Cohesion. It's one of those words that some call “management speak” and everyday people find annoying. But apart from being a buzz word, cohesion is a huge part of team sport and it isn’t understood as well as it should be by the wider football world.

Cohesion is the length of time players have worked together, building an understanding of the way each other play. It is vital in a sphere in which everything plays out in milliseconds and in the sub-conscious. That is the time-frame given to execute a skill or structure and to engage the part of the brain that is needed to execute it.

It’s become such an important gauge of performance entire businesses are popping up, such as ex-Wallaby Ben Darwin’s Gain Line Analytics, that measure the cohesion index of sporting teams around the world.

Some of the things Gain Line measure are: list turnover, in-season cohesion affected by injury and selection, and the long-term vision of the board. Carlton doesn’t use the Gain Line analytics service, but the club understands the link between successful teams and their ability to maintain a stable list, allowing players to grow together, compounding their individual improvements with greater team gains as understanding of each other improves.