Analysis Adelaide 2023 - #1 Scoring team - doesn't make finals - an AFL first?

[AusTerran]

The draw didn't help as well. Finshed 16th last year and got the 2nd hardest draw this year playing all over the country.

 

[SugarShane]

A post in the Good/Bad thread led me to look at some numbers but thought it's probably better here as it's an over arching trend.

I did some quick sums. All year it's felt like if we kick poorly in the first quarter, we kick poorly for the game. Often in footy you'll see a 1.4 first quarter even itself out to 11.11 or something like that by the end of the game.

Well this year we kicked under 50% (as in, more behinds than goals) by quarter time 10 times. Of those 10 games we ended the game with accuracy better than 50% on 1 occasion (vs Geelong we turned 2.4 into 11.6 while still managing to get spanked).

Our opponents on the other hand went into quarter time at <50% 8 times. 4 times out of 8 they managed to finish the game at 50% or better.

These are only stats for our games, but the opponents seem to settle better. If we're bad in front of goals early, we're bad for the whole game.

Conversely, if we kick at 50% or better in the first quarter, which we did 13 times, we only ended up <50% twice. So if we're on early, we stay on. If we're off, we stay off.

Now statistically of course if you're on one side of the ledger early, you are more likely to remain there. But I do think the comparison proves what I thought to be true. That the team heavily relies on confidence and less pressure on the individual goal kicker. And we mentally struggle to turn around bad goalkicking. Goals beget goals, behinds beget behinds.

 

[SugarShane]

Fog, Rankine, Dawson need to work hard - too good a kick to be missing some of the shots they do

Rankine drop punts on the run have become a "close your eyes" event.

He can kick them from the boundary, and his set shots aren't terrible. But on the run, running straight at the goals? Spray city.

New rule for 2024 trainings. He must kick 10 goals on the run from 30-45 degrees, 35m out before he's allowed to practice a snap.

 

[AJB84]

Full Forwards used to look like they practised goal kicking a lot. Modra, Ablett, Lockett and Dunstall all kicked through the ball regardless of distance. Todays players clearly dont practise goal kicking as much as those in the past. The game has lost something for it.

I mean you sort of have captured the point the Full Forward still do practice and are quite accurate.
Walker and Fogary are accurate.
I think the change has come from Midfielders now kicking more goals as well as more kicks from the boundary.

It is also worth noting how many rushed behinds there have been as well I think it has become a large proportion since they allow you to deliberately rush the ball again.

 

[CrowBloke]

Full Forwards used to look like they practised goal kicking a lot. Modra, Ablett, Lockett and Dunstall all kicked through the ball regardless of distance.

True. Modra, Ablett, Lockett and Dunstall also went about their goalkicking in the same ways, following heir well-practiced routines.
Tex missed a couple yesterday by poking at the ball (a lot of players do that, dinky-kicks, when they are close to goal) or by overkicking when his ankle was sore, both of which are a deviation from his most successful routine.

Todays players clearly dont practise goal kicking as much as those in the past.

I don't know if that's true. I think the easy misses are caused by mental relaxation in the moment, or a change in style/routine because of distance. The approach, the style, the drop and the power of the kick should be metronomic.

The game has lost something for it.

Most definitely, and the Crows have lost several winnable games because of it. Not just from goalkicking but also mental relaxation which often causes them to drop off in intensity when they get around 4 to 6 goals ahead.
They stop doing what got them ahead in the first place, or maybe burn themselves out by giving 100% flat-out for a couple of quarters leaving nothing to fall back on.
I'm stabbing in the dark here, but great teams (and stand-out individual players) seem to have two gears, ie an ability to pace themselves to be effective but also lift when challenged. The best players are rarely excellent all the time, but seem to play very well with bursts of excellence when needed.

 

[CrowBloke]

I’ve said this multiple times now, but tighten up our defense and we make top 4. We just leak too often and it’s the only part of our game not in premiership winning territory.

I have to agree.
There are often kicks from deep in our D50 that go straight to uncontested oppo players. Likewise, an errant handball from a defender straight to an oppo forward who goals. Those mistakes leak goals and kill momentum.

We might be able to put those mistakes down to inexperience/youth and panic under pressure, but the best sides make those mistakes much less frequently.

 

[Go the Guts]

Lol we have done thins before, and the booing recordings might get you about 10% of the real thing

There is no way to replicate match conditions for goal kicking training

Better game day accuracy is on the players, not the coach

Mail your routine
Do the extras
Practice your routine religiously
On game day, take the responsibility
And kick the ******* goal

We can’t keep pinning players not getting it done on the coaches

Players need to take some ******* responsibility


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What? Who pinned it on the coaches?
This was just an overall strategy idea. Of course the players are responsible.
But they also don't appear to be being coached well for goal kicking also.
Keays doing an around the corner set shot from 40 out on a 45 degree angle and missing badly, says a lot about his mindset kicking for goal.
Pedlar, Walker, Fogarty, Rachele, many others have missed far too many easy shots from 30-40 out too.
There's no one easy fix, part of it may be that they are practicing dribble, round the corner, shots more than how to kick a straight drop punt for goal.
But it may well be that they aren't being coached properly on goal kicking routine also.

 

[1970crow]

So restricting points against seems to be better correlated with making finals. Apart from Port it seams day and night as to what teams make finals.

our midfield is crap at defending.

 

[MsTopG]

our midfield is crap at defending.

Some of our defenders do stupid kicks straight to the oppo for a goal. Butts, Hinge, Doedee are some of the worst culprits of kicking it to the Oppo in our backline. The other factor is that a player like Doedee often takes too long to kick it and gets done holding the ball. At times we hang onto it in the backline instead of getting a handball out to space. We also need to get better at ground ball in the backline and rushing it through. Too often we * around with it 10 metres out only for a small like Charlie Cameron to kick a goal. We seem scared to rush it through at times.

 

[davos44]

Defence win premierships.
Having Michelanney, Borlase, Worrell and Keane as our tall defence in the last 4 weeks was admirable and they performed fantastically.
But Michaelanney was the senior man...

I think scores from defensive half for opposition teams (I can't find any data) is our major weak point, too many teams just blew through us after our forwards couldnt hold it in.

 

[Golumless]

AFC 2023 season - 5 losses by a goal or less.

Most potent forward line in the comp, #1 scoring side.

Tex Walker likely AA and current leader of the Coleman Medal with 76 goals.

Crows finish in 10th place.

Is this the first time in AFL history the #1 scoring team hasn't made the finals?

Hard to get the head around!


View attachment 1786651

Pretty sure it's not the first example. Whilst rare, there are the occasional hyper-offensive team that just falls flat due to a spotty defense.

 

[Golumless]

Yep. Atrocious goal kicking, not the Ben Keays decision, is why we missed the finals. Should have been top 4. We should be doing goal kicking everyday with recordings of booing crowds being played to simulate match conditions.

The real issue is defense. If you're conceding 90+ points a game, you deserve to lose. No matter your goal kicking.

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

I’ve said this multiple times now, but tighten up our defense and we make top 4. We just leak too often and it’s the only part of our game not in premiership winning territory.

Just need get the games into the defenders. We saw how much Worrall, Murray, and Milera improved this year with game time. No reason to assume further improvement is out of the question with added experience.

 

[rabidcrow]

I’ve said this multiple times now, but tighten up our defense and we make top 4. We just leak too often and it’s the only part of our game not in premiership winning territory.

And look at how young they were. Murray, Butts, Max, Hinge, Worrell in terms of games played they were all very raw


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[Scorpus]

Ended up losing 6 games from a position of more scoring shots

Richmond - 26 to 23 (lost by 32) we kicked 10.16
Collingwood - 23 to 19 (lost by 1) we kicked 7.16
Collingwood - 25 to 22 (lost by 2) we kicked 11.14
Melbourne - 28 to 27 (lost by 4) we kicked 13.15
Brisbane - 28 to 24 (lost by 6) we kicked 13.15
Sydney - 23 to 19 (lost by 1) we kicked 10.13

And we won just 1 game from a position of fewer scoring shots

Brisbane - 25 to 28 (won by 17) we kicked 14.11

Richmond were freakily accurate in their match, going 17.6 to our 10.16. Even going at 50% accuracy we would have lost by 17. We would have needed to kick 17.9 to beat them (65%)

If we had kicked at roughly 50% against Brisbane when we beat them by 17 points at home, instead of at 56% like we did, we still would have beaten them.

There is a case to be made that our poor conversion cost us FIVE games. In the five games listed we lost by a goal or less, in all five of them we had more scoring shots, and in all five we went at less than 50% accuracy. You might be able to excuse close losses when both teams were accurate or both teams inaccurate or the winner had more scoring shots. But that simply was not the case. On just one out of five occasions did the team that beat us kick more behinds than goals. It's squarely on us.

Had we kicked slightly more accurately in those five matches we'd be sitting EQUAL SECOND on the ladder on 16 wins. Port would be 1st, followed by us, Collingwood and Brisbane all tied on 16 wins. We'd likely be fourth based on percentage

Walker and McAdam were exceptional in these five games, kicking 14.5 and 5.2 respectively

Rachele, Fogarty, Laird, Soligo and Dawson all cost us (3.10, 2.5, 0.3, 1.3 and 0.2). Rankine went 6.6 and Pedlar 5.5. Across those players we kicked 17.34 in those crucial games. Even going 23.28 from those players would have theoretically been enough to finish top 4 assuming we could spread that improvement out across the five matches

Our poor goal kicking and lack of emphasis at training on goal kicking is pretty disgraceful and not only cost us finals, but likely cost us top 4. That's the reason why we were the #1 scoring team but failed to make finals.

 

[BACCS]

The real issue is defense. If you're conceding 90+ points a game, you deserve to lose. No matter your goal kicking.

90+ in losses, not overall (81). We did improve in offense and defense this year, but that defense still has the biggest scope for improvement.

 

[BACCS]

Ended up losing 6 games from a position of more scoring shots

Richmond - 26 to 23 (lost by 32) we kicked 10.16
Collingwood - 23 to 19 (lost by 1) we kicked 7.16
Collingwood - 25 to 22 (lost by 2) we kicked 11.14
Melbourne - 28 to 27 (lost by 4) we kicked 13.15
Brisbane - 28 to 24 (lost by 6) we kicked 13.15
Sydney - 23 to 19 (lost by 1) we kicked 10.13

And we won just 1 game from a position of fewer scoring shots

Brisbane - 25 to 28 (won by 17) we kicked 14.11

Richmond were freakily accurate in their match, going 17.6 to our 10.16. Even going at 50% accuracy we would have lost by 17. We would have needed to kick 17.9 to beat them (65%)

If we had kicked at roughly 50% against Brisbane when we beat them by 17 points at home, instead of at 56% like we did, we still would have beaten them.

There is a case to be made that our poor conversion cost us FIVE games. In the five games listed we lost by a goal or less, in all five of them we had more scoring shots, and in all five we went at less than 50% accuracy. You might be able to excuse close losses when both teams were accurate or both teams inaccurate or the winner had more scoring shots. But that simply was not the case. On just one out of five occasions did the team that beat us kick more behinds than goals. It's squarely on us.

Had we kicked slightly more accurately in those five matches we'd be sitting EQUAL SECOND on the ladder on 16 wins. Port would be 1st, followed by us, Collingwood and Brisbane all tied on 16 wins. We'd likely be fourth based on percentage

Walker and McAdam were exceptional in these five games, kicking 14.5 and 5.2 respectively

Rachele, Fogarty, Laird, Soligo and Dawson all cost us (3.10, 2.5, 0.3, 1.3 and 0.2). Rankine went 6.6 and Pedlar 5.5. Across those players we kicked 17.34 in those crucial games. Even going 23.28 from those players would have theoretically been enough to finish top 4 assuming we could spread that improvement out across the five matches

Our poor goal kicking and lack of emphasis at training on goal kicking is pretty disgraceful and not only cost us finals, but likely cost us top 4. That's the reason why we were the #1 scoring team but failed to make finals.

Lack of emphasis? Tex says consistently when asked that they spend significant time on it at training. Could have just left your post with the stats to speak for themselves without making something up.

Also, the reason we missed finals is because we leaked big scores in our losses, even if we kicked a decent score.

Any of those close losses we still usually kicked 90+ points (Essendon, Collingwood MCG, Melbourne, Brisbane), but so did our opposition. Improve that defense by 1-2 goals per game on average and we finish top 6 at a minimum. Our attack is premiership quality, our defense is not yet (but is getting closer).

 

[Scorpus]

Lack of emphasis? Tex says consistently when asked that they spend significant time on it at training. Could have just left your post with the stats to speak for themselves without making something up.

Also, the reason we missed finals is because we leaked big scores in our losses, even if we kicked a decent score.

Any of those close losses we still usually kicked 90+ points (Essendon, Collingwood MCG, Melbourne, Brisbane), but so did our opposition. Improve that defense by 1-2 goals per game on average and we finish top 6 at a minimum. Our attack is premiership quality, our defense is not yet (but is getting closer).

In five close matches our team defense was able to restrict the opposition to not only fewer scoring shots, but fewer inside 50s too. On two occasions we had clearly better scoring efficiency (shot vs inside 50 percentage), and on three times it was +/- 1% on our opponent.

Collingwood - 44 to 41 percent
Collingwood - 44 to 45 percent
Melbourne - 52 to 52 percent
Brisbane - 50 to 49 percent
Sydney - 40 to 35 percent

What makes you think in those circumstances our defense was the reason we lost? Our defense was just as effective if not more effective on average than our opponents in those games. Five games we had more scoring shots, five games more inside 50s, four games restricting opposition to equal or worse scoring efficiency

If our defense improved it would only be to compensate for our forward line failing to get the job done from the superior position they were given.

We had five players kick a combined 10 goals 23 behinds across the matches we narrowly lost. That's a disgrace and not on our defense.

 

[BACCS]

In five close matches our team defense was able to restrict the opposition to not only fewer scoring shots, but fewer inside 50s too. On two occasions we had clearly better scoring efficiency (shot vs inside 50 percentage), and on three times it was +/- 1% on our opponent.

Collingwood - 44 to 41 percent
Collingwood - 44 to 45 percent
Melbourne - 52 to 52 percent
Brisbane - 50 to 49 percent
Sydney - 40 to 35 percent

What makes you think in those circumstances our defense was the reason we lost? Our defense was just as effective if not more effective on average than our opponents in those games. Five games we had more scoring shots, five games more inside 50s, four games restricting opposition to equal or worse scoring efficiency

If our defense improved it would only be to compensate for our forward line failing to get the job done from the superior position they were given.

We had five players kick a combined 10 goals 23 behinds across the matches we narrowly lost. That's a disgrace and not on our defense.

Are you saying that the biggest scope to improve for the highest scoring team in the comp is in goal kicking accuracy and not scores conceded?

Carlton actually kicked significantly less goals than us this year despite Curnow’s efforts, but they improved their defense to be 3rd in the comp. Improve our defense by 1-2 goals per game and it becomes a top 4 one, then a few inaccurate games don’t matter as we score so heavily regardless.

 

[Crow_Magnon]

True. Modra, Ablett, Lockett and Dunstall also went about their goalkicking in the same ways, following heir well-practiced routines.
Tex missed a couple yesterday by poking at the ball (a lot of players do that, dinky-kicks, when they are close to goal) or by overkicking when his ankle was sore, both of which are a deviation from his most successful routine.

I don't know if that's true. I think the easy misses are caused by mental relaxation in the moment, or a change in style/routine because of distance. The approach, the style, the drop and the power of the kick should be metronomic.

Most definitely, and the Crows have lost several winnable games because of it. Not just from goalkicking but also mental relaxation which often causes them to drop off in intensity when they get around 4 to 6 goals ahead.
They stop doing what got them ahead in the first place, or maybe burn themselves out by giving 100% flat-out for a couple of quarters leaving nothing to fall back on.
I'm stabbing in the dark here, but great teams (and stand-out individual players) seem to have two gears, ie an ability to pace themselves to be effective but also lift when challenged. The best players are rarely excellent all the time, but seem to play very well with bursts of excellence when needed.

I think the other thing to consider with forwards these days is that they can't just concentrate on kicking goals, they're expected to provide pressure and move up the ground at times, whereas in previous eras they could probably do half the main training session on perfecting set shots. They weren't expected to run to half back and contest.

 

[Scorpus]

Are you saying that the biggest scope to improve for the highest scoring team in the comp is in goal kicking accuracy and not scores conceded?

Carlton actually kicked significantly less goals than us this year despite Curnow’s efforts, but they improved their defense to be 3rd in the comp. Improve our defense by 1-2 goals per game and it becomes a top 4 one, then a few inaccurate games don’t matter as we score so heavily regardless.

Yes. I am suggesting that with a small improvement to goal kicking accuracy this year we make top 4.

We kicked at 42% across the five matches. We kick at 47% we theoretically make top 4. We kick at 43% we make finals. League average across the entire year is 49%

We were already good enough elsewhere on the ground. Why should our defenders have to compensate for a 42% goal kicking accuracy in close matches?

 

[MsTopG]

Lack of emphasis? Tex says consistently when asked that they spend significant time on it at training. Could have just left your post with the stats to speak for themselves without making something up.

Also, the reason we missed finals is because we leaked big scores in our losses, even if we kicked a decent score.

Any of those close losses we still usually kicked 90+ points (Essendon, Collingwood MCG, Melbourne, Brisbane), but so did our opposition. Improve that defense by 1-2 goals per game on average and we finish top 6 at a minimum. Our attack is premiership quality, our defense is not yet (but is getting closer).

Our defence is 9th. Move that to around 4th and we contend for a flag.

 

[Scorpus]

Here's our defense versus the other defenses in all the matches played by that group (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Collingwood, Sydney)

We averaged 82 points against

Collingwood - 82 points against
Brisbane - 91 points against
Melbourne - 82 points against
Sydney - 92 points against

So our defense in the games we went 1-5 in that ultimately cost us top 4, was of similar effectiveness to our opponents from those matches when they had to play us and each other

The reason why our defense wasn't ranked as highly is not due to its quality against top teams, but against crappy teams that smashed us

We went at 82 points conceded against the four other teams, and 82 points conceded across the season. But Collingwood went at 73 points conceded on average, Brisbane 77, Melbourne 72, Sydney 81.

Our defense's issue was conceding 115 against Essendon, 112 against Gold Coast, 108 against Richmond and 98 against Geelong, none of whom made finals. We also lost by 45 to the Bulldogs when they had 30 scoring shots to 15.

Given the margin in those games I'd argue the easier path to finals would have been improving our goal accuracy rather than our defense

 

[MsTopG]

Here's our defense versus the other defenses in all the matches played by that group (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Collingwood, Sydney)

We averaged 82 points against

Collingwood - 82 points against
Brisbane - 91 points against
Melbourne - 82 points against
Sydney - 92 points against

So our defense in the games we went 1-5 in that ultimately cost us top 4, was of similar effectiveness to our opponents from those matches when they had to play us and each other

The reason why our defense wasn't ranked as highly is not due to its quality against top teams, but against crappy teams that smashed us

We went at 82 points conceded against the four other teams, and 82 points conceded across the season. But Collingwood went at 73 points conceded on average, Brisbane 77, Melbourne 72, Sydney 81.

Our defense's issue was conceding 115 against Essendon, 112 against Gold Coast, 108 against Richmond and 98 against Geelong, none of whom made finals. We also lost by 45 to the Bulldogs when they had 30 scoring shots to 15.

Given the margin in those games I'd argue the easier path to finals would have been improving our goal accuracy rather than our defense

Need to improve both.

 

[Scorpus]

Need to improve both.

Ideally we would improve in all areas.

I don't think our current team is conducive to a heavy defensive style that would improve our defense to the level some are suggesting. We are weak in defense and strong in attack - this means we should be playing a heavily attacking gameplan.

When that sort of style is employed, it means you're going to leak some scores because you want to play open, loose, fast football.

Where an offense heavy gameplan falls apart is when the offense itself fails, which is what happened in the close matches we lost that cost us finals. Our gameplan worked in those matches up to the very last point in the chain, where we were unable to kick accurately.