Halfway through the second quarter on ANZAC Day, Essendon were only down by 7

points in a competitive match against Collingwood. However, with 2 players done for the game through injury, the doctor on Channel 7 called the game as a certain Collingwood victory – much to the chagrin of the commentators who will do anything in their power to make the game seem close – stating that, all else being even, no team will ever win a game with two players down by half time.

It does beg the question though, while it seems intuitively bad to be down two extra

rotations, what is the actual physical effect on the other players and the amount of rest

that they get during the game?

First and foremost, how much rest does the average player get in a game with the full

22 players fit and firing? With 18/22 players on the field at any one time, the average player spends roughly 82% of the time on the ground, and 18% on the bench. That’s roughly 22 minutes of rest time per player per game, assuming 120 minutes of game time, or about 5 1/2 minutes per quarter. If there were only 21 players fit for the full game, there would be 18/21 players on the field, so the average player spends roughly 86% (~103 minutes) time on ground, and 14% of the game resting on the bench. In this case players would be getting around 17 minutes rest a game, which is a little over 4 minutes a quarter. For 20 fit players, it’s 90% TOG (108 minutes) with 3 minutes rest per quarter.

While the difference between 82% TOG and 90% TOG doesn’t seem huge, it

means that the players on a team down two men are getting barely half the

amount of rest that their opponents are.

As to the statement that no team will win a game with two players down by half time,

Collingwood on Wednesday had the full complement of players throughout the game (bar Brayden Maynard for a brief period), meaning that their players got roughly 22 minutes rest each; while Essendon were down to 20 men after quarter time, where their players on average had 5 1/2 minutes rest in the first quarter but only 3 minutes rest for each subsequent quarter, leaving them with a total of 14 1/2 minutes rest throughout the game. To put it in the simplest terms, the Essendon players on average had only 66% of the rest that their Collingwood counterparts had throughout the game.

Of course, these averages don’t take into account the fact that most of the 90 allocated interchanges are given to the midfielders, whilst the key position players generally

have much higher %TOG. So, while the average Essendon player was getting only

66% of the rest that the average Collingwood player was, in reality Joe Daniher, Cale Hooker, Michael Hurley and Michael Hartley had their usual 90% TOG or more. The Essendon midfielders, small defenders and small forwards were getting a lot less rest than they would otherwise. James Stewart, for example, averaged ~84% time on ground in the first four rounds, but spent every minute on the field on Wednesday. Darcy Parish spent 91% of the game on the ground, the highest of his career. This hit to rest time for the players contributed mainly to their smaller, more mobile players, and led to the massive lack of run in the second half.

In a league where the margins between the top and bottom teams are continually

becoming minimal every week, having only 66% of the rest per player that

your opponent has is enough to almost ensure that you’ll lose every game.

With that said – what are your thoughts on how we should view a losing team down in rotations? It’s not always the sole reason for a loss, but it sure plays it’s own role. Are the Bombers unfairly on the wrong end of their sharp media scrutiny? Drop a comment below.

Article written by Ed N.