Apart from that one where Dangerfield attempted to kill him.
Would be curious to see comparison footage of contests Kelly/McKay had at their previous clubs and the contests they have had at Essendon. The huge differences makes me think it may be impacted by how we defend. I notice Gold Coast and Hawthorn are very good this year according to the numbers, I wonder if there are any correlated stats regarding depth of defense in terms of positioning, etc.
Those numbers are insane.
How are these players coming to Essendon and instantly becoming considerably worse defensive players?
It has to be something to do with how we set up the ground right?
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Indian Burial ground theory for mine
Yes.
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It’s really hard to pinpoint.
Especially with McKay. I mean, it’s not like he was part of some well-drilled high-functioning defensive unit at North. They guy played in 8 wins over his entire time there, and played full-back in a ridiculous amount of drubbings.
Yet he was able to compete better 1v1 there than he has with us.
Quite alot better too.
You would think his numbers at North should have only gotten better coming to us.
Those stats are very strange.
They are. We used to be pretty good at this stat, Hurley, Hooker, Ambrose and even Hartley (mostly) had reasonable numbers.
Even in 2021 Ridley (especially) and Lav had good numbers, but from 2022 onwards, we’ve been absolutely farkin rubbish at it.
our pssweak defence across the wing/hff area means teams can enter their f50 via the sides of the centre square rather than the boundary, giving them the option of hitting up forwards to their advantage in any direction
forcing teams to play around the boundary means that defenders can prioritise the middle of the d50. means kicks can’t then be out to the fwds advantage laterally (either gets intercepted, or goes out of bounds)
also skill error turnovers coming through hbf puts defenders 20m+ away from their fwds because the defenders have just helped move the ball out (or were the cause of the turnover)
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Yes and no.
While these are clearly issues with our defence, what you’ve described won’t always show up in the 1v1 numbers.
They will only count it if it’s deemed that each player has 50/50 chance of winning the contest. So if a kick is too much to a forward’s advantage, it doesn’t count. If a guy is 20m off his man and has to sprint desperately across or back to him, it won’t count. (although, as said earlier, that level of fatigue might contribute to the poor 1v1 numbers later when they do happen.)
It’s kind of why I like this stat. It just simply measures a guy’s ability to defend against another guy, when all things are equal (or as equal as a contest can be).
There are guy’s in sh*t teams who do well in this, and there are guys in good teams who suck at it.
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Hot take (for some players)
When you sign a big contract, you drop off mentallyand physically with effort. Redman too. Kelly & laverde just suck
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I have a theory that lock-down tall defenders can look better at truly ■■■■ teams. There’s no need to kick to a key forward who’s being closely checked when the rest of the defense is an absolute mess. The defensive forwards, the resting midfielders, the questionable third talls, one of them is probably off the leash. When it’s a total clogged mess, as happens in any game, they’ll go to the big tall, but it’s a contest that favours the defenders. The fact McKay was having fewer one on ones in the last couple of years at north despite the team conceding a lot more inside 50s than we have this year would suggest something to that effect.
At a slightly better team, the opposition is more likely to have to pick a contest to go to, in which case they’ll favour their better players, which means proportionally more of the contests will be on the key defender, and more of them will be ones that aren’t as favourable.
Obviously at a good good team, there’s team mates helping out, worse inside 50s, etc, so I suspect if the effect exists it would disappear somewhat.
I’d have to do some actual investigation to see if it’s true, but that’s my “Michael Hartley paradox” theory.
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It might also work to explain that he’s been improving as we’ve got worse over the year.
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Interesting. although he missed a few games last year and in '22, so while his total contests were less, the average per game is only slightly more with us, but were way higher in '20 and '21.
But I do get what you are saying, and it’s an interesting proposal.
Also, Hartley was a reasonably good 1v1 defender, until the ball went over his head, and then he’d just grab for his opponents jumper because he couldn’t do backwards. I reckon he lost far more contests from giving up free kicks than he did being outmarked.
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The hawks have the shittest backline in the comp, yet their defenders are looking decent. It’s all about a good zone defence and good small forward pressure, that’s where the game is at.
That’s kind of what I mean about his average number over the last couple of years at north. Slightly lower (2.4, 2.8 compared to 3) despite north conceding 58 and 63 I50s compared to our 50.
I hadn’t actually checked Hartley’s numbers, because I don’t think they were around at the time. 2016 we were conceding 58 I50s a game, Hartley was getting 4 contests a game, losing 28.9%. 2017 he actually improved to 26.2% but had 4.7 per game from 54 I50s a game. I wouldn’t say that’s great for my theory, but he was still involved in more contests despite being in a better team dealing with fewer incursions. Shrug.
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Just don’t look at Hurley’s numbers for 2017. Although, I’m not sure if that fits into your theory or not!
It’s pretty half baked, to be honest, and has only been applied in the direction of “why does this guy look worse at a better team?” I’d assume there are counter-examples all over the place.
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The best kind of footy theory. Bake away!
My 2c on our defenders, it’s an individual and collective mindset issue.
Every defender that makes the AFL is more than capable of not losing 1-1’s.
Not as many are capable of winning them often (decisive mark as the defender)
Then you have ground ball 1-1, and “help” defence both in marking contests and on the ground. All of these modes of defence require a slightly different objective and intent.
Our defenders are slow decision makers, by that I mean they don’t realise they are in a 1-1 early enough. The best defenders sense a contest, lock into the mode (what is my best option here, spoil, mark, body etc) and execute. It seems to me that when our guys lose 1-1s they realise what they should do very late, most of these marks aren’t even really strong 1-1 marks, they’re easy chest marks because the forward always has one intent - mark the ball, and our bloke is undecided on mark or spoil until it’s too late.
If I were in charge of the defence, I’d be trying to get their mindset to change to something like “we love defending” the best defences look like the want the ball to come in because it’s their chance to win contests and help the side, our guys look like they dread the ball coming in. And it shows in their slow decision making.
You have to know you’ll be needed, you have to relish it, want to be called upon. When I say “lack of intent” from our defence that’s what it is, two things - they don’t want the ball there, and because of that starting mentality, they make their decision on method a fraction too slowly which kills you.
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