Analysis 2023 Midfield & CBAs Analysis

[Jimbo OZ]

Wow. What a post. My one follow up question would be in regards to the ruck. Given our biggest change next year will be Grundy, I wonder if your stats alter significantly (a) for different rucks and (b) when our rucks were actually winning hit outs.

 

[SGBeach]

Wow. What a post. My one follow up question would be in regards to the ruck. Given our biggest change next year will be Grundy, I wonder if your stats alter significantly (a) for different rucks and (b) when our rucks were actually winning hit outs.

Apart from who was the ruck and were we winning the hit outs, Im wondering if these stats take into account
- injuries to player (both know and unknown)
- the different roles that individual midfielders were playing. Not every midfielder is trying to win every clearance
- who the opposition midfield was
- who the individual opponent was
- what sort of clearance was it.. long bomb, short handball, kick inside 50 to advantage, burst out the front or side etc etc
- the state of the game.. ie. were we winning, losing, desperate to score, desperate to defend
- other stoppage clearances
These are some of the things that the coaches are looking at

 

[Dubai Quacker]

Wonderful analysis

EXCEPT

The Sheldrick Appreciation Society (SAS) takes issue with your decision to discount the West Coast game from your analyses.

The SAS considers that the 171 point victory was due primarily to Sheldrick’s clearance work and that without it, West Coast may have actually won the game.

 

[caesar88]

Wow. What a post. My one follow up question would be in regards to the ruck. Given our biggest change next year will be Grundy, I wonder if your stats alter significantly (a) for different rucks and (b) when our rucks were actually winning hit outs.

Yeah I definitely should've included the rucks as the ruck contests can often have a say in the clearance that unfolds, but it would've taken a lot of extra work trying to focus just on the ruck contests as well as the clearance work, so I guess I just got lazy haha.

It might be worth looking at tbh. Reading everyone's comments has got me thinking there's a lot of other things I could look at that I didn't, so I may have to give it another go. Anyone reading this who is curious about anything else, let me know now or forever hold your peace!

 

[Bandicoot]

Yeah I definitely should've included the rucks as the ruck contests can often have a say in the clearance that unfolds, but it would've taken a lot of extra work trying to focus just on the ruck contests as well as the clearance work, so I guess I just got lazy haha.

It might be worth looking at tbh. Reading everyone's comments has got me thinking there's a lot of other things I could look at that I didn't, so I may have to give it another go. Anyone reading this who is curious about anything else, let me know now or forever hold your peace!

So we may as well discount the impact Mills may have had in the midfield next year.

 

[Nuggetz]

With mills likely missing a portion of the 2024 season, I imagine we'll continue to see Parker used heavily in the mids because of his organisational skills & experience.

 

[caesar88]

With mills likely missing a portion of the 2024 season, I imagine we'll continue to see Parker used heavily in the mids because of his organisational skills & experience.

It's frustrating cause I was really keen to see what our coaches had planned for our midfield next year as a response to what unfolded this year. Now it will be hard to judge what their vision is and what is just reactionary moves to Mills' potential absence.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

Yep. Midfield strategy now has another factor to consider. It probably means Parker stays there on his standard tog rather than forward. The Mills injury affects us structurally.

 

[Callipygian]

Mills injury shows why it's (a) important still to have Parker signed up (it would be big shoes for Gus or Robbo to jump straight into); and (b) why it's good that we're signing Jordon.

 

[swanssince2002]

Maybe that's why JJ decided to come here, there is a potential opening for him knowing our midfield struggles this season.

 

[caesar88]

Mills injury shows why it's (a) important still to have Parker signed up (it would be big shoes for Gus or Robbo to jump straight into); and (b) why it's good that we're signing Jordon.

Has Jordon shown an ability to be effective on the inside though? I know he didn't as a junior, and he's been used predominantly on the wing at Melbourne.

I wouldn't be surprised if we've drafted him with the intention of giving him more wing opportunities (he only played 10 games not as sub this year) as he was behind Brayshaw, Langdon & Hunter.

I think taking care of the outside rotations (we'd have McInerney, Jordon & Campbell on the wings) means we can focus more on adding Gulden & Sheldrick full-time to Parker & Warner on the inside.

 

[Kiama Chris]

Has Jordon shown an ability to be effective on the inside though? I know he didn't as a junior, and he's been used predominantly on the wing at Melbourne.

I wouldn't be surprised if we've drafted him with the intention of giving him more wing opportunities (he only played 10 games not as sub this year) as he was behind Brayshaw, Langdon & Hunter.

I think taking care of the outside rotations (we'd have McInerney, Jordon & Campbell on the wings) means we can focus more on adding Gulden & Sheldrick full-time to Parker & Warner on the inside.

Sheldrick yes, Gulden not so sure. Like him better as second hands rather than first.

 

[caesar88]

Sheldrick yes, Gulden not so sure. Like him better as second hands rather than first.

Yeah I prefer Gulden more on the outside. Was more guessing what the club might be thinking.

Edit: Having said the above, as posted in the OP, Gulden's a pretty handy first-touch midfielder, so who knows.

 

[RubbaDuck]

This is a lengthy post that I didn't want to clog other threads up with, plus it doesn't really pertain to anything about our club except the midfield. So as Paul Roos would say, HERE IT IS!!

I've gone over our complete CBAs from this year to try and find out what often went wrong and who, or what, is to blame. I initially used the AFL app's template for what a "centre clearance" was, but I found they didn't really tell the whole story, as according to AFL or Champion Data or whoever is responsible for recording stats, a handball out of one pack straight into another counts as a "clearance". I believe this is often why we find ourselves looking at games where to the naked eye we've been thumped in clearance work only to read the stats sheet and discover we won that stat on any particular day.

So I came up with my own sort of system, focusing only on centre bounces where the ball was successfully moved from stoppage situation to general play situation. Using this, I gave each centre bounce combination a W (we won the clearance), an L (we lost the clearance) or a D (we drew, as in neither team won an immediate clearance and the ball was thrown up again.) I then distributed points a la the premiership ladder - 1 point for a clearance win, 0.5 points for a drawn stoppage, and no points for a clearance loss. From there it was simply about how many points they 'scored' from their CBAs, to determine their final success rate.

To find out which players, pairings and combinations worked and which ones didn't, I broke them all down into three levels: individuals, duos, and trios.

Most successful individuals based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):

1. Angus Sheldrick - 51.67%
2. Chad Warner - 46.13%
3. Luke Parker - 45.24%
4. James Rowbottom - 44.92%
5. Tom Papley - 43.59%
6. Errol Gulden - 41.74%
7. Isaac Heeney - 38.24%
8. Callum Mills - 37.81%

So great news for the Angus Sheldrick Appreciation Society that is so rampant on this board, right? Well, not exactly... Sheldrick's points are hard to gauge because he only had CBAs in five games, and one of them happened to be the West Coast game, in which the Swans overall won 22(!) centre clearances, so it distorts his overall effectiveness. So I dug a little deeper and found that without the West Coast game, Sheldrick goes from 1st at 51.67% down to 8th at 37.8%. (I repeated this exercise with all of the other mids and none of their percentages changed more either way than 2%.)

I'll also note that even in those centre clearances that we did win in those five games, Sheldrick himself was only equal third in terms of winning the clearances, with five over that period, well behind Rowbottom (11) and Parker (10).

Most successful duos based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
1. Chad Warner & Luke Parker - 49.49%
2. James Rowbottom & Luke Parker - 49.09%
3. Chad Warner & James Rowbottom - 47.06%
4. James Rowbottom & Tom Papley - 46.74%
5. Luke Parker & Tom Papley - 45.07%
6. Errol Gulden & James Rowbottom - 44.9%
7. Callum Mills & Luke Parker - 44.64%
8. Chad Warner & Tom Papley - 42.72%
9. Errol Gulden & Luke Parker - 42.21%
10. James Rowbottom & Callum Mills - 28.92%

Quite obviously there are three names that feature prominently at the top here - that being Parker, Rowbottom & Warner (this will be reinforced later on.)

Perhaps most strikingly is the Mills & Rowbottom number. These two were instrumental in our grand final run last year. They were in our top 3 players in the last few months of 2022 by almost every measure imaginable - Skilton Medal votes, AFLCA coaches votes, player ratings points, even POTY votes on this very board. Our midfield was hardly a triumph last year, but if we want a reason for our midfield going backwards this year, we need look no further than these two becoming our least effective centre bounce pairing.

Out of interest I also wondered how the two fan favourites - Gulden & Warner - faired when paired up at centre bounces, and the result was... underwhelming. At 42.47% they'd just sneak into 9th place if they'd featured together enough this year.

And, for anyone in the Angus Sheldrick Appreciation Society wondering who their Chosen One worked best with, the answer is a resounding Tom Papley, who he was paired up with seven times for seven centre clearance wins (yes, that's a strike rate of 100%, for the mathematically challenged. I'm not judging.) Next-best for Sheldrick were Gulden (60%) and Rowbottom (58.4%).

Most successful combinations based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):
(There were obviously a s**t load of combinations throughout the year, including random ones like McInerney, Wicks, Stephens & Roberts all popping in for literally less than five CBAs each all year. So below are only the ten most-used combinations we went with this year, ranked from best to worst.)

1. Chad Warner, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (59.23%)
2. Callum Mills, Chad Warner & Luke Parker (59.09%)
3. James Rowbottom, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (55.13%)
4. Chad Warner, Errol Gulden & Luke Parker (53.13%)
5. Chad Warner, James Rowbottom & Tom Papley (51.92%)
-----
6. Errol Gulden, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (46.36%)
7. Callum Mills, Errol Gulden & Luke Parker (46.15%)
8. Chad Warner, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (46.08%)
9. Callum Mills, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker (42.68%)
10. Errol Gulden, Luke Parker & Tom Papley (39.66%)

First of all, it says a lot about how much we used Luke Parker this year that he features in nine of our ten most-used centre bounce combinations. (20% more than our next mid.)

Second, looks like I have some egg on my face. Three of my gripes all year were with each of Warner, Rowbottom & Parker in the midfield. Warner because I thought he was better suited to the outside, Rowbottom because I thought he was too defensive, and Parker because... well I won't go into that again. Evidently they were getting it done. If not to the level that say a Petracca/Oliver/Viney can get it done, still more so than the rest we've got.

It's also interesting that that trio were number one last year as well, though with a much higher percentage of 72.7%.

Some other less-used combinations that I thought had interesting results:

- Isaac Heeney, James Rowbottom & Luke Parker was our most successful combination of the year, going at 91.67%. Interestingly this trio was also our most successful combination in last year's grand final, being the only ones to produce a strike rate above 50% all game.

- Our three youngest mids (of our main rotation, so excluding Sheldrick, Roberts etc.) in Rowbottom, Warner & Gulden had a positive strike rate of 52.63%.

- Last year's top 3 in the B&F in Mills, Warner & Rowbottom went from a strike rate of 57.1% last year to 40% this year, which would've had them second-lowest if they were featured more. Once again, when you compare to last year it really isn't hard to see why the midfield got worse this season.

- Justin McInerney also appeared in four centre bounces this year for four losses.

Most successful first-touch midfielders based on CPPCBA (Caesar points per CBA):

All of the above was hard to interpret because there were a lot of centre bounces where players didn't even touch the ball but still got points for being at a centre bounce that proved successful. So I wanted to look a bit more into who was actually contributing most to these successful centre bounces, meaning who had hands on ball the most at these centre bounces.

Using handball receives wasn't a good indicator as a lot of the time the ball went to wingmen or running half backs pushing up, which rendered the starting mids redundant. So I looked at the mids getting first touch on the ball, be it winning a ground ball or roving a ruck's taps.

This is based on % of an individual's CBAs where they won first touch that initiated a successful clearance. It does NOT include first touches that failed to lead to a successful clearance.

1. James Rowbottom (31.9%)
2. Errol Gulden (26.72%)
3. Tom Papley (25.84%)
4. Luke Parker (23%)
5. Chad Warner (18.77%)
6. Isaac Heeney (18.58%)
7. Angus Sheldrick (18.5%)
8. Callum Mills (14.3%)

These both did and didn't surprise me. On the one hand I've always felt like Rowbottom was very good at reading ruck taps and knowing where the ball was going, but it also felt like too often he wasn't even going for the ball. Gulden doing so well in this area also suggests you don't need to be a big-bodied bull to be an effective first-touch midfielder.

At the other end of the spectrum... Mills... brother... I've defended you all year and said you needed to be in the midfield more, and this is how you repay me? In his defence, he was in heavily defensive roles in the second half of the year and similarly to Rowbottom, looked more preoccupied putting body on an opponent than going for the ball a lot. But even then, he was doing this last year and still effectively feeding the ball out. I don't want this post to be a Mills-bashing thing, because I love him and he's a great player. It's just hard not to feel that his lack of impact this year translated to a lack of impact from our midfield overall.

My thoughts:

Have tried to be objective doing this, and all of the above is just data, not my personal belief (for example I am still a massive believer in what the Mills & Rowbottom partnership can be despite the evidence suggesting they stunk it up as a duo this year.)

It's also always going to be a bit murky. All of the above doesn't include centre bounces where free kicks were paid for ruck infringements, or where the ruckman won the ball and cleared it out himself, as in those cases the midfielders played no part in it. But there are other areas it can still be murky. A brilliant play can be undone by one great opposition smother that turns the ball over, or a few of our mids could've done everything right and then one of the others gives away a silly free. So there's a lot of variables that don't make it plain black and white. But I hope all of the above does help illuminate things somewhat.

The below are just my thoughts:

For all the talk of how badly we need a ruck, watching these centre bounces back one after the other really clarifies the things our midfielders do poorly, and I'm not sure a ruckman will make much of a difference until we fix those things our midfielders do:

• Overrunning the ball (either to win it on the ground or for handball receives)
• Fumble and double-grab a lot of balls (thus putting ourselves under more pressure)
• Turn back into traffic / handball back into traffic (thus allowing ourselves to get tackled)
• Fail to get our arms free in tackles (leading to dead balls and repeat stoppages)

One area where I think a ruckman could make a big difference is how we position and set up. Our mids run back behind the ball almost all the time, as if they're expecting the clearance loss and are getting ready to push back to defence. It means that when we DO win the clearance, we rarely have the players ahead of the ball, meaning so many of our clearances are won out the back of the pack. Going backwards to go forwards means you're not always gaining maximum territory, and a lot of our clearances land around about the 50-60m half forward mark, which is how defences that push up high like Geelong's have killed us again and again. Perhaps a ruck acquisition such as Grundy will give our mids the confidence to hold their ground and maybe even move into some attacking positions, so we can get more clearances out the front of packs.

I think this will be for the coaches to sort out. As for the players...

Watching the clearances all back one after the other makes it so much easier to notice each player's game and particularly the things they get wrong at centre bounces. Each have one particularly glaring flaw that seemed to cause them grief repeatedly.

Gulden - Tries to get onto his preferred kicking foot when the time or space to do so isn't there.
Mills - Frustratingly it's simple skill errors for him. Handballs missing targets, fumbling ground balls etc.
Papley - Tries to be too cute with little taps and stuff when simply taking possession is needed.
Parker - Just can't get the isolation on his opponents that the others can, though this is hardly groundbreaking.
Rowbottom - Too defensive too often, though again, hardly groundbreaking.
Warner - Tries to do too much which gets himself under more pressure.

And finally, Parker...

If the Parker-Rowbottom-Warner combination has been our strongest over the past two seasons, and two of those are on the right side of 25 while the other is on the wrong side of 30, then it becomes really easy to see where Sheldrick fits into the equation, potentially as soon as next year. He reminds me of a young Parker the way he plays and as we phase one out, we can phase the other in.

Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

Cikey mate. Bedford won't be happy with the length of your post but that's one exhaustive anaylsis.

Add a white lab coat, a laser pointer and a lectern or you'd win the RubbaDuck Award (2023) outright.

Next slide please....

 

[GoTheSwannies]

caesar88, your work here foreshadowed Rowbottom's B&F finish for me. As I was going through this thread, I was wondering what his B&F finish would be as I saw his season as unremarkable, but the stats told a different story.

His B&F finish confirmed that he was asked to play a defensive role and played it very well.

 

[caesar88]

caesar88, your work here foreshadowed Rowbottom's B&F finish for me. As I was going through this thread, I was wondering what his B&F finish would be as I saw his season as unremarkable, but the stats told a different story.

His B&F finish confirmed that he was asked to play a defensive role and played it very well.

No disrespect GTS but I am scared to go near this topic with a ten foot pole.

I'll just say that Braeden Campbell was asked in an interview a few months ago who he thought would win the B&F, and he didn't say Gulden as was the near unanimous choice. He said Rowbottom. And I'll repeat that I heard in the pre-season unequivocally that our coaching staff regarded Rowbottom as "our most important midfielder."

So his B&F result didn't surprise me at all.

 

[GoTheSwannies]

No disrespect GTS but I am scared to go near this topic with a ten foot pole.

I'll just say that Braeden Campbell was asked in an interview a few months ago who he thought would win the B&F, and he didn't say Gulden as was the near unanimous choice. He said Rowbottom. And I'll repeat that I heard in the pre-season unequivocally that our coaching staff regarded Rowbottom as "our most important midfielder."

So his B&F result didn't surprise me at all.

My comment has some history in that I saw real promise in Rowbottom, and saw him as a key to our midfield becoming more dominant. Throughout 2023, I didn't see him become the force I had assumed he could be. But that was me looking at the offensive side of his game rather than what he's contributed to our midfield structure and the defensive side of his game.

The stats and his B&F finish show that he's performed his role to the coaches instructions, and the stats show he's been effective in performing that role.

2024 may be his breakout year. Which is saying something.

 

[caesar88]

My comment has some history in that I saw real promise in Rowbottom, and saw him as a key to our midfield becoming more dominant. Throughout 2023, I didn't see him become the force I had assumed he could be. But that was me looking at the offensive side of his game rather than what he's contributed to our midfield structure and the defensive side of his game.

The stats and his B&F finish show that he's performed his role to the coaches instructions, and the stats show he's been effective in performing that role.

2024 may be his breakout year. Which is saying something.

There was some chatter that he was "lucky" to finish 3rd in the B&F. He finished only 10 votes behind Blakey in 2nd place, and we know Rowbottom had a number of injury-effected games. If anything, it could be argued he was unlucky not to finish in 2nd, which is saying something considering how great Blakey was this year.

Next year will be interesting.

 

[GoTheSwannies]

There was some chatter that he was "lucky" to finish 3rd in the B&F. He finished only 10 votes behind Blakey in 2nd place, and we know Rowbottom had a number of injury-effected games. If anything, it could be argued he was unlucky not to finish in 2nd, which is saying something considering how great Blakey was this year.

Next year will be interesting.

I probably would have had the same opinion if it weren't for your analysis. I didn't see him as having a standout year. But your stats clearly showed that he was the most influential mid behind Parker, and was only a small margin behind Parks in terms of his effectiveness. He almost performed as well statistically, As in what he brought to CBA set ups.

 

[caesar88]

I probably would have had the same opinion if it weren't for your analysis. I didn't see him as having a standout year. But your stats clearly showed that he was the most influential mid behind Parker, and was only a small margin behind Parks in terms of his effectiveness. He almost performed as well statistically, As in what he brought to CBA set ups.

I think there's lots of factors at play so I wouldn't take the analysis in the OP as the be all that ends all

I think what it does do is illustrate that Rowbottom was not only pulling his weight in his own role (ie. stopping opposition clearances), but he was also matching what the others were putting up in and around the midfield too (ie. creating and winning clearances of his own.)

Can anyone else in our team lay claim to doing both so effectively? Debatable but I would argue no. So while many of us looking from afar might've seen him as one-dimensional, within the club he might well've been seen as the true all-rounder of the midfield.

 

[Callipygian]

I think there's lots of factors at play so I wouldn't take the analysis in the OP as the be all that ends all

I think what it does do is illustrate that Rowbottom was not only pulling his weight in his own role (ie. stopping opposition clearances), but he was also matching what the others were putting up in and around the midfield too (ie. creating and winning clearances of his own.)

Can anyone else in our team lay claim to doing both so effectively? Debatable but I would argue no. So while many of us looking from afar might've seen him as one-dimensional, within the club he might well've been seen as the true all-rounder of the midfield.

I see "OP" quite often but I'm not sure what it stands for - "original post"? Can you please explain?

 

[Millky95]

I see "OP" quite often but I'm not sure what it stands for - "original post"? Can you please explain?

Opening Post
Original Poster

Depending on the context of the sentence usually

 

[caesar88]

I see "OP" quite often but I'm not sure what it stands for - "original post"? Can you please explain?

Apologies I'm not usually one for internet slang for this very reason, it's not exactly universally understood! Millky95's got it covered

 

[sataris]

Opening Post
Original Poster

Depending on the context of the sentence usually

Genuinely disappointed you gave the correct answer

 

[Millky95]

Genuinely disappointed you gave the correct answer

With parents and co-workers in their 50s and 60s, I have found that internet literacy is an important part of the world