Pre Finals Break 2024 – State Of The Game

Last Week           6/9           Season Total      127/207

The regular season has come to a close and it’s time for surgery and the reading of trade news for most of the competition.  For 8 teams though the season continues.  We’ll look at their plight next week.  This week is a chance to reflect back on the season that was and understand where it all went right or wrong for your team.

Let’s start by acknowledging what a wonderful and tense final day to the season proper that it was.  Aside from some idiot pegging a bottle at an umpire (that gentleman is about to save a lot of money by not attending a footy match ever again…ever), the AFL would be well pleased with the drama that occurred throughout the day.  The Dogs blew away GWS with the help of a howling breeze and then Carlton, who had to win to guarantee their spot, let it slip with only seconds on the clock.  This made it a tense wait watching fumbly Freo drop the ball in more ways than one to settle the ladder.

It was a strange season with rule changes throughout and a final ladder that, if things were 2 wins different, a team could jump from 10^th to 2^nd.  How does the season, in general, stack up to the past?

For comparisons, I like to refer back to 1993.  This is when the game was full of free-flowing style and big scoring before coaches seemed to think Defence wins games.  I believe this is the era that most people long for when they say, “today’s game is not as good as it used to be.” And I believe this is the product that the AFL would like to restore with all their rule changes like 6-6-6 and “Stand.”  Since the introduction of those two rules (2019), the average ‘points for’ in a match has been increasing (exception is the COVID year of 2020 when quarters were shortened).  ‘Points For’ is now almost the same as it was in 1993.  Points Against has also been increasing in recent years but is nowhere near what it was in the 90’s.  This means that if high-scoring close matches is what we are after as a product we still need to loosen our defensive belts as the average margin this year is twice what it was in 1993.  So, matches are higher scoring in general, but not as close on average.  While we seem to see a lot of close games, especially this season, there is also a lot of absolute shellacking’s that we tend to forget.

Another interesting thing we can look at is answering the question, “Why did insert team name here, make it to the finals and my team didn’t?”  Now we all know that the AFL fixture is far from a balanced and equitable thing, but my belief is it has one of the biggest impacts on who plays finals.  The main imbalances are around who your teams plays twice and where they play each other.  It is especially noticeable this year when 3 teams are spectacularly crap and the difference between 2^nd and 10^th is only a couple of matches. 

I find the table below particularly interesting as it shows who has been most advantaged by the fixture.  But I would like to preface it by saying, this data is retro-actively constructed AFTER the season.  The AFL (allegedly) constructs the fixture for fairness based on ladder positions from the previous season and they cannot foretell injuries, form changes, etc.  The table below is the outcome of that process.  But we do know that the AFL deliberately builds in inequities like the fact that Collingwood and Sydney played for 10 years in a row, never in Melbourne.  You can’t tell me that the AFL is trying to balance any inequities over longer time periods when things like that happen.

This table shows how many times a team played one of the bottom 3 teams (West Coast, North Melbourne and Richmond), How many games they had against eventual top 8 sides, how many games they had against teams who placed 10 – 15 and what percentage of those games against the top 8 were at their home ground where there is more of an advantage (not counted if their opponent shared the home ground).  Based on the number of games played, the expected number of times any team should face a bottom 3 side is 4 times.  If you were right on that you have a slight advantage (light green) and if you faced them more than 4 times the fixturing provides a big advantage.  The expected number of games you should play against the top 8 is 10 matches.  Playing 10 matches against the top 8 provides a slight advantage and playing less than 10 matches against the top 8 provides a very big advantage.  Playing the middling teams should happen, an expected 9 times.  If you play those teams 9 or 10 times, you have a slight advantage, but playing those teams more than 10 times gives your team a big advantage.  When it comes to playing the top 8 sides, to give your team a better chance of beating them, you want to play them at home.  The last column shows the percentage of games against the top 8 that were at your teams home ground.  40% - 50% of games is a slight advantage and playing more than 50% of those games at your home ground is a big advantage that fixturing provides you.  More data was collected but is not shown in this table such as the numbers of days break between matches.  This is more nuanced as it is not only the number of days you had leading into a match, but how many days your opponent had.  For simplicity, I have left that out.  List availability was also tabulated and certainly influences your teams ability to win games but is unrelated to the fixturing so has been excluded from this tabulation.

We can assess each team looking at this and understanding if the fixture provided an overall benefit to one team over another.  Sydney, Port Adelaide and Geelong were all provided a good benefit from the fixture, mostly due to them facing other top 8 teams less than others did and when they did face them, they usually had the home ground advantage.  Therefore, it is not surprising to see them in the top 4.  GWS on the other hand were given no favours by the fixture but landed a top 4 position which is why I fancy them for the Premiership.  Brisbane had a similarly advantageous fixture to the top 3 teams with most of their top 8 encounters being on their home ground.  Hawthorn and Carlton were gifted extra games against the bottom 3 teams which might be the difference between them being in the top 8 rather than, say Collingwood.  Carlton in particular didn’t get as much of an advantage from the fixture as other teams in the top 8 and had an awful injury list to content with too which makes their appearance in there a great indictment on their hard work.

Outside of the top 8, you could say that North Melbourne were hard done by.  They finished near bottom last year and yet had to play the top 8 teams 12 times this year and rarely at North’s home ground!  Gold Coast was the only team to play all three bottom 3 sides twice and West Coast and Essendon ended up with very favourable fixtures so would be rather disappointed that they weren’t able to capitalise more on it.

It's an interesting table, but the grain of salt to take with it is that it is the table which is the outcome of the fixture so analysing the fixture that resulted in the table is a little self-serving, but it is interesting to note it anyway.

The last table I’d like to show is the “What Drives Your Team” table.  This is a list for each team, which match was their highest rated game for the season.  The highest rated game is the game that your team achieved their highest average pressure rating combined with their own efficiency statistics.  For those that aren’t aware the pressure rating is an averaged value based on whether an opponent was being touched by a player at the time of disposal combined with tackles, the handball to kick ratio of their opponent, their opponents efficiency rating, etc. (in a nutshell…see Champion Data for more information).  This is an expression of effort.  Combine that with your own teams disposal efficiency, contested/uncontested possession ratio etc. and for the highest value for the season, we get an indication that this is the game that they did their best in.  The table of a team’s best game for the year looks like this (here’s where Collingwood supporters go ballistic):

It feels good to beat Collingwood.  If you enjoy something, do it often, is what I say.  I put this oddity down partly to the Premier effect; a team wants to measure themselves up against the reigning premier so are likely to try harder in that game and partly to the, “geez its satisfying to beat Collingwood” effect; which is self-explanatory.  I’ll be interested to see if it is Collingwood again next year, given they won’t be Reigning Premiers.

The last thing I’ll leave you with in this pre-finals missive is a summary of your teams season…if it has ended.

Often referred to as the pedestal, foot, or base
The bottom of the ladder is an unenviable place
A space occupied by Richmond this year
It’s enough for supporters to shed a tear. 

It was a year classified as ‘transition’
With many legends vacating their position
The biggest of all was three times Norm-Smith, Dusty
Who was getting long in the tooth, but far from Rusty

A rebuild begins under new coach Yze
To the draft on Wed Nov 20 (a day after Tuesday)
Can they turn it round quickly?  Do they have the knack
Or is it years of pain for the Yellow and Black? 

Disappointment for North with another poor year
With all of their draftees, you’d think success was near
But in games they seem to just fall short
Being overrun is their favourite sport 

Another high draft pick to fill their coffers
They’ll soon have a team full of bona fide show-stoppers
Or will they palm off some talent in favour of maturity
With a deal behind the sheds and paper bag gratuity 

‘Maybe next year’ is the expression to use
But they’ve used that too often on supporters of Roos
Next year I expect that patience runs thin
If they don’t pull their socks up and get a damn win! 

What a year for West Coast, a shiny new toy
A beast of a bloke, but a lad of a boy
He stiff-arms and charges, making members drool
Will he stay 4 years, or make them the fool? 

The coach was sacked as the year got old
Well, “departed voluntarily” was the story we’re told
But no other candidate wants the Eagles top job
With the pressure from the members and that media mob 

I have an idea, perhaps they get Trump
He can handle the media and give a golf ball a thump
But probably not, he has a delusional vice
Plus, I’ve seen him play…it’s a terrible slice 

Adelaide would be very annoyed
It’s a mental issue, they need Sigmund Freud
But then again, they can’t blame others
And I can’t personally speak of the sex-appeal of their mothers 

They had a great draw but were unable to win
Their game plan needs to be thrown in the bin
There’s talent there, we know it for sure
Is it coaches or players at the problems core? 

They should be winning, with a player like Rankine
I want to keep it clean, but I want to rhyme wankin’
Because maybe that is what’s causing their issues
You can’t ever win, if you’re all out of tissues! 

Sorry ‘bout that, lets raise the bar
To a respectable level, it’s not a bridge too far
We can talk about Melbourne and let’s not be mean
But their season split open like Petracca’s spleen 

They started ok but fell away fas
And tumbled down the ladder, in the direction of last
The problem now is everyone is starting to let rip
And deserting the club like rats from a ship

I’ll admit it has been compelling viewing
Which might end in court with everyone suing
But within the supporters are lawyers a-plenty
They’ll play their part for 10-seconds a twenty 

Meanwhile at Gold Coast they built a stronghold
Impenetrable to most for the red and the Gold
But if they stepped out of that home town Garrison
They were about as successful a Beatle George Harrison 

Look, George was a pretty successful guy
But compared to John and Paul was more like a fly
I’m down a rabbit hole and being unfair
I loved George and Ringo and the aforementioned pair 

I’m trying to articulate Gold Coast’s big trouble
Which was venturing away from their Carrara bubble
Unless it was Darwin, they seem to like it there
It’s a bit like home with thick humid air 

After finals last year, St Kilda had spark
They were ready to blow other teams off the park
But quickly the team started to feel the heat
And realized they weren’t good enough to compete 

A game style typical of Ross Lyon
Left fans and supporters in their beers, cryin’
That’s negative, I know, but so is the game style
And sitting through a match is an ordeal, a trial

As their better players went under the knife
It was up to the rest to deal with the strife
End the season well, was the goal of their task
Success with a classic Higgins last gasp 

Essendon, Essendon…he shakes his head
Always half-alive, but mostly dead
They took some strides, that’s for sure
But the steps were backwards, and that’s what’s poor 

When can the team break out of this funk
And give long-suffering supporters another slam dunk
They were up there for most of the season gone just past
But couldn’t maintain it right to the last

One wonders if they’ve been punished enough
For that peptide thing, and all of that guff
I feel bad for them sometimes but then I remember
Life feels all right when they’re not in September 

Fremantle faltered…it’s a common theme
Common enough to be its own meme
Their fans just take it, never angry or dirty
Despite not one flag in years almost thirty

They have a core group, they’re young with eyes bright
So maybe success is finally within sight
But now one question they tentatively ask
Is Longmuir the coach, the one for the task?

His grip on the gig is tenuous at best
If he misses finals next year, he’ll depart from the west
I think they can do it, give Fremantle supporters hope
They have it every year, until they say ‘nope.’

Lastly, the reigning premiers were knocked away from the top
Their season ended when DeGoey’s hamstring went pop
But it was on life support long before then
Losing games they would win, way back when

Injuries plagued their flaky forward line
But they got through a year without reporting a crime
You have to take the little wins when you can
Or the season will get you before it began

The old guys have decided they’ll go ‘round again
For a season of good or a season of pain
Will 2025 give them the cakewalk they desire
Or another year to wallow in the mire

LADDER PREDICTION

Oh, one last thing.  Remember before the season, I predicted the ladder?  Well, how did I do?  Here is a comparison of my prediction to actual.  The score is the number of places I got it wrong by.

Of course, with no basis of comparison, I don’t know if this was good or bad.  What I do know is that Adelaide really disappointed me this year, as did Sydney, Geelong and Hawthorn.  Maybe next year…maybe you could submit yours next year and see if you can beat me?