Putting season 2020 in perspective

[Econopower]

After this year, who knows what to expect for 2021?

I really like what our list management team has been doing, so I'm a bit bullish on what we can do next year.

Absolutely agree over the medium term, which is another reason I’m happier now than I have been in years. But progress is rarely linear...

 

[Econopower]

Win the next four, as we clearly should, and people should at least accept that we’ve improved.

Agreed...

 

[Econopower]

Who are the top 4 coaches in the AFL?
Do you need to have a top 4 coach to win a premiership?

I've come to the conclusion that we do not have a top 4 coach and that you do need to have one to win a premiership.
I look forward to the day that our club can make its own decisions again and we can choose a top 4 coach.

Until then we supporters are just cash cows being milked by those at 140 Harbour Esplanade.

Easier said than done.

If we go by the metric of who has coached a team to a grand final win we have a short list of Hardwick, Clarkson, Simpson, Beveridge, Scott and Longmire. Buckley could perhaps be added to the list as well.

But even among that group the Bulldogs had only one good year, Scott hasn’t won since 2011, Longmire since 2012 and who knows if Buckley will get back there.

Regardless we can’t poach any of them, and it is pretty hard to tell which assistants have that capability ex-ante. Even Hardwick looked a failure until he wasn’t.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

See, I strongly disagree with this.

Success simply has to be defined differently in a competition that has more equalising factors like the salary cap and the draft, and in which we are a long way from being the best resourced club in the competition.

Probabilistically one would expect to win the grand final once every 18 years and play finals 44% of the time if everything was completely even.

Of course it isn’t and there is still room for good list management, player development and coaching to improve those odds in the way that it has for say Geelong.

But thinking there is any chance we can replicate our SANFL domination inside the AFL is just a recipe for frustrating because it isn’t going to happen.

Nice straw man.

Literally noone is saying they expect to win as often as we did in the SANFL.

What they are saying is that they expect us to be the bench mark in the AFL in the same way that teams like Hawthorn and WCE have been in terms of premierships.

We want to be the best.

On SM-G960F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Econopower]

Nice straw man.

Literally noone is saying they expect to win as often as we did in the SANFL.

What they are saying is that they expect us to be the bench mark in the AFL in the same way that teams like Hawthorn and WCE have been in terms of premierships.

We want to be the best.

On SM-G960F using BigFooty.com mobile app

I know that nobody expects the degree of SANFL success to be replicated.

But speaking for myself it is difficult to adjust from what we were in the SANFL to what is plausible in the AFL.

So I do wonder if that makes many of us more unrealistic about what is possible in any given year or what the appropriate benchmark is.

As I’ve tried to clarify elsewhere, I’m not trying to make a case for having low standards. And I do see the 2015-18 years as ones of missed opportunities. Personally I would have let Ken go at that point.

But given where we stood at the start of the year, 2020 has been a comparative success.

If we don’t build on that over the next few years I will be one of the first calling for major structural changes.

 

[Andre]

I can answer that one for you. I’m an economist!

So you'd be familiar with the sunk cost fallacy. Would you agree it can be applied to sports? Let's take a hypothetical example of a head coach of a sporting team whose had little success in 7 years and is unlikely to in his eighth year. Would you call holding onto him for another year a smart move?

 

[El_Scorcho]

And personally I would have let Ken go after the 2017 season because my evaluation was that we should have been building on the 2013-14 seasons and had a good enough squad to consistently play off in prelims, make at least one grand final, and jag one if things did not go our way.

I attribute that to not learning the right lessons from 2014 and then making a series of poor game plan changes that made us go backwards rather than forwards.

Now you're speaking my language.

I'm just wondering what we've done this year that's changed your mind? Certainly 2018 and 2019 would have only strengthened that opinion, so how has he turned it all around already?

I acknowledge that he's not going to be sacked this week, but surely he needs to do more from 9-2 than simply play in a preliminary final to get anywhere near balancing the ledger. We're top, we hold our fate in our own hands. We need to finish the season strongly and show that we've learned something from the effort and tactical bath we got given by Geelong.

We haven't shown that we've learned in half a decade.

 

[El_Scorcho]

But given where we stood at the start of the year, 2020 has been a comparative success.

Comparative success, yes. Enough to have faith in someone who has failed so badly over half a decade?

If we don’t build on that over the next few years I will be one of the first calling for major structural changes.

Next few years? We should be building on that success right now. We're sitting top after 12 rounds (a position we've been in before under Hinkley). Hinkley needs to demonstrate that he can coach a team into a grand final winning position this season. If he can't do it from 9-2, and hasn't even approached it since 2014, why are we trusting him with any further years at the helm?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

#marginalgains in 2020. That's my perspective. For some that's enough. For others it isn't.

 

[El Zorro]

Comparative success, yes. Enough to have faith in someone who has failed so badly over half a decade?



Next few years? We should be building on that success right now. We're sitting top after 12 rounds (a position we've been in before under Hinkley). Hinkley needs to demonstrate that he can coach a team into a grand final winning position this season. If he can't do it from 9-2, and hasn't even approached it since 2014, why are we trusting him with any further years at the helm?

As it stands right now, we are top of the ladder and have lost comfortably to the teams on 2nd, 3rd and 4th spot. I've seen this movie before. They can pardon me for not getting ahead of myself.

 

[JohnHinckleyJr]

As much as I understand the urge to burn Alberton down after a performance like Friday’s, I really think that some perspective is warranted.

Though I’m posting for the first time I’ve been lurking on these boards for years and I can’t think of a single poster who thought we would be on top of the table at this point of the year. Indeed, a majority thought us to be in a partial rebuild amid which sneaking into the finals would have been considered a good result.

If one is being very honest about the quality of our list, it is obvious there are significant holes. Our two best players of the last decade - Boak and Gray are past the peak of their careers. Our best utility of the period will be lucky to play more than a dozen more games in his career. Three of our better younger players - Rozee, Duursma and Burton - have been hampered by injuries. We have a shortage of players in the age bracket when career peaks are most likely. And our back line is partially relying on a player who appeared to be a candidate for delisting this time last year.

Then there are the wider circumstances of COVID-19. Irregular travel patterns. Compressed fixtures. Players from interstate not being able to see their families. Under such stress it is difficult to expect every performance to be of even quality.

In fact when one lifts their gaze to look at the performance of other clubs, similar patterns of variability are common, even amongst those towards the top. In just the last month Geelong, Richmond, and Brisbane have all had bad defeats.

Note that I’m not claiming that Hinckley is an especially good coach. I genuinely think that the list should have achieved much more in the 2014-17 period. And the collapse from 11-4 was terrible.

But equally the criticism borders on the hysterical at times and there is definitely a tendency on this board to interpret events through the prism of their own prejudices. Bad defeats are due to coaching. Great wins are attributable to the assistant coaches or the players overcoming bad coaching.

The truth is somewhere in the middle and it isn’t clear there is an obviously better candidate on the market.

Since I left Adelaide 20 years ago and Australia 12 years ago, I’ve often pondered whether Port have underachieved or not in the AFL. But in my more rational moods I wonder whether our history in the SANFL makes that particularly hard to judge.

I was 8 when we lost the GF to Norwood and remember crying as the reality set in. But then I was lucky enough to grow up in a family where three generations had lived and died in the Semaphore area and who could regale me with tales of our past achievements. And then I was even more fortunate to come of age in the late 80s and early 90s when we dominated the competition once again, setting the platform for our accession to the AFL.

But the downside of that history is that we expect to win, or are perhaps more disappointed than most when we don’t, even though we have few of the advantages we had in our SANFL days. It would be a bit like Celtic joining the English Premier League and then expecting to dominate like it was the SPL.

So by all means be upset when we don’t turn up to play. Hold our coaches and administrators to account for their decisions. Push for change when it is clear that is needed and there is a clearly better and practical alternative.

But also put things into perspective because in the grander scheme of our AFL history since 97 and what is happening in the world, this has been a pretty good year so far. I certainly know it has given me a lot of enjoyment in a year that has had a shortage of happy moments.

Welcome

As much as I understand the urge to burn Alberton down after a performance like Friday’s, I really think that some perspective is warranted.

Though I’m posting for the first time I’ve been lurking on these boards for years and I can’t think of a single poster who thought we would be on top of the table at this point of the year. Indeed, a majority thought us to be in a partial rebuild amid which sneaking into the finals would have been considered a good result.

If one is being very honest about the quality of our list, it is obvious there are significant holes. Our two best players of the last decade - Boak and Gray are past the peak of their careers. Our best utility of the period will be lucky to play more than a dozen more games in his career. Three of our better younger players - Rozee, Duursma and Burton - have been hampered by injuries. We have a shortage of players in the age bracket when career peaks are most likely. And our back line is partially relying on a player who appeared to be a candidate for delisting this time last year.

Then there are the wider circumstances of COVID-19. Irregular travel patterns. Compressed fixtures. Players from interstate not being able to see their families. Under such stress it is difficult to expect every performance to be of even quality.

In fact when one lifts their gaze to look at the performance of other clubs, similar patterns of variability are common, even amongst those towards the top. In just the last month Geelong, Richmond, and Brisbane have all had bad defeats.

Note that I’m not claiming that Hinckley is an especially good coach. I genuinely think that the list should have achieved much more in the 2014-17 period. And the collapse from 11-4 was terrible.

But equally the criticism borders on the hysterical at times and there is definitely a tendency on this board to interpret events through the prism of their own prejudices. Bad defeats are due to coaching. Great wins are attributable to the assistant coaches or the players overcoming bad coaching.

The truth is somewhere in the middle and it isn’t clear there is an obviously better candidate on the market.

Since I left Adelaide 20 years ago and Australia 12 years ago, I’ve often pondered whether Port have underachieved or not in the AFL. But in my more rational moods I wonder whether our history in the SANFL makes that particularly hard to judge.

I was 8 when we lost the GF to Norwood and remember crying as the reality set in. But then I was lucky enough to grow up in a family where three generations had lived and died in the Semaphore area and who could regale me with tales of our past achievements. And then I was even more fortunate to come of age in the late 80s and early 90s when we dominated the competition once again, setting the platform for our accession to the AFL.

But the downside of that history is that we expect to win, or are perhaps more disappointed than most when we don’t, even though we have few of the advantages we had in our SANFL days. It would be a bit like Celtic joining the English Premier League and then expecting to dominate like it was the SPL.

So by all means be upset when we don’t turn up to play. Hold our coaches and administrators to account for their decisions. Push for change when it is clear that is needed and there is a clearly better and practical alternative.

But also put things into perspective because in the grander scheme of our AFL history since 97 and what is happening in the world, this has been a pretty good year so far. I certainly know it has given me a lot of enjoyment in a year that has had a shortage of happy moments.

Great stuff

 

[Econopower]

So you'd be familiar with the sunk cost fallacy. Would you agree it can be applied to sports? Let's take a hypothetical example of a head coach of a sporting team whose had little success in 7 years and is unlikely to in his eighth year. Would you call holding onto him for another year a smart move?

Sunk costs can be applied to any financial decision, so yes.

But in this example it would imply that the club was holding on to Ken because of its earlier expenditure on him.

Perhaps that is one of the motivations of the board but I don’t think that is the motivation for everyone who doesn’t want him fired.

This thread is about the media, not Ken’s coaching, and even my post on the other thread was meant to be about much more than his coaching record.

But to be very clear, I would have let him go at the end of 17 or 18 after it was clear the list and performance had failed to progress adequately.

Now we have him though, and are currently top of the ladder, I’m happy to see how things play out and like any good Bayesian I will update my priors based on what happens over the next two months.

 

[Econopower]

Now you're speaking my language.

I'm just wondering what we've done this year that's changed your mind? Certainly 2018 and 2019 would have only strengthened that opinion, so how has he turned it all around already?

I acknowledge that he's not going to be sacked this week, but surely he needs to do more from 9-2 than simply play in a preliminary final to get anywhere near balancing the ledger. We're top, we hold our fate in our own hands. We need to finish the season strongly and show that we've learned something from the effort and tactical bath we got given by Geelong.

We haven't shown that we've learned in half a decade.

Are you familiar with Bayesian statistics?

Applied crudely here it means that my prior before starting the season would have been that Ken is ‘probably’ not a good enough coach, and that we ought not to renew his contract.

But when new evidence becomes available - in this case our ‘much better than I expected’ performance this season - I’m prepared to update that prior.

Make the grand final or put up a very good showing in a preliminary final say against Brisbane away, and I might update that view of his coaching ability enough to think a one year extension is warranted.

And then I will go through the same reasoning again next year.

But you could apply the same reasoning to conclude he should be let go under the same circumstances because your prior view of his coaching abilities was worse and it would take a larger improvement in our performance to alter that opinion.

 

[Butters Made Me Do It]

But you could apply the same reasoning to conclude he should be let go under the same circumstances because your prior view of his coaching abilities was worse and it would take a larger improvement in our performance to alter that opinion.

The new information being added this season represents a tiny fragment of the total evidence we've collected over Hinkley's significant tenure. by Bayes, the old info doesn't have to be `worse' (in intensity); rather the new information, which is a very short sample, needs to be ******* dramatic to overturn it.

 

[Doctor Feel]

Tldlr; sack hinkley

 

[Kingfish73]

Well done on thought process for first post. But bottom line = winning finals. And that is 6 years in waiting. When we do that, I'll formulate a hardened view. Back slapping a few good wins a year means nothing until we find a way to qualify for finals and win big games.

 

[Econopower]

The new information being added this season represents a tiny fragment of the total evidence we've collected over Hinkley's significant tenure. by Bayes, the old info doesn't have to be `worse' (in intensity); rather the new information, which is a very short sample, needs to be ******* dramatic to overturn it.

Well, there is a subjective element as well because our starting priors could be different. In fact that is very common in econometric analysis where one practitioner might be very confident in their prior and thus require very large transformation to shift their view whereas another might have less confidence and thus the data might shift that view by more.

I agree that the body of evidence up until now is fairly compelling but I’m not so confident that making the grand final, say, with this particular list, wouldn’t be enough to shift my view about the benefits of letting him continue for another year.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Make the grand final or put up a very good showing in a preliminary final say against Brisbane away, and I might update that view of his coaching ability enough to think a one year extension is warranted.

And then I will go through the same reasoning again next year.

Based on what you've written here, I think you're actually basically bang on the prevailing opinion that this board has.

You've just got a bit more patience.

He needs to disprove the prevailing opinion he isn't good enough to put us in the premiership frame. The "we're a young side" furphy that has been wheeled out is no longer valid given we're top after 12 rounds. If you're top of the ladder with 5 rounds to go, you're can't play down your chances anymore. You need to embrace expectation.

Our last 5 games are against sides currently sitting 7th, 11th, 15th, 16th and 17th. It is unacceptable now to finish below 2nd, anything less is a failure. Finishing top 2 means we should be expecting to play in a grand final.

No excuses.

 

[Econopower]

The new information being added this season represents a tiny fragment of the total evidence we've collected over Hinkley's significant tenure. by Bayes, the old info doesn't have to be `worse' (in intensity); rather the new information, which is a very short sample, needs to be ******* dramatic to overturn it.

Small samples are a pretty common problem when trying to make inferences in sporting analysis. Eight years might seem a long time but with data analysis (if season is the unit rather than games) it is not.

More importantly we don’t know the counterfactual of how the last 8 years would have panned out under alternative coaches and can’t easily build a model to compare the performance of different coaches controlling for all the factors that influence performance.

As such we fall back on our own heuristics like flags won, or proportion of finals played.

 

[Econopower]

Based on what you've written here, I think you're actually basically bang on the prevailing opinion that this board has.

You've just got a bit more patience.

I think that is a fair summation. I probably also don’t lurch from one extreme to another like some posters I’ve read, though it might be different if I was living in Adelaide!

 

[sog35]

Based on how Ken's talked for the entire year, I think he's comfortable with the expectation. It started early and he's reiterated a number of times he thinks we're a good side.

The Cats result, but more infuriatingly, performance has certainly out a dent in my confidence in that perspective. As El_Scorcho points out, the team has the chance over the next 6 weeks to give ourselves the opportunity to put right some of the performances against the other high flyers.

 

[El_Scorcho]

I think that is a fair summation. I probably also don’t lurch from one extreme to another like some posters I’ve read, though it might be different if I was living in Adelaide!

I don't actually think this board lurches around a lot, I think it trends towards cautious and negative, but I also think that's the only sensible way to approach this football team under Ken Hinkley. I liked beating Richmond, but that victory wasn't enough to reverse 7 years of failure.

We're currently sitting top with 5 rounds to go. The expectation here has to be that we win the flag. I guarantee that Brisbane, Geelong, West Coast and Richmond will all see anything less than a flag as a failure.

Can a Ken Hinkley team embrace expectation and play to their potential for 8 more games?

 

[Econopower]

I don't actually think this board lurches around a lot, I think it trends towards cautious and negative

Some of the game day and review threads say otherwise, but I guess they are just vehicles for venting

 

[Duck Farmer]

The new information being added this season represents a tiny fragment of the total evidence we've collected over Hinkley's significant tenure. by Bayes, the old info doesn't have to be `worse' (in intensity); rather the new information, which is a very short sample, needs to be ******* dramatic to overturn it.

The next few weeks will be telling. Lose a few games to bottom sides and the missing finals from 11-4 PTSD will start to kick into gear.

 

[PowerBaz]

We have not been rotating players, we have been hellbent on making the 8.
Now that the 8 is a near certainty we will pay for not rotating players.

It feels now exactly like it did when we were 11-4.
I will be surprised if we win more than one more game this year.
Ken in his interview had the "job done" persona.

The team currently 10th has only 4 losses, we have 3.
I suspect we will be 8th after our bye.

Friday nights effort was unforgivable and a coach that had the clubs interests at heart would have said so publicly.
A coach that has the AFL's interest at heart and next years pay check secured will think otherwise.

I get the feeling we are tired. I heard from a mate who knows Westy - he was tired and was going to be dropped a while back but due to circumstances wasn’t, he’s being rested for sure and will come back in at some point.