Analysis Inexperience watch

[Ironmonger]

Time to bring this thread back to life for round 1 of the 2014 season. The Lions go into the game with what is a fairly inexperienced line up. The Hawks have a suprising amount of younger players, but still definitely have a clear experience edge.

The most important experience numbers for this match are 11 vs. 7. Half of the Lions team has yet to play 50 games compared to 7 Hawthorn players. Below is a more detailed run-down of each teams games played.

• Less than 25 games played - Lions 6 vs. Hawks 5
• 25 to 49 games - Lions 5 vs. Hawks 2
• 50 to 99 games - Lions 6 vs. Hawks 7
• 100 to 199 games - Lions 4 vs. Hawks 5
• 200+ games - Lions 1 vs. Hawks 3

Obviously both teams have a number of experienced players out injured or reported. What is suprising for me is that despite our inexperience neither Raines, Bewick, Maguire nor Polkinghorne could get a game.

It should be good experience for our three debutants - I just hope it doesn't get ugly with just an underdone Brown and no other experienced key forward in our team.

Closer than I though actually.

Sobering to have half the squad with fewer than 50 games, though.

 

[Haso]

Love your work Last of the Roys

 

[jackess]

Rich and Redden are on the verge of moving up a bracket.

 

[a mayes ing]

Really looking forward to watching Taylor. Our next Brent Harvey.

 

[blynd_freddie]

Rich and Redden are on the verge of moving up a bracket.

Ssshhh! part of my preview next week.

 

[Viceregal]

Rich and Redden are on the verge of moving up a bracket.

Ignoring the shhh ... where do you see how many games someone has played? (Mods can move to numpty if qualifies better there)

 

[winged1]

Ignoring the shhh ... where do you see how many games someone has played? (Mods can move to numpty if qualifies better there)

Lions site, current players, has there games, goals etc.

 

[Last of the Roys]

So this week Lions vs. Geelong:
(keep in mind I look at games played leading into the game, so that means I count Rich and Redden as being on 99 games experience and Mackie on 199)

• 0 to 24 games - Lions 7 vs. Cats 6
• 25 to 49 games - Lions 5 vs. Cats 2
• 50 to 99 games - Lions 5 vs. Cats 2
• 100 to 199 games - Lions 4 vs. Cats 8
• 200+ games - Lions 1 vs. Cats 4

So as you can see a very inexperienced Lions side is coming up against an extremely experienced Cats side. We have 12 players in the team with less than 50 games experience compared to just 8 from the Cats. There is an even bigger difference at the other end of the scale, with only 5 Lions players going into the game with 100 games or more experience vs. 12 of the Cats team.

I think the best hope we have is that the Cats might wilt in the heat / humidity. If that doesn't happen I think we might struggle to be as competitive as last week.

 

[Last of the Roys]

Round 3 - Lions vs. Gold Coast

• 0 to 24 games - Lions 7 vs. GC 5
• 25 to 49 games - Lions 4 vs. GC 7
• 50 to 99 games - Lions 4 vs. GC 7
• 100 to 199 games - Lions 6 vs. GC 2
• 200+ games - Lions 1 vs. GC 1

So on my main measure this season, the Lions and Gold Coast go into the game fairly even with 11 (Lions) and 12 (GC) players respectively with less than 50 games experience. Obviously we have more players at the very bottom end of the scale (1 too many IMO), but also more in the 100+ game bracket (7 Lions to GC 3).

The game is there to be won, experience shouldn't be too much of a factor this week - I guess if anything it is slightly in our favour if our players in the 100-199 game bracket stand up.

 

[jackess]

Very interesting this week.

 

[Ironmonger]

Worth bearing in mind that of the Suns' seven players with 50+ games experience most of them only just meet that category - Swallow 53, Prestia 53, Shaw 54, McKenzie 59 and Stanley 60.

Of our 4 only West (56 games) is in that sort of range.

So if there is a magic number around the 50 mark I reckon that works to our advantage.

We should win this game. We are fielding a better team than Gold Coast are.

 

[Lionheart182]

Worth bearing in mind that of the Suns' seven players with 50+ games experience most of them only just meet that category - Swallow 53, Prestia 53, Shaw 54, McKenzie 59 and Stanley 60.

Of our 4 only West (56 games) is in that sort of range.

So if there is a magic number around the 50 mark I reckon that works to our advantage.

We should win this game. We are fielding a better team than Gold Coast are.

Didn't realise West was so inexperienced. Could expect a bit more improvement in that case.

 

[western royboy]

Didn't realise West was so inexperienced. Could expect a bit more improvement in that case.

He's been the third banana in various Cat regime's and they have had a plethora of talented bigmen, Ottens, Mark Blake, Mumford and now Blicavs, Dawson Simpson and Hamish McIntosh amongst others etc, etc.

Plenty of experience but low miles.

 

[Caiphus]

And 2 of our 100 gamers are only heading in to 101...

 

[Last of the Roys]

A bit of a scary one this week with 3 experienced players forced out and a deliberate choice to play more kids. But I guess it could have been worse had we being playing a very experienced side:

Round 4 - Lions vs. Port

• (0 to 10 games - Lions 6 vs. PA 2)
• 0 to 24 games - Lions 9 vs. PA 5
• 25 to 49 games - Lions 4 vs. PA 5
• 50 to 99 games - Lions 4 vs. PA 4
• 100 to 199 games - Lions 4 vs. PA 6
• 200+ games - Lions 1 vs. PA 2

Still it is not pretty experience-wise with 9 Lions players having less than 25 games experience and 6 of those less than 10 games. If you take a 0-49 games bracket it is a bit more respectable 13 Lions to 10 Port. But gee, this is an extremely inexperienced Lions side that would do well if it could stay competitive for 2-3 quarters.

We haven't played more than 9 very inexperienced (less than 25 game) players in a side since I have begun looking at the numbers from 2012 onwards (this will be the 5th time in the last 48 matches that we have played 9).

And finally, there have been 6 away matches since the start of 2012 where we have had at least 4 more very inexperienced players than our opposition - our record is 0-6 in those matches with an average loss of 60 points. So people shouldn't expect too much on Saturday - let's hope we can buck the trend and show some competitive spirit in the face of adversity.

 

[John]

Another quality post LOTR. Keep the good work up.

 

[Haso]

The return of Staker, McGrath and Mcguane can't come soon enough.

 

[iBeng]

The return of Staker, McGrath and Mcguane can't come soon enough.

Along with the return of confidence.

 

[western royboy]

Port are the third youngest list in the comp behind the two new boys - sobering

 

[Skoob]

The return of Staker, McGrath and Mcguane can't come soon enough.

With Goose being overlooked, would McGrath get a look in anyway?

 

[jjami15]

Port are the third youngest list in the comp behind the two new boys - sobering

I think that we will see that changing at the end of the year where we become an even younger list in the comp. I think that the notion of a 'young list' in part is a bit of a falicy. If you have a look at the respective sides we are the younger team being fielded and it is this fact that should be taken more into account. I would be interested to see how young game (games played) we are compared to the rest of the comp. I would imagine that we would be possibly 16th, 17th or 18th

 

[Milux]

Done some reaearch last night. The players we have named to play tommorrow have an average age of 23.9. And average games played of 64. Thats a fairly young age and extremely inexperianced game wise.

 

[Haso]

With Goose being overlooked, would McGrath get a look in anyway?

I think goal-kicking medium forward is a more urgent unfilled vacancy than tall defender.

 

[dlanod]

I think goal-kicking medium forward is a more urgent unfilled vacancy than tall defender.

Agreed. Maguire has ready-made replacements in Clarke, Lisle and Gardiner, without mentioning Bourke and McStay. We don't have ready-made goal kicking marking forwards, just question marks.

 

[Dan12]

Port are the third youngest list in the comp behind the two new boys - sobering

That doesn't mean much at all when their reserves and injured players are young and we have lots of experienced heads in the reserves and out injured. I can only think of Wingard, Monfries and Logan as experienced players not playing for Port, while we probably have around 10 relatively experienced guys not there.