Have the tigers rendered stats useless?

[A Bit Dusty]

Another thread started by a Richmond supporter so they can blow smoke up their own fannys

Another quality post as usual

 

[bh90210fan]

Another quality post as usual

Thanks

 

[Nostradumbass]

Imagine what happens if a WC and Richmond final eventually happens?

I don't remember there ever being one, yet there seems to be this growing rivalry.

A few posters on this forum bitching at each other is a rivalry? There is no rivalry with WC, they're just another side we beat on the way to our massive premiership win

 

[Freomaniac]

Gotta love these AFL experts. 5 years ago, it was about this premiership standard of averaging 100 points a game in attack and concede no more than 85 or 86 points in attack. That's bastardization theory has been killed off in each of the Last 4 years.

Dogs in 2016 averaged 84 points in attack and. 72 in defence

Tiger's in 2017 averaging 90.5 point in attack and 76.5 points in defence.

Eagles in 2018 averaged 91 points in attack and 75 in defence. Their opponents in Collingwood averaged 93 points in attack, 77 in defence.

Richmond in 2019 averaging 86 points a game and 73 in defence while GWS posted similar stats

 

[Soberian Tiger]

A few posters on this forum bitching at each other is a rivalry? There is no rivalry with WC, they're just another side we beat on the way to our massive premiership win

The hint of bemusement in my comment didn't transfer well, it seems?

The WC-R rivalry currently seems to blow in largely from one direction and it has little to do with the club out west and more to do with some of the supporters.

Complaining about Vicbias seems to be the reason Bigfooty exists!

 

[BBC1967]

Waiting for tiger v wc poster shitfight.

............... And now.

You spend an awful lot of time round here yourself....

 

[Scotland]

The WC-R rivalry currently seems to blow in largely from one direction and it has little to do with the club out west and more to do with some of the supporters.

What WC-R rivalry? The two teams have never met in finals.

You won a flag which really had nothing to do with us as we made the 8 by about a goal or two in the last game. We won a flag and flogged you en route, your fans talked a big game about how it didn't matter because it was in Perth and how you would've beaten us in the GF etc. If you can't beat Collingwood who we beat 3 times it's not really relevant. You won a flag this year after a tough Rd 22 game which was a genuine 8 pointer. We win you neither you or us goes on to win the flag, IMO. The AFL has FINALLY (first time since 2009) fixtured two games between Richmond and WC this year.

In answer to the OP, stats are useless but it's not really Richmond's doing. Stats are useless because there are so many of them and people endlessly use them to draw conclusions after the fact. Dustin Martin led the league in clangers in 2017, all while putting up one of the great individual seasons by a player. The guy who made the most mistakes and was top 3 for giving away frees was also the best in the comp - by a mile. He did get the most kicks and inside 50s but by that metric the two best players in 2019 were Tom Stewart and Dayne Zorko.

Most of the traditional stats are warped by how the game is played (getting 30 touches used to be rare) and most of the new stats are convoluted horseshit. Richmond win games because they have some top quality players in the middle and forward line and a solid defensive unit. They flesh that out with a bunch of energetic ground level players and either move the ball quickly or place their opponent under pressure. Don't really need a spreadsheet developed by David King to tell me that. It works and one day it will stop working and/or personnel changes will mean another strategy is better.

All the AFL 'analysts' (ex players with no other skills) need to go and spend some time following the NBA. They have a small number of basic stats that mean something and then a raft of more complicated ones. The commentators don't just obsess over how many times each player has touched the ball in a game.

 

[Kwality]

GWS had one more stat than the tigers in the GF but lost by 89 points. Incredible! Often, I saw losing coaches against the tigers in press conferences lament how they won this stat or that stat yet lost the game and were suitably miffed ( Re Fagan in his two encounters against them- watch the pressers). They don't rank highly in a number of the so called important key stats but clearly were the best team winning their finals by an average of some 50 plus points, after doing something similar in 2017. Martin has 19 possessions and gets bog, cothcin doesn't rack up numbers but has significant influence etc etc and their knock it on smash it forward style doesn't lend itself to winning a lot of categories relative to their dominance.

Are we measuring the wrong thing? Just how important are they when you have more stats and lose by 89 points?

perhaps its you, a stat in isolation tells you very little, one exception is the scoreboard ..

 

[Kwality]

Here's a stat that matters. In the last sixty years, if Richmond makes top four (including finals), there's almost a 50% chance of a flag (a win this year, should it eventuate, would square it to 50% exactly).

In the national comp, the Tiges have had problems making GFs, no GF no flag. To win 2020 they need back to back GFs, never achieved since the 80s ...

 

[PhatBoy]

Aside obviously for the scoreboard the only stat I put much interest in is inside 50s.

At least it indicates that you can compete generally and if nothing else shows you can force pressure onto an opposition defence. If that defence is good enough - or if your own is very poor - it can be inconsequential but it gives you something to work with.

 

[HTT]

People have rendered stats useless by branding them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
Stats don’t tell you how good a team is at football - unless you count the score as a stat - stats tell you how a team plays football.

 

[GastevsBeard]

they haven't rendered stats useless - stats can always be useful

I would argue though that this tigers team & the 3-peat hawks have challenged assumptions about which stats actually matter. Unfortunately, there is an orthodoxy around the importance of certain metrics (disposal numbers, contested possessions), largely dictated to us by champion data & the fantasy football competitions they facilitate.

As time has gone on these stats are becoming more out of sync with actually winning. It looks silly when teams get smashed, yet "win" on the stats sheet

Hell, even inside 50 differential has become less reliable (cf. Demons 2019)

A step in the right direction would be for champion data to not have a monopoly on match day data. A fresh set of eyes may lead to innovations in football metrics

 

[Carringbush2010]

You spend an awful lot of time round here yourself....

Now my second post on this thread, hardly spending a lot of time.

 

[PetterdHoisted]

Is there a stat for smiles during a game of footy?

A stat for being vulnerable in front of your teammates?

A stat for defining a lived code of honour both on and off the field

A stat for how many different religions/cultures come together in harmony in one team?

A stat for how much a coach loves his players?

If so, then Richmonds recent success should be easy to statistically summarise.

 

[Topkent]

But getting back to the point. In early '17 I felt confident as a long-suffering supporter and that it would happen by being an anti-data team.

Too many footy statistics are like too many cooks. They can spoil the broth.

Irrespective of whether or not this thread was started by a Geelong or Richmond barracker, it poses a fair enough question.

No it doesn't. You could go back to the Hawks being the worst contested touch side in the competition and winning 3 flags on the bounce when everyone else was focused on that stat.

End of the day different styles bring about different stats.

A good measure of the Eagles is uncontested marks, Richmond want the ball on the ground.

Melbourne want to win contested possession. Collingwood want the ball on the outside.

Stats tell whatever story you want them to tell.

 

[BBC1967]

T

Now my second post on this thread, hardly spending a lot of time.

You seem to be stalking Tiges and Eagles supporters?

 

[dean33]

Well champion data just rated lynch, Cotchin and grimes as “average” players and they are all stats based. I imagine most clubs look beyond just stats when analysing the game.

 

[Cotchins Hair Piece]

Do stats have to be useful in the first place?

 

[juss]

Stats are very useful, you just need to know which ones to place emphasis on and how to use them. Clubs know this, generally the average Bigfooty punter doesn't.

The key performance indicators vary for each club with a few commonalities, but they are all trying to do different things based on their gameplans and strategies, and so would emphasize different stats to measure those.

 

[SunshineBoy]

Gotta love these AFL experts. 5 years ago, it was about this premiership standard of averaging 100 points a game in attack and concede no more than 85 or 86 points in attack. That's bastardization theory has been killed off in each of the Last 4 years.

Dogs in 2016 averaged 84 points in attack and. 72 in defence

Tiger's in 2017 averaging 90.5 point in attack and 76.5 points in defence.

Eagles in 2018 averaged 91 points in attack and 75 in defence. Their opponents in Collingwood averaged 93 points in attack, 77 in defence.


Richmond in 2019 averaging 86 points a game and 73 in defence while GWS posted similar stats

the only stat that counts is the one on the scoreboard at the end of the game, all the others are done for the betting agencies

 

[FRUMPY]

Have the Tigers rendered stats useless?

No. Champion Data has.

Never a truer word spoken

 

[owen87]

Gotta love these AFL experts. 5 years ago, it was about this premiership standard of averaging 100 points a game in attack and concede no more than 85 or 86 points in attack. That's bastardization theory has been killed off in each of the Last 4 years.

Dogs in 2016 averaged 84 points in attack and. 72 in defence

Tiger's in 2017 averaging 90.5 point in attack and 76.5 points in defence.

Eagles in 2018 averaged 91 points in attack and 75 in defence. Their opponents in Collingwood averaged 93 points in attack, 77 in defence.

Richmond in 2019 averaging 86 points a game and 73 in defence while GWS posted similar stats

Average scoring is down, but if you look at the ratio of attack : defence you end up with similar outcomes;

100 / 86 = 1.16
2016 = 1.16
2017 = 1.18
2018 = 1.21
2019 = 1.17

So the stat holds albeit adjusted for current scoring trends, successful terms score on average 16% more than they concede in a premiership winning season.

 

[nick1408]

Gotta love these AFL experts. 5 years ago, it was about this premiership standard of averaging 100 points a game in attack and concede no more than 85 or 86 points in attack. That's bastardization theory has been killed off in each of the Last 4 years.

Dogs in 2016 averaged 84 points in attack and. 72 in defence

Tiger's in 2017 averaging 90.5 point in attack and 76.5 points in defence.

Eagles in 2018 averaged 91 points in attack and 75 in defence. Their opponents in Collingwood averaged 93 points in attack, 77 in defence.

Richmond in 2019 averaging 86 points a game and 73 in defence while GWS posted similar stats

The only stat I followed in 2017 was 76 points. If Richmond kicked 76 points they didn't lose. If they kicked 75 or less they lost.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

Stats have always been only half the game, the AFL count a lot of insignificant stats but that is mainly to keep us interested.
I will never forget one day in the coaching box that my assistant coach just kept telling me that one player from the opposition was carving it up and getting possession after possession, I had to remind him at half time we were 9 goals up and I was not worried about it.
There are many players in the AFL that accumulate large numbers in the stats column yet I feel have little influence on the game, it is contributions across the entire 22 that win you games not 2-3 players racking up high numbers.
My club the Eagles have a bad habit of having consistently 8-10 players a game that touch the ball less than 10 times a game and I have always believed this is an issue, yet we have been reasonably successful while this happens. It is not a good template though in my opinion. It’s a balancing act with player output and their roles but I have always had trouble wrapping my head around players running around fir two hours in a footy game yet struggle to find the ball much in a so called best of the best comp.

 

[owen87]

Stats have always been only half the game, the AFL count a lot of insignificant stats but that is mainly to keep us interested.
I will never forget one day in the coaching box that my assistant coach just kept telling me that one player from the opposition was carving it up and getting possession after possession, I had to remind him at half time we were 9 goals up and I was not worried about it.
There are many players in the AFL that accumulate large numbers in the stats column yet I feel have little influence on the game, it is contributions across the entire 22 that win you games not 2-3 players racking up high numbers.
My club the Eagles have a bad habit of having consistently 8-10 players a game that touch the ball less than 10 times a game and I have always believed this is an issue, yet we have been reasonably successful while this happens. It is not a good template though in my opinion. It’s a balancing act with player output and their roles but I have always had trouble wrapping my head around players running around fir two hours in a footy game yet struggle to find the ball much in a so called best of the best comp.

There's certainly players that provide much more value per disposal; look at Jetta against Essendon in the finals last year, absolutely carved us up. You'd much rather Jetta having 20 disposals than a Priddis type racking up 30.