Comparisons Across Time - Goal Kickers

[Bardo State]

A lot of the time, especially in the off-season, people like to make lists and comparisons. For example, you can see the recent "Best 50 players of the last 50 years" lists from various pundits. Comparing across such a time frame in Aussie Rules is always going to cause some issues. The game is fundamentally different from the one that existed in 2008, which is different from the game in 2003, which is different from 1996 etc. This holds for Aussie Rules more-so than most large sports around the globe. Others have evolved, but few have had such rapid adaptation in style.

The game finally went national in the 80s and 90s, training and fitness standards became far more professional, teams focused on strategy as a holistic approach rather than just planning kick-outs and coaches are more likely to be found at Harvard studying management courses than they are sinking piss with the boys down at the local after a big win.

The game today is clustered. Long gone are the days where full forwards could lead out of the centre square straight at the ball carrier and maybe have to put a knee through the solitary man in the hole if they wanted to clear a path. Players are fitter, they cover more ground causing areas of play to become more congested. Put simply, it's harder to rely on the big, bulky guy having the rest of the team clear out of the 50 to give them space. Leads are more likely to go to the pocket than to CHF and a ball up in the forward 50 is generally a positive result for the attacking team. Repeat entries. Pressure.

So then how can we make sense of comparing the goal scoring feats of Kennedy last year and Franklin in 08 or Lloyd in the early 00s and Ablett/Lockett/Dunstall from the 90s? Surely kicking 3 goals a game means less if the stylistic and strategic elements of the game mean that there are a dozen other blokes going around doing the same or better?

So my curiosity led me to devise a system. The goal scoring feats of players should be compared to the relative conditions of the game at the time. I did this by creating a weighted average of the goal averages of the top goal scorers since 1990. I took the goal average of the top 5 players in a given year and divided this by an index that averaged out the goal per game statistics of the 6th-15th ranked goal scorers. What you are left with is a value that tells you how good a player is at kicking goals relative to the stock standard 'good' forward of that year.

This doesn't serve to be a difintitive ranking of forwards since 1990 as many other factors weigh in to how you should evaluate a player (ie. Wayne Carey or Nick Riewoldt are not flattered by this list). Instead, it looks purely at the ability of a player to kick goals.

Position Year Weighted Average Player
1 1991 2.418258 T Lockett
2 2001 2.180549 M Lloyd
3 1993 2.093624 G Ablett
4 1995 2.023768 T Lockett
5 1998 1.954639 T Lockett
6 1995 1.939881 G Ablett
7 1992 1.912568 J Dunstall
8 1996 1.849361 T Lockett
9 1992 1.821494 T Lockett
10 1994 1.781737 T Lockett
11 1999 1.77851 T Lockett
12 2008 1.761496 L Franklin
13 1990 1.75974 T Lockett
14 2003 1.755187 M Lloyd
15 2008 1.753702 B Fevola
16 1998 1.71134 J Dunstall
17 1994 1.69265 J Dunstall
18 1993 1.682941 J Dunstall
19 2000 1.650265 M Lloyd
20 1994 1.641744 G Ablett
21 1991 1.641308 A Jakovich
22 2004 1.641026 F Gehrig
23 2011 1.63956 L Franklin
24 1999 1.630301 S Cummings
25 1999 1.626184 M Lloyd
26 2011 1.613187 B Hall
27 2009 1.604478 B Fevola
28 2016 1.59375 J Kennedy
29 1999 1.56443 W Carey
30 1995 1.54841 S Rocca
31 2014 1.539451 L Franklin
32 1993 1.522114 T Modra
33 1990 1.496753 J Dunstall
34 1996 1.489576 J Dunstall
35 2012 1.478615 L Franklin
36 1991 1.476206 J Dunstall
37 2003 1.473029 A Lynch
38 2009 1.467662 J Brown
39 2004 1.465201 M Lloyd
40 1999 1.461507 T Modra
41 2008 1.461419 D Bradhsaw
42 2006 1.459321 B Fevola
43 2002 1.449153 D Neitz
44 1990 1.444805 J Longmire
45 1991 1.437358 P Sumich
46 1990 1.431818 G Ablett
47 2002 1.423729 A Lynch
48 1998 1.418557 M Richardson
49 1997 1.414181 J Heatley
50 1997 1.402557 S Rocca

Lockett dominates the list taking 8 of the top 13 spots while Lloyd is the only one in the top 10 since 2000. In fact, Franklin, Lloyd and Fev are the only players in the top 20 for years since 2000. I would hazard a guess to say that modern forwards are more likely to have well rounded games and lead-mark-kick goal kicking specialists are rare. Even Josh Kennedy who arguably fits that mould is a fairly exceptional defensive player for someone his size.

The 'weakest' year recorded was Wayne Carey's 2001 with a weighted average of 1.09, barely separating himself from those behind him.

Note that I only went back to 1990 for time reasons. Looking back at the 80s forwards or Hudson/Coleman could be very interesting.

So what do people think? Does anything in this list surprise you? Maybe Lloyd's 2001 being rated so highly (Over Gaz Srs 93)?

 

[YippeeYiYeo]

Dont think you can draw many conclusions from that list tbh. No full forwards from the last 16 years feature in the top 10 because the game has evolved into beehive soccer. Nowhere near as much space or opportunities for FF's to kick goals as there was in 20th century football. Buddy's 100 goals in 2008 really is one out of the box and should be rated higher IMO.

 

[Bardo State]

Dont think you can draw many conclusions from that list tbh. No full forwards from the last 16 years feature in the top 10 because the game has evolved into beehive soccer. Nowhere near as much space or opportunities for FF's to kick goals as there was in 20th century football. Buddy's 100 goals in 2008 really is one out of the box and should be rated higher IMO.

The system does try to correct for that by comparing the goal averages with other high scoring forwards (ie. the system rates Lloyd's 5 goals per year in 2001 noticably higher than Ablett's 7.3 goals per year in 1993. Same goes for Franklin's 3.6 goals in 2014 vs Modra's 5.3 goals in 93). I expect the problem is two-fold. Firstly, Lockett and Dunstall are such goal scoring outiers. If their results aren't included, the top 20 would look like:

1 2001 2.180549 M Lloyd
2 1993 2.093624 G Ablett
3 1995 1.939881 G Ablett
4 2008 1.761496 L Franklin
5 2003 1.755187 M Lloyd
6 2008 1.753702 B Fevola
7 2000 1.650265 M Lloyd
8 1994 1.641744 G Ablett
9 1991 1.641308 A Jakovich
10 2004 1.641026 F Gehrig
11 2011 1.63956 L Franklin
12 1999 1.630301 S Cummings
13 1999 1.626184 M Lloyd
14 2011 1.613187 B Hall
15 2009 1.604478 B Fevola
16 2016 1.59375 J Kennedy
17 1999 1.56443 W Carey
18 1995 1.54841 S Rocca
19 2014 1.539451 L Franklin
20 1993 1.522114 T Modra

That seems like a more even spread of years.

Secondly, reliance on a single goal scorer is seen as a death wish by modern coaches. So while the system adjust for players' performances relative to their peers', the variation at the top end might be more pronounced at the very top end during the 90s. But for purely assesing a players' goal scoring contribution relative to their peers at the time, I think the system holds up.

 

[calyam]

So what do people think? Does anything in this list surprise you? Maybe Lloyd's 2001 being rated so highly (Over Gaz Srs 93)?

Lloyd's 2001 season has always been underrated for mine. He finished 46 goals ahead of the second best goalkicker that season (Matthew Richardson) despite playing one fewer game. It was the last season where we had a goalkicker average 5 or more goals a game.

I've always been of the belief that Lloyd's legacy is somewhat hampered by the generation in which he played in. Had be been born five years earlier a lot more of his career takes place during the high-scoring 1990s when full-forwards kicked regular bags. It's hard to imagine that he doesn't kick 1,100 or 1,200 goals in such a scenario.

 

[Bardo State]

Here were the weights for each year taken as the average of the 6th-15th highest goal scoring averages for the year. Big peak in 93 before dropping.

 

[Bardo State]

Lloyd's 2001 season has always been underrated for mine. He finished 46 goals ahead of the second best goalkicker that season (Matthew Richardson) despite playing one fewer game. It was the last season where we had a goalkicker average 5 or more goals a game.

I've always been of the belief that Lloyd's legacy is somewhat hampered by the generation in which he played in. Had be been born five years earlier a lot more of his career takes place during the high-scoring 1990s when full-forwards kicked regular bags. It's hard to imagine that he doesn't kick 1,100 or 1,200 goals in such a scenario.

I have to admit, I'd mentally pinned Lloyd as still playing in the forward goal kicking golden age before the flooding of the mid 00s and eventual zoning and pressing. But other than last year, goal tallies from the best forwards were lowest at 2001 than any other year since 1990. Those early 00s either experienced a dip in average forward quality or there was something about the way the game was being played that I'm not taking into account.