It is hardly unexpected that we are still down towards the bottom. We have still got a way to go to build up our experience. Although if things go right with injuries / everything else, then you are still in with a shot as Port proved.

It would be good to know what the numbers look like in terms of average games played, and how many players each of the teams have in the different brackets. When I get some time over summer I will try and work that out.

 

[Greggy85]

I don't think this has been posted on the Lions board anywhere yet - the following is a link to an article from Monday about the average age of each team's list

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...says-latest-data/story-fni5f22o-1227149047364



It is hardly unexpected that we are still down towards the bottom. We have still got a way to go to build up our experience. Although if things go right with injuries / everything else, then you are still in with a shot as Port proved.

It would be good to know what the numbers look like in terms of average games played, and how many players each of the teams have in the different brackets. When I get some time over summer I will try and work that out.

I think North and Essendon are probably falsely inflated by Boomer and Fletch respectively.

 

[BuntonRules]

Richmond 9th again

 

[POBT]

Our age profile is not as bad as that ladder would suggest. The list shows a pretty strong link between age and performance, with Port the only successful "young" side. But We have about 22 players who are aged between 22 and 30. That's about the same number as Port. It's a good starting point and, while not ideal for immediate success, it is a great place to be in for list sustainability.

Further, only Stakes and Maguire turn 31 during the 2015 season. So we don't have multiple guys in their early 30s, like a Geelong, who have a similar "young-old" list to what we had in around 2009.

 

[Ironmonger]

I think North and Essendon are probably falsely inflated by Boomer and Fletch respectively.

Spot on.

Fletcher is 39, so if he'd retired last year and been replaced by an 18yo draftee then that would reduce Essendon's average by half a year (21/40), which would drop them from 3rd to 8th on that list.

Port Adelaide, on the other hand, have only one player above 29 (Kane Cornes) so look less experienced than they really are.

It'd be interesting if someone could calculate the median age of each list to compare the difference.

 

[blynd_freddie]

Our age profile is not as bad as that ladder would suggest. The list shows a pretty strong link between age and performance, with Port the only successful "young" side. But We have about 22 players who are aged between 22 and 30. That's about the same number as Port. It's a good starting point and, while not ideal for immediate success, it is a great place to be in for list sustainability.

Further, only Stakes and Maguire turn 31 during the 2015 season. So we don't have multiple guys in their early 30s, like a Geelong, who have a similar "young-old" list to what we had in around 2009.

The top end of experience generally goes hand in hand with age and with the possibility of an inability to run-out games?

The media were quick to highlight Geelong’s poor second halves, although they finished the home & away season with even with 11 2nd half wins and eleven 2nd half losses this ranked them 9# - But it was the premiership 3rd quarters that caught my eye and I think will shock most pundits, they were only able to win 3 more third quarters than us! Lions 5-17 ranked #18 Geelong finished the H&A season winning only 8 [36%] of third quarters played ranking them #16 – Even the Saints won one more 3rd quarter and were ranked #15. [GWS ranked #17 with 6-16]

Pretty sure we have now turned the corner and happy to make a call that my reading/comparing the AFL lists has me bullishly thinking we have the ‘potential’ to finish above Geelong, Pies, Blues, Dogs, Giants, Crows, Eagles, Dees, Saints and may be even the tiggers! [yeah – that puts us on the cusp of the eight! – Bring It On!]

 

[POBT]

Spot on.

Fletcher is 39, so if he'd retired last year and been replaced by an 18yo draftee then that would reduce Essendon's average by half a year (21/40), which would drop them from 3rd to 8th on that list.

Port Adelaide, on the other hand, have only one player above 29 (Kane Cornes) so look less experienced than they really are.

It'd be interesting if someone could calculate the median age of each list to compare the difference.

The other way to look at it though is that generally every club has thirtysomething year old players retire. So really, the "impact" of having a Fletcher finish is the difference between (say) a 33yo and a 39yo being replaced by an 18yo. The ladder posted earlier is a comparative exercise so "what if Essendon lost Fletcher" should be seen in the context of "what if every club lost their oldest player"?

 

[Panthera]

Whole list averages are pretty useless in my view. Top 4 teams usually use about 27 core players during the season with a sprinkling of youngsters when required.

This is barely 50% of a whole list when Rookies are taken into account.

When looking at our Lions, my best 22 has an average age of 24.18 which is heading towards the perfect age category, with only Maguire, Adcock and Staker as older players and Gardiner, Close, Taylor, Aish the youngest. The rest (15 players) are about to enter their prime footballing age which bodes well for the next 5 seasons.

I have not put Merrett, McGuane and Bewick into the team which would take the average age over 25

Interesting to note that both Aish and Gardiner both played prime roles this season, aged 18 for the whole season - rather impressive

Overall, we have 15 players aged under 21 on our primary list, compared to 8 at Fremantle, 9 at Hawthorn, 10 at Sydney.

Somewhat alarmingly for North, they have only 6 players aged under 21 on their primary list

 

[SizeMatters]

Aish isn't good enough to be best 22 next season so I couldn't give a stuff if he left. Never really warmed to him and think he is over rated on this board. Vanilla.

 

[Haso]

Vanilla ice cream is definitely the vanilla of ice creams.

 

[blynd_freddie]

Aish isn't good enough to be best 22 next season so I couldn't give a stuff if he left. Never really warmed to him and think he is over rated on this board. Vanilla.

Yeah got your point of view - I disagree with it.

I'm off to get some vanilla, I'll leave the ice to you.

 

[Skoob]

Yeah got your point of view - I disagree with it.

I'm off to get some vanilla, I'll leave the ice to you.

 

[Voss the boss]

Never got this average age and really don't care. Thought the game was about winning games not about winning the youngest age list.

 

[Last of the Roys]

I finally got around to having a look at each Club's list to work out age brackets / average age, and game brackets / average games played going in to the 2015 season.

I did it in Excel - unfortunately it is never easy for me to copy and paste tables on BigFooty, but I will give it a shot. I might do it over a number of posts as there is quite a few interesting ways you can look at the stats.

Anyway, I guess the key finding is that going into the 2015 season the Lions will have the 2nd youngest list in terms of age (only behind GWS) and the 4th least experienced list in terms of average games played.

Keep in mind a few things to note with the results:

• I used each players age as at 11th of January 2015. I didn't take into account months (because it was too much of a pain), just whole years - that might impact the results marginally, but hopefully it just evens out across each team's list.
• Rookies are included in the results given they seem a lot more likely to play these days (with the long-term injury lists, etc.).
• However I have modified the results so that each team has the same amount of players on their list = 44. In reality teams have between 44 and 47 players in total on their lists. What I have done is, for teams with more than 44 players, simply taken the youngest rookie / rookies off the team's list to bring it back to 44 players for each team. Basically Club's that have more than 44 players (like GWS and the Lions who both have 47) just have extra young rookies on top of what I have reported. However there seems no logical reason to include those extra players in the overall averages if we are trying to get an accurate comparison between teams.

So here is the first table is "Average age / number of players in each age bracket" (I thought it might be easier to try and post as a JPEG)