Analysis 2021 Goals from Free Kicks

[Do the Dew]

So you're saying that you've watched every single game for season 2021, tabled every single goal for both sides and determined which ones were directly a result from free kicks? If you did that, fair effort, show an example of any H&A game that substantiates the data analysis.



Unless you baseline the data from a certain amount of possessions after the free and before the goal you'd be counting a vast majority of goals this season

Yep. About 8 teams post every goal from the round on their club site. Then I'd watch the highlights from other games, track any goal that isn't shown, and then find those goals through the full match replays. Took about ~1.5 hrs per round. I also made sure that I saw the lead up to every goal, because often the highlights skip over a dodgy free kick in the goalsquare, or a dodgy 50m penalty before showing the goal kicked.

As for evidence, here's a screenshot of my excel sheet I kept track of everything in (GF = goals from frees, GA = goals against from frees, TG = total goals kicked by a team in that game).



I agree with your second point, that's why I drew the line where I did. It gets way too muddy if you go any further back in the play.

 

[Do the Dew]

Great work OP. Also some nice contributions from others.

Unfortunately, most statistical lists lead to more questions. The main one for me is what were the free kicks for? How many were high contact or a push in the back, etc(ball in possession), holds, blocks, chops of arms, etc (ball in dispute) and tackle related, etc(ball in opposition possession)? So the 3 groups.

I agree, there's wayyyy more layers that could be added. If Champion Data paid me, I'd happily do it

I've seen screenshots of the things you described on the Tigers board - I think people find them on various apps etc.

 

[Do the Dew]

For some reason Kennedy (WC) doesn't get many frees, or doesn't get as many as he should, has been absolutely molested over the years. Harry Taylor used to blatantly tackle him while he was attempting to mark the ball to cries of "play on".

Obviously not being an Eagles supporter, I don't watch as much of them as you. Having gone through this exercise, Kennedy and Darling take a lot of marks on the lead and are both very good shots at goal - which explains your low free kick tally and also the low Inside 50 count that the Eagles tend to have.

 

[Bird Man]

so the notion that its the way tigers play is what gets them into the bad free kick count is crap. Teams like Melbourne who have copy and pasted our style of football and yet get treated way better?

 

[Golden_6]

The graph shows something similar to raw free kick data with the Dogs. For all the carry on about certain Dogs players, we actually receive around the average number of free kicks per game in comparison to everyone else. The large differential comes from the fact we give away a lot less frees against.

 

[sobrave]

Can only speak for Hawkins, but I don't see it as a massive issue.

Hawkins plays back shoulder often meaning he won't be infringed, he also looks for body contact early which makes him much harder to adjudicate. Both things make him incredibly effective but less likely to win free kicks.

The free kick against stat is also pretty obvious. He initiates body contact, lacks discipline, gets frustrated and is a bit of a campaigner. I think it's a little bit too high, but hardly unreasonable.

And to be fair, last year he spent the whole year "nudging" his opponent in the back to push them under the ball and got away with it every time. I was mad that Dixon didn't start doing the same thing

 

[sobrave]

For some reason Kennedy (WC) doesn't get many frees, or doesn't get as many as he should, has been absolutely molested over the years. Harry Taylor used to blatantly tackle him while he was attempting to mark the ball to cries of "play on".

That was Harry Taylor's MO against everyone

 

[Grrr]

Excellent work!

Not expecting you to do this but it would be interesting to see what the types of frees were. I’ve long wondered if Richmonds negative free kick differential is a result of their high intense tackling style of game. The more often and harder you tackle the more likely you are to give away frees being my theory but I have no idea if the numbers reflect that.

Except that we are not a high tackling contested possession side, 13th for tackles.

 

[Ricky Vaughn]

And to be fair, last year he spent the whole year "nudging" his opponent in the back to push them under the ball and got away with it every time. I was mad that Dixon didn't start doing the same thing

You should be. They tweaked to rule and it allowed Hawkins to use his biggest asset. It's not coincidence that 2020 was his best year after they allowed hands in the back.

 

[astrowizzle]

Yep. About 8 teams post every goal from the round on their club site. Then I'd watch the highlights from other games, track any goal that isn't shown, and then find those goals through the full match replays. Took about ~1.5 hrs per round. I also made sure that I saw the lead up to every goal, because often the highlights skip over a dodgy free kick in the goalsquare, or a dodgy 50m penalty before showing the goal kicked.

As for evidence, here's a screenshot of my excel sheet I kept track of everything in (GF = goals from frees, GA = goals against from frees, TG = total goals kicked by a team in that game).

View attachment 1224607

I agree with your second point, that's why I drew the line where I did. It gets way too muddy if you go any further back in the play.

would like to see these stats with Shots at goal from frees rather than goals scored.

 

[Do the Dew]

would like to see these stats with Shots at goal from frees rather than goals scored.

Unfortunately I didn't tabulate those - would just be way too much work for something I do as a hobby.

I also would love to see those stats, would be nice if they were publicly available.

 

[LittleG]

I originally posted this on the Tigers board, as it is one of the most coveted stats out there that is impossible to find unless you work for Champion Data. As a Tigers supporter, I got very annoyed by people saying that we get looked after by the umps, considering we have the worst free kick differential by a mile over the last 5 years. They'd counter and say "it's not how many you get, but where you get them". So I embraced the challenge, and have tabulated EVERY SINGLE GOAL from the 2021 season and counted how many came DIRECTLY from free kicks.

A goal directly from a free kick is one where:

• A player gets a free kick, then kicks the goal
• A player gets a free kick, teammate takes advantage and kicks the goal

I didn't count goals that came INDIRECTLY from frees, because they're much harder to work out. I.e. a player gets a free kick on the wing, chips it sideways to a teammate who kicks it forwards, ball is marked and a goal is then kicked. It's much too hard to work out how far back you need to go to determine if the free kick actually resulted in a goal.

Lastly, I didn't bother splitting up goals that came from either correct or dubious frees. The following list has them all lumped together. I didn't split them because the rules have a lot of grey areas and frees like the protected area ones or stand rule are technically there, but in my mind are very dubious.

After all that preamble, here are the current 2021 goals from free kicks including the first week of finals (Cody Weightman

3

Cody Weightman

Age

23

Ht

179cm

Wt

75kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

6.5

2star

K

4.0

2star

HB

2.5

2star

M

2.0

2star

T

1.0

3star

G

1.0

4star

D

6.5

1star

K

4.0

1star

HB

2.5

2star

M

2.0

2star

T

1.0

2star

G

1.0

4star

D

6.5

2star

K

4.0

2star

HB

2.5

3star

M

2.0

3star

T

1.0

3star

G

1.0

4star

says hi).

View attachment 1222991

We can see that in general, the higher up the ladder you finish, the more goals from frees you tend to get. This is fairly logical, as better teams tend to have more inside 50s and forward pressure, resulting in a higher chance of defenders giving free kicks away. The outlier to this is Carlton. They comfortably had the most goals from frees after the H&A season, and also had 24% of their goals this season coming from free kicks. That is a clear outlier compared to every other team.

On to my beloved Tigers. Despite not finishing near the bottom of the ladder, and being in finals contention with 1 round to go, we finished second last in differential. This summed up what I thought in that we don't get looked after by the umps, compared to some other teams.

So what do you think - happy/sad with your team? If you want to know the goals from frees for any given game, let me know and I can tell you (for record, the biggest differential in one game was Carlton vs Fremantle in Rd 3 - Carlton kicked 7 goals from frees to Freo's 1).

I find the fact you have 8 teams with 23 games and 10 teams with 22 games. When you are comparing team results, results need to be normalised into per game OR you need to have ALL teams with 22 games.

 

[Dancing Dougy]

Melbourne have a higher percentage of their total goals from frees than us.

The fairytale umpiring in action!

This really deserves highlighting

 

[Dazb86]

Once again we give * all away. God damn we are disciplined

 

[_Mike_]

Yep. About 8 teams post every goal from the round on their club site. Then I'd watch the highlights from other games, track any goal that isn't shown, and then find those goals through the full match replays. Took about ~1.5 hrs per round. I also made sure that I saw the lead up to every goal, because often the highlights skip over a dodgy free kick in the goalsquare, or a dodgy 50m penalty before showing the goal kicked.

As for evidence, here's a screenshot of my excel sheet I kept track of everything in (GF = goals from frees, GA = goals against from frees, TG = total goals kicked by a team in that game).

View attachment 1224607

I agree with your second point, that's why I drew the line where I did. It gets way too muddy if you go any further back in the play.

Thanks for posting that, I plan on having a look at a few games to correlate whether those free kicks in front of goals were a result of umpires making the wrong call or players staging for frees.

 

[bh90210fan]

Given Richmond’s goals from free kicks stands at 8 v 16 across these 7 closest matches, at a higher ratio of against v for frees than even the mind boggling overall free kick count in those matches of 105 v 157, it is imo very very bad.

Curiously also, Richmond did not have a goals from free kicks surplus in any of those 7 matches. The chances of this occurring at random across 7 matches - given two teams with equal free kick expectations - would be around or under 10% likelihood at best. If you simply levelled up the goals from frees in these 7 closest games and even left the general free kick count as skewed as it was, all else being equal it changes the result of 2 of those matches.

SO the effect of free kicks has had a massive impact on the Tigers win column this season. Whether Richmond were fairly adjudicated or not is another question of course, but the free kick deficit alone seems to have accounted for more than half of the club’s matches won deficit when compared to other recent years.

Hate to see what would happen if you got a decent run with the umps.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

Touche bh9, but it would probably be more like this 24 free kick effort:

 

[LittleG]

Touche bh9, but it would probably be more like this 24 free kick effort:

View attachment 1224805

That 1 additional free kick made such a huge difference…

 

[Meteoric Rise]

That 1 additional free kick made such a huge difference…

You should have seen where it was paid though LG.

 

[Osho]

The Blues should be ashamed of themselves. And this is a further reason.

Is this the same club that won 6 flags in 15 years 68 -82?

 

[Osho]

This isn’t a whinge post though I acknowledge it might sound like one. I find this interesting as Hawkins due to size and strength probably requires the closest physical attention of all current forwards. When he leads, he has a surprising turn of foot so rarely has company alongside him chopping the arms. When he doesn’t, do people think it’s because the umpires basically take a ‘he’s tangled with the defender just as much as the defender has tangled with him so let’s call it even and let it go’?

Psychology.
Umps have negative subconscious reactions to players. Hawkins must mouth off or do something they dont like. In the 70s it was obvious with Bartlett, a notorious ump ear basher. Ditto Riewoldt at Tiges. Leigh Mathews another example. Master T Geeene another.

I also think that Hawkins is so strong he looks to be offending when he is just outmuscling.

 

[Dr Tigris]

As has been said, a fair chunk of the top KPFs don't get frees but get man handled all game every game. I watch the Tigers and so am annoyed about JR and Lynch. But looking at Hawkins, he is as poorly treated. I wonder what is behind it.

I guess the way to check would be to look at all the contests the KPFs were involved in and have some sort of potential frees set up. I'm not doing it and can't see anyone else doing it. But some one like Hawkins or Jack get few frees but absolutely get tackled off the ball all game off the ball.

 

[Osho]

It's much easier to criticise than do any actual work of your own huh?

Again, I never made any claims that the data presented covered every possibility, and could have conclusions drawn seamlessly. I'm simply presenting it and letting people work out meaning for themselves. I still think it's very interesting that Carlton (who finished 13th) kicked 27 more goals from frees than Richmond (who finished 12th), and also gave away 10 less from frees.

Carlton have and will always be your main enemy.

 

[Pavlovs Cat]

Yep. About 8 teams post every goal from the round on their club site. Then I'd watch the highlights from other games, track any goal that isn't shown, and then find those goals through the full match replays. Took about ~1.5 hrs per round. I also made sure that I saw the lead up to every goal, because often the highlights skip over a dodgy free kick in the goalsquare, or a dodgy 50m penalty before showing the goal kicked.

As for evidence, here's a screenshot of my excel sheet I kept track of everything in (GF = goals from frees, GA = goals against from frees, TG = total goals kicked by a team in that game).

View attachment 1224607

I agree with your second point, that's why I drew the line where I did. It gets way too muddy if you go any further back in the play.

Brilliant work mate.

 

[sobrave]

Dixon mouths off at the umps all the time as well. But he does jump at the ball and we kick to him in contests a whole lot. Most defenders are undersized against him so it's not surprising they infringe. It's been happening his whole career but it's only really this year when he's started getting a half decent run of frees.