How to fix footy?

[4THAWN]

Not sure why we're always losing free kick counts, but it's a trend.

Hawks have lost the Free kick count 9 times out of the last 11 games.

r18 2019 v Geelong -8 free kicks
r19 2019 v Bris +6 free kicks
r20 2019 v North -5 free kicks
r21 2019 v GWS -6 free kicks
r22 2019 v Suns -2 free kicks
r23 2019 v Eagles -1 free kicks
r1 2020 v Bris +5 free kicks
r2 2020 v Geel -7 free kicks
r3 2020 v Rich -4 free kicks
r4 2020 v North -9 free kicks
r5 2020 v GWS -14 free kicks

Overall -45 free kicks in last 11 games (average of -4 free kicks per game)


Anyone have a potential reason why we get smashed on free's every week?

Further stats from https://afltables.com/afl/stats/frees.html

Hawthorn in 2020 have only received 72.9% of the number of free kicks awarded to it's opposition, the clear lowest in the AFL.

Next worst is Essendon, sitting at 78.57%, then Geelong @ 81%.

On the other end of the spectrum, North Melbourne has received a whopping 146% of the amount of opposition free kicks so far this year. Collingwood (129%) are next best followed by the Demons at 121%.

 

[Pessimistic]

Further stats from https://afltables.com/afl/stats/frees.html

Hawthorn in 2020 have only received 72.9% of the number of free kicks awarded to it's opposition, the clear lowest in the AFL.

Next worst is Essendon, sitting at 78.57%, then Geelong @ 81%.

On the other end of the spectrum, North Melbourne has received a whopping 146% of the amount of opposition free kicks so far this year. Collingwood (129%) are next best followed by the Demons at 121%.

Which sucks because North are the kings of niggle and the most likely to whinge (although brad scott is gone now)

 

[MatteeG]

Scoring per minute actually peaked in 2000. Looking back at the same period and adding trend lines, we can see that scoring per minute rose through the period of 1980 to 2000 and then falls away again from 2000 to 2019.

I reckon the sharp peak in 2000 is a direct result of indoor games at the dome v outdoor games in the elements. The subsequent drop coming with improved defence etc.

 

[Pessimistic]

I reckon the sharp peak in 2000 is a direct result of indoor games at the dome v outdoor games in the elements. The subsequent drop coming with improved defence etc.

20 or so games moved from a huge ground to a much smaller one

 

[CliffMcTainshaw]

View attachment 907083
From this I'd suggest that tackling pressure forced teams to kick out of stoppages more than handball. You can see in the last few years that tackling per min declined slightly which was associated with a decline in handballs per minute. From about 2008 until 2020 the handball curve is like an exaggerated complement of the tackle curve. Kicks generally upward trending through the same period. I think most of this movement is due to tactical changes as opposed to rule changes. But it could also be the 90 interchange cap reduced the ability of runners to get free so less handballs and more long kicks down the line.

Agree, tactical changes are the cause. Players are instructed to maintain possession. This results in hot potato handballs to keep the ball from the opposition.
Your graphs may also indicate that less handballs results in less tackling which should give a more free flowing game. Playing hot potato with the ball means wasted time, no progress with the movement of the ball, more tackles and a more congested game.
You give the man gathering the ball prior opportunity, but if he handballs to anyone, that person doesn’t get any prior opportunity and he has to get rid of it before he’s tackled. If he’s tackled and doesn’t dispose of the ball a free kick is awarded.
I could see that coaches may try to manipulate it by getting their players to handball to the opposition and then pounce on them. It could be changed to only apply if they handball to their team mates.

 

[Brishawk]

Not sure why we're always losing free kick counts, but it's a trend.

Hawks have lost the Free kick count 9 times out of the last 11 games.

r18 2019 v Geelong -8 free kicks
r19 2019 v Bris +6 free kicks
r20 2019 v North -5 free kicks
r21 2019 v GWS -6 free kicks
r22 2019 v Suns -2 free kicks
r23 2019 v Eagles -1 free kicks
r1 2020 v Bris +5 free kicks
r2 2020 v Geel -7 free kicks
r3 2020 v Rich -4 free kicks
r4 2020 v North -9 free kicks
r5 2020 v GWS -14 free kicks

Overall -45 free kicks in last 11 games (average of -4 free kicks per game)


Anyone have a potential reason why we get smashed on free's every week?

Here is a chart of the Clarkson Era:

The Unsociable Hawks of 2008 were heavily in the red on Free kick differentials. The current season is far worse!

Here is the Cats: Note the large positive differential in 2008. So not only did we need to overcome the invincible cats, we also had to overcome the umpires


Here is the dogs during the same period:

Their biggest differential is in 2016 when they won the premiership. The differential is roughly the same as Hawthorn in 2008 but reversed so that they had a positive number of net free kicks while we had a negative.

But neither have anything on the Eagles!

Umpires bringing them back to earth for the first time??

 

[Spursfan]

Those graphs are damning. I've got no doubt there is a high correlation when Clarko (quite rightly) calls out the umpiring for the blue line to go down and red line to go up on that first one.

 

[Pessimistic]

LOL at the people howling about Clarko being able to institute a 'rule change'

All he did is ask for the current rules to be followed. No outrage that umpiring had strayed away form the rules significantly

 

[Brishawk]

Preliminary model complete for the period 2000 to 2020. I chose this period to minimise the lag impacts of implementing different interchange numbers as well as the rapid rise in professionalism that occurred through the 90s. I include 18 variables plus dummy variables for each year (except 2000). I also included a lag variable from the previous year relating to goals per min. This allowed me to capture better teams as opposed to worse teams. It was the largest effect over scoring i.e. teams that scored more in the year before tended to score more in the following year. Variables include:

'G_per_min_lag1', 'substitues', 'cap_120', 'cap_90', 'head_high','miscoduct_free','flag_wave_kickin', 'boundary_10m', 'kick_in_to_self', 'prior_opportunity', 'mark_dist', 'HO_per_min','T_per_min', 'M_per_min', 'K_per_min', 'HB_per_min','FF_per_min','FA_per_min'.

The idea is that if I control for the yearly differences and the rule changes, I should be able to determine which basic statistics correlate with higher scores. I can't use more sophisticated statistics due to them not being available for most of the time period.

As you can see (if you know statistics) it explains the overall trend pretty well although it tends to predict slightly more goals scored than actually occurs at low levels and less goals than is actually scored at high levels.


The chart below shows that the model does produces the same mean as the actual line (you can't see the blue line) but has a narrower confidence interval around that line. Essentially, it does well near the mean but doesn't cater for extremes as well. This is expected of this kind of model.



The model indicates that only one of the rules introduced by the AFL increased scoring. They mostly reduced it, except for the mark distance, which had no impact. The rule that increased scoring was the ability to run straight into the field of play after a behind as opposed to kicking it to yourself. Kind of makes sense given you can get the ball further away from your goal and increase your chances of a neutral territory stoppage.

Every statistical category (whiteouts, tackles, kicks, handballs, frees for, frees against) except marks increases scoring. It is counter intuitive that more marks leads to lower scoring while more frees against leads to higher scoring. I think what it tells us is that more marks means slower play and less likely to score. Regarding frees against, I can only assume that better teams play closer to the edge and so they give away more frees but also score more goals. I don't think it is causal that you give away more frees and score more goals! The effect of frees against is about 5 times larger than the effect for frees for meaning for every free against, you need to get about 5 frees for to have the same statistical impact on goal scoring!

Tackles is the most interesting statistic. It shows that in any given year, teams that tackle more score more goals. So when we think about the incentive for congestion, a team is incentivised to tackle more in order to score more even though as teams have sought to congest the play more in order to increase their tackles more. This has led to an overall decline in scoring. So teams have an inventive to tackle more because they will score more relative to their opponent but overall tackling as led to a league wide decline in scoring!

Kicking more leads to a higher level of scoring but more marks leads to a lower level of scoring. So the statistics indicate it is less important to mark than ball and that ball retention following a spilled mark is likely the factor that determines goal scoring success. This may be why we see tall forwards prioritise bringing the ball to ground over contested marking. It makes it more likely that your team will scoring more goals than trying to mark. But that is a bit of speculation on my part. I'd suggest the Hawthorn team of 2011-2016 was probably an outlier among those statistics.

The effect of kicking is nearly 5 times larger than hand balling. So running the ball by hands hasn't been as effective as kicking long by foot in terms of scoring goals.

Most of the year dummies are not statistically significant so I'm capturing most of the effects on goal scoring through the rules and through the basic statistics.

The rule with the largest negative impact on scoring was bringing the ball 10m in from the boundary for throw ins. It made it far more risky to do anything other than crowd numbers around the fall of the ball to prevent an easy score. This is a classic example of a rule designed to increase scoring having the opposite effect. They increase the risk of throw ins in the defensive 50 so coaches seek to minimise the risk through congestion. A throw in in your defensive 50 becomes frightening so you push extra numbers back which reduces the chances of an opposition score and reduces the chances of your team scoring also because even if you win the ball, you likely just kick it back to the opposition or maybe you get lucky with a stoppage. Similarly, not having to wait for the umpire to wave the flag resulted in teams not pushing so hard into their fifty so they could be better positioned for a quick kick out and stop the ball getting out of their attacking 50.

The negative impact of the 120 interchange cap was significant at about 84% level of confidence. However the 90 interchange cap was statistically significant at any level. I recall another poster suggested that the lower interchange lowered scoring. I don't think my model is definitive but it certainly supports this argument.

Frees for misconduct have also led to lower scoring. Probably because players learnt to antagonise their opponents when the opposition had a free kick or a mark in order in the forward half in order to get it reversed. Well done AFL on that one... :/

 

[Pessimistic]

Most strategies have been countered over VFL AFL history.

Is there any sense that the whole team defence is an endgame? Note that while Hawks restricted the Giants inside 50s significantly, once they did penetrate they scored efficiantly.

This is the soft exposed side of whole team defence, always was, but a coach knows that it will be a positive much more often.

 

[westaussie76]

Just revert to the rules when the game was invented and umpire the game accordingly!

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Brishawk]

Most strategies have been countered over VFL AFL history.

Is there any sense that the whole team defence is an endgame? Note that while Hawks restricted the Giants inside 50s significantly, once they did penetrate they scored efficiantly.

This is the soft exposed side of whole team defence, always was, but a coach knows that it will be a positive much more often.

What I can't capture in the model is the refinement of interpretations that have occurred overtime and that also shape the way the game is played. There is no doubt that in 2016 the umpiring was more lenient on holding the ball and incorrect disposal (the later in particular) which greatly favoured the bulldogs. The dogs wouldn't have made the grand final, let alone win it, without an interpretation that allowed for throwing the ball out of tackles.

In a post I made a couple of years ago I discussed the bulldogs victory as signalling a departure from structural football. Even prior to Clarko, coaches were utilising tactics to make the game predictable to their players. There was a push to create stoppages in order to reset play and allow the team to impose their defensive structures (spare men and floods etc.). Clarko embraced this and took the game further by using defensive structures as part of an offensive strategy. The midfield press implemented in 2008 was labeled as an example of total football. In 2016 the bulldogs essentially used the leniency on throwing to deny opposition clubs the opportunity to implement structural football. Teams would send 2-3 players to tackle and the dogs would simply throw the ball out to a spare and run off with the ball. This put much more of the game in an unstructured setting.

Richmond embraced unstructured football also but primarily as an offensive approach. Instead of trying to architect clean stoppage clearances, they were content to set up forwards to expect grubbers and short hacks forward while defences were set for a long high ball. This drew in a lot of players around the ball and they would not let all their numbers get drawn in so that they had outside players to give it to in space which did not require precision foot skills. If the opposition did win the ball, they were not able to run the ball forward due to Richmonds forwards having come up to the contest. This meant a lot of long high balls to Richmonds very good intercept marking defenders. It took three years but I think teams now realise you don't implement a hard press against Richmond and instead hold their forwards accountable. Defensively they used their zone to deny short passes and encourage the long kick to play into their aerial superiority. So in essence, they were structural defensively and much more unstructured offensively.

So I see the future of football as a tussle between structured and unstructured football that will have ebbs and flows back and forth as one style gains ascendancy. Teams will most likely implement defensive tactics to reset the play into a structured setting but approaches to offence will likely be where the innovations most emerge if the rules are stable. Innovation in most spaces is increased in response to change but I feel the first effort of coaches is to find ways to defend against changes and then look for an approach to offence. I feel Clarko has been reluctant to embrace unstructured approaches to offence but that may be a reflection of the players we have on our list. We very much play to a familiar pattern and seldom choose the corridor.

 

[Brishawk]

Just to add further, the aim of modern football is to deny the opposition uncontested possessions because it is the best way to lower disposal efficiency.



It actually has little to do with contested possessions:

We can see the emergence of unstructured football and the unwillingness of teams to allow intercept marks in the chart below. Rising intercepts correlating with lower tackles (with marks the same) could speak to a more unstructured setting where it is difficult to string chains of possessions together for large periods of time. Intercept marks are hard but picking off loose balls kicked to space out of heavy congestion is a common sight in modern football.

 

[toomanysquibs]

Richmond embraced unstructured football also but primarily as an offensive approach. Instead of trying to architect clean stoppage clearances, they were content to set up forwards to expect grubbers and short hacks forward while defences were set for a long high ball. This drew in a lot of players around the ball and they would not let all their numbers get drawn in so that they had outside players to give it to in space which did not require precision foot skills. If the opposition did win the ball, they were not able to run the ball forward due to Richmonds forwards having come up to the contest. This meant a lot of long high balls to Richmonds very good intercept marking defenders. It took three years but I think teams now realise you don't implement a hard press against Richmond and instead hold their forwards accountable. Defensively they used their zone to deny short passes and encourage the long kick to play into their aerial superiority. So in essence, they were structural defensively and much more unstructured offensively.

That's spot on, but at the risk of disagreeing with you on structure... T=the attacking part of Richmond's game is equally, if not more structured - it's built on a 'wave of bodies' running through each contest. Their game requires hyperbolic/bezerker level attack on the football and opposition player within each Richmond player's designated running zone, so that they outnumber and keep the ball moving forward in any way they can.

It looks like chaos, but it's super disciplined as well.

It just has the side effect of providing options when a player has the ball in space, given the players are implementing the plan of running hard forward to provide the outnumber and overlap.

This is why the hacked kicks, and incredible transformation of a former spud in Bachar Houli, who is suddenly a more effective player as the designated kicker delivering to multiple transition targets. I'm sure development comes into it as well, but he has won an AA now. No way you could see that coming until this current gameplan materialised.

Without this insane chaos and repeat physical efforts, the hacking kicks and knock ons etc. wouldn't work. It's a style that is almost built on the Rioli/Poppy/Bruest fast breaks, performed at a team level with a stay at home back six who outnumber in defence when teams respond by getting pulled up the field with a press (as you point out).

It leads to an opponent whose players have to run further, despite Richmond looking to be the team that is running hardest and more often.

That style relies as much on the sustained application of a playing group hitting each contest with extreme explosiveness, and using rotations, not just the kicks being hacked forward. It's more bodies hitting the resulting contests at pace with greater numbers than it is the use of hacked kicks.

I think their small forward play owes a lot to what Hardwick saw of Poppy and Rioli with Breust over the years. He just took that, and built a team style around it.

 

[Brishawk]

That's spot on, but at the risk of disagreeing with you on structure... T=the attacking part of Richmond's game is equally, if not more structured - it's built on a 'wave of bodies' running through each contest. Their game requires hyperbolic/bezerker level attack on the football and opposition player within each Richmond player's designated running zone, so that they outnumber and keep the ball moving forward in any way they can.

It looks like chaos, but it's super disciplined as well.

It just has the side effect of providing options when a player has the ball in space, given the players are implementing the plan of running hard forward to provide the outnumber and overlap.

This is why the hacked kicks, and incredible transformation of a former spud in Bachar Houli, who is suddenly a more effective player as the designated kicker delivering to multiple transition targets. I'm sure development comes into it as well, but he has won an AA now. No way you could see that coming until this current gameplan materialised.

Without this insane chaos and repeat physical efforts, the hacking kicks and knock ons etc. wouldn't work. It's a style that is almost built on the Rioli/Poppy/Bruest fast breaks, performed at a team level with a stay at home back six who outnumber in defence when teams respond by getting pulled up the field with a press (as you point out).

It leads to an opponent whose players have to run further, despite Richmond looking to be the team that is running hardest and more often.

That style relies as much on the sustained application of a playing group hitting each contest with extreme explosiveness, and using rotations, not just the kicks being hacked forward. It's more bodies hitting the resulting contests at pace with greater numbers than it is the use of hacked kicks.

I think their small forward play owes a lot to what Hardwick saw of Poppy and Rioli with Breust over the years. He just took that, and built a team style around it.

Richmond’s offence is certainly planned But not necessarily structured in the way a zone is. It is less about precise positioning and synchronised movement and more about areas and being able to maximise opportunities from chaos. It prevents the opposition establishing structures by denying them set piece situations. Contrast this with hawthorn where we are very happy to create stoppages as part of our offence. We love nothing better than getting a forward footy stoppage to establish our zone and keep the ball in our half until we score.

 

[JoondalupJ]

I agree with Clarko.

The other change in rule interpretation I would like to see is "in the back".

In a marking contest, the mere hint of a player touching the back of his opponent with the palm of his hand is enough to give away a free kick.

But when a player is on the ground with the ball, often after winning a contest, the opposition always jump onto his back to try to stop him getting the ball away. If this was paid "in the back" then the game would open up a lot more.

I would like to see the END of incidental touching used to create a pandemic of free kicks , that stop motion, contest , contact, and on too many occasions , create scoring and scoring opportunities, but every week some massively easy to dispute decision gets someone a shot on goal. a little tagging of each other cost our opponents a 50 m penalty, GAVE Shaun Burgoyne a can't miss goal, it was a goal fine for us, it was not got on merit , those sorts of free kick domination of scoring is like the two free shots fouls in basketball, there are so many grey rules, but I have been saying this for so long and the lack of enjoyment because of at least half the frees being incidental touching or so debatable , it is something that has people in my family not watching any more, any games. I still do a few a week, but it is looking woeful right now, but that has been happening for many years now.
The game does not need speeding up, collision injuries are happening far more than ever before and no one can kick straight from a set shot.
This kicking puts this modern form which is barely Aussie rules, to shame.
Ruck duels should have no free kick areas for umps to pull bullsh*t frees from, sending a footy into the forward line with no competitiveness at all.
Punching the arms from a defender that is one of the worst when you may as well stand back and let the bloke in front mark, don't defend just stop and watch , yeah thats great NOT? THERE ARE MANY MORE. You folks have a go.

 

[Brishawk]

Another interesting find in the data.

Since the bulldogs premiership in 2016, the premier has been far below the runner up in generating uncontested possessions. Quite likely this is due to the speed of movement generated by the unstructured (avoidance of set pieces) style of play against more structured teams which place a higher emphasis on ball retention.


We can see this coincides with a a shift away from the benefits of handball. between 2011 and 2016 the premier was always above average (and above the runner up) in number of handballs. Richmond and West Coast represent major departures from that trend. Again, the additional congestion created by the unstructured play (which draws more players in around the ball) killed off the benefit of using handball to exit congestion. The dogs used throws to escape congestion and then handball to run the ball forward so generated a lot of uncontested possessions and a lot of handballs.


The impact unstructured play has had on the value of clearances appears to be quite negative but we must be careful of this conclusion as unstructured play is designed to avoid stoppages so those teams, from the dogs onwards, are likely to just be in less stoppages rather than be necessarily bad at clearances. But the difference between the premier and the runner up is quite stark from 2016 onwards.

 

[LuckyHawk]

A major problem in today's game is the unwillingness of umpires to pay free kicks against
players who deliberately infringe. You could almost call it cheating as they know the umps
are weak and will only pay a fraction of what they should. As a result, illegal holding, scragging,
pushing in the back and blocking have also helped ruin the game.

 

[Brishawk]

A major problem in today's game is the unwillingness of umpires to pay free kicks against
players who deliberately infringe. You could almost call it cheating as they know the umps
are weak and will only pay a fraction of what they should. As a result, illegal holding, scragging,
pushing in the back and blocking have also helped ruin the game.

Trying taking a mark against someone who is allowed to hold you or who just crashes into your back with one arm above his head. Just about impossible yet it is a feature of every marking contest between forward and back.

and the holding at stoppages is also a constant feature. Could do worse than pay more of those free kicks.

 

[LuckyHawk]

Trying taking a mark against someone who is allowed to hold you or who just crashes into your back with one arm above his head. Just about impossible yet it is a feature of every marking contest between forward and back.

and the holding at stoppages is also a constant feature. Could do worse than pay more of those free kicks.

I'm sure the original rule was a player can spoil but not interfere with the marking player. As you say that
rarely happens which is plain wrong for the game. Playing in front (bar leading) is a waste of time
as the player is not protected nearly enough. What ever happened to man in front has the advantage?
Wayne Carey once said there was no way he positioned himself in front when a long ball came in.

 

[LuckyHawk]

After watching last night's debacle l'm convinced we have to get rid of all the assistant coaches, planners,
skills coaches, analysts etc. All of which add to the strangulation of the game through unwatchable over
structured rubbish we now call footy. One coach, an assistant and that's it. Let the players have freedom
in their play and that means get rid of the runners. Atm the players must run out with their heads full of
structured this and that. Be a lot cheaper for clubs as well. Sick of watching rubbish.

 

[Brishawk]

I'm sure the original rule was a player can spoil but not interfere with the marking player. As you say that
rarely happens which is plain wrong for the game. Playing in front (bar leading) is a waste of time
as the player is not protected nearly enough. What ever happened to man in front has the advantage?
Wayne Carey once said there was no way he positioned himself in front when a long ball came in.

I watch the Ablett doco on his 1993 season on Friday. Lot is marking contests in the video and only saw one player go even close to wrapping the arms around an opponent. And a free was paid against in that case. The player was mick Martyn.


the image above was of Gunston taking a mark. The push in the back was not given fifty and rarely paid a free kick. it happens to Gunston on virtually every lead and many over head marks. Also to Tim O’Brien. It is a blight on the game and dangerous.

this is the sequence that of shots immediately before impey did his acl. This should be an automatic fifty meters every time as it is an intentional infringement designed to force the umpire to give a player a shot at goal rather than allow them to mark. Players used to whack opponents in the head and the afl cracked down on it and it is gone from the game. This should have similar treatment and maybe it would actually encourage players to lead at the ball because their would be a good chance the opponent can’t defend it. If you allow defenders to push players from behind like this then why would anyone lead and risk injury for a likely dropped mark?

 

[Buzz Hawk]

Here is a chart of the Clarkson Era:
View attachment 907409
The Unsociable Hawks of 2008 were heavily in the red on Free kick differentials. The current season is far worse!

Here is the Cats: Note the large positive differential in 2008. So not only did we need to overcome the invincible cats, we also had to overcome the umpires
View attachment 907421

Here is the dogs during the same period:
View attachment 907415
Their biggest differential is in 2016 when they won the premiership. The differential is roughly the same as Hawthorn in 2008 but reversed so that they had a positive number of net free kicks while we had a negative.

But neither have anything on the Eagles!
View attachment 907420
Umpires bringing them back to earth for the first time??

Fascinating data there BH thanks.
The Eagles graph is particularly illuminating and says to me the home crowd factor has a tremendous, (perhaps subconscious), impact on the umpires.
Not necessarily saying it's causation (although quite frankly, I think I am saying that!) but there is a definite correlation there (although you would need to drill down further into the analysis and compare last year to date games - ie how many did the eagles play at home up till round 6 etc).
Regardless, great stuff.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

LOL at the people howling about Clarko being able to institute a 'rule change'

All he did is ask for the current rules to be followed. No outrage that umpiring had strayed away form the rules significantly

I couldn't believe Luke Beveridge's comments about Clarko wanting to change the rules. I always suspected Luke wasn't too bright.

 

[burger09]

If the aim is to get the game closer to how it was played in the 80s 90s then we need to look at what's changed.

There was no such thing as rotations. Rotions increase the ability of players to get to more contests resulting in greater congestion and impeading clean ball movement.

Minimal rotations mean players must rest on field which helps enable the next point...

Players playing more traditional positions.
To encourage traditional positional play, a rule to enforce coaches to keep players in the f50 is needed. Something like a minimum of 2 forwards and their defenders to be inside the f50 at every stoppage.

Both changes eliviate congestion and encourage fast ball movement as teams always have forwards in position to kick to.

Worth a trial at least. One thing we shouldn't do is ask the coaches. Control freaks with self interest at heart.