Andrew Walker vs Liam Jurrah

[Tulip]

Nail on the head. To both Sivart and Shaymuhz...

 

[Monkey King]

narh i'll just finish by saying ... that i would take jurrah as i would rather someone who has the potential to help win a flag, rather than an elimination final [Hehehehe ... Link ]

Great! So you conclude with a minority opinion held for a reason you'll probably never even understand or realise. lol

 

[mickelboy182]

narh i'll just finish by saying you can prove anything with statistics (85% of people know that) and that i would take jurrah as i would rather someone who has the potential to help win a flag, rather than an elimination final.

So you choose Jurrah over Walker saying Walker is flat track bully, yet his stats stack up better than Jurrah's against top 8 sides. Not to mention the idiotic fact that almost all players will kick less goals against the top sides. Carlton averaged about 30 odd points less against the top 4. Common sense rarely seems to prevail these days though does it.

Some more knowledgeable posters try to show you this evidence, and all you can muster is an immature defensive response.
What can you do...

 

[Shaymuhz]

Great! So you conclude with a minority opinion held for a reason you'll probably never even understand or realise. lol

So you choose Jurrah over Walker saying Walker is flat track bully, yet his stats stack up better than Jurrah's against top 8 sides. Not to mention the idiotic fact that almost all players will kick less goals against the top sides. Carlton averaged about 30 odd points less against the top 4. Common sense rarely seems to prevail these days though does it.

Some more knowledgeable posters try to show you this evidence, and all you can muster is an immature defensive response.
What can you do...

whatever carlton fanbois, its my opinion and atm its not going to change. tbh i'm not sure why what i've written has pissed you off so much.

if anyone is being defensive its you for not being able to accept someones opinion for what it is, (an opinion) just because it doesnt match what you see through your navy tinted glasses.

i rate ballantyne over garlett, you wanna have a go at me for that too?

 

[mickelboy182]

whatever carlton fanbois, its my opinion and atm its not going to change. tbh i'm not sure why what i've written has pissed you off so much.

if anyone is being defensive its you for not being able to accept someones opinion for what it is, (an opinion) just because it doesnt match what you see through your navy tinted glasses.

i rate ballantyne over garlett, you wanna have a go at me for that too?

It's just that your opinion is based on perceptions that are incorrect. People showed you this and you simply disregarded it for no good reason. I'm not here to defend Walker, I'm just trying to get people to think about things objectively rather than accept a common myth.

If you simply said 'I rate Jurrah over Walker' and gave a reasonable reason as to why, you wouldn't have got the responses that you did.

 

[Monkey King]

its my opinion and atm its not going to change ...

I thought you were finished? Oh well then ...

There are informed/ill-informed opinions and supported/unsupported opinions. Sure you may have an opinion, who doesn't these days; do you consider yours to have some unique entitlement to being valued, or that it's above critique? Holding an opinion doesn't mean it reflects knowledge or understanding champ; your opinion could reflect any number of non-related things, from you being an idiot, to being in a shit-stirring mood.

And that's what's being pointed out here. You've not been able to support your opinion very well and when some slight analysis undermines it, you dismiss it as being selective. When challenged to back yourself up, you just keep babbling on about your right to an opinion. What did you expect?

 

[Ed D]

Round 3 ay? You mean way back at the beginning of the season when he first started to define his new role in the team? Well that's it then, flat-track bully for sure; let's just disregard completely those finals games and his performances against the top 2 teams ... he kicked 0.0 back in Round 3 the front-runner!!!

Seriously

I suppose you then don't include the 5 goals he kicked against Gold Coast the week before or the 4 goals he got against Adelaide in round 5 because he was still finding his feet...

This is the BF cliche, but I am amazed how people trip themselves up on this. Top sides have less kicked against them, that's just the way it is. Of note here, are Walker's first 4 rounds very much being a settling in period. Further to this are his first half 5 goals against Port; which seem out of place being included as flat-track goals considering he'd played a near lone hand in kicking 5 goals to halftime to keep the Blues in the game - a virtual antonym of the term.

So to examine this in a different light, I'm going assess Andrew Walker's performances from round 5 onwards, which is pretty much the time he settled into his new role and afford his goals against Port to the non-downhill skier side of the ledger.

And this is what we get ...

Non flat-track games = 28 goals from 12 games (avg 2.3)

Flat-track games = 21 goals from 8 games (avg 2.6)

A record differential similar to most league forwards.

Doing the old top 8 vs bottom 8 split without a further thought given to the player's season just doesn't constitute evidence of the claim IMO and a closer look confirms this, but I get that without much thought this seemed an obvious conclusion.

That's pretty convenient how you choose round 5 as your starting point. It gets rid of 2 games where he didn't kick a goal and then includes the week he kicked 4. Perhaps you should get rid of rounds 14, 16, 21, 23 & 24 as well, that will also make his stats look a bit better.

He averages over 3 goals a game against the bottom 8 sides, the only game he managed over 3 goals against a top 8 side was against Essendon in a thrashing. Look at the other teams he kicked over 3 goals against; Gold Coast, Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Brisbane & Richmond. You can't tell me he doesn't perform better against the poor teams. That's not to be upset about but when his average drops off signifficantly against the top teams it tells you something. We're not talking about the start of the season here either. He kicked a total of 2 goals over the final 3 round in the H&A season.

 

[Monkey King]

I suppose you then don't include the 5 goals he kicked against Gold Coast the week before or the 4 goals he got against Adelaide in round 5 because he was still finding his feet...

Sorry, what does that have to do with you ignoring Walker's finals games and 2 other games against the top 2 teams, to focus on one match back in round 3

That's pretty convenient how you choose round 5 as your starting point. It gets rid of 2 games where he didn't kick a goal and then includes the week he kicked 4. Perhaps you should get rid of rounds 14, 16, 21, 23 & 24 as well, that will also make his stats look a bit better.

I included his Adelaide game as it's from this point that he really started to settle in his new role and because it also means that the omitted represent an even sample of 2 top and bottom teams. Nothing convenient about it, I would have omitted the Crows if looking for convenience. I've twice stated my reasoning now and it's fair enough reasoning too; unless you have something other than your mindless "that's pretty convenient" comments, this can be left here.

The bigger question is, if this is a genuine statistical trend, why is it not consistent? Why do his early games influence the averages as they do? These are pretty important questions to ask when analyzing statistics.

I won't respond much to your repeated references to your top & bottom versus goals kicked system as I think it's flawed and oversimplified, but it's not abnormal for players to have better records against poorer teams, particularly smaller forwards when supply is better. Jurrah himself has a much worse record than Walker in this regard for example. Just to note here, games like Sydney, Geelong or Freo where Walks kicked one or two goals were also some of his best games for the year. Too simple! EDIT: Further to this point, from round 5, Walker's goals contributed were 3.1 vs bottom 8 teams and 3.0 vs top 8. Almost identical!

The main discrepancy you point to is that he kicked 3+ several times against bottom teams but only once against a top 8 team. I could put it another way and say that he kicked 3 goals or more against 5 bottom sides and 4 top sides, or was 3+ more convenient for you I mean really, what's the difference between 3.1 vs Collingwood 4 straight against the Dons? Is that all it takes to be a flat-track bully? (And again, using that Port game to support Walker being a front-runner is quite a detraction to your system; you could almost swap this around to 4-5 in Walks favour)

Most of all though, I would have thought that a flat-track bully would have genuinely sub-par performances when coming up against the very top teams or playing in finals - where front runners really go missing - but that just isn't the case. Walker had a few really good games against the top sides and he delivered in his finals games too.

 

[Ed D]

Sorry, what does that have to do with you ignoring Walker's finals games and 2 other games against the top 2 teams, to focus on one match back in round 3

Where did you pull this one from? I take it you can't add up. 11 + 13 = 24 (22 H&A + 2 finals). Who's ignoring what now? Where did I ignore his finals games? I'm pretty sure I mentioned them more than once when talking about goals against the top 8. If I were to ignore them his record would be even worse than what it is.

I included his Adelaide game as it's from this point that he really started to settle in his new role and because it also means that the omitted represent an even sample of 2 top and bottom teams. Nothing convenient about it, I would have omitted the Crows if looking for convenience. I've twice stated my reasoning now and it's fair enough reasoning too; unless you have something other than your mindless "that's pretty convenient" comments, this can be left here.

Ahaha! Yes, let's be selective with our statistics to paint a picture of an entire season. Facts are he stank it up against two of the form sides at the time while kicking goals against the worst sides. To say he's learning the role, sure, a whole preseason of training and practice games isn't enough, but then 4 AFL games is...

The bigger question is, if this is a genuine statistical trend, why is it not consistent? Why do his early games influence the averages as they do? These are pretty important questions to ask when analyzing statistics.

I won't respond much to your repeated references to your top & bottom versus goals kicked system as I think it's flawed and oversimplified, but it's not abnormal for players to have better records against poorer teams, particularly smaller forwards when supply is better. Jurrah himself has a much worse record than Walker in this regard for example. Just to note here, games like Sydney, Geelong or Freo where Walks kicked one or two goals were also some of his best games for the year. Too simple! EDIT: Further to this point, from round 5, Walker's goals contributed were 3.1 vs bottom 8 teams and 3.0 vs top 8. Almost identical!

The main discrepancy you point to is that he kicked 3+ several times against bottom teams but only once against a top 8 team. I could put it another way and say that he kicked 3 goals or more against 5 bottom sides and 4 top sides, or was 3+ more convenient for you I mean really, what's the difference between 3.1 vs Collingwood 4 straight against the Dons? Is that all it takes to be a flat-track bully? (And again, using that Port game to support Walker being a front-runner is quite a detraction to your system; you could almost swap this around to 4-5 in Walks favour)

Most of all though, I would have thought that a flat-track bully would have genuinely sub-par performances when coming up against the very top teams or playing in finals - where front runners really go missing - but that just isn't the case. Walker had a few really good games against the top sides and he delivered in his finals games too.

What is the point trying to talk about facts with you when all you do is dismiss them and then try and bend them in your favour? "Your stats are too simple", "I didn't include the first 4 rounds", "3 or more goals isn't fair on Walker", "Perhaps if I write more people will think what I'm saying is more accurate", "Wahh wahh I wish Walker was a better player".

 

[mickelboy182]

What is the point trying to talk about facts with you when all you do is dismiss them and then try and bend them in your favour? "Your stats are too simple", "I didn't include the first 4 rounds", "3 or more goals isn't fair on Walker", "Perhaps if I write more people will think what I'm saying is more accurate", "Wahh wahh I wish Walker was a better player".

Isn't that exactly what you're doing?

Herpa derp.

 

[Shaymuhz]

I thought you were finished? Oh well then ...

I was hoping to be.

Ok fine, here's my rationale. I think your analysis of Walker 'finding his feet' in the first 4 rounds is overstated. It's not like he would have never played or been rotated through there in the past. Furthermore, if he did have a full pre-season as you all seem so keen to tell everyone then surely he would have been training and learning about his role as a forward over a period of months - not to mention scratch matches like the nab cup to help ease him into the transition.

Also as others have said, his statistics are only marginally better than Jurrah's and yet Liam is accused of having a poor season while Walker is congratulated. I think that alone is a demonstration of the different expectations placed on them due in no small part to their talent levels.

That's why I think Walker would need to perform better against the top teams to make his 'consistency' enough to sway me in picking him instead of Jurrah's raw ability and potential.

 

[Monkey King]

Where did you pull this one from?

Read back. Have a look at what the quoted part of your post was replying to. Follow the trail.

Ahaha! Yes, let's be selective with our statistics to paint a picture of an entire season.

You're the one being selective mate. You won't even consider the consequence of starting from round 5. Meanwhile, I've addressed what I deem to be the most pertinent parts of your goals vs bottom/top teams system and you won't even respond to that, let alone deal with the obvious flaws (goaless good games/Port game/goals contributed) I've pointed to; instead all you do is whine about how unfair I'm being. How childish!

Nothing wrong with not confining myself to your flawed little system. In fact, stepping beyond it to provide a more rigorous examination of your conclusion would be welcomed by anyone wanting to seriously investigate the facts, particularly when it yields the anomalies that it does.

So here we find just FOUR GAMES, very much in line with a rational premise and with no cherry picked games, yields a very different viewpoint. There is no consistency in your findings, how can you justify standing by your conclusions in light of these contradictory factors? Given you've suggested this is a trend enough to label the player, why is it not at all consistent from just four rounds into the season? It doesn't make any sense!

So is it fair to say, given the evidence you've used to "prove" your derision of the player, that "from round 5 onwards Walker was not a flat-track bully, but including those first four games he was a flat-track bully". Would that be a statement accurate enough to your sensibilities, despite it not really making a lot of sense holistically?

Facts are he stank it up against two of the form sides at the time while kicking goals against the worst sides.

Facts are from Round 5 onwards Walker had 3.1 goals contributed against bottom 8 teams and 3.0 against top teams; almost identical - you can keep ignoring this though if you like

Facts are from Round 5 onwards Walker averaged 2.5 goals in non flat-track games and 2.3 in flat-track games. Go figure right? Pretty different from what you suggest.

Facts are that a few of Walker's low goal tally games were some of his best games for the year.

Facts are your bottom/top vs goals system makes little sense on multiple levels and when challenged you have nothing but whine to defend it.

 

[Hodgepodge]

Jurrah probs.

Walker kicks a lot of his goals against Bottom 4 sides, and has 40 of his 56 goals against the bottom 9

 

[00Stinger]

So you choose Jurrah over Walker saying Walker is flat track bully, yet his stats stack up better than Jurrah's against top 8 sides. Not to mention the idiotic fact that almost all players will kick less goals against the top sides. Carlton averaged about 30 odd points less against the top 4. Common sense rarely seems to prevail these days though does it.

Some more knowledgeable posters try to show you this evidence, and all you can muster is an immature defensive response.
What can you do...

Could it be because we were smashed by the top 8 sides and therefore the ball did not venture forward very often. And when it did it wasn't tp notch delivery.

 

[Monkey King]

Ok fine, here's my rationale. I think your analysis of Walker 'finding his feet' in the first 4 rounds is overstated.

Walker wasn't just learning his role in the first few rounds, he was finding it, defining it; and in some ways, so were his teammates and the coaches. You seem to suggest he walked into his exact role in round one (not the case) and that not having played this role in this team before would have no impact at all. I find this pretty naive and disagree with it entirely; having watched all Carlton games, it was actually observable IMO.

Looking at his first four games, you see he averaged 64% game time (86% high 27% low). From round 5 onwards he only went below 86% once (Rd 16); averaging 90% game time for the rest of the year as his role within the team became solidified. There are not four consecutive games where he averaged less than this anywhere in the season. This is another measure indicating that his role in the first four rounds wasn't exactly what he settled into later on and how these early games represent a statistical difference compared to the rest of the set.

Now really, I've not suggested doing it my way overrides anything else, but whether you think it's overstated or not, it is one very valid way of looking at it. Demanding it be excluded seems to be based solely on the contradictory data it throws up. Sure it's not a perfect approach, but as has been clearly pointed out, neither is the bottom/top vs goals system.

Most tellingly, what it shows is how the statistical trend Ed was trying to paint just doesn't exist and how from round 5 onwards, it's a completely different story. This lack of consistency should hint enough that something is awry, instead it's just invokes rubbish dismissals.

That's why I think Walker would need to perform better against the top teams to make his 'consistency' enough to sway me in picking him instead of Jurrah's raw ability and potential.

From my perspective it's a pretty weird justification, expecting one to perform well against top teams but not really caring with the other. BTW did you see that from Round 5 onwards Walker had 3.1 goals contributed against bottom 8 teams and 3.0 against top teams. Probably not good enough though right, coz of those first 4 round when he was playing this role for the first time in his career. lol

Look, I'm not disagreeing with anyone rating Jurrah higher. I don't think they're all that far apart myself. I'm not deriding Jurrah as a front-runner or anything else, despite him having a worse record than Walker in this regard. Trying to invent reasons to bag players isn't my thing. I rather leave the negative thinking to blokes like Ed and Hodgepodge.

I'm only disagreeing with the claim Walker is a flat-track bully and pointing out the goal tally system used to justify the derision is deeply flawed and therefore yielding false positives. More stringent examination of the data set has shown this up pretty clearly too.

 

[Gus]

Jurrah probs.

Walker kicks a lot of his goals against Bottom 4 sides, and has 40 of his 56 goals against the bottom 9

This.

You can understand more goals being kicked against the lower ranked teams, but that stat is damning.

Didn't do much against us though Wood gave him a bath.

 

[blueboy25]

Jurrah probs.

Walker kicks a lot of his goals against Bottom 4 sides, and has 40 of his 56 goals against the bottom 9

Might need to check your stats there Hodgey.

 

[Shaymuhz]

"wall of text"

Yes your reasoning and statistics are well thought out. However, I think the amount of effort and explaining you are doing to support this barrage of statistics is indicative of the struggle you are having in proving that Walker's performance doesn't suffer against the top teams.

Whereas I think podgey summed it up pretty well in one line:

Walker kicks a lot of his goals against Bottom 4 sides, and has 40 of his 56 goals against the bottom 9

As for expecting Walker to perform better against the top teams than Jurrah, that was only in the context of 'who would you prefer at your club?' as stated in the OP.

As I already alluded to, I believe Jurrah has more potential than Walker. Therefore I would be more patient with him for now (especially as he has only played two seasons) because when he finds his feet I think he will be the better player. Playing as a deep forward for Melbourne this year would not have been the easiest gig either.

I think that Jurrah's transition to a big city like Melbourne from an isolated central community in the middle of Australia (where english is not the first language), would be tougher to adapt to than Walker's move from the midfield/reserves to the forward line.


In summary, ok - Walker is not Leon Davis when it comes to playing against the top teams. But he's no Stevey J either. Therefore I would pick Jurrah because I think he will blossom into the better player, regardless of opposition.

 

[jonoman89]

Walker kicked 3 against West Coast at Subi in a semi final. Wonder how many goals every forward kicks against bottom 9 sides...they're bottom 9 sides for a reason.

It's funny we're even discussing this. Walker was universally held to be a hack 12 months ago and no one would even compare him to a bag of potatos.

No here we are, with people realising he's actually a pretty potent forward. Kicked 50+ goals in one of, if not the most, evenly spread forward line in the league.

Regardless of any comparison, Carlton supporters are bloody happy with Walker's turnaround. Expecting big things in 2012.

 

[Monkey King]

Yes your reasoning and statistics are well thought out. However, I think the amount of effort and explaining you are doing to support this barrage of statistics is indicative of the struggle you are having in proving that Walker's performance doesn't suffer against the top teams.

There was no effort to begin with; I simply presented the stats. The subsequent amount of effort is mostly indicative of the stats being met with baseless objections and accusations of cherry picking according to convenience; hence the painstaking spelling out of what I thought was just common sense logic.

In summary, ok - Walker is not Leon Davis when it comes to playing against the top teams. But he's no Stevey J either. Therefore I would pick Jurrah because I think he will blossom into the better player, regardless of opposition.

As I've said, I have no problem with the rating of one player higher than another. I just saw a BigFooty cliche being bandied around and thought I'd point out how inane it was. I have no issue with anyone preferring Jurrah.

But he's no Stevey J either.

An example of BF living off cliches ... here's a few throw backs of Stevie J's season in light of the damning stats against Walker.

Bottom 8 - 29 goals from 9 games (avg 3.2)
Top 8 - 21 goals from 14 games (avg 1.5)

32 of 50 goals against Bottom 9 sides.

47 Goals Contributed against bottom 8 sides (5.2)
35 Goals Contributed against top 8 sides (2.5)

Kicked more than 3 goals against bottom 8 sides on three occasions, but just the once against top 8 sides.


Does that make Stevie J a flat-track bully? Of course it doesn't. As I try to tell most people who look at things in isolation, kicking less goals against the better teams is a general trend of the game, especially for smaller forwards; and using goals alone as performance indicators is badly flawed (particularly when compared to an assumed standard of normality). Both Walker and Stevie J had one goal games that were among their best performances for the year. Oversimplifying shit only renders your opinions simple.

 

[Monkey King]

Walker kicked 3 against West Coast at Subi in a semi final. Wonder how many goals every forward kicks against bottom 9 sides...they're bottom 9 sides for a reason.

Walker had one of the higher goal averages in the finals series. Don't worry though, blokes like Ed will look right passed that and point out that he kicked 0.0 against the Pies in Round 3 in 50% odd game time; all while calling you selective lol

 

[Monkey King]

This.

You can understand more goals being kicked against the lower ranked teams, but that stat is damning.

Love the way a few posters latch on to Hodgepodge's incorrect stats while ignoring shit like ...

From Round 5 onwards Walker had 3.1 goals contributed against bottom 8 teams and 3.0 against top teams.

From Round 5 onwards Walker averaged 2.5 goals in non flat-track games and 2.3 in flat-track games.

A few of Walker's low goal tally games were some of his best games for the year.

Jurrah kicked 27 of his 40 goals against bottom 9 teams


Seems people are so eager to believe what they want to believe, they're willing to overlook anything that gets in the way. Meanwhile, for anyone interested in the real stats on Walker ...

Kicked 34 of his 56 goals against bottom 9 sides


(Note to Shaymuhz - Summed up in one line ... pfft, only indicates his lack of effort in being accurate)

 

[Hodgepodge]

Might need to check your stats there Hodgey.

Based on teams who were top 8 at the time Carlton played them. So only 16 goals against the Top 8. Yup.

Kudos to Walker for performing in the finals though.

 

[Hodgepodge]

Most damning for me is that he kicked 20 of his 56 goals in four games against the Bottom 4.

 

[Gone Critical]

Wow this topic has really gone off the rails with pretty meaningless minutae. I would take Jurrah because I see him as a better player. Its not a bad poll as you are really looking at an average to good player in Walker v a potential topliner who has flaws that may make him crash and burn in Jarrah

In some ways you could characterise Walker as a failure as a no 2 draft pick as he hasn't given Carlton anywhere near what they may have expected from that pick in most drafts. However 2003 was possibly the worst draft ever. Cooney and Sam Fisher are the only players from that year with any aspirations towards being elite and David Mundy and Heath Shaw the only others who have claims to being possible A grade players.

Walker, Adcock, Sylvia, Stanton, Ray and Buchanan in no particular order round out the best 10 from that year. So Carlton really got that pick right

Now 8 seasons into his career after being at the crossroads after 2010 Walker has put a lot of life back into his career with an excellent season. 50 + goals is very good and getting lost with who he kicked them against really misses the point.

More interesting will be to see if he can maintain his new found status as a fairly dangerous forward. While he had to redefine himself as Monkey King pointed out he also had the advantage of slipping under the radar in his new role. Especially as Carlton are now flag contenders you can expect a lot of work will be done in the off season by clubs looking to curb his influence. Walkers next challenge will be to deal with this greater scrutiny and maintain his output

Jurrah was already under the notice of opposition clubs in 2011 in a way Walker has yet to experience. He struggled with that but still 40 goals was a reasonable return and it would be somewhat of a surprise if he doesn't grow as a player in the next few seasons. He has more years and more upside than Walker. Its always easier being a forward in a winning team so their isn't that much difference between the 2 in 2011.

That people perceive Walker to have been much better in 2011 has a lot to do with the expectations they entered the season with. My suspicion is that Walker will remain a good player at Carlton for another few seasons but its a fair chance 2011 will end up being his best ever season. I think Jurrah is still on the rise and 2012 and beyond will be years where he has much better outputs than 2011

THe above paragraph is what I see as the msot likely outcome for the 2 but not with a lot of certainty. Jurrah get my vote but not without soem reservations

A good poll