Bad kicking is bad football. The old saying seems to ring true more often than not, especially when sides kick themselves out of matches.
But is it actually the case?
The 2014 AFL accuracy ladder is below beside the real ladder with a percentage of goals scored from scoring opportunities.
| Real Ladder | Accuracy ladder | % goals/scores | |
| 1 | Sydney | Hawthorn | 59.21 |
| 2 | Hawthorn | West Coast | 55.04 |
| 3 | Geelong | Carlton | 54.01 |
| 4 | Fremantle | Fremantle | 53.81 |
| 5 | Port Adelaide | Richmond | 53.07 |
| 6 | North Melbourne | Gold Coast | 52.75 |
| 7 | Essendon | Adelaide | 52.5 |
| 8 | Richmond | Sydney | 52.08 |
| 9 | West Coast | Brisbane | 51.76 |
| 10 | Adelaide | Port Adelaide | 51.64 |
| 11 | Collingwood | Western Bulldogs | 51.5 |
| 12 | Gold Coast | GWS | 51.2 |
| 13 | Carlton | North Melbourne | 51.09 |
| 14 | Western Bulldogs | Geelong | 50.97 |
| 15 | Brisbane | Essendon | 50.83 |
| 16 | GWS | St. Kilda | 50.48 |
| 17 | Melbourne | Collingwood | 49.8 |
| 18 | St. Kilda | Melbourne | 49.22 |
Starting from the top, Hawthorn is clearly a cut above the rest, scoring a goal almost 5 per cent more often from a scoring opportunity than the next best team. This means that in a game with 30 scoring shots for each side, Hawthorn would get an extra goal head start against the next most accurate team, West Coast, and 3 goals on the bottom team, Melbourne. Only once last season did Hawthorn score more points than goals, against Geelong in round 5, and that was a loss.
Somewhat surprisingly, West Coast finished second. This was supported by their weekend effort of 14.3 against the Bulldogs, with their accuracy keeping them in the game. Their opponents had 10 more scoring shots, all of which were behinds and made up the 10 point margin in the game.
Carlton were another surprisingly accurate team, but looking more closely their 2014 season was very inconsistent. They scored more points than goals six times, with a dreadful display of 7.16 in a losing effort against Melbourne in Round 4, but 24.7 against St Kilda in Round 16, an 86-point win. What is telling is that every time they kicked more behinds than goals, they lost.
Fremantle and Sydney, two top-four contenders, both finished inside the top eight of the accuracy ladder, however it was Fremantle’s inaccuracy that cost them against Port Adelaide with an 11.17 performance.
Port however were quite an inaccurate side in 2014, ranking 10th, but by coming second for total goals and first for total behinds, they certainly had enough supply to make up for it. Improving their accuracy may be the final piece in the puzzle for a flag tilt.
Richmond, Gold Coast and Adelaide all finished above their real positions in the accuracy ladder and seem to have that aspect of the game sorted as each expect to make the top eight this year. Brisbane finished just outside the eight, however more supply from the midfield is needed before they can challenge.
Geelong and North Melbourne were two top-six teams that finished in the bottom six for accuracy. This would be quite concerning for them as they are both touted to go deep into September (or maybe not after Round 1), and taking chances is pivotal in finals football.
Not surprisingly, Melbourne, St Kilda and GWS finished in the bottom and with inexperienced lists, this should improve as the clubs re-build.
Collingwood and Essendon were lowly ranked and should be keen to improve this facet of their game as they will no doubt be around the low end of the top eight, and with little splitting many teams in contention.
Based on this, the accuracy ladder is somewhat useful, but also throws up some surprising and sometimes useless information. Based on my calculations, a team can expect to finish within five positions on the real ladder from their position on the accuracy ladder.
Although it’s not completely accurate (pardon the pun), by looking back on 2012 and 2013, 2014 seems to be a year where goal accuracy and team placings didn’t match up very well.
In 2013 teams finished on average within 3.6 places of their position on the accuracy ladder and in 2012, that number was 2.9. In 2012, the furthest a team was from their accuracy ranking was 7 places.
So if history is anything to go by, the accuracy ladder can be very telling in a club’s season.
For such a simple skill that can mean a couple of free goals per game, the accuracy ladder should be a focus of more clubs in 2015.
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