Living on a dream

Essendon have been the focus of much of the media attention this year, for both on and off field reasons. On the park, the Dons have possibly been the biggest surprise packet so far this year, beating reigning premiers Hawthorn and going within a quarter of doing the same to Sydney.

What is also surprising is the manner in which they are achieving their results.

A week and a half ago Tony Corke from the great Matter of Stats blog ran a great analysis relating to scoring shots and victory. Corke found that the team with more scoring shots in a game would win the game 86% of the time. We had a quick look with a longer sample (back to 2000), and found that the team with a negative scoring shot differential won 12.7% of the time. In either case it should happen roughly once every 11 games.

So far, through three rounds, there have been four games where a team with fewer scoring shots have won. Essendon have won two of them (others: Geelong and Sydney in round 3). Essendon have the second best accuracy in the league at 64% at the moment (behind West Coast on 67%), which history would indicate is unsustainable. Going back to 2000, only one side has had a season-long scoring shot accuracy of more than 60%; namely St Kilda in 2004 (62%).

Essendon also have the second fewest total scoring shots, ahead of only last placed Brisbane. Given the correlation between the number of scoring shots and the likelihood of victory, Essendon will have to radically increase this number if they want to be playing in September.

Jacobs and Jamar, hitting out amongst the trees…

The wet conditions presented last weekend presented a different brand of footy, one with a lot of tackles, tie-ups and tight ball situations. The Adelaide and Melbourne game on Saturday exemplified the weekend struggle, and in the course of doing so threw up some interesting observations. Jake Kelly, in his first game of league football, broke the debutants record for most tackles in a game, a feat no doubt helped by the slippery conditions. Taylor Walker, the leader in the competition for marks, was limited to just one mark this week, partly due to the conditions but mostly due to the performance of Tom McDonald.

The game was also a battle between two of the better tap ruckmen in recent years; Mark Jamar and Sam Jacobs. Over the course of the day both big men slowly fought it out to a stalemate, perhaps slightly in Jacobs favour.

But what a stalemate it was. Only two games have seen a bigger combined hitout total, and the 126 total hitouts in the game was only two short of the record. I hope both Roos and Walsh made sure to send the work experience kids out on a servo run to get ice for both big men’s shoulders.

Leaders Of The New School

Over the offseason three clubs got new coaches, but only one of those coaches is undefeated. Adelaide’s Phil Walsh has never lost a game of AFL footy as the senior coach.

It appears from a small sample size that Walsh has shaken up how the Crows play the game. More specifically, Walsh has moved the Crows from adopting what would be considered to be a “balanced” style of play in the modern era, to one heavily reliant on kicking.

The league ratio for kicks to handballs in 2014 and so far in 2015 is about 1.3 kicks per handpass. Last year, the Crows under Brenton Sanderson sat right on this mark, with a ratio of 1.29 kicks per handpass. This season, the Crows have dramatically increased their kick ratio up to 1.72 kicks per handpass, which is highest in the league so far this season. The Crows have also increased their marks, from the second worst marking team in the competition up to fifth this season. This makes intuitive sense, as kicks lead to marks which lead to marks which lead to… yeah.

All three teams who have made a coaching change have increased their kick ratio, Dogs up to 1.26 from 1.13 last year and the Suns up to 1.38 from 1.34 last year, but it seems the most radically changing team is also the one reaping the greatest early season rewards.

LowBrown Medal voting

The LowBrown is HPN’s own 3-2-1 voting award for ineffective, counterproductive or otherwise poor statistical performances in every game this season. Players with less than 70% time on ground due to substitution or injury are ineligible for votes.

Collingwood v St Kilda

3 - P McCartin (StK) - 9 touches, 6 clangers and no score

2 - L Delaney (StK) - 2 kicks, 7 handballs, 3 frees against, Cloke kicked 5.4

1 - T Goldsack (Coll) - 11 touches, did break even with Membrey (11 touches, 1goal)

McCartin's difficult debut earns him a clear 3 votes. Really tough to find a third vote-getter in two pretty even performances, and probably not fair to plump for a break-even performance by a lockdown defender in Goldsack. Josh Bruce had 3 touches but kicked 2 goals, so must be said to have done his job.

Essendon v Carlton

3 - C Yarran (Car) - 10 touches, punching Chapman while tagging him didn’t stop him scoring 2 goals

2 - M Baguley (Ess) - 15 touches, 3 frees against, 4 clangers, minding resting mids

1 - M Jamison (Car) - 5 touches, Daniher kicked 3 on him

Yarran gets the three because although he tagged Chapman down to 8 touches, he still kicked two goals and Yarran totally sacrificed his own game.

Adelaide v Melbourne

3 - J Kelly (Ade) - 10 tackles in the slop, but only 7 touches and 3 clangers

2 - J Watts (Mel) - 12 disposals, 3 clangers, 3 tackles, 2 goal assists

1 - B Vince (Mel) - 8 clangers, 17 disposals, curbed Dangerfield.

A strange game where everyone with bad stats did some specific thing really well. Kelly gets the three on debut despite 10 tackles because in the wet when nearly 200 tackles are laid, that becomes less impressive if it’s all you do. Watts had some stats but was pretty anonymous.

Vince did a great job on Dangerfield but sneaks the 1 simply because we love a big clanger count.

Sydney vs GWS

3 - A Corr (GWS) - 10 touches incl 8 handballs, Heeney kicked four against him

2 - K Tippett (Syd) - 8 touches, 1 behind, 2 clangers, 12 hitouts

1 - D Shiel (GWS) - 14 touches, only 4 kicks and only 3 contested possessions

Dylan Shiel gets a vote for being way down as a normally prolific midfielder.

North Melbourne v Port Adelaide

3 - J Waite (Nor) - 10 touches, 0 goals 0 behinds 0 score

2 - J Trengove (PA) - 14 touches, 3 frees against, Ben Brown kicked 3 goals

1 - S Atley (Nor) - 5 clangers from 18 disposals (incl 6 kicks), opponent Wingard 19 touches and 1.1

Should probably have given more votes to Waite, as in a very high quality game, the other votes go to players who were only a little less useful than most of the rest.

Brisbane v Richmond

3 - B Staker (Bri) - 0.2 from 4 touches with Rance defending and running off him

2 - J Batchelor (Ric) - 7 touches, 4 clangers, 3 frees against, tagging the first-gamer Harris Andrews

1 - M Maguire (Bri) - 9 touches, opponent Griffiths 2 goals 2

All three of these performances are probably 3 votes in any other game this week, along with Mitch Robinson’s 14 possession 6 clanger game and Justin Clarke’s 9 touches.

Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs

3 - A Cordy (WB) - 2 touches no score, 1 FA, 6 HOs, was theoreticlaly forward-tagging Gibson

2 - J Stringer (WB) - 12 touches, no score, Duryea ran off him for 29 touches

1 - B Whitecross (Haw) - 4 kicks, 8 handballs

The Bulldogs clearly went in with a plan to limit Hawthorn’s creativity out of defence and that clearly did not work even one little bit.

Geelong v Gold Coast

3 - S Lemmens (GC) - 10 touches, 5 clangers

2 - S Tape (GC) - 9 touches, Motlop 23 and 2.2 on him

1 - J Murdoch (Gee) - 7 disposals on Kolodjashnij (11 touches)

Stevie J’s 19 disposal 5 clanger game was kept out of the votes only by his goal. K Kolodjashnij in a nil-all draw with Murcoch just misses out, as does Jed Bews with 12 touches conceding 2 goals to Matera.

West Coast v Fremantle

3 - S Lycett (WCE) - 8 touches, 7 HOs, 2 clangers

2 - L Spurr (Fre) - 11 touches, 1 tackle, 1 clanger

1 - J Nelson (WCE) - 12 touches, four from free kicks, no tackles

A lot of almost vaguely adequate peformances from West Coast padding their stats after the game was over. Kennedy misses a vote after jagging a late goal.

Round 3 leaderboard

With 3 games played a leaderboard has started to emerge. Below is everyone who has polled more than three votes. Watch the team sheets to see who can hit the sweet spot of poor statistical output but still being best 22 every week.

Much as the Brownlow is a midfielders’ award, the LowBrown appears as though may become a tagger/defender award.