WC's secret?

[Nasma]

Hey guys, as you probably know SC points aim to quantify the things that teams do that win games. In this thread on the ever popular stats board, I compared how a team went in SC points to how they went on the scoreboard.

The upshot was that this year WC have consistently gone much better than their SC points say they should. This means that WC do things that help win games, but aren't reflected in this stat. There's a few possible explanations, but not having watched any WC games this year, I don't know which of them could be true.

- WC do more things that help the team win games, but don't get SC points. Things like crashing a pack to creates a loose ball, running hard to create an option that isn't taken etc...

- WC let the opposition get stats, but in places that don't hurt them as much.

- WC's 'effective' possessions (as classified by Champion Data) tend to be more effective than usual. Alternatively, their 'ineffective' possessions tend to be less ineffective than usual

If it helps, the games where you went better than SC points suggest you would have were against Brisbane, Sydney, Fremantle, Port, Melbourne and the Dogs. Against StK and the Hawks there wasn't much difference.

I'll be downloading some WC games, but would was wondering if you guys had any ideas.

 

[thesmallprint]

- Stats mean nothing/very little

 

[Lynch takes a mark]

It's the new game plan, despite having a terrible midfield we have been extremely competitive in 7 out of 8 games.

If we could kick better than 50% accuracy over 22 games we could be 7-1 most likely.

 

[Nasma]

- Stats mean nothing/very little

They're not even close to perfect, but there's a strong correlation between the margin in SC and the margin in the actual game.

Suggests they mean something.

Also, with WC they're consistently wrong in the same direction. Again, this suggests that there's something systematic that's being missed in this case. It could be just noise and disappear after a few more rounds, but it seems unlikely.

It's the new game plan, despite having a terrible midfield we have been extremely competitive in 7 out of 8 games.

What does this new game plan involve?

 

[Eastern Rangers]

Lack of an top class midfield, seriously highlighted with the absence of Kerr taking the #1 tagg and Pridis and thus Rosa being nulified against Sydney.

We have been playing more direct football, not sure if this has influenced our goal kicking though. Like the others have said, we have been playing direct and low possession football, look at our rebounding 50 count.

 

[Mattman93]

I've never really thought of WC as a particularly stand-out team orientated or one percent type side. It's probably just that we don't get too many possessions in comparison to the opposition and have been playing very direct.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

I think one of the major things which has happened this year is the backline has improved way out of sight- Glass is back to his absolute best, McKenzie and Hurn have both taken the next step and Brown and Wirrpanda are playing quality football.

The upshot of that is that we are stopping a lot of attacks without much fuss, and when we do have the ball, the gameplan is very direct and very centre corridor-y.

Add to that a pretty undergunned midfield, and its not surprising the opposition is getting a lot more stats than us- we're basically staying in games because our backline is classy and we've got sufficient scoring options to convert stops into opportunities with not too many intervening disposals.

 

[swannies]

I've never really thought of WC as a particularly stand-out team orientated or one percent type side. It's probably just that we don't get too many possessions in comparison to the opposition and have been playing very direct.

You missed the early 90's then. McIntosh, Brennan, Pyke, Evans, Langdon, Worsfold, McKenna, Heady, Mainwaring, I could name the whole side.

Some good research there Nasma. Despite some on here bagging our skills, we had 80 less possessions than Sydney and just about won. That means a) Sydney's skills aren't as good as some of those on here thought, and b) we are becoming more efficient users of the ball. But let's keep this secret to ourselves Nasma, because many Eagles supporters won't have it!

 

[Quinz]

Yes our defence has been very good at killing contests in the back half and rebounding, we aren't mucking around with the ball nearly as much, and our forward line is functioning much better. If we could kick straight we'd easily be in the top 8 as well.

Our zone work in certain games has been very good as well- teams get a lot of possessions in our back half but can't use them very effectively going forward.

 

[Mattman93]

You missed the early 90's then. McIntosh, Brennan, Pyke, Evans, Langdon, Worsfold, McKenna, Heady, Mainwaring, I could name the whole side.

Nasma's research is only from this season, which is also what i referring to. I mean i've never thought of the current Eagles side as particularly team orientated compared to other sides.

 

[Mattman93]

I think one of the major things which has happened this year is the backline has improved way out of sight- Glass is back to his absolute best, McKenzie and Hurn have both taken the next step and Brown and Wirrpanda are playing quality football.

The upshot of that is that we are stopping a lot of attacks without much fuss, and when we do have the ball, the gameplan is very direct and very centre corridor-y.

Add to that a pretty undergunned midfield, and its not surprising the opposition is getting a lot more stats than us- we're basically staying in games because our backline is classy and we've got sufficient scoring options to convert stops into opportunities with not too many intervening disposals.

Great explanation

 

[gx122]

Everyone's been spilling our secrets! Say goodbye to finals footy.

Our best strat is long bombs into 50 priddis style.

 

[Nasma]

Great explanation

Seconded. Cheers guys.

I'll watch out for these sort of things when I go over some WC games (I'm getting the Sydney one now). It only takes one mark from Glass to negate a whole passage of play from the other end of the field.

 

[bodazoka]

WC's 'effective' possessions (as classified by Champion Data) tend to be more effective than usual. Alternatively, their 'ineffective' possessions tend to be less ineffective than usual

If it helps, the games where you went better than SC points suggest you would have were against Brisbane, Sydney, Fremantle, Port, Melbourne and the Dogs. Against StK and the Hawks there wasn't much difference.

I'll be downloading some WC games, but would was wondering if you guys had any ideas.

Thats where the secret lies, I dont know how exactly but we have constantly been down on posessions in games yet still remain competetive. So the theory would go that we are able to score using less posessions than the opposition. Using the zone as effectively as we have done could explain the lower posessions for higher scores as the opposition are kicking to a contest on the 50m arc, if we win that contest its around 2-3 posessions before we can set up another score.

We also seem to be kicking allot more than usual, this in theory though should boost our SC scores.

Big change from the extremely high posession and handball style we have played over the years.

 

[thesmallprint]

They're not even close to perfect, but there's a strong correlation between the margin in SC and the margin in the actual game.

Suggests they mean something.

Also, with WC they're consistently wrong in the same direction. Again, this suggests that there's something systematic that's being missed in this case. It could be just noise and disappear after a few more rounds, but it seems unlikely.

Fair point. One way to look at it is that 5 20-30m chips + 5 handballs that Geelong would do (not having a go btw) would count for 5 effective kicks plus 5 marks plus 5 handball receives plus 5 handballs whereas one 70m kick by Hurn into space counts for nothing.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The differential is caused by Supercoach not reflecting the actual game. If you want perfect correlation you'd only count goals and behinds

I'd say it's caused by us not tackling or marking as much as most teams. There are also things that can't be measured correctly in stats. A player that runs extremely hard to win an uncontested possession is essentially just as important as a contested possession. The difficulty level is reflected by the points awarded, but in the end is not indicative of what actually goes on. It's possible we concede possession in some areas more than others which in the end don't impact on the scoreboard.

 

[greennick]

Our best strat is long bombs into 50 priddis style.

That would actually have some effect on these stats.

The WC way:
Scrap in centre square, Kerr gets the ball, gets tackled and has an ineffective posession. Priddis then gets the ball, bombs it long to a contest and no one marks = ineffective posession. LeCras sweeps on the ball and kicks a goal. We will pretty much get the minimum SC score you can for the goal.

 

[purple hater]

How about we have been using a zone quite well (for a team who has only just adopted this style of game) coming out of our forward line and that causes the opposition to pass the ball around alot without actually moving it anywhere dangerous.

Secondly, we have been playing a long kicking game and have been competitive all around the ground. However, even though we are using possession effectively, our kicking on goals is the most ineffective in the league (I just made that up BTW, but would be surprised if it were not true!).

So we get the ball, use it well, get it into our forwardline. It then breaks down due to the mode of entry into the forward line (ie long bomb) or is marked wide of the goals in a low percentage position. We then miss the scoring opportunity and the ball is rebounded. If we had been finishing off the work we had done down the ground in front of goals, we would have won at least two more games (against Hawthorn 7.14 and Fremantle 9.20).

 

[DivideandMultiply]

Yes our defence has been very good at killing contests in the back half and rebounding, we aren't mucking around with the ball nearly as much, and our forward line is functioning much better. If we could kick straight we'd easily be in the top 8 as well.

Our zone work in certain games has been very good as well- teams get a lot of possessions in our back half but can't use them very effectively going forward.

Yep thats it.


There are two main points. Most have mentioned our defence, which had two players dominating the 1%ers, they tend to spoil as opposed to mark and run the ball out quickly in play if the opportunity is there quite efficiently (hence the high DE% of both McKenzie and Glass).

The other point is that for a few of the games this season we have actually had the most efficient ratio of goals to possessions.

Was amazing in the first couple of weeks but has dropped slightly and I think you will find this is the largest contributing factor to the lower SC points.

As also mentioned I think the key to maintaining that is entry into our forward 50. Maybe with a better marking option in Kennedy, he can start leading to more central positions and we can straighten up a bit (also have someone taking a contested mark so it dosn't spill to ground level then get rebounded).

 

[bodazoka]

11 marks v Sydney Kennedy = God.

 

[Hap Hapablap]

realistically we're only a few goals off per game into being a top 8 side. we've improved dramatically and if we can just use our oppurtunities more wisely who knows we could be back in september before you know it. before the sydney game i thought we were gonna get annihilated. im not discounting sydney, theyre a quality side that just keep bobbling up the 8 and continue to play consistent football. and with our effort the previous weekend had we converted our oppurtunities we woulve won the game.

these next 2 weeks will be the key to our season. if we beat both collingwood and carlton it will provide us with the confidence to take on geelong. surely a lot of us here reckon we are no chance against geelong but think about it. come round 11 geelong may be undefeated, wc might have the 2 wins on the board and may also seek revenge for the humiliating loss last season. it could be as closer as expected. highly optimistic i know but we never thought wed dismantle brisbane by 69 points at the gabba in 03 or adelaide at subiaco by 82 in 06. anything can happen. confidence is the key.

 

[triplegee]

How about we have been using a zone quite well (for a team who has only just adopted this style of game) coming out of our forward line and that causes the opposition to pass the ball around alot without actually moving it anywhere dangerous.

Secondly, we have been playing a long kicking game and have been competitive all around the ground. However, even though we are using possession effectively, our kicking on goals is the most ineffective in the league (I just made that up BTW, but would be surprised if it were not true!).

So we get the ball, use it well, get it into our forwardline. It then breaks down due to the mode of entry into the forward line (ie long bomb) or is marked wide of the goals in a low percentage position. We then miss the scoring opportunity and the ball is rebounded. If we had been finishing off the work we had done down the ground in front of goals, we would have won at least two more games (against Hawthorn 7.14 and Fremantle 9.20).

Agree with all that. I'd add that our SC scores are also being impacted by the number of clangers our team has made so far this year. I am not sure what the stats say but there's been a number of games where our disposal has been awful from a few of the guys and clangers hurt big time in SC.

Our zone is causing the opposition to over-possess the ball - Sydney was a great example so if you're comparing our SC scores to our opposition it's no surprise we don't score as much.

 

[bodazoka]

Mate.... just no.

 

[Here2tellyouwhy]

Stats dont matter.
The only stat that matters is which team scores the most goals.

85% of the time the team that has had the most possesions and goals over the season over the last 50 years has ended up winning the flag.

Geelong had 1000 more possesions and only 24 more goals than Hawthorn last year and lost the GF due to poor kicking and pretty much just choking when it mattered most.

Based on this years stats it will be either Geelong or St Kilda that win the flag.

85% is pretty good odds and a "stat" with-in itself.

But it all comes down to that last saturday in september and thats what makes our game so bloody good.

Stats are just one of those annoying things that exist so certain people can analyse games and not football itself.

 

[bodazoka]

Stats dont matter.
The only stat that matters is which team scores the most goals.

85% of the time the team that has had the most possesions and goals over the season over the last 50 years has ended up winning the flag.

Geelong had 1000 more possesions and only 24 more goals than Hawthorn last year and lost the GF due to poor kicking and pretty much just choking when it mattered most.

Based on this years stats it will be either Geelong or St Kilda that win the flag.

85% is pretty good odds and a "stat" with-in itself.

But it all comes down to that last saturday in september and thats what makes our game so bloody good.

Stats are just one of those annoying things that exist so certain people can analyse games and not football itself.

Yet you proceed to offer a bunch of stats to justyify your opinion?

Strange....