Scape Goat Height Supremacy - Psortia's Pseudopsience Psost

Who would win?

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Portia

Portia

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"Waaah why do our guys always look so small? BURGESSSSSSS!!!!"
"Those Geelong and Sydney teams are so bruising, why don't we play like them!"
"Isn't it weird how we have a pretty good record against Hawthorn!"

Hypothesis: Its all about your midfield height being exposed, not just OOER MUSCLES

I've drawn an arbitrary line on each 2016 AFL list, separating players 181cms and smaller from those above that line.

Below is a table showing clubs by their 2016 final ranking, the number of these smaller players who were among their 22 most frequently played in 2016, and the number of these players on the 2016 senior list (not rookies, including suspended players for Essendon).

35i0j79.jpg


Green = Rollercoaster rules apply
Blue = Tall enough to rarely be exposed
Yellow = Getting kinda small, huh
Red = LILLIPUT


Now to be fair, this is only part of the equation, its only looking at midfielders & flankers - at some point I may go through KPPs and rucks to sort the tall from the hmm, but thats more subjective as I'll need to separate KPP from Tall Midfielder based on my own judgement.

But gee its already pretty interesting, hey.

- Huge indicator that the top sides don't deal in the shallow end of height
- Hawthorn using many under height players are the exception; how good is Clarkson! And of the smaller guys only Cyril Rioli was a first round pick.
- Small players on your list unsurprisingly correlates to picking small players in your first 22
- GWS want to be Geelong/Sydney
- Geelong are still very big boys
- Brisbane are trying to be big boys. If they can lift their quality, could be good...maybe a new coach could see a big rise?
- Port, Melbourne, Collingwood forced to call on smaller players beyond a tipping point, maybe is key to their underperformance?

If Port fans are looking at the draft pool and saying "Lets draft Shai Bolton/Josh Daicos/Ben Ainsworth/Andrew McGrath/Brandan Parfitt/Liam Baker/Ben Jarman/Kym Le Bois/Callum Brown/Sam Petrevski-Seton with our first round pick"...maybe have a bit of a think about that.

...and maybe we need to be looking at which of our >182cm guys we're willing to move on in trade period...

FYI thats - Karl Amon, Darcy Byrne-Jones, Sam Gray, Jarman Impey, Jake Neade, Matt White, Chad Wingard
(Sam Colquhoun delisted, but Will Snelling likely to elevate, and yes you can trade rookies FWIW)



Edit: Its even clearer if you don't use placings after finals
orrsk4.jpg


though Hawthorn remain an exception
 
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Portia said:
"Waaah why do our guys always look so small? BURGESSSSSSS!!!!"
"Those Geelong and Sydney teams are so bruising, why don't we play like them!"
"Isn't it weird how we have a pretty good record against Hawthorn!"

Hypothesis: Its all about your midfield height being exposed, not just OOER MUSCLES

I've drawn an arbitrary line on each 2016 AFL list, separating players 181cms and smaller from those above that line.

Below is a table showing clubs by their 2016 final ranking, the number of these smaller players who were among their 22 most frequently played in 2016, and the number of these players on the 2016 senior list (not rookies, including suspended players for Essendon).

35i0j79.jpg


Green = Rollercoaster rules apply
Blue = Tall enough to rarely be exposed
Yellow = Getting kinda small, huh
Red = LILLIPUT


Now to be fair, this is only part of the equation, its only looking at midfielders & flankers - at some point I may go through KPPs and rucks to sort the tall from the hmm, but thats more subjective as I'll need to separate KPP from Tall Midfielder based on my own judgement.

But gee its already pretty interesting, hey.

- Huge indicator that the top sides don't deal in the shallow end of height
- Hawthorn using many under height players are the exception; how good is Clarkson! And of the smaller guys only Cyril Rioli was a first round pick.
- Small players on your list unsurprisingly correlates to picking small players in your first 22
- GWS want to be Geelong/Sydney
- Geelong are still very big boys
- Brisbane are trying to be big boys. If they can lift their quality, could be good...maybe a new coach could see a big rise?
- Port, Melbourne, Collingwood forced to call on smaller players beyond a tipping point, maybe is key to their underperformance?

If Port fans are looking at the draft pool and saying "Lets draft Shai Bolton/Josh Daicos/Ben Ainsworth/Andrew McGrath/Brandan Parfitt/Liam Baker/Ben Jarman/Kym Le Bois/Callum Brown/Sam Petrevski-Seton with our first round pick"...maybe have a bit of a think about that.

...and maybe we need to be looking at which of our >182cm guys we're willing to move on in trade period...

FYI thats - Karl Amon, Darcy Byrne-Jones, Sam Gray, Jarman Impey, Jake Neade, Matt White, Chad Wingard
(Sam Colquhoun delisted, but Will Snelling likely to elevate, and yes you can trade rookies FWIW)
Click to expand...

1. I think the weight ladder would be just as intradasting.

2. Wingard, Impey and DBJ are the only ones I'd really want to keep in our cache of 5 foot somethings. Everyone else is tradeable/delistable.

3. Lions and Tigers (and Bears), oh my.
 

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Not surprising at all.

We definitely need a couple of bigger bodied midfielders and any future short blokes we recruit must have clean hands in the contest and elite skills to make their possessions count.

When you look at Hawthorn, generally speaking, their shorter players are all elite kicks, which suits their game plan perfectly.
 
Great work. These days the old maxim of as a game goes on a tall ruckman doesn't get any shorter now applies across the ground to a fair degree.

I'd be interested to see the breakdowns of first halves versus second halves for teams that are 'tall' in the midfield, versus teams that are 'short' in the midfield. I'd wager the second halves show a more marked disparity then first halves.

Portia said:
...and maybe we need to be looking at which of our >182cm guys we're willing to move on in trade period...

FYI thats - Karl Amon, Darcy Byrne-Jones, Sam Gray, Jarman Impey, Jake Neade, Matt White, Chad Wingard
(Sam Colquhoun delisted, but Will Snelling likely to elevate, and yes you can trade rookies FWIW)
Click to expand...
Sam Gray is always going to be in my 'please trade out' list. You can carry one exceptional small mid (Daniel, Harvey up until now) on your list, but not an average small. And we've had multiple. Other than Sam Gray, I'd trade Neade in a heart beat. DBJ isn't a mid or flanker, so he gets a pass. Wingard is our one star you'd keep no matter what (if he makes the damn transition to the midfield). White is a year or two from retirement, but our next speedster to take his list spot needs that extra height.

A further breakdown that'd be interesting is divvying it up into 'inside' versus 'outside' for height. Outside you can get away I think with a bit more latitude, but inside it's just not going to work when push comes to shove too many times.
 
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Portia said:
I've actually got something like that!

Click to expand...
Ha! Of course you have.

However it's age-related effectiveness in junior ice hockey. And as an ex-Juniors coach I don't need analysis to tell me a 1-2 years age gap in U12 can make a big difference. But back to your position being a big $%&# was even more helpful.
 
Powerstufff said:
Ha! Of course you have.

However it's age-related effectiveness in junior ice hockey. And as an ex-Juniors coach I don't need analysis to tell me a 1-2 years age gap in U12 can make a big difference. But back to your position being a big $%&# was even more helpful.
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Oh sure but for starsigns Capricorns and Aquarius are generally going to be more successful in being drafted to an AFL team than Scorpios or Sagittarius, and you can take success from there.
 
I would definitely agree with the height equating to strength thing, but rest is hard to say as there probably isn’t quite enough evidence.

Do you really need to be stronger to win games, or do you just need a different gameplan?

Certainly I find it hard to see Sam Gray contesting a ball with Josh Kennedy and winning it. So I think I would agree that having at least 2-3 stronger players at every stoppage is crucial.

I think you’d agree that this doesn’t make a player like Sam Gray inherently bad, but it seems pretty clear you need to have a mix.

Clearly you can get away with being taller more easily than being shorter as well. Who would win? A team of 22 Matthew Lobbes or a team of 22 Kane Mitchells? Can that be my question for the podcast?
 
I think the Bulldogs, Sydney and Geelong have demonstrated that you need all players to able and willing to impact physical contests. This doesn't rule out smaller players, but larger ones will generally be disposed to throwing their weight around. There is simply a lot to be said for competitiveness and heart. We've had a jaded team for two years.

Bruise free footy = non-finals footy.
 

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HaaWingard! said:
Clearly you can get away with being taller more easily than being shorter as well. Who would win? A team of 22 Matthew Lobbes or a team of 22 Kane Mitchells? Can that be my question for the podcast?
Click to expand...

The most important question in football. Someone grab out the latest AFL game released with customisable players/teams and test this out, stat.
 
The 4 Hawks guys I know of off the top of my head are 181 or less are highly skilled and great kicks and 3 of them are solid and muscular and their height take weight equation is less than 100 around 96 for all of them ie Mitchell, Puopolo and Cyril. The 4th is skinny but very quick and skillful in Brad Hill - but he is a classic fast skinny skilled winger type which all clubs need and his height take weight equation is about 103.The rest I'd have to look up but wouldn't think anyone else is ahead of these 4.
 
HaaWingard! said:
I would definitely agree with the height equating to strength thing, but rest is hard to say as there probably isn’t quite enough evidence.

Do you really need to be stronger to win games, or do you just need a different gameplan?

Certainly I find it hard to see Sam Gray contesting a ball with Josh Kennedy and winning it. So I think I would agree that having at least 2-3 stronger players at every stoppage is crucial.

I think you’d agree that this doesn’t make a player like Sam Gray inherently bad, but it seems pretty clear you need to have a mix.

Clearly you can get away with being taller more easily than being shorter as well. Who would win? A team of 22 Matthew Lobbes or a team of 22 Kane Mitchells? Can that be my question for the podcast?
Click to expand...
I like it. I'm gonna go with 22 Kane Mitchells; however I would think that a team of 22 Kane Mitchells would lose to a team of 21 Kane Mitchells and 1 Matthew Lobbe. So what's the best combination of Kane Mitchells and Matthew Lobbes? Will be listening to the podcast tonight to find out..
 
TheFVK said:
I like it. I'm gonna go with 22 Kane Mitchells; however I would think that a team of 22 Kane Mitchells would lose to a team of 21 Kane Mitchells and 1 Matthew Lobbe. So what's the best combination of Kane Mitchells and Matthew Lobbes? Will be listening to the podcast tonight to find out..
Click to expand...

Mitchell has poor disposal but Lobbe can't take a mark anyway. Lobbe would obviously win the hitouts against a Mitchell but would tap it to the opposition wether it's a Lobbe or a Mitchell. This is like the football equivalent of "If a tree falls in a forest but noone is around to hear it".
 
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bomberclifford said:
Gladwin FTW!

Outliers is a great book.
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I bet none of our players have spent 10,000 hours perfecting the basic skills of kicking, handballing and marking. Though I'd be happy with them starting with deliberate practise instead of the god knows what passes for skills work at the moment.
 
Portmanteau said:
I think the Bulldogs, Sydney and Geelong have demonstrated that you need all players to able and willing to impact physical contests. This doesn't rule out smaller players, but larger ones will generally be disposed to throwing their weight around. There is simply a lot to be said for competitiveness and heart. We've had a jaded team for two years.

Bruise free footy = non-finals footy.
Click to expand...

This. Byron Pickett was 177cm, I challenge anyone to say that he didn't have a body for AFL football.

I have Impey and DBJ in a similar category. They don't quite have Choppy's size, but what they lack in size they make up for in intent.
 
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