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At first glance, the question posed above might seem absolutely ludicrous.
Am I really suggesting that a player who played for a team that was embarrassed in the first week of finals and only received eight Brownlow votes last year could be the best player in the league – even better than Nat Fyfe?
There’s no doubt that Alex Rance is the best key defender in the AFL. Both the eye test, conventional statistics and advanced statistics rate him above the likes of Harry Taylor, Jeremy McGovern, Tom McDonald and Steven May.
Rance was ranked first in 2015 for one percenters, of which the vast majority are spoils, and with an average of 97 SuperCoach points per game, he also leads all key defenders. Advanced statistics, such as measuring defensive-one-on-one contests and the AFL Player Ratings Points system, also have him as the best key defender in the league.
How exactly, however, one might ask, does this impact on the game make him the best player in the league, and why could that make him a better player than someone like Nat Fyfe, who dominates games?
The short answer is that it doesn’t. In other words, Rance might be the best player in the league, but it isn’t because of what he does when he’s directly involved in the play. One might ask “isn’t that exactly what determines what makes a good player – what they do when they’re involved in the play”, and while that’s true to an extent, it doesn’t fully give appreciation to why Alex Rance is so good.
The logic behind Rance being the best player in the league despite having less direct impact on the game than other players requires some abstract thinking.
This begins at understanding how any given player might contribute to winning games. A team aims to score more points than their opposition, and they can achieve this both through attacking (trying to score more points) or defensive (preventing the opposition from scoring) means.
This is where a spectator’s fallacy comes in. It’s a lot easier to analyse who within a team contributes to scoring for their team. But 50 per cent of the game is preventing your opposition from scoring.
Richmond were one of the best defensive teams in the league last year. By allowing their opponents only 10 goals per home-and-away game (the best in the league), they were very successful defensively. There is an argument to be made that this is largely Rance’s doing.
To further understand Rance’s impact requires a further level of abstract thinking. As in all sport, it’s a lot harder to measure defensive impact than offensive impact.
Measuring offensive impact is easy. You can break down how points were produced in a multitude of ways – through the equity system within the AFL Player Ratings Points, looking at clearance numbers, or plain and simply which player kicks the goals. Coaches, for example, look at score sources (such as from stoppages, turnovers or kick-ins) to see the breakdown of how goals were kicked.
When looking at defensive impact, how players were defensively “involved” in the play is only part of the story. While Rance is the best player defensively in the league when he’s involved in the play – his elite defensive one-on-one contest numbers prove that – it’s his overall impact on the defensive structure that counts. This limited Richmond’s opposition to only ten goals a game that’s the main reason why he could very well be the best player in the league.
Combine that with some offensive ability (such as his rebounding statistics) and it’s not too absurd of a suggestion to suggest he’s the best player in the league.
The entire Richmond defence is built around Rance, and he prevents the opposition from scoring like no other single player does in the competition. It’s comparable to what Fyfe does in the midfield in helping Frematle score.
It’s hard to notice the lack of opposition scoring, because it’s not something that’s tangible. Noticing Fyfe win a clearance is easy, and visible. It’s hard to tangibly realise that Rance makes Richmond’s opposition score less than they usually do – although it impacts upon wins the exact same way.
The lack of something happening – the two or three goals less a game a team would kick without Rance – is not something you notice, as it’s hard to notice the lack of something rather than something happening. It’s harder to give credit to a player from preventing the opposition from being as good as they usually are.
This all points to Rance being a better player than he’s given credit for – and yes, all the way to being the best player in the league.
All it requires is a little abstract thinking.
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