Before we get into the latest run of the projections, a quick word on some trends we’re seeing in the AFL’s reams and reams of data produced to the end of Round 4 of the 2015 season.

Scoring is… the same!
Last year, the average points per game hit a post-Moon Landing low of 86.9 per game. I made a pretty big deal of it in gushing over what Hawthorn have been able to pull together over the past seven or so years, and predicted that the trend may reverse this year.

So far, the average points per game is running at 86.5 per game, some 0.4 points per game down on last season.

On the plus side, there’ve been 22 scores of 100 or more put up so far this year, with every side except The Two Who Shall Not Be Named from North of the Border managing to put up the ton at least once. At this rate, we’d be looking at an increase in 100-plus totals of 15 per cent – around 130 times versus 115 last season.

Free kicks are up, but its (probably) a good thing!
The number of free kicks per game is up from 34 to 38, and it’s probably because of the holding the ball rule.

How good has it been! The rolling maul has been all but eliminated, and the umpires seem to be blowing the whistle as soon as the ball is locked up rather than waiting on it to jar out.

Corridor use is waaaaay up!
Alright this one I can’t prove with numbers (unless anyone has some spare change to drop on Champion Data for a license? #freethestats), but as colleague Cam Rose noted in his Round One column, teams are adapting to the emphasis on defensive structures and full-ground presses by taking on the game.

More often than not, to this point on the season, it’s been through the corridor.

This may be the driver behind the slight fall in the number of possessions per game, and is likely the reason why the recent shift to more uncontested possessions has continued.

We could go on all day. Actually, no we couldn’t! It’s Round 4 for crying out loud. There’s very little signal and a whole lot of noise.

That hasn’t stopped AFL Media from drawing all sorts of hilarious conclusions based on three weeks of data. I prefer to let things percolate a little more before making the big calls.

Anyway, let’s instead get stuck into the latest improper projections.

Improper Projections: Round 4
I promised there’d be some numbers after Round 4.

Before we get into the projections, here’s what each of the numbers included in the table represent.

Last Week: This is where I had sides the last time I wrote a Projections column. +/- is how a side’s ranking has changed in between columns.

OER: Offensive Efficiency Rating. This is how well sides score relative to the AFL average.

DER: Defensive Efficiency Rating. This is how well sides defend relative to the AFL average.

SRS: This is an attempt to account for a sides’ margin of victory and strength of schedule.

SOS: This is a side’s strength of schedule, which is a gauge of how many points per game tougher or easier their schedule has been to this point in the season. Some interesting points from this one: The Bulldogs have faced the league’s hardest schedule to this point, while North Melbourne has faced the easiest. Isn’t that interesting?

AFL Ladder and Percentage: Hopefully these require no explanations.

The colour coding is how a side compares to the AFL average. Deep red = bad, deep green = good, yellow = average.

Ok here goes.

This column, let’s have a look at how the pointy end of the ladder is shaping up. There’s plenty of time to bag out the maroons masquerading as AFL players later in the year.

Are 2015 Essendon contenders?
In 2011, Essendon finished eighth in what was current coach James Hird’s first season in charge, losing to Carlton in an elimination final (yeah, Carlton were in the finals four years ago). The ‘Dons had a percentage of precisely 100, ranking sixth for offence and sixth-last for defence.

We all know what happened next. This column isn’t interested in doping. If you want to read, and argue, about that, head over to the footy tabloids.

My point in bringing up Essendon’s 2011 side is to compare it to what they have available this year. Here’s the constants, the ins, and the outs (based on their side in Round 3):

Constant	In	Out
Carlisle, Jake	Ambrose, Patrick	Davey, Alwyn
Colyer, Travis	Ashby, Jason	Hardingham, Kyle
Heppell, Dyson	Baguley, Mark	Hille, David
Hooker, Cale	Bellchambers, Tom	Jetta, Leroy
Howlett, Ben	Chapman, Paul	Lovett-Murray, Nathan
Hurley, Michael	Cooney, Adam	McVeigh, Mark
Melksham, Jake	Daniher, Joe	Monfries, Angus
Stanton, Brent	Gleeson, Martin	Pears, Tayte
Watson, Jobe	Goddard, Brendon	Reimers, Kyle
Zaharakis, David	Hibberd, Michael	Ryder, Patrick
	Merrett, Zach	Welsh, Andrew
Injured
Fletcher, Dustin
Myers, David Dempsey, Courtney Winderlich, Jason

 

It’s hard to argue that Essendon haven’t seen massive upgrades in most parts of their list.

Pretend for a moment you’re back in 2011. If you could fast forward three years and add Paul Chapman, Adam Cooney and Brendon Goddard to a line-up already boasting Jobe Watson, David Myers and Brent Stanton, you’d have to be thinking to yourself that your core of veterans is looking pretty solid.

Add in some strong home grown young talent in Joe Daniher, Mark Baguley, Michael Hibberd and Zach Merrett to bolster the middle aged crew of Dyson Heppell, Michael Hurley, Travis Colyer, David Zaharakis and Jake Carlisle, and the puzzle begins to look more complete.

The group would be starting to resemble one priming itself for a tilt at the flag.

Dustin Fletcher is kicking 60-metre drop punts. I hope he plays forever.

Perhaps the one place the ‘Dons look a little weaker than 2011 is in their ruck division. While David Hille never set the world on fire, the loss of Patrick Ryder (to fellow contender Port Adelaide) hasn’t received the attention it deserves because of the supplements saga and its role in his defection.

Tom Bellchambers is adequate as a full-time pack monster, and some hybrid of Jake Carlisle and Joe Daniher is probably serviceable as back up.

So far this year, the Bombers have lost the hitout count twice (against Sydney and Hawthorn), broke even once (against Carlton) and won once (by one, against Collingwood). Hitouts certainly aren’t the be all and end all of ruck stats, but if you’re looking for where Essendon have gone backwards since 2011, this is probably the place.

Notwithstanding, the improvement in the list is quite stark. Just compare what Essendon have pulled together compared to their 2011 Elimination final opponent: The ‘Dons are 2-2, and could have been 3-1 if not for a remarkable final quarter surge against Sydney in Round 1.

Paul Chapman is a very nice addition to the Bombers’ squad. (Photo: Michael Willson/AFL Media)

The Blues had to fly to another country and play against a bunch of kids to get on the board for 2015.

Essendon are 2-2 with a percentage of 97.0, and sit in 11th on the ladder after four rounds.

But with a seemingly big gap between the top of the pops and the rest of the playlist, should we start thinking about Essendon as one of the sides primed for an assault on the elite quartet? I think we should.

A little less offence, a lot more defence
Its hard to believe it, but Essendon had the AFL’s fourth stingiest defence in 2014, conceding just 77.5 points per game, behind Port Adelaide (75.8), Fremantle (69.9) and Sydney (66.6).

It marked the continuation of a trend that started around the time Hird took over as head coach of the Bombers. Here’s the Dons’ Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER) between 2007 and last season.

What’s a Defensive Efficiency Rating? Well, it’s the opposite of the Offensive Efficiency Rating I developed in my Hawthorn column from earlier this season – rather than what you score, its what you let your opponents score.

A negative number indicates a team is a below average defence in the particular year in question, and a positive number indicates an above average defence.

In the last few years of Kevin Sheedy’s tenure, Essendon had a truly woeful defence, recording an average -16.3 DER between 2007 and 2010. In that time, Essendon finished dead last on the defensive ladder twice, and 12th in the other two years.

Upon the hiring of Hird, there’s been a clear upward trend; DERs of -8.8, -3.1, +1.8 were produced in his first three years.

Under Mark Thompson in 2014, the Bombers took it to their defence to another level, recording a +9.7 DER which was good enough for fourth in the league. It was the first time the Bombers had a defence that ranked in the top eight sides in the competition since 2003.

Thompson never made any radical changes to Essendon’s game style or game plan. Rather, he built on what he and Hird had started building when the formed one of the AFL’s first coaching ‘Dream Teams’.

If anything, Thompson brought a greater emphasis on midfield defensive set ups when they didn’t have the ball, and pressure around the contest. This came at the expense of quick ball movement, and thus a decline in scoring power – the Bombers fell to a -4.1 OER, ranked 12th over the season and their lowest since 2002.

According to Champion Data, Essendon lost the ‘pressure count’ (a measure that subtracts pressure received from pressure applied) just twice in the year, despite ranking just ninth overall in pressure applied and ninth in average tackles per game. How do you reconcile that?

The answer is simpler than you think: Essendon have aimed to play a Hawthorn-like game of short, precise kicking to move the ball forward. That, coupled with their very strong midfield both inside and outside, suggest the Bombers may be coming good on my pre-season prediction of becoming the side most likely to emulate the champs in 2015.

More Hawthorn than Hawthorn itself
Or are they already more Hawthorn than Hawthorn, at least when it comes to ball movement?

This was on show a few weeks back, when the Bombers managed to snag the AFL Championship Belt from Hawthorn in their last-gasp victory. If you haven’t watched the final two minutes, do yourself a favour. I won’t spoil it for you here.

In that game, Essendon has 21 more kicks, 30 more marks and as a result won the uncontested possession count by 44. Where they should have fallen down was converting that dominance into inside 50s (lost 52-58) and scoring shots (lost 18-23). It was accuracy that saw them home in the end (12.6 to 11.10), as well as one of the arseiest defender goals you’ll see.

The talking heads dissected the game, and said they out-Hawthorned Hawthorn. The truth of the matter is they’ve been out Hawthorning-Hawthorn for a while.

Last season, the Bombers ranked first in uncontested possessions (250.2) and first in marks (109.0) per game in the home and away season, ahead of Hawthorn on both measures (248.2 and 92.8, respectively). Essendon were second in kick differential (+21.0), behind Hawthorn (+24.8).

They were slightly more effective around the clinches than Hawthorn, ranking sixth in clearance differential (+1.5) compared to the Hawks who were seventh (+1.2) – although Essendon only saw 72.9 clearances between them and their opposition per game (16th), significantly less than Hawthorn (80.5, ranked second).

Doesn’t that seem odd? I don’t think of Essendon’s midfield as more outside on the possession spectrum, particularly compared to Hawthorn.

Their captain, Jobe Watson, has always had a reputation as a pure inside midfielder; a clearance machine with cannons for arms and ability to set up his teammates for attacking thrusts through the handball. In his Brownlow year (2012), Watson averaged seven clearances a game, and distributed through handball at a crazy 79 per cent effectiveness.

His kicking in that year was somewhat weak, with an overall efficiency of 61 per cent on an average of 16 kicks per game. He fell away in his disposal in 2013, but came roaring back in 2014, lifting his handball efficiency rate to 81 per cent (more than eight out of ten handballs hit a target to advantage, which for an inside player is massive), but also tidied up his kicking to run at a slightly above average 71 per cent.

How’s he going this year? He’s currently going at a total of 81 per cent for total disposal efficiency, and is third in the AFL in total effective disposals.

He’s also, just quietly, sixth in total clearances and is pumping the pill inside 50 almost four times a game. The man is a football machine, the kind of player all 18 teams would love to build around.

When I was trying to come up with a clever analogy for Watson, all that kept coming to mind was Bender from Futurama. Watson looks like a pretty fun bloke. But download his personality to a floppy disk before play, and you get a single minded footballing machine.

Jobe Watson is a pretty handy player, they say. (Photo: Bradley Kanaris/AFL Media)

Inside out?
Anyway I digress. Last weekend’s game against Carlton was a proof point on Essendon’s issues on the inside of the contest.

The Bombers lost the clearance count 30-53 against the Blues, and the contested possession count 116-159. According to reports following the game, Coach Michael Malthouse had Carlton playing an extra man at the stoppage, which Hird didn’t man up and instead used the extra player to bolster the outside game.

Who said Malthouse can’t coach? It’s like giving your opponent exactly what they want, for the whole freaking game, even when it’s clearly not working, is a good strategy.

It took a half or so to get it going, but once Essendon adjusted to having a man open all the time – and yes, that’s a thing – but once they did it was a bloodbath on the stats sheet. Essendon had almost 100 more uncontested possessions, and took almost twice as many marks, as Carlton in getting home comfortably.

Essendon’s inside weakness came to the fore again against the ‘Pies the Saturday just passed. Collingwood won the contested possessions and clearances, Essendon had more of the ball on the outside and took way more marks, but maniacal pressure from their opponents, and a fair bit of bad weather, thwarted the ‘Dons.

It’s one glaring weakness the Bombers have, and one that will stop them from competing with the best sides in the competition.

But there is another.

While Essendon look like Hawthorn in the midfield, they are not even playing the same sport when it comes to using the ball in the forward 50 and hitting the scoreboard.

Hawthorn hit the board 49.5 per cent of the time once the ball was inside 50 in 2014 (ranked second in the competition) while Essendon converted a meagre 42.8 per cent of the time (15th).

This is critical. If Essendon were able to improve their rating to the league average of 46.3 per cent, their offensive efficiency would shoot to ninth in the league – not champagne, but sparkling enough to have them win more often.

Lift it to the elite level (for the purposes of this exercise, I’ve used Port Adelaide’s conversion rate of 48.2 per cent, which ranked fourth last year), and you’re looking at a side with a top five offence and defence.

A lot of this stems from the relative youth – and height – in Essendon’s forward line. Daniher and Carlisle are both members of the AFL’s 66 Club (until someone comes up with a better name for the group of players who are six foot six or over, I’m running with this), and are part of a growing list of key position players in that group.

Carlisle has been in the system for a while now, and has been a regular in the side since 2012. His role hasn’t been regular, though, with a move more permanently to the forward line last year under Thompson contentious at the time.

A two game stretch last year saw the 198cm, 100kg Carlisle take 31 marks and kick 12 goals on 16 attempts as the Bombers made their charge for the finals. So far in 2015 he’s been largely ineffectual in two rain-affected games, but performed well against the Hawks and Blues.

Daniher, on the other hand, is much newer to the elite level caper. After debuting in a few junk time games in 2013 – remembering junk time was early that year – Daniher played 21 of a possible 23 games, booting 28 goals in becoming Essendon’s leading goal scorer in 2014.

His 2015 has been strong to date, yielding nine goals four on 21 marks (with half of those inside 50). He’s had four scoring shots in every game bar the slogfest that was round one against the Swans.

Daniher hasn’t really pinch hit in the ruck so far this year, but proved himself capable of playing the position even if he wasn’t setting the world on fire.

With another 20 or 30 games, these two are potentially the premier key forward line of the competition in waiting.

The two metre tall club’s newest member
But who holds that crown now?

I made a somewhat flippant call that the Kangaroos’ line-up of Jarrad Waite/Drew Petrie/Ben Brown sounded reasonably imposing before the season. After four rounds, the evidence is slowly mounting that the ‘Roos have got a very strong forward set up at their disposal.

Coach Brad Scott seems to have worked out the best way to play with three talls is to rotate them through the key positions; Waite, Petrie and Brown appear to all spend time at full forward, as centre half forward, and as a half forward flank providing the link up through defence.

Look no further than North’s second half against a rapidly fading Geelong. The Waite/Petrie/Brown triumvirate combined for 17 marks and six goals, but also had four, one and two inside 50s respectively, suggesting they are working in sync up the ground when required.

It was a similar story the week before against Port Adelaide (in what was an early candidate for game of the season, which always seems to happen when these two play), with 19 marks and five goals. And the week before, against a somewhat weaker opposition in Brisbane: 24 marks and 12 goals – seven of those to Waite.

Waite and Petrie are somewhat known quantities, but Ben Brown is still the new kid on the block. He’s so raw he hasn’t changed his hair style yet. Which is great, from one fellow curly haired mop wearer to another.

Brown was a revelation in his debut season, particularly in the lead up and in the middle of North’s preliminary final run.

His performance in the third quarter against Essendon in the elimination final was something to savour, as he single-handedly lifted the ‘Roos from 27 points down and on the canvas to within a kick by the change. A three-goal burst hinted at his potential, and an eight goal start to 2015 suggests he’s set to cement his spot in North’s line up.

On Sunday, Brown kicked 2.2 and spent quite a little bit of time in the ruck when Todd Goldstein, aka ‘Iron Man Without The Armour’ (Geelong played two ruckmen on him for most of the game, and he still won 41 hitouts), spent spells off the ground.

Unlike other big units, Brown thrives on working all around the ground: an intercept mark leads to a rebound 50 at the 16-minute mark of the third quarter.

The resulting play sees the ball out of bounds, and Brown heads back into his forward 50 and the ensuing play sees him take an uncontested leading mark just inside the arc. Brown looks to hand off, but Lindsay Thomas runs over to him (he actually runs over to him, I’m not saying that for dramatic effect) and yells have a go. He does, and takes his customary 20-metre run up to build enough steam to power the ball home. It’s never in doubt.

Another third quarter play tells us a bit about how North structure their game.

After Mitch Clarke’s 19th brain fart for the game, Brent Harvey has the ball outside 50. Brown is standing just high of the goal square, with a Cat goal side and another about two metres ahead. Lindsay Thomas is standing in the pocket, and starts to lead into the centre corridor, dragging his defender with him and creating just enough doubt in the Geelong defender’s mind to give Brown the space to lead into the now vacant pocket and take an uncontested mark. He misses the kick, but its more an issue of direction than technique: the ball tumbles over in the most fluent of drop punt motions, as it does every time he kicks a set shot.

A lot has been written about Ben Brown. A lot more will be written in the decade ahead as he takes the footy world by storm and shows the 66 Club isn’t just for ruckmen. It took four drafts to get on a list, and he looks set to stay for at least twice as long.

North Melbourne got the job done on Sunday. Robin Nahas played probably the best quarter of his life to get the W, and push North to 2-2. Iron Man was incredibly influential, and would have to be an early favourite for All Australian ruckman.

To me, North haven’t quite shown enough yet to push themselves into a top four discussion. They are probably on par with Essendon to this point of the season, and the two will be jostling for position for the rest of the year.

A Friday night showdown in Round 7 looks tasty, and both sides will likely enter the game 3-3. I’m getting excited already.

Is it already a four-horse race?
The word limit is blown to smithereens, so let’s wrap this up quickly.

Its only Round 4, but I think the top four of Fremantle, Hawthorn, Sydney and Port Adelaide have opened up a fairly large gap on the rest of the competition.

In a truly bizarre piece of scheduling, Port hosted Hawthorn while Fremantle hosted Sydney. In the parlance, we’d call that a clanger on the part of the AFL, but that’s neither here nor there in the DVR generation. It was a cracking night of footy.

Port Adelaide’s blitz of Hawthorn in a five minute stretch of the first quarter was truly terrifying.

Brian Lake’s injury didn’t help, but Port Adelaide did whatever they wanted forward of the ball in the first quarter. Patrick Ryder, Jay Schulz, Matthew Lobbe and Justin Westhoff all spent time in the 50-metre arc, sometimes at the same time, and the Hawks midfield got pantsed to the point where Port Adelaide took the fullest of tolls.

It started with a stock standard contested mark by Schulz – which is the contest that Lake was injured – and ended with two goals in the space of about seven seconds of game time. Port contorted the Hawthorn back line in a manner not seen since 2009, and it must’ve really gotten into Coach Clarkson’s head.

It was great coaching, and there was very little Hawthorn could do about it until quarter time.

The Hawks played the better football from that point, and almost managed to pinch the game. If they had’ve pulled it off, we might have just called the season off and given the Cup to the Hawks.

Meanwhile, Fremantle and Sydney played a two-hour game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, with Fremantle the victor. The Dockers’ fast start got them home in the end, with Franklin relatively well held by the Fremantle defence.

Fyfe’s Three Vote Bus rolled on, with eight clearances and six inside 50s on 27 possessions. Oh, and a goal for good measure. I don’t want to point out the obvious, but this guy is good at football.

It makes you think we’re already witnessing a four horse race. Fremantle have their noses slightly in front having beaten both Port Adelaide and Sydney, while Hawthorn still have the edge over the Power and Swans in my book. What do you think?