Decided to do a comparison of the output of our midfield and forward line each year from 2013 to 2017 and it's pretty telling...
Our midfield this season wasn't quite back to the levels of our competitive years ('13-'15) but it's in the ball park and interestingly the depth is probably a little stronger than it was back then (already). Last year the midfield output was appalling compared to the other years, and not all of that was due to Fyfe being injured. Our core midfield (ruck + 5 best mids) has been relatively consistent with output throughout that whole time period (excepting '16, and slightly down this year) but with the next 4 or so best mids we are starting to see some exciting growth imo. Of course we've stolen Walters from the forward line which helps but even without that there are some good signs with our young mids (and I haven't even factored in Bennell potentially being in the mix either). My gut feel (based on the trends in the data) says our 2nd-4th year mids this year will be a fair bit better than what we had rotating through from '13-'15 over the coming year or two.
As an example, if you take our best 10 mids (inc ruck) they averaged 5.3 goals per game this season. That's higher than the best 10 mids at Adelaide (5.2), Sydney (4.8), GWS (4.7) and West Coast (3.7). Obviously it's a fairly crude analysis, especially as many of our mids rotated forward this year and those other teams all have far better forward lines to rely on but I think it's still encouraging that our midfield didn't perform as badly as what many assume. Plenty of things we can improve but the numbers seem encouraging that our midfield can get back to its best if everyone is fit and firing. That's not to say we don't need to draft more mids this off season.
However our forward line really was appalling in 2017 when compared to previous years. Our best 6 forwards averaged only 6.4 goals per game whereas even in 2016 our forward line averaged 8.2 goals per game. We all know it's always been our weakness, having only scored 8.3, 8.5, 8.7 goals per game in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. It's not just goals though, pretty much stats across the board were down by a massive proportion compared to previous years and against other teams. It's so bad I literally can't find any golden lining as there is not a single indicator I could find that we have or even can improve in any area. The only stat we were higher than previous years was clangers.
It's important to note this is an analysis taking the averages of our best performers. So it assumes Tabs played the entire season not just 8 games - meaning this analysis is actually overstating our performance - eek! I think we can expect some improvement from players like McCarthy and maybe more consistency from Kersten but it's clear we need an overhaul. We need far more dangerous smalls and at least one key tall with a strong presence inside 50. It's clear the impact a player like Josh Kennedy has on West Coast's forward line. Individually I barely rate any of them except him, yet they have one of the most dangerous forward lines in the AFL. His mere presence inside 50 makes all the other forwards appear better than what they are. And although other good forward lines don't all follow this model most of them do have a primary KPF that everything else is built around.
tl;dr - Our midfield isn't as dire as we assumed but it still needs to improve aspects next season (which it does seem capable of given the age demographic). But everything seems to point to use needing to recruit a quality KPF to build our forward line around urgently (including some dangerous small forwards). Until we can field a semi decent forward line we won't be competitive because our midfield can't possibly make up the massive quality/output difference with the top teams.
Our midfield this season wasn't quite back to the levels of our competitive years ('13-'15) but it's in the ball park and interestingly the depth is probably a little stronger than it was back then (already). Last year the midfield output was appalling compared to the other years, and not all of that was due to Fyfe being injured. Our core midfield (ruck + 5 best mids) has been relatively consistent with output throughout that whole time period (excepting '16, and slightly down this year) but with the next 4 or so best mids we are starting to see some exciting growth imo. Of course we've stolen Walters from the forward line which helps but even without that there are some good signs with our young mids (and I haven't even factored in Bennell potentially being in the mix either). My gut feel (based on the trends in the data) says our 2nd-4th year mids this year will be a fair bit better than what we had rotating through from '13-'15 over the coming year or two.
As an example, if you take our best 10 mids (inc ruck) they averaged 5.3 goals per game this season. That's higher than the best 10 mids at Adelaide (5.2), Sydney (4.8), GWS (4.7) and West Coast (3.7). Obviously it's a fairly crude analysis, especially as many of our mids rotated forward this year and those other teams all have far better forward lines to rely on but I think it's still encouraging that our midfield didn't perform as badly as what many assume. Plenty of things we can improve but the numbers seem encouraging that our midfield can get back to its best if everyone is fit and firing. That's not to say we don't need to draft more mids this off season.
However our forward line really was appalling in 2017 when compared to previous years. Our best 6 forwards averaged only 6.4 goals per game whereas even in 2016 our forward line averaged 8.2 goals per game. We all know it's always been our weakness, having only scored 8.3, 8.5, 8.7 goals per game in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively. It's not just goals though, pretty much stats across the board were down by a massive proportion compared to previous years and against other teams. It's so bad I literally can't find any golden lining as there is not a single indicator I could find that we have or even can improve in any area. The only stat we were higher than previous years was clangers.
It's important to note this is an analysis taking the averages of our best performers. So it assumes Tabs played the entire season not just 8 games - meaning this analysis is actually overstating our performance - eek! I think we can expect some improvement from players like McCarthy and maybe more consistency from Kersten but it's clear we need an overhaul. We need far more dangerous smalls and at least one key tall with a strong presence inside 50. It's clear the impact a player like Josh Kennedy has on West Coast's forward line. Individually I barely rate any of them except him, yet they have one of the most dangerous forward lines in the AFL. His mere presence inside 50 makes all the other forwards appear better than what they are. And although other good forward lines don't all follow this model most of them do have a primary KPF that everything else is built around.
tl;dr - Our midfield isn't as dire as we assumed but it still needs to improve aspects next season (which it does seem capable of given the age demographic). But everything seems to point to use needing to recruit a quality KPF to build our forward line around urgently (including some dangerous small forwards). Until we can field a semi decent forward line we won't be competitive because our midfield can't possibly make up the massive quality/output difference with the top teams.
