Free kick count

[Brilliant]

Free kick counts mean nothing and are deceiving.
Rather than the simple Team A free's v Team B free's they should break the free kick's up into at least 2 categories.

Holding the ball, deliberate out of bounds and out on the full should be in their own category as they are free kicks that are'nt paid for infringing your opposition or dirty play. They are free's awarded for your teams hard work as a reward for pressure and forcing/causing the opposition to error.

Call them something else other than a free kick and have them as part of the free kick count still.

Team A
5 free kicks, 10 pressure frees

Team B
5 free kicks, 5 pressure frees

Ultimately it's pointless like all stats but would show more accurately how the umpiring went. And a neutral looking at stats could get some idea which teams are "dirty" and which can't handle "pressure".

 

[WakeUpPies]

yea

love it when a team does a lot of tackling and applies a lot of pressure, they "buttboned" the umps

 

[Crow Chick]

Agree Brilliant!

Also rubbish how people expect the free kick count to be even at the same of the game. It's not about how many you get, its about how many you get that you shouldn't and how many don't get paid.

 

[Illinois Nazi]

I don't know why we bother to record the number of free kicks at all.

 

[WoD]

Agree Brilliant!

Also rubbish how people expect the free kick count to be even at the same of the game. It's not about how many you get, its about how many you get that you shouldn't and how many don't get paid.

amen to that, i hate when people say look at the free kicks one team had 10 more than the other, well maybe that team didnt play stupid football, and played in front the whole game

 

[Juddy88]

I don't know why we bother to record the number of free kicks at all.

Would rather keep that stat than "running bounces"

 

[ok.crows]

Also rubbish how people expect the free kick count to be even at the same of the game.

amen to that, i hate when people say look at the free kicks one team had 10 more than the other, well maybe that team didnt play stupid football, and played in front the whole game

That is not it. This is not the problem, and not the complaint. Clearly some games will be different to others, and some teams give away a lot of frees, whereas other teams not so much.

However, the interesting aspect is this ... most frees are "given away", as opposed to "earned". In other words, if you get a free, it is mostly the case that you got the free because of something wrong your opponent did (such as make high contact on you, or push you in the back, or hold your jumper). You can actually "earn" a holding-the-ball free from your own actions via a good tackle ... but in the main, most frees you get are because of something your opponent did.

Some opposition teams will give away a lot of frees, others not so many. Generally, the more skillful a team, the less frees it will give away.

The thing is ... all of the 16 teams play against 15 opponents, and for any two sides 14 of their 15 opponents are the exact same teams.

So, after round 15, when all teams have played each other once, you would expect roughly the same amount (say within 20%) of "frees for" to all sides, since all sides have played more-or-less against the same set of opponents.

This year, this expectation was not the case. There was a whopping discrepancy in "frees for" tallies for different sides. The team with the most frees for had fully 68% more frees than the team with the least frees for (that is 168 frees for per 100 that the lowest team got) ... yet in the 15 games each had played they had faced 14 of the same opponents.

Does anyone really imagine that all the teams got together and organised themselves to play cleaner and more skillful footy only when they faced a particular opponent? I hope no-one proposes that, because it is just plain silly.

This is a clear indicator of something drastically wrong. A discrepancy of that order is way, way beyond mere statistical variance (it is perhaps 3 or 4 times the variance that could reasonably be accounted for by mere chance). I hope the AFL are trying to address this problem. People know when their side is having a tough run and not getting paid frees they should be getting, and they will express their displeasure. Fans will eventually drift away from footy (and watch something that isn't as rigged) if biases of this magnitude persist for too long.

PS: It would appear that, as at round 21, this statistic has been improved considerably. It now stands at 130% higher frees for for the most-favoured team compared to the least-favoured (440 compared to 337).
http://finalsiren.com/TeamStatsSummary.asp?SeasonID=2007&Sort=FreesFor Desc

That is almost within bounds of reasonableness. It does, however, indicate that the umpires have been playing "catch up" in the latter part of the season.

 

[ShanBoi]

Its a good idea. We always see 'square up' cases. As much as they would deny it until they are blue in the face, its how it appears.

Ump stuffs up, soft questionable free shortly after. Grossly imbalanced kick count - free kicks on the wing in the 4th quarter. May not be the case but by the end of the game it is rare that one team is absolutely MILES in front of the other.

 

[Matt_TY]

I think if we're going to start scrutinising free kicks paid it's also time to look at the LOCATION of kicks. A kick in your F50, a free kick not paid to you in your D50, ought to count for more than one on the wing in slow midfield play. Also, let's start talking about counting "advantages" paid that are not actually an advantage, and of course vice versa.