It’s a good point. They do only count it if it’s deemed that both players have an equal chance of winning the contest, but as you said, there will be times when a player is flat footed, or maybe they’ve had to sprint 50m to be at the contest and are absolutely gassed.
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Maybe it’s the result of trying (and failing) to defend higher up the ground?
Yes but again, it depends on the quality of centre clearance too. As in Essendon’s could be a draper soccer off the ground or helicopter kick to nobody inside f50 type, where as the opposition’s could be out of the front of the stoppage under minimal pressure. Some of these stats are similar to ‘hit outs’, whereby it’s the quality that makes the difference, not the quantity.
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I have wondered that, if fatigue due to how we are defending is playing a part.
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just for my own interest, I thought I’d look at our 2017 forward line.
Holy moly
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The 2017 forward line was lit. 3 talls, 3 smalls. IIRC we were bottom 4 for inside 50s but were the 3rd best offence in the AFL. The most efficient scoring team that season. Unfortunately it was a one season wonder of a forward line for various reasons…
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One of which was the forward line coach that year was Skippy, and then he was transferred to mids coach. The forward line deteriorated, the mids got better (iirc) then after that the brains trust sacked him, and he was hired by Collingwood to help set them up for their next Premiership.
What a great brains trust we have.
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you look at that 2017 forward line and you do kind of understand why X when full lid off and brought in talent over the next two years. Though losing jobe really should have given us pause for thought.
unfortunately the players we targeted didn’t really address the issues we had.
smith was really targeted as a mid which compounded our size issue and it was well know he had a knee issue. he did fill a need as a front half pressure forward but only really had 1 year in him.
we actually thought we could turn stringer into the dominant big bodied mid we needed. i guess we did for about 8 weeks in 2021 but really just lol
shiel compounded the existing defensive issues in the midfield
saad probably the pick of them
interesting to speculate on what things look like if over those two years we’d targeted say Rockliff and lyons as FAs along with saad and maybe stringer as a pure forward.
on balance after jobe went, full rebuild was almost certainly the right way to go.
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Weirdly maligned on here was Skippy. Everywhere he went our players got better and some of the stories of the lengths he went to on individual stuff eg with Tippa were amazing.
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So, as our poor 1v1 efforts have entered the media a little, I thought it was time to update this thread, and try to give some context, as the figures quoted in the media have none.
Firstly, here are our updated numbers:
| 1v1 | Total | losses | Loss % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McKay | 64 | 22 | 34.4 | |
| Laverde | 38 | 13 | 34.2 | |
| Kelly | 25 | 10 | 40.0 | |
| Ridley | 22 | 6 | 27.3 | |
| Heppell | 18 | 5 | 27.8 | |
| Cox | 17 | 5 | 29.4 | |
| McGrath | 13 | 3 | 23.1 | |
| Redman | 12 | 6 | 50.0 |
Now, here are the top bunch of defenders (and Zerk) for this stat:
| 1v1 | Total | Losses | Loss % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob Weitering | 58 | 6 | 10.3 |
| Connor Idun | 45 | 5 | 11.1 |
| Callum Wilkie | 53 | 7 | 13.2 |
| Sam Collins | 66 | 9 | 13.6 |
| Harris Andrews | 76 | 11 | 14.5 |
| Darcy Moore | 49 | 8 | 16.3 |
| Zerk | 53 | 16 | 30.2 |
But to add a bit more context, here are the worst rated defenders for this stat. Note: This list is for players with a minimum of 15 1v1’s for the year, otherwise you get some mixed up and pretty misleading results.
| 1v1 | Total | Losses | Loss% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harry Perryman | 20 | 10 | 50.0 |
| Nick Blakey | 15 | 7 | 46.7 |
| Charlie comben | 31 | 13 | 41.9 |
| Tyler Young | 24 | 10 | 41.7 |
| Jake Kelly | 25 | 10 | 40.0 |
| Blake Howes | 17 | 6 | 35.3 |
| Tom Barass | 32 | 11 | 34.4 |
| Ben McKay | 64 | 22 | 34.4 |
| Jayden Laverde | 38 | 13 | 34.2 |
| Brodie Kemp | 30 | 10 | 33.3 |
And finally, we have officially slipped below North and West Coast to be the worst in the comp for this stat as a team. However, we are equal with the Bulldogs, so there is that.
One last fun fact. In 2021, when he played his most games as a defender, James Stewart went at 31.9%,
I hope all that was as grim to read as it was to put together.
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How was Mckay before coming to us?
I’ve got that up the thread a bit:
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Jesus
How has he gotten so much worse with us?
His North numbers are quite solid considering the ball would have been coming in hot a thousand times a game.
We have a ■■■■■■■ midfielder/tagger as our defensive line coach… what do you expect?
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If you follow that post back above you’ll get to see Jake Kelly’s numbers too… that will freak you out.
The weird thing with McKay, is that his numbers have actually improved as the year has gone on.
He just handballs straight to his opponent now instead
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Do we put this down to pressure on the kicker? Or is it a structural thing?
Kelly was elite at this before he came to us.
Kelly was also younger and hadn’t had the head knocks. He does seem to second guess himself a bit more since the knocks and he is someone that needs to play on the edge to do his job
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It’s something we’ve been trying to pinpoint in this thread for a few years now. (Our numbers were quite good in 2021, but it’s been all downhill since then.)
One possibility that has come up recently, is that our defenders are pushing up too high, and therefore have to spend a lot of energy running back to cover their opponents, and are gassed when trying to compete 1v1
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Kelly’s numbers went to sh*t the moment he walked in the door, before he had the head knocks.
With him, it’s possibly a match-up issue. He is possibly playing on bigger opponents with us than he was at Adelaide.
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