- Apr 19, 2019
- 10,266
- 31,553
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
Prompted by the loss to Carlton and the recent discussion about our midfield grouping, I wanted to put a bit of thought to how we might determine our best clearance midfielders.
Carlton seemed to beat us up in there, and while clearances appear to be the best part of our game, we're still a long way off being able to beat the best sides at it.
I have looked at the midfield grouping of:
Simpkin
Greenwood
Horne-Francis
LDU
Thomas
Stephenson
Powell
As of Round 7 2022, I have looked at:
I won't put my spin on it, but just spit out some stats to help facilitate a discussion about who we should be using as our primary midfielders.
Centre clearances = clearances from the midfield. The other clearances that make up the 'total clearances' are stoppage clearances.
So here goes:
Total Centre Bounce Attendances
1.Simpkin: 188
2. Greenwood: 121
3. JHF: 113
4. LDU: 93
5. Thomas: 43
6. Stephenson: 29
7. Powell: 12
Total clearances/centre clearances - descending order based on total clearances
1. Simpkin: 37/18
2. JHF: 31/14
3. Greenwood: 26/11
4. LDU: 21/11
5. Stephenson: 15/4
6. Thomas: 10/7
7. Powell: 7/4
CBA per clearance
1. Powell: 1.71 centre bounces per clearance
2. Stephenson: 1.93 centre bounces per clearance
3. JHF: 3.65 centre bounces per clearance
4. Thomas: 4.3 centre bounces per clearance
5. LDU: 4.43 centre bounces per clearance
6. Greenwood: 4.65 centre bounces per clearance
7. Simpkin: 5.08 centre bounces per clearance
CBA per centre clearance
1. Powell: 3 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
2. Thomas: 6.14 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
3. Stephenson: 7.25 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
4. JHF: 8.07 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
5. LDU: 8.45 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
6. Simpkin: 10.44 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
7. Greenwood: 11 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
The only commentary I will provide is to point out that JHF is already our best clearance mid. He's one of the big 4 but trouncing the rest of the big 4 in his clearance work. Powell's stats look exceptional but beware the very small sample size of 12 CBAs compared to JHF's 113.
Discussion starters - although feel free to pose/answer any question you can come up with
Have at it and make what you will of the numbers above.
Carlton seemed to beat us up in there, and while clearances appear to be the best part of our game, we're still a long way off being able to beat the best sides at it.
I have looked at the midfield grouping of:
Simpkin
Greenwood
Horne-Francis
LDU
Thomas
Stephenson
Powell
As of Round 7 2022, I have looked at:
- centre bounce attendances (CBAs)
- centre clearances
- total clearances, and
- calculated centre bounce attendances per clearance.
I won't put my spin on it, but just spit out some stats to help facilitate a discussion about who we should be using as our primary midfielders.
Centre clearances = clearances from the midfield. The other clearances that make up the 'total clearances' are stoppage clearances.
So here goes:
Total Centre Bounce Attendances
1.Simpkin: 188
2. Greenwood: 121
3. JHF: 113
4. LDU: 93
5. Thomas: 43
6. Stephenson: 29
7. Powell: 12
Total clearances/centre clearances - descending order based on total clearances
1. Simpkin: 37/18
2. JHF: 31/14
3. Greenwood: 26/11
4. LDU: 21/11
5. Stephenson: 15/4
6. Thomas: 10/7
7. Powell: 7/4
CBA per clearance
1. Powell: 1.71 centre bounces per clearance
2. Stephenson: 1.93 centre bounces per clearance
3. JHF: 3.65 centre bounces per clearance
4. Thomas: 4.3 centre bounces per clearance
5. LDU: 4.43 centre bounces per clearance
6. Greenwood: 4.65 centre bounces per clearance
7. Simpkin: 5.08 centre bounces per clearance
CBA per centre clearance
1. Powell: 3 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
2. Thomas: 6.14 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
3. Stephenson: 7.25 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
4. JHF: 8.07 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
5. LDU: 8.45 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
6. Simpkin: 10.44 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
7. Greenwood: 11 centre bounces attended per centre clearance
The only commentary I will provide is to point out that JHF is already our best clearance mid. He's one of the big 4 but trouncing the rest of the big 4 in his clearance work. Powell's stats look exceptional but beware the very small sample size of 12 CBAs compared to JHF's 113.
Discussion starters - although feel free to pose/answer any question you can come up with
- Who should be our preferred 3?
- Who should be our fourth high CBA player?
- Is it preferred to have 1-2 clearance beasts in at any one point in time with 1-2 more defensive stoppage specialists?
- What do we do with this grouping if/when we get Cunnington back? (obviously, more important things going on for him at the moment)
- Will Anderson's return make Greenwood's high CBA role redundant?
- Is it worth having centre bounce specialists who then roll onto a flank and switch with our stronger around the ground stoppage players?
- Have you got any ideas of how we can capture or analyse the defensive output of players in the bounces and stoppages that might help us assess their impact even when they're not winning clearances?
- Have you got any ideas of how we can capture or analyse the spread of our midfielders?
Have at it and make what you will of the numbers above.