Autopsy Some statistics after 9 rounds

[DWil6]

Obviously stats are only so relevant but here are a few which could identify areas we need to improve in to see us moving forward in the future.

Disposal efficiency 67.9% (comfortably last)
Disposals 14th (not a lot of disposals given our midfield quality)
Clangers 3rd worst
Contested Possessions 7th
Uncontested possessions 17th (not working hard enough or too slow?)
Contested marks 12th
Marks inside 50 4th (not bad given the previous stat. Elliot and Cloke?)
Hit-outs 16th (but improving?)
Clearances 17th (a real concern)
Rebound 50's 3rd (Good. Langdon being a factor?)
Frees for 18th (no shock)
Frees against 12th (not too bad and Grundy is improving)
Tackles 3rd (our pressure has been good)
Inside 50's 9th. (so-so)
Goals 14th
Behinds 1st (in a bad way)
Goal accuracy 18th by a fair margin


Obviously we have been well performed regardless of our limitations. But there are some areas here that, if improved, could see us take the next step. Our disposal efficiency is the worst it has been in years. Last year was 5th with 72.8%. Is it down to us taking more risks?
Something to ponder for those that are interested.

 

[IQ3]

I feel like when we are intensely pressured (freo, ess Q1, crows) we panic and our skills go to water. I think we're struggling to slow the game up when we need to and it is costing us when teams come out firing

 

[sloth6]

We have no contested marking midfielders, our field kicking is atrocious and collectively we are one paced with no great ability to spread to get those uncontested possies in the midfield.

Bring Reid in and contested marks will improve and if Cloke puts his efforts in marking the footy at its highest point and not engage in one on one contests where the defenders hold all the advantage then his numbers will improve.

It's got nothing to do with taking risks, we don't take any. We kick it at blokes feet, to the defenders advantage, to two on one contests, on the full or straight to the opposition. Our ball movement is often slow and until we start playing players who make good decisions and van dispose of it effectively, the stats trends will continue.

 

[SuperSub17]

Interesting stats

Last year we conceded a goal per 3.76 inside 50s our opponents had, which is pretty poor. This year it's one goal per 4.87 inside 50s. You can certainly see the improvement there

 

[IQ3]

I know it's been discussed before and I've defended our mids, but I'm starting to think Beams/Sidebottom/Swan do not defend. I couldn't comprehend how many times last night we kicked into our forward line and there were crows everywhere, they get possession, then 2 kicks forward we are still outnumbered. This must mean our mids/forwards are not accountable on the rebound.

Maybe we simply aren't fit enough. Our spread is weak and we hardly ever get easy goals from rebounding. If we are to beat big teams we can't be battling all night for our 11-12goals, because we can't bank on keeping good teams under 15 goals...

 

[DWil6]

Further analysis suggests our disposal efficiency isn't helped by some of our major ball winners. Swan racks them up and we all love him but he goes at 61.4%, Beams who is second highest possession winner per game only goes at 62.1. Ball, our hard nut is going at 63.4. Steele isn't that bad statistically at 68.6 but a possession that possibly bounces before the target may still be considered effective. He is a bit of a whipping boy on here. Pendles is our smooth mover and highest possession winner this year and goes at 70.7%. Pleasing also is Lumumba, only 1 of 5 players averaging over 20 touches, goes at 78.2. Fasolo, who is a popular inclusion, is going at 79.7 which is obviously exceptional.

 

[Old Spice]

Some shocking stats there. We need speed and kicking, which I guess we've known for a while. Really seem to get killed at centre bounces which is pretty lame given the firepower.

 

[DWil6]

By comparison, of the big possession winning players,
Ablett goes at 69.3,
Kennedy 64.6,
Stevie J 67.1,
Heppell 69.3,
Fyfe 70.1,
Cornes 72.4,
Stokes 73.4,
Watson 79.4,
Dangerfield 64.6 (though he went at 78.1 from 32 against us).
Only Pendles of our big 3 belongs in this group at 70.7.
Interestingly, Beams, at 62.1, is comfortably the worst disposer in the top echelon. He sits at 9th for possessions won, yet he is the worst disposer all the way down to 32nd where he is beaten for worst by none other then Dane Swan.

 

[Chief Ten Beers]

Surprising how many times Pies are dead last - even behind GWS, Brisbane, Melbourne and the Aints. I've never seen a team so bad at kicking.

Despite some of those other stats, it's strange to be sitting 5th.

 

[Chilli Con Incarnate]

We have no contested marking midfielders, our field kicking is atrocious and collectively we are one paced with no great ability to spread to get those uncontested possies in the midfield.

Bring Reid in and contested marks will improve and if Cloke puts his efforts in marking the footy at its highest point and not engage in one on one contests where the defenders hold all the advantage then his numbers will improve.

It's got nothing to do with taking risks, we don't take any. We kick it at blokes feet, to the defenders advantage, to two on one contests, on the full or straight to the opposition. Our ball movement is often slow and until we start playing players who make good decisions and van dispose of it effectively, the stats trends will continue.

Great observation. Our marking presence in he middle of the ground is non existent. Our mids really aren't good one on one in the air.

We sorely need Grundy or Witts ( both would be better) to really become good solid marks, at the moment they are below average. The best ruckmen take marks all over the ground.

 

[ThisIsJake]

By comparison, of the big possession winning players,
Ablett goes at 69.3,
Kennedy 64.6,
Stevie J 67.1,
Heppell 69.3,
Fyfe 70.1,
Cornes 72.4,
Stokes 73.4,
Watson 79.4,
Dangerfield 64.6 (though he went at 78.1 from 32 against us).
Only Pendles of our big 3 belongs in this group at 70.7.
Interestingly, Beams, at 62.1, is comfortably the worst disposer in the top echelon. He sits at 9th for possessions won, yet he is the worst disposer all the way down to 32nd where he is beaten for worst by none other then Dane Swan.

judging on previous season, ablett should drop to around 65% by years end, fyfe usually runs at 55%, swan at 68%, pendles at a freakish 78% and beamer has been steady at around 74% for most of his career. so i think that our ball winning mids have had a rough start to the season but have major upside.

also guys we are 5-3 with a great run to come, far from panic stations. in fact we have exceeded the expectations of most on this forum.

 

[rose jam]

The clearance issue is caused by having MacCaffer there, you can see it during centre squares, they look totally imbalanced. You've got only 2 players capable of clearing the ball and it's too much pressure on them.
Number 1 issue though is our weak half forward area which doesn't have goal scoring potency so defenders sag of Blair etc intercept mark or double team Cloke.

 

[frizzle]

The clearance issue is caused by having MacCaffer there, you can see it during centre squares, they look totally imbalanced. You've got only 2 players capable of clearing the ball and it's too much pressure on them.
Number 1 issue though is our weak half forward area which doesn't have goal scoring potency so defenders sag of Blair etc intercept mark or double team Cloke.

Exactly - Having Caff in there is hurting our clearance numbers. Swan is way down on clearances as well.
When both of these guys are in at the centre clearances we inevitably lose the clearance this year.
Caff just is not offensively good enough to win clearances & Swanny seems content to stand back & let someone feed it out to him. We have Bucks, Burns & Harvey. 3 exceptional midfielders of their time coaching our guys. We should be doing better. Unfortunately it has been left to Pendles & Beams to win clearances. Oppositions are putting lots of time into both of them. Others need to step up in this area.

Our kicking has been a problem for as long as I can remember. We have a kicking coach now but I see no improvement so far. Not in field kicking or goal kicking.
The coaches know it is a problem & have mentioned it several times. They just need to get the right person teaching them. perhaps they haven't found the right one yet? Or the current guy needs more time to stamp his mark on our disposal. Time will tell, but I think we are acknowledging the problem now & are trying to remedy it.

 

[Quicky]

We have no contested marking midfielders, our field kicking is atrocious and collectively we are one paced with no great ability to spread to get those uncontested possies in the midfield.

Bring Reid in and contested marks will improve and if Cloke puts his efforts in marking the footy at its highest point and not engage in one on one contests where the defenders hold all the advantage then his numbers will improve.

It's got nothing to do with taking risks, we don't take any. We kick it at blokes feet, to the defenders advantage, to two on one contests, on the full or straight to the opposition. Our ball movement is often slow and until we start playing players who make good decisions and van dispose of it effectively, the stats trends will continue.

The bolded is interesting. We went up the line with a long kick too much against the Crows. I think it was Hart at 3 quarter time interview said the coaches were stressing the need to take more risks. It seems that the players were not executing the game plan - against the Crows at least.

 

[cleomenes]

The bolded is interesting. We went up the line with a long kick too much against the Crows. I think it was Hart at 3 quarter time interview said the coaches were stressing the need to take more risks. It seems that the players were not executing the game plan - against the Crows at least.

This is very true. The cause lies in the pressure that Adelaide applied. Nobody was able to get clear enough in the middle for a reasonably safe centering ball to be tried often enough. On the occasions that they did, we looked good, but the poor marking of the clean passes (Cloke, Sidebottom, Blair) and the failure to kick the goals from the marks inside 50 (Blair, Sidebottom, Beams and at the last Elliott) could be seen as the difference between a win and a loss. In modern football, a clean pass to a forward in the clear is very hard to achieve. Virtually every one has to be a goal if the team is to have a chance. Therein lies our biggest weakness.

 

[SuperSub17]

Interesting how our kick-to-handball ratio on Thursday was only 1.15:1.

Vs Sydney it was 1.46, Geelong 1.80, Richmond 1.43, North 1.52, Essendon 1.41 and Carlton 1.54 - all significantly higher.

When you take a look at some of our losses last year, the story is similar: Hawthorn (round 3) 1.30, Essendon 1.34, Sydney 1.14, Port (round 14) 1.07, Gold Coast 1.31, Hawthorn (round 21) 1.32, North 1.17. Then when you compare these to some of our better performances: North (round 1) 1.79, Richmond (round 4) 2.03, Geelong (round 8) 1.39, Essendon (round 19) 1.78 - it looks like we struggle a bit more when we revert to the handball-type game. Whether that's a result of the opposition's pressure or our poor decision-making.

 

[Mateyman]

I know it's been discussed before and I've defended our mids, but I'm starting to think Beams/Sidebottom/Swan do not defend. I couldn't comprehend how many times last night we kicked into our forward line and there were crows everywhere, they get possession, then 2 kicks forward we are still outnumbered. This must mean our mids/forwards are not accountable on the rebound.

That has been the first time it's happened since round 1. Every game other than that we have been doing that very same thing to the opposition.

 

[Mateyman]

By comparison, of the big possession winning players,
Ablett goes at 69.3,
Kennedy 64.6,
Stevie J 67.1,
Heppell 69.3,
Fyfe 70.1,
Cornes 72.4,
Stokes 73.4,
Watson 79.4,
Dangerfield 64.6 (though he went at 78.1 from 32 against us).
Only Pendles of our big 3 belongs in this group at 70.7.
Interestingly, Beams, at 62.1, is comfortably the worst disposer in the top echelon. He sits at 9th for possessions won, yet he is the worst disposer all the way down to 32nd where he is beaten for worst by none other then Dane Swan.

You have cherry picked the good ones there. You don't have Prestia, Montagna or Kennedy who all have comparable DE stats. DE is a pretty bad stat because of the rules for "effectiveness". The top teams don't necessarily have high DEs either.

 

[Apex36]

Our kicking efficiency surely must irk Bucks. He is still probably a better kick than most of our current side...

 

[Bring_Back_Brad]

Exactly - Having Caff in there is hurting our clearance numbers. Swan is way down on clearances as well.
When both of these guys are in at the centre clearances we inevitably lose the clearance this year.
Caff just is not offensively good enough to win clearances & Swanny seems content to stand back & let someone feed it out to him. We have Bucks, Burns & Harvey. 3 exceptional midfielders of their time coaching our guys. We should be doing better. Unfortunately it has been left to Pendles & Beams to win clearances. Oppositions are putting lots of time into both of them. Others need to step up in this area.

Our kicking has been a problem for as long as I can remember. We have a kicking coach now but I see no improvement so far. Not in field kicking or goal kicking.
The coaches know it is a problem & have mentioned it several times. They just need to get the right person teaching them. perhaps they haven't found the right one yet? Or the current guy needs more time to stamp his mark on our disposal. Time will tell, but I think we are acknowledging the problem now & are trying to remedy it.

Think you forgot Luke ball, he's not the same as he used to be, a big factor.
Need to get JT back in the side, get a succession plan going.

 

[Nicco_jj]

Need to have beams + 2 of ball, Adams, JT in the starting side to be able to match it with the better teams.

I feel like ppl are going to be getting pretty grumpy with caff for his performance on Thursday... But dangerfield was actually not massively influential until we stopped the tag. Caff did ok on him. Only problem was that Thompson was destroying us. So we dropped the tag and then both of them destroyed us...
Same happens to other teams when 2 or 3 of beams, Swan and pendles really fire. Unfortunately all three did not much in the second half and Thompson, danger and Sloane ran a muck.
Very few teams would have beaten Adelaide on Thursday. They were possessed.

Collingwood is such a weird team... Very poor statistically... But will play finals. Let's wait and see how we bounce back vs west coast.

 

[THATSGOLD]

Obviously stats are only so relevant but here are a few which could identify areas we need to improve in to see us moving forward in the future.

Disposal efficiency 67.9% (comfortably last)
Disposals 14th (not a lot of disposals given our midfield quality)
Clangers 3rd worst
Contested Possessions 7th
Uncontested possessions 17th (not working hard enough or too slow?)
Contested marks 12th
Marks inside 50 4th (not bad given the previous stat. Elliot and Cloke?)
Hit-outs 16th (but improving?)
Clearances 17th (a real concern)
Rebound 50's 3rd (Good. Langdon being a factor?)
Frees for 18th (no shock)
Frees against 12th (not too bad and Grundy is improving)
Tackles 3rd (our pressure has been good)
Inside 50's 9th. (so-so)
Goals 14th
Behinds 1st (in a bad way)
Goal accuracy 18th by a fair margin


Obviously we have been well performed regardless of our limitations. But there are some areas here that, if improved, could see us take the next step. Our disposal efficiency is the worst it has been in years. Last year was 5th with 72.8%. Is it down to us taking more risks?
Something to ponder for those that are interested.

Never expected us to contend for a flag this season, we won't win it based on those numbers. Let's hope it gets better.