Don’t tell @westozziebomber that!
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Our current season is weirdly similar to our 2021 season, based on high level stats:
Points for per game:
2021: 86
2023: 88
Points against per game:
2021: 82
2023: 82
Against bottom 6 sides:
2021: 101 for, 70 against
2023: 100 for, 67 against
Against non-bottom 6 sides
2021: 77 for, 89 against
2023: 81 for, 90 against
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I’m sorry, you are wrong, this season is nothing like 2021…is what I keep being told.
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Our method has clearly changed, but the overall outcomes (points) hasn’t really.
Method wise our defenders clearly aren’t pushing as far up the ground and we aren’t conceding the easy out the back goals anymore. But we are conceding more inside 50s as a result, which offsets that
Against non-bottom 6 sides:
I50s conceded
2021: 54
2022: 54
2023: 60
Points conceded per i50:
2021: 1.7
2022: 1.8
2023: 1.5
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but we are still better off.
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It’s a negligible difference.
2021 we got there on the back of Merrett, Parish and Stringer Staring, plus career best years from Langford, Hind, Ridley, Cox (Unicorn)
was the year of McMerrish when mcGrath was a mid.
Walla and Stringer both kicked most goals for efc in their career.
This year feels like more of a team effort. Merrett obviously leading the way though.
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Just because we are doing things differently, doesn’t mean we have improved. Yes you could argue that we have been less reliant on individuals, but the end result has been the same.
Great pod.
Agree with the waffling but can understand if it is because of nerves.
Also good to hear from players who you don’t usually hear from.
You guys to well & the fans are happy to hear from players. This podcast provides this so we are thankful.
Regarding short-sharp questions, I know a lot of people aren’t fans of JRE but when he has scientists etc on this is his best attribute. The guest speaks 80-90% of the time. The questions guide a response. If there is more context or if they haven’t answered everything Joe will say something small like 'how so? or ‘how did that make you feel?’ to get it back on track.
whats the measure of improvement?
Not sure taking out 6 teams to produce a stat is something i can totally embrace sorry. We were bottom 4. You have to see how opposition is scoring across the competition as a whole with us and especially our history of playing poor teams. I want to see stats more on consistency week to week for all teams
100 points is a nice round number but it’s pretty arbitrary. If you’d like the lid on take, here’s some nerdery. The crossover point across the league for conceding enough that you’ll probably lose is 90 points. You concede 84-89 points, it’s a 50% chance to win. Concede 90 and that drops to under 20%. We’ve conceded 90+ 6 times this year, and gone 1-5 in those games. 100 points is obviously more, but in terms of outcomes, it doesn’t really matter.
I’ve put it in 6 point brackets because goals.
| Score Conceded | Win % |
|---|---|
| 72-77 | 74% |
| 78-83 | 56% |
| 84-89 | 50% |
| 90-95 | 19% |
| 96-101 | 15% |
| 102-107 | 20% |
| 108-113 | 0% |
| 114-119 | 0% |
The below 50% threshold in 2021 was at 84 points (but the dropoff was to 35%, it doesn’t get below 20% until 96 points). We conceded 84+ points in the first half of 2021 7 times, and went 1-6 in those games.
So it’s a bit better, but we’re still conceding losing amounts of points regularly.
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I don’t think our history has been that bad against poor teams. Last year we were a poor team so you shouldn’t use 2022 as a comparison, but in 2021 we beat most of the poor teams except the Hawks in round 1.
Yeh thats fair for 2021
Carlton was probably a bad loss
Losing twice to both Giants and Swans who were two teams around us all year hurt
Still we are talking just 11 wins for the year.
You would hope this years teams will at least get to 12 wins… but you never know too.
I do agree we still a LONG way to go in a number of areas
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Beating on bad teams doesn’t really tell you anything though. For example, GC arent going great and might sack Dew at the year and yet smashed Hawthorn last week.
Looking at performances against the bad teams can skew the data too much and hide issues. Hoyne mentioned this week that Champion data are having to exclude West Coast matches from their database (obviously this is an extreme example)
Honestly outside of West Coast … i think the competition is very close and i dont myself subscribe to so called “bad team”. Banking many wins in this competition is not easy and at 8-6… i am think we have done well.
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I agree that the competition is close and if you are off you will lose. The thing is that this can change throughout the year itself. Luck would have it that we played the Tigers and Blues when they were both down on confidence, but we were unlucky to play Freo and Geelong when they were in form. This happens every year, and other teams probably think the same thing about us. The Swans are the team we probably pencilled in for a win 2-3 weeks ago, but is now a 50/50 based on form.
There are still 5-6 teams I consider a level above the rest, we played them in a 6 week stretch. Then there are 9-10 teams that I would consider middle of the table and are a 50/50 chance for us to beat. At the bottom we have WC, clearly, then North and the Hawks who are closing the distance on the 10 mid group teams.
Home ground advantage must also be taken into account, because we beat GWS and GC at home, but I doubt we would beat them away. Same goes for Adelaide and Sydney. Port and Brisbane would likely beat us anywhere.
I don’t have a point really, except to say although there is no such thing as an easy draw, there are easier draws than others, but these may not be obvious until after the season has been played.
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i think this is a really good post. The luck of the draw doesn’t include when you play an in form or an out of form side , not an injury depleted side or a fully fit side .