Moved Thread Neutral fans: Hawkins or Riewoldt?

Neutral fans: Who’s the better player over the course of their 16 seasons

  • Tom Hawkins

    Votes: 234 69.6%
  • Jack Riewoldt

    Votes: 102 30.4%

  • Total voters
    336

Falcon3518

Norm Smith Medallist
Mar 13, 2022
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Yeah you got me. Confounded by one of the great analytic minds of modern times who postulates that a small medallion around someone’s neck awarded on the basis of their proficiency in one single statistical measure, trumps hundreds of games worth of data.

Well I think that’s enough with that, you clearly don’t understand what the medal actually represents. I’m going to call it GAS syndrome specifically because of you.
 
Apr 23, 2016
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I don’t even get the point of this comment. You obviously don’t listen to Dunstal. He specifically says ball delivery affects how good a fwd is. It’s pretty clear that through that whole decade cats had a better midfield than us. Even in our best years we almost deliberately lost clearance. We hovered around 16th in the league.

What do clearances have to do with goals kicked?

If you wanted to raise i50s maybe you'd have a point. Given that's how many potential opportunities for a goal teams create.

But unfortunately for you that stat doesn't give you the slam dunk you want either.

For someone who's side won 3 Premierships in four years, they must have been total trash by the sounds of your description of them.
 
Apr 23, 2016
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Says this:

Ooof real edgy

Then says this:


irony GIF
 

Falcon3518

Norm Smith Medallist
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What do clearances have to do with goals kicked?

If you wanted to raise i50s maybe you'd have a point. Given that's how many potential opportunities for a goal teams create.

But unfortunately for you that stat doesn't give you the slam dunk you want either.

For someone who's side won 3 Premierships in four years, they must have been total trash by the sounds of your description of them.

Our inside 50s came from launching from defence into attack via quick handball chains and pressure. So the mids didn’t primarily do the work like the Cats. Watch our games. They are scrappy as hell.
 
Feb 4, 2008
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Jack was also the main target for the Richmond midfield most of his career, while Hawkins wasn't.

If Hawkins wasn’t the main target for the Cat’s midfield most of his career, who was?

Richardson played a few seasons at the start of Jack’s career, and Lynch has been the main target for 3.5 seasons now, so you are probably looking at 10 seasons where Jack was the main target.

Do you think there are less than 10 seasons where Hawkins was Geelong’s main target? I don’t. In fact I am sure that is wrong.

Not targetted specifically just at you this next comment, but there are some claims being made on this thread to justify why Hawkins doesn’t have a better record than Jack to be considered a better player that are either plain wrong or rely on belief in an overly complex coincidence of unsupported assumptions to be accepted as credible.

Though Jack has the slightly better scoreboard impact figures I can accept this on its own is not enough to say one is clearly better than the other, especially given Hawkins adds a little to his argument with some useful casual ruckwork.

But Jack downhill skier, Hawkins better big game player, Hawkins wins more games off his own boot, Hawkins because it is harder to score more in a better forward line. Hawkins has kept his team at the top end of the table. 😳 These claims either don’t seem to be supported by any objective study of relevant facts, or they are also true of Riewoldt.
 

Noidnadroj

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Statistically overall they are almost identical. Jack with slightly better goal average, Tomahawk with more goal assists.

In 2022 I’d take Tomahawk. Over their careers I’d slightly favour Tomahawk in a H&A game, but take Jack if it was a final.

But it’s really splitting hairs IMO.


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May 5, 2016
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We have a greater % of smalls fwds kicking goals compared to the cats via the handball chains.

Do you?

I’ve added up every goal kicked by a Geelong ‘tall’ player since the start of 2017.
Hawkins, Cameron, Stanley, Taylor, Ratugolea, Blicavs, Henderson, Darcy Fort: 32 per cent of our goals have come from them.

In the same period, ONLY counting Riewoldt, Lynch, Nankervis and Chol, they have kicked….. 32 per cent of Richmond’s goals.

Who knows, maybe you do have a larger percentage of ‘small’ forwards kicking goals. But even without really going through the minutiae of your goal kickers and their heights over the last 6 seasons (I don’t know the heights of all your players but if you threw players like McIntosh, Soldo etc in there it takes the percentage well above Geelong’s), you sure as hell don’t have a lower percentage of tall forwards kicking them.
 

Falcon3518

Norm Smith Medallist
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Do you?

I’ve added up every goal kicked by a Geelong ‘tall’ player since the start of 2017.
Hawkins, Cameron, Stanley, Taylor, Ratugolea, Blicavs, Henderson, Darcy Fort: 32 per cent of our goals have come from them.

In the same period, ONLY counting Riewoldt, Lynch, Nankervis and Chol, they have kicked….. 32 per cent of Richmond’s goals.

Who knows, maybe you do have a larger percentage of ‘small’ forwards kicking goals. But even without really going through the minutiae of your goal kickers and their heights over the last 6 seasons (I don’t know the heights of all your players but if you threw players like McIntosh, Soldo etc in there it takes the percentage well above Geelong’s), you sure as hell don’t have a lower percentage of tall forwards kicking them.

What height have you chosen as ‘tall’? Also Soldo has kicked f all goals since 2019, he’s a non factor.
 

Noidnadroj

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It’s not a stat mate.

Kicking 81 goals to someone else’s 80 and somehow getting this massive statistical edge because you’ve averaged 0.05 goals per game more than the guy you beat, is not a stat.

The stat is 0.05, or 1 goal.

They don’t sit around at the end of a career putting together a statistical profile going ‘he averaged 0.24 coleman medals per year’ they go ‘he averaged 75 goals a year’ or ‘3.4 goals a game.’

But when analysing who you rate as the better player which is what this thread is, stats are not the only consideration, surely?

Kicking more goals within a single season than any other player in the competition and winning a Coleman medal is something you have to include in the analysis, surely? Just as B&F results, AA selections, Brownlow votes, flags, performances in finals, Norm Smith votes etc…. all are part of what should be used to try and split 2 x very evenly matched players when deciding who is better.

This doesn’t mean all have equal weighting, and it’s in the eye of the beholder which is more important. But whether it’s a huge factor or a tiny factor in trying to separate the 2 x players, but it’s all part of the mix when the stats are so even.




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Feb 4, 2008
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Both can be true.

Less avenues to goals means more goals focused through fewer targets. Given it's unusual for really good KPFs to be on really poor teams (they have a tendency to drag those teams upwards) it means the total goals kicked by any given side have to come from <somewhere>. Across a season that'll generally gravitate to whoever the best goal-kicker in any given side is.

Too many goals focused through too few targets isn't generally conducive to winning Premierships - from memory Roughead 2013 was the last Coleman medallist and Premiership player, prior to that was Franklin 2008 (where Franklin being the dominant target was a situation Clarkson regarded as unsustainable). So as teams improve and get a better spread of goal-kickers, their totals drop.

Reiwoldt's best average goals/game came in seasons Richmond didn't play finals, Hawkin's best average goals/game came in 2018 when Geelong scraped in to finals, and both declined slightly as they've improved. Hawkins hasn't had the high points Jack has (3.0 and 3.5 goals/game where Tom's best is 2.9 goals/game) but since 2012 (prior to 2012 Jack was clearly better) Hawkins has averaged ~ 2.5 goals/game to Reiwoldt's ~ 2.3 and ~0.31 Brownlow votes to Reiwoldt's ~ 0.25.

In any single game, a team being completely dominant e.g. the Richmond v GWS GF means piling on goals that have to come from somewhere. Is Jack kicking 5 in a smashing really representative of his entire finals performance? In that finals series he kicked 3 against Brisbane in a 47 point smashing, 0 against Geelong in a narrower 19 point win, then 5 in a 89 point obliteration). Finals average 2.67. It's a smaller sample size, more prone to being skewed by an individual game or two.

Generally the game in total goals / game between teams is relatively small if you're team isn't unusually good or unusually bad, which neither Geelong or Richmond have been since 2012.

2010 was an outstanding individual season, but Richmond are a better side targeting Reiwoldt less. Geelong have never been horrible, maybe Hawkins would have had a similarly massive season if they were? McKay is kicking less goals/game this season, but Carlton are better for it, because of a better spread of goalkickers so he'll likely struggle to match 3.0 goals/game unless Carlton become unusually good (or bad) in the remainder of his career.

I guess there is no reason both cannot be true.

It is just that for them both to be true you are saying it is easier for key forwards to score:

a) when they play in weak teams with weaker forwards around them, and

b) when their teams are way too good for the opposition.

And presumably it is harder for them to score:

a) when their teams are competitive with the opposition, and

b) when they play in stronger forward lines.


But do you actually believe that is true? To me it seems a complicated construction totally reliant on the odd forward from a lower ranking team who plays in a weak forward line winning or finishing high in the Coleman, and the unsupported proclamation that lower ranking teams don’t tend to have gun forwards.

A quick glance at this years’ ladder and Coleman standings in instructive. If what you are saying is true, Kennedy, Larkey, Wright, Lewis, Walker, Marshall, Mihocek should be dominating the Coleman, and those with stronger alternative targets like Daniher, Hawkins, Cameron, Lynch, Riewoldt, Bolton, Chuck Cameron, McKay and Curnow should be struggling to match them.

1655966182782.png




22 of the 30 listed here also have at least one team-mate in the top 30.

The exceptions are:

King, 4th
Fritsch and Wright =8th
T Marshall =11th
Greene =19th
Larkey and Walker =23rd
Lobb =28th

A young Jack Riewoldt on his way to a 78 goal Coleman Medal season in the second bottom would be sitting well clear on about 47 goals amongst that lot right now. If that was happening now do you think people would be saying he is benefitting from being the only target? They have been showing figures recently showing Max King is the most targetted forward in the AFL. Some people think he is killing it and plenty think he is destined for greatness. Yet he sits on 35 goals.

I don’t think the argument you are making stacks up.
 
May 5, 2016
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What height have you chosen as ‘tall’? Also Soldo has kicked f all goals since 2019, he’s a non factor.


I have no idea how tall the cats players actually are but I know that they’ve all been considered ‘tall’ when they are forward, that’s the role they’ve played.
As I said the only Richmond players I included in the 32 per cent stat - ie. same as Geelong’s - were Lynch, Riewoldt, Nankervis and Chol. When you put players like Soldo who were undoubtedly ‘tall’ the percentage jumps higher than Geelong’s, and I haven’t really bothered looking at anyone else.
 
May 5, 2016
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But when analysing who you rate as the better player which is what this thread is, stats are not the only consideration, surely?

Kicking more goals within a single season than any other player in the competition and winning a Coleman medal is something you have to include in the analysis, surely? Just as B&F results, AA selections, Brownlow votes, flags, performances in finals, Norm Smith votes etc…. all are part of what should be used to try and split 2 x very evenly matched players when deciding who is better.

This doesn’t mean all have equal weighting, and it’s in the eye of the beholder which is more important. But whether it’s a huge factor or a tiny factor in trying to separate the 2 x players, but it’s all part of the mix when the stats are so even.




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Brownlow votes are accrued against 43 other players in a given week for starters - not that I put all that much stock in them to begin with (they don’t hurt but they aren’t the be all and end all), but a Brownlow medal vote is also recognition of how you’ve played across all visible means of contributing to a game. They’re not a measure of simply one statistical field.
 

Noidnadroj

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Running polls on ‘who is the better player’ is such a waste of time. For example, run a poll asking ‘who is the better player across their career, Paddy Dangerfield, Joel Selwood or Lachie Neale.. IMO the order is Danger, Selwood, Neale (Neale might be number 1 in a few more years).

But because oppo supporters generally dislike Danger & Selwood, the ratings would end up:

Neale: 60%
Danger: 20%
Selwood: 20%

But taking out oppo hatred the ratings ‘should’ be:

Danger: 60%
Selwood: 30%
Neale: 10%

Oppo supporters hate Jack cause he has been a sook in the past, plays for Richmond etc… and I get that. So in a tight call most vote for the player they ‘like’ better…. it’s human nature, and thus makes these types of polls not very instructive.


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May 27, 2006
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Running polls on ‘who is the better player’ is such a waste of time. For example, run a poll asking ‘who is the better player across their career, Paddy Dangerfield, Joel Selwood or Lachie Neale.. IMO the order is Danger, Selwood, Neale (Neale might be number 1 in a few more years).

But because oppo supporters generally dislike Danger & Selwood, the ratings would end up:

Neale: 60%
Danger: 20%
Selwood: 20%
I doubt that.
 

Sky

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80 posts in here by one individual only to be wrong. Yikes.
 

Falcon3518

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I have no idea how tall the cats players actually are but I know that they’ve all been considered ‘tall’ when they are forward, that’s the role they’ve played.
As I said the only Richmond players I included in the 32 per cent stat - ie. same as Geelong’s - were Lynch, Riewoldt, Nankervis and Chol. When you put players like Soldo who were undoubtedly ‘tall’ the percentage jumps higher than Geelong’s, and I haven’t really bothered looking at anyone else.

Do you have the % of goals from just Hawkins and just Riewoldt the same period?
 
Jun 14, 2015
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Both guns.
Hawkins probably a better player at his peak but has played a few stinkers in crucial games, or missed entirely due to suspensions.
Jack's maybe not as good as Hawkins at his peak but was better from much earlier on.

Probably Jack because Hawkins looked like a tool that time the camera picking his nose.
 
May 5, 2016
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Do you have the % of goals from just Hawkins and just Riewoldt the same period?


Hawkins has kicked 21 per cent of Geelong’s goals.
Riewoldt has kicked 17.5 per cent of Richmond’s.

I can’t even be bothered working out whether this supports or disproves one theory or another but a factor to consider is that Riewoldt has spent 5 of those 6 seasons alongside another elite tall forward, Hawkins has spent 2 in the same scenario.
 
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