Contested Possession Count - Perhaps its deliberate?

[liam_13]

So if you haven't won the contested possession count all year, I assume you are 0-9 fighting to avoid the wooden spoon with Melbourne, GWS & GC??

Oh wait, what?

KPI (key performance indicators) are exactly that. Indicators. They are not key performance deciders, or key performance compulsory-win-stats. I can understand Scott being worried about them, but I don't think he will mind to much if you play well 80% of the time as the Cats have this season (narrow losses to Freo away and Collingwood count as playing 'well').

As long as you win, stats are meaningless.

edit: Obviously not trying to argue with Chris Scott & Harry Taylor, they know infinitely more about football then I do. But I don't think they overly care either, and are just talking about it to show the Cats are not 100% yet and are priming themselves.

 

[Cataholic]

So if you haven't won the contested possession count all year, I assume you are 0-9 fighting to avoid the wooden spoon with Melbourne, GWS & GC??

Oh wait, what?

KPI (key performance indicators) are exactly that. Indicators. They are not key performance deciders, or key performance compulsory-win-stats. I can understand Scott being worried about them, but I don't think he will mind to much if you play well 80% of the time as the Cats have this season (narrow losses to Freo away and Collingwood count as playing 'well').

As long as you win, stats are meaningless.

edit: Obviously not trying to argue with Chris Scott & Harry Taylor, they know infinitely more about football then I do. But I don't think they overly care either, and are just talking about it to show the Cats are not 100% yet and are priming themselves.

Good post

I don't think they'll be too concerned with this stat this early in the piece as long as the ultimate result comes their way more often than not each week.

Having said that, I think they'll be mindful that it's one they'll want to reverse slowly but surely from here on in.

 

[Jimmy Yamazaki]

YAY Finally one a CP Game!

 

[Nankervis brothers]

Interesting CP stat from the SCG this weekend. The Swans won buy a massive 90 points in very wet conditions - very heavy rain falling through much of the match. Given the wet conditions, and given the scoreline, you would assume Sydney won the CP comfortably. And you would assume wrong - they lost CP by 8. Perhaps we are seeing a slight change as far as the types of stats and indicators some clubs are looking at and valuing....? Perhaps CP isn't the be all and end all.

 

[Topper]

Interesting CP stat from the SCG this weekend. The Swans won buy a massive 90 points in very wet conditions - very heavy rain falling through much of the match. Given the wet conditions, and given the scoreline, you would assume Sydney won the CP comfortably. And you would assume wrong - they lost CP by 8. Perhaps we are seeing a slight change as far as the types of stats and indicators some clubs are looking at and valuing....? Perhaps CP isn't the be all and end all.

That is a very interesting point, quite unbelievable really, but true

 

[kickazz]

Interesting CP stat from the SCG this weekend. The Swans won buy a massive 90 points in very wet conditions - very heavy rain falling through much of the match. Given the wet conditions, and given the scoreline, you would assume Sydney won the CP comfortably. And you would assume wrong - they lost CP by 8. Perhaps we are seeing a slight change as far as the types of stats and indicators some clubs are looking at and valuing....? Perhaps CP isn't the be all and end all.

We also got done in CP in Brisbane this year, yet won comfortably because we handled it better when we got 'clean' possesion. In the wet, getting hands on the ball first is also a lower priority IMO - I recall a coach saying that in the wet one should consider going the man instead of the ball because a small bump can put them off their feet more easliy.

...and yes kudos to the cats for winning CP on Saturday. GWS may be a young side, but they are not the worst CP side going around, and we were without Smithy who does well at CP. So

 

[ATSAM]

And the Bulldogs had more contested posessions in the first1/4 than Sydney but Sydney kicked 9 goals.

 

[manboob]

I think In a sense the CP only matters in close games when both club logically would get 50% of the ball, more or less. So when Geelong loses the media pounce. But in the other games when we flog em of course they are gonna get more contested position because we are clean and the opposition doesn't see the ball much. So out of 100 possies we get 50 straight and clean cause are awesome then 25, 25 split on the contested but we still have 75% of the overall play or something like it... i hope that made sense

 

[Nankervis brothers]

^^^^ manboob

Yeah, it does makes sense, at least theoretically. But usually the team who does the flogging has much better of the CP. For example, HAW had 25 more CP than NTH this week, COLL 40 odd more than GC.

 

[Nankervis brothers]

We also got done in CP in Brisbane this year, yet won comfortably because we handled it better when we got 'clean' possesion. In the wet, getting hands on the ball first is also a lower priority IMO - I recall a coach saying that in the wet one should consider going the man instead of the ball because a small bump can put them off their feet more easliy.

...and yes kudos to the cats for winning CP on Saturday. GWS may be a young side, but they are not the worst CP side going around, and we were without Smithy who does well at CP. So

Yes, I see what your saying. But then the other school of thought is that winning CP is of great importance in a wet game as the ball is in a contested situation so more often than in the dry.

 

[RegHickeyStand]

Watched the game last night. Very congested in parts. Player gets ball in scrimmage. Player kicks ball. Ball goes one metre and bounces off the shoulder of another player in the scrimmage. Another player picks up the ball 2 seconds later. He gets grabbed and drops the ball onto his boot. Ball travels 6 inches. Rinse and repeat for the next 90 seconds. All these stats go into the mix.

I would like CPs listed that actually go somewhere. I think they would tell a different picture.

 

[darren forssman]

I would like CPs listed that actually go somewhere. I think they would tell a different picture.

i am sure mooney was on sen talking about this maybe 3-4 weeks ago. from memory it was either a score/clear possession from the contested possession. my memory is vague so i cant remember exactly what he said.

 

[SJ]

Here we go:

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...cal-hopkins-20120612-2089o.html#ixzz1xcid0aQo

A FOOTBALL stats pioneer and the man who coined much of the terminology says that contested possession is overrated as a measure of a good football team, was misunderstood by many in the game and had become ''one of the fashion statements of the time''.

Ted Hopkins, who founded Champion Data in 1995, says that quality disposal is a more accurate guide to winning than contested possession. ''An extra quality disposal is worth two points on the scoreboard, an extra contested possession is worth one point,'' Hopkins said. ''The art of kicking is the most sublimely important skill in football. I get amazed at this focus on players crashing in like road carnage. There's no point unless you've got the ability or the teamwork to extract the ball. The best way to put pressure on an opposition is precise disposal.''

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...cal-hopkins-20120612-2089o.html#ixzz1xcid0aQo

Hopkins said that two changes in the game had clouded perspectives. One was that for up to a quarter of every match, the football was a pinball, half in and half out of the possession of many players, yet seemingly every touch registered. The other was that a player was credited with contested possession even if the ball went nowhere.

''Coaches love contested possession because tackling and contested footy is sign language for effort,'' Hopkins said. ''But contested footy is an ambiguous number. You have to be good at it, but you don't have to be the best.

What you have to be best at is to give players clear opportunity to dispose of the ball properly. It's been that way since I started in this caper. It's the most effective way of winning a game.''

 

[cat in sydney]

Here we go:

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...cal-hopkins-20120612-2089o.html#ixzz1xcid0aQo

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...cal-hopkins-20120612-2089o.html#ixzz1xcid0aQo

Interesting reading. Good pickup SJ

It seems to be clear enough now that they recognise CP's are overrated, and are focusing on other priorities. Depending on how it works, Chris Scott is either going to come off looking silly or an absolute genius. The next five weeks after the bye (Syd, Port, GCS, Pies, Bombers) will tell the tale as to how our new game style is panning out. If we win those five (which entirely possible), the comp will start taking notice, and getting worried!

 

[thejester]

Individual statistical categories are meaningless without context? Who knew!

Contested ball isn't the be all and end all of footy but it's still important. If you're not winning the footy on your own merits you're relying on the opposition to give it back, and there's a bit of russian roulette about that. Pretty sure we were getting smashed in contested ball and clearances in the first quarter on Friday, and our push to the lead corresponded with us evening that up.

I think we've got no reason not to take Scott at his word - they're concerned about contested possessions, and they want to improve in that area, but they also understand it's only one facet of the game.

 

[Pettas]

Surely the stat they show on the big screen at the footy 'Hard Ball Gets' is a more important stat then Contested Possessions?

 

[footscore]

Scott would be one hell of a poker player

Another reason why Cats are going to go deep into September, they can turn it on whenever they feel the need
How many last quarters they won the contested footy?
You'd reckon almost every single one of them apart from the games we lost convincingly.

Fast forward 10 weeks and these stats will be sitting pretty next to the reigning premiers.

 

[Farmer2Goggin]

Surely the stat they show on the big screen at the footy 'Hard Ball Gets' is a more important stat then Contested Possessions?

Interesting distinctions between a contested possession in a maul situation and contested possession in more a 1:1 situation in open play. Suspect the latter is far more dangerous and effective and is what made us so strong last season - kicking long and winning those contests. Having said that we need to have the pill in our hands to do that so we either win it from the maul or force a turnover.
Will be interesting how our style of play pans out over the next month or so.

 

[Stab Pass]

Interesting articles. Nice how Ted is being positioned as the stats pioneer. I wonder if the company that actually wrote the system that Champion Data used for their first couple of years will ever get some credit.

 

[footscore]

Deliberate?

We have won the contested footy count in each of our last 4 matches
Past month we have played Sydney (+5), Port Adelaide (+9), Gold Coast (+14), Collingwood (+8)

 

[footscore]

next week we play Essendon and it will be interesting to see how this contested footy stat pans out.

 

[SJ]

Deliberate?

We have won the contested footy count in each of our last 4 matches
Past month we have played Sydney (+5), Port Adelaide (+9), Gold Coast (+14), Collingwood (+8)

The funny thing is that those differentials (and almost every differential every week) is so minor that they are all basically meaningless.

 

[footscore]

The funny thing is that those differentials (and almost every differential every week) is so minor that they are all basically meaningless.

the funny thing is, we have a midfield struggling to win their own footy and we've been playing kids through the center of the ground in most of those 4 matches and Sydney/Collingwood in particular, are well known for their contested ball winning abilities.

Kind of points to a clearer focus of winning contested footy higher up the priority board than what the team were trying a couple of months ago.

 

[footscore]

won contested footy convincingly last week and now the big test as Adelaide are a terrific contested footy team.
They win it 5 weeks in a row and it does suggest they have changed their style for the meantime at least.