Analysis Player Effectiveness Going Inside 50 (Updated to Round 5)

[WallyStringhaus]

Whilst watching the replays of games I like to take notes and collate some statistics that you don't find in your normal AFL sites. I thought I would share this one with you all as it is one of the key indicators of what is holding us back from being an elite team this season.

Footy really is a numbers and probability game. If you control the Contest and Clearance the more chance you have of sending the ball closer to your goals and further away from your opponents. The more possession you create and retain, the greater the chance of getting the ball Inside 50. The more Inside 50's you generate the more chances you have of Marking the ball Inside 50, which in-turn gives you the most reliable (usually!) chance of scoring a goal.

For a young side we are tipping the probability scales in our favour for most of these KPI's;

Contested Possession Differential: +19 (Ranked 6th)
Clearance Differential: +28 (1st)
Possessions: 1569 (3rd)
Inside 50's: 252 (1st), Differential +56 (1st)
Marks Inside 50: 51 (3rd)

What we are not seeing is a dominance on the scoreboard that reflects the dominance we are seeing around the ground.

I though I would look at each Forward 50 entry and find out which players were responsible for creating better scoring opportunities. The results are tabled below.

I have measured how many of each players kicks into the Forward 50 can be classified as effective and not effective.

What constitutes an effective kick inside 50;
*A kick that a WB player Marks Inside 50
*A kick that forces the opposition to give away a free to the marking WB player
*A kick that hits a leading player but the uncontested mark is dropped
*A kick that is a Goal from outside 50



Below is the table flipped with ineffective kicks highlighted.

What constitutes an ineffective kick:
*A kick that is directly marked by an opposition player
*A kick that goes out of bounds on the full causing a turnover
*A kick that does not favour either side



I'll allow you all to draw your own conclusions.

I'll endeavour to keep the table updated for those that are interested.

 

[Virgin Dog]

Whilst watching the replays of games I like to take notes and collate some statistics that you don't find in your normal AFL sites. I thought I would share this one with you all as it is one of the key indicators of what is holding us back from being an elite team this season.

Footy really is a numbers and probability game. If you control the Contest and Clearance the more chance you have of sending the ball closer to your goals and further away from your opponents. The more possession you create and retain, the greater the chance of getting the ball Inside 50. The more Inside 50's you generate the more chances you have of Marking the ball Inside 50, which in-turn gives you the most reliable (usually!) chance of scoring a goal.

For a young side we are tipping the probability scales in our favour for most of these KPI's;

Contested Possession Differential: +19 (Ranked 6th)
Clearance Differential: +28 (1st)
Possessions: 1569 (3rd)
Inside 50's: 252 (1st), Differential +56 (1st)
Marks Inside 50: 51 (3rd)

What we are not seeing is a dominance on the scoreboard that reflects the dominance we are seeing around the ground.

I though I would look at each Forward 50 entry and find out which players were responsible for creating better scoring opportunities. The results are tabled below.

I have measured how many of each players kicks into the Forward 50 can be classified as effective and not effective.

What constitutes an effective kick inside 50;
*A kick that a WB player Marks Inside 50
*A kick that forces the opposition to give away a free to the marking WB player
*A kick that hits a leading player but the uncontested mark is dropped
*A kick that is a Goal from outside 50

View attachment 656248

Below is the table flipped with ineffective kicks highlighted.

What constitutes an ineffective kick:
*A kick that is directly marked by an opposition player
*A kick that goes out of bounds on the full causing a turnover
*A kick that does not favour either side

View attachment 656254

I'll allow you all to draw your own conclusions.

I'll endeavour to keep the table updated for those that are interested.

******* hell Wallis. Already had a feeling this would be the case, but seeing the numbers just makes it so much clearer that he's lucky to have a spot in the side right now. I'm now more confident in Dunkley's kick, which says a lot.

 

[Mofra]

Excellent work Wally, kudos. This is a really good breakdown.

It adds to the bemusement of many fans (myself included) as to why Wally is in the midfield instead of Dunkley.
It also highlights just how good McLean is even though he's getting less of the ball this year. A very very clever player.

Crozier is the big surprise but I guess his inside 50s would be more 'get out' kicks up the line

 

[footscray1973]

So 252 F50 entries, with 66 effective! I don't expect miracles, but that is 26%.

Wally, any idea how this compares to the rest of the comp? (I don't expect you've analysed every game, do you have ballpark figures at all?)

 

[Yojimbo]

A little simplistic maybe, but the root of all evil in the game is the lack of pure connection being
achieved by the majority of teams across the ground. I love watching West Coast play as it is a
different game to watch, low volume high impact. We are the polar opposite high volume and
low impact and it's by design.

 

[Johnny_Dogg4]

thats what happens when you recruit a bunch of players who cant kick, too slow and one of the worst forward group in the afl. we just have too many of these types. and its not just this season. 2015 looks an aberration.

the only conclusion you can draw out of this, we have a large enough sample size with this group of players to identify that they just arnt efficient enough.

 

[WallyStringhaus]

Excellent work Wally, kudos. This is a really good breakdown.

It adds to the bemusement of many fans (myself included) as to why Wally is in the midfield instead of Dunkley.
It also highlights just how good McLean is even though he's getting less of the ball this year. A very very clever player.

Crozier is the big surprise but I guess his inside 50s would be more 'get out' kicks up the line

That's right Mof...there are further layers to the Inside 50's but I don't have the time to collect all the data.

What I can tell you just from watching every entry closely is that a guy like Liber, who is ranked around the same as Wallis, Hunter and Dunks, is much more effective than this data shows. The penetration and speed of which the ball gets from point A to point B actually allows him to get the ball to more dangerous spots inside 50. The other three tend to loop the ball in slowly and their entries are far shallower and therefore far less dangerous.

 

[Dogsbestfriend]

Great work digging up these stats.

Hunters stats are just as bad as Wallis’s and Wallis is usually under pressure with his disposal playing in the midfield.

Hunter on the other hand out on the wings usually has time and space and still makes a poor decision by foot or just bombs in high looping kicks which is dumb football.

Choosing the wrong option into F50 is also a problem we have that doesn’t show up on stats but I guess that’s a matter of opinion but gee I get pissed when we just bomb it long instead of lowering the eyes or kicking to space.

 

[Whoyagot]

Great work digging up these stats.

Hunters stats are just as bad as Wallis’s and Wallis is usually under pressure with his disposal playing in the midfield.

Hunter on the other hand out on the wings usually has time and space and still makes a poor decision by foot or just bombs in high looping kicks which is dumb football.

Choosing the wrong option into F50 is also a problem we have that doesn’t show up on stats but I guess that’s a matter of opinion but gee I get pissed when we just bomb it long instead of lowering the eyes or kicking to space.

100%

not defending Wallis cause his efficiency is still shocking but Hunter pips him as one of the most annoying players on our list. Just as toughness is Wallis’ only redemptive feature, work rate is the only thing that can be applied to Hunter.

I understand he’s a good onfield leader and we lack players that performs consistently as that outside mid but Hunter has shown zero skills improvement the last few years.

Look at another bnf winner: Bont. He has clearly looked to build his ability on his right boot and is now the best nonprefered kick in the comp IMO. Hunter would rather hospital hand pass then bite off anything on his right foot.

Right now Hunter is an outside player with poor disposal aka a bit of a joke.

 

[Triple Baileys]

The small numbers behind these stats mean that a 1 kick difference can make a big difference in the %'s and rankings.

The definition of "effective" is way too narrow.

Fact: A lot of goals are scored from healthy boots into contested situations that transfer play close to goal, lead to prolonged lock ins and spills to our players for shots on goal. Good long kicks to position in the 50m arc are effective kicks in themselves.

 

[WallyStringhaus]

The small numbers behind these stats mean that a 1 kick difference can make a big difference in the %'s and rankings.

The definition of "effective" is way too narrow.

Fact: A lot of goals are scored from healthy boots into contested situations that transfer play close to goal, lead to prolonged lock ins and spills to our players for shots on goal. Good long kicks to position in the 50m arc are effective kicks in themselves.

Some more facts for you:
81.3% of our Inside 50's get rebounded by the opposition. Ranked dead last in the league and a full 10% points behind first placed Geelong (71.2%)

63% of our goals come from Marks or Free Kicks.

I would agree with your premise if we actually had some decent crumbers but the fact is that we dont. The ball is on the ground in our forward 50 more than any other team yet we rank 7th for Tackles Inside 50.

Mindlessly bombing it long is favouring the opposition more than it is benefitting us. We play into the oppositions hands playing this way and we all know how much we are getting scored against on the rebound.

Picko and Clay are dearly missed.

 

[Triple Baileys]

Some more facts for you:
81.3% of our Inside 50's get rebounded by the opposition. Ranked dead last in the league and a full 10% points behind first placed Geelong (71.2%)

63% of our goals come from Marks or Free Kicks.

I would agree with your premise if we actually had some decent crumbers but the fact is that we dont. The ball is on the ground in our forward 50 more than any other team yet we rank 7th for Tackles Inside 50.

Mindlessly bombing it long is favouring the opposition more than it is benefitting us. We play into the oppositions hands playing this way and we all know how much we are getting scored against on the rebound.

Picko and Clay are dearly missed.

...and Luke Dahlhaus. Ok, but our over-finessing drives me crazy. We've got Naughton in the guts now. Get Mitch down there, he goes in hard when it hits the ground. I would love to see some more straight forward approaches to scoring. I think our first two wins this year had more long kicking than our two losses thus far. We get rebounded because we over-finesse.

 

[Dogsbestfriend]

Just watched the last qtr of the round 2 win against the hawks where we kick 8 goals in 11 mins.
Only bombed it in F50 twice to a pack of players that resulted in goals the rest was pinpoint kicking with a bit of finesse and midfield run.
Also our forwards finished off.... resulting in Sicily losing his sh!t and gifting us a couple more easy goals.

 

[Yojimbo]

How much of our game style is to protect the defence ? A lot of point missing going on here, don't miss
the trees and the forest even if those trees are not very big and strong and require the stakes to be
left in the ground for a few more years even more applicable in regards to the Ruck. The security it
comes at a price and the games don't look very nice.

 

[DelRe]

Some more facts for you:
81.3% of our Inside 50's get rebounded by the opposition. Ranked dead last in the league and a full 10% points behind first placed Geelong (71.2%).

Interesting analysis there, although equally interesting is how high the percentage is for all teams if the top is being rebounded 71% of the time as well. Would be interesting if it’s possible to add in what percentage of those rebounds lead to an opposition goal. I’m speculating we’d be on the wrong end of that stat as well which multiplies the issue.

 

[TiAn_]

How much of our game style is to protect the defence ? A lot of point missing going on here, don't miss
the trees and the forest even if those trees are not very big and strong and require the stakes to be
left in the ground for a few more years even more applicable in regards to the Ruck. The security it
comes at a price and the games don't look very nice.

You’re being too clever by half. Horrible kicks I50 don’t protect our defense, they expose it.

Sure, we play to dominate the contested ball and keep the ball in our front half, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of the countless impotent I50s we deliver up. Many of which are just poor decisions and execution, rather than an unavoidable consequence of a defensive strategy, as you’re suggesting. Failing to kick to the advantage of a forward is just bad, not a sparkly hidden forest.

 

[Yojimbo]

You’re being too clever by half. Horrible kicks I50 don’t protect our defense, they expose it.

Sure, we play to dominate the contested ball and keep the ball in our front half, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of the countless impotent I50s we deliver up. Many of which are just poor decisions and execution, rather than an unavoidable consequence of a defensive strategy, as you’re suggesting. Failing to kick to the advantage of a forward is just bad, not a sparkly hidden forest.

You are right in a sense, butchering the ball going forward is never good, but the speed and commitment of teams
attack is a contributing issue to the fluency and efficiency of it's attack. Retention is a major component of the
game plans of several teams at the moment which leads to the mentality of waiting for something to happen as
opposed to making it happen. The rise of playing between the arcs after the initial 6-6-6 set up has ben made
null and void by a simple quick clog and reset mentality. Coaches want control of the game and are more than
willing to make it ugly to achieve that control knowing that for most fans a win is a win.

 

[Yojimbo]

not a sparkly hidden forest.

I love my sparkly hidden forest.

 

[Johnny_Dogg4]

pretty easy to identify why we get scored easy on the rebound.
we are far too slow across the park. for-mid-def

we struggle to close down counter attacks. teams run off our players far too easy

 

[TiAn_]

You are right in a sense, butchering the ball going forward is never good, but the speed and commitment of teams
attack is a contributing issue to the fluency and efficiency of it's attack. Retention is a major component of the
game plans of several teams at the moment which leads to the mentality of waiting for something to happen as
opposed to making it happen. The rise of playing between the arcs after the initial 6-6-6 set up has ben made
null and void by a simple quick clog and reset mentality. Coaches want control of the game and are more than
willing to make it ugly to achieve that control knowing that for most fans a win is a win.

Sydney, Hawthorn, Gold Coast and Collingwood all attack and defend with quite varied methods, yet our problem has been consistent across all four games. I don’t think we can put it down to broad trends.

Considering we have the highest number of I50s and we concede the highest ratio of R50s to I50s, we’re handing the ball over to the other side more frequently than any team. Thus our I50 methodology is failing as a retention or control strategy, as well as a scoring strategy.

In short, our scoring problems aren’t justified by our retention/control and our retention/control problems aren’t justified by our scoring.

 

[Yojimbo]

Round 1:
11-16-82 (27 Scoring Shots)
4, 2, 3, 2.

Round 2:
16-10-106 (26 Scoring Shots)
3, 2, 2, 9.

Round 3:
9-14-68 (23 Scoring Shots)
2, 2, 1, 4.

Round 4:
9-10-64 (19 Scoring Shots)
0, 2, 5, 2.

Now a simple man would say we have only played four good quarters this year, which
is wrong some of our lower scoring quarters have been dominant, but only in the
parts of the ground that don't contain our goals. We have not been blown away by
any team yet, but we have not blown away anyone either which tends to keep the
fans happy. I might be alone here, but team selection and personnel has given me a
big heads up to what I was going to witness game day.

 

[LondonBulldog]

Sydney, Hawthorn, Gold Coast and Collingwood all attack and defend with quite varied methods, yet our problem has been consistent across all four games. I don’t think we can put it down to broad trends.

Considering we have the highest number of I50s and we concede the highest ratio of R50s to I50s, we’re handing the ball over to the other side more frequently than any team. Thus our I50 methodology is failing as a retention or control strategy, as well as a scoring strategy.

In short, our scoring problems aren’t justified by our retention/control and our retention/control problems aren’t justified by our scoring.

Just confirmed that our current mix is a bit out of wack. A couple of hard in and unders players with poors skills Dunkley and Wallis. Dunkley I would throw back to defence to play the Dale Morris role and Wallis goes forward as a high pressure forward. Then we have Hunter an outside player with the same poor skills.

Time to bring in some good ball users from Footscray.

 

[TiAn_]

Round 1:
11-16-82 (27 Scoring Shots)
4, 2, 3, 2.

Round 2:
16-10-106 (26 Scoring Shots)
3, 2, 2, 9.

Round 3:
9-14-68 (23 Scoring Shots)
2, 2, 1, 4.

Round 4:
9-10-64 (19 Scoring Shots)
0, 2, 5, 2.

Now a simple man would say we have only played four good quarters this year, which
is wrong some of our lower scoring quarters have been dominant, but only in the
parts of the ground that don't contain our goals. We have not been blown away by
any team yet, but we have not blown away anyone either which tends to keep the
fans happy. I might be alone here, but team selection and personnel has given me a
big heads up to what I was going to witness game day.

I think the defensive group we’ve been picking (packing the area with good users and as few talls as we think we can get away with) and the one ruck setup are strong indicators that we’re trying to put a premium on movement.

 

[Yojimbo]

I think the defensive group we’ve been picking (packing the area with good users and as few talls as we think we can get away with) and the one ruck setup are strong indicators that we’re trying to put a premium on movement.

Is it or is that premium really on controlled movement and retention. In my detailed novel "The chant of Lewis Young"
a rolling epic about a young man keen to impress, but held back by his disposal efficiency by foot I cover this in epic
detail. The first three chapters are:

1: The return of Tom Liberatore.

2: Aaron Naughton forward.

3: Sharking the opposition Ruck.

All these chapters require an element of control, chapter 3 requires great effort and discipline to avoid being opened
up and exposing our small back six to the reprehensible evil of the 6-6-6. Enough of this, I guess what I am trying
to say is all actions have a consequence and most of it is intended.

 

[TiAn_]

Is it or is that premium really on controlled movement and retention. In my detailed novel "The chant of Lewis Young"
a rolling epic about a young man keen to impress, but held back by his disposal efficiency by foot I cover this in epic
detail. The first three chapters are:

1: The return of Tom Liberatore.

2: Aaron Naughton forward.

3: Sharking the opposition Ruck.

All these chapters require an element of control, chapter 3 requires great effort and discipline to avoid being opened
up and exposing our small back six to the reprehensible evil of the 6-6-6. Enough of this, I guess what I am trying
to say is all actions have a consequence and most of it is intended.

I doubt the intended (or even an acceptable) consequence of packing our defence with smalls with good disposal and foregoing a second ruck for an extra runner is a forward line that resembles a clogged toilet. There’s not much difference between movement and retention in the way I think you’re using the concepts though so it seems we’re agreeing furiously there, however I cant agree that it’s working as intended.