Friday Night Forecast: Forward line efficiency

The yellow and black begin their string of prime time games in this week’s Friday Night Football.

By my reckoning, there are 12 games of Friday Night Football coming up before the regular season comes to an end. Richmond are currently scheduled to play in five of those, and with a final round match up against the ‘Roos looking delicious from long range, it could be six.

Yes, sports fans, Richmond will be on your TV screen every fortnight until the finals.

Five weeks ago, that would be a problem. But something has clicked at Tigerland. Before we get into it, how did we go with last week’s Friday Night Forecast?

Prediction: Port Adelaide def. Geelong by 18 points.
Actual: Port Adelaide def. by Geelong by 23 points.

That makes is 0-2 in the post-Carlton era.

I wrote in my preview that Geelong seem to have the Power’s measure, in one of those weird cosmically influenced match ups. The way I see it, Port Adelaide lost this one as much as Geelong won it – the Power continued their recent trend of looking decidedly average, and particularly unimaginative forward of the ball. Except for The Chad, who did Chad things most of the night. Are they cooked? It seems almost impossible for the Power to make the top four now: all those ‘experts’ that had the, as flag locks will have to hope they can do so as a six seed.

Here’s this week’s Friday Night Forecast.

Richmond Tigers v West Coast Eagles
Friday, 19 June
Bouncedown: 7:50PM (EST)
Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Victoria
Another match that projects as a corker. Attn: AFL Schedule Setter, this is what the people want. Let’s hide Carlton in the Saturday early slot next season please.

Like Hansel, the Tigers are so hot right now, having won their last four in the lead up to the bye rounds. Only one other side can claim to have had that happen to them: the under-the-radar Sydney Swans. Yep, the Hawks, Eagles, Dockers, Pies and Giants are 3-1 over that stretch.

What’s the deal? I still think fellow expert Cam Rose is some kind of warlock, capable of reverse jinxing his boys with the stroke of a few thousand keys.

But what’s the deal for real? Well one explanation is who they’ve played. The Tigers beat the flat track bully Collingwood, decidedly mediocre Port Adelaide (albeit away from home), and whatever it is Essendon has become.

Richmond’s winning margins of five, 33 and 13 points in those games don’t exactly scream we’re back.

Then last fortnight happened. The win that stands head, shoulders and perhaps a couple of nipples above those was victory against the Dockers at Domain Stadium. If there are different degrees of statement games, this one reached “I will rip out your heart and show it to you before you die” status. It was built on the most efficient first quarter football you’re likely to see this year. And a healthy dose of luck to help grease the wheels, of course.

There’s been improvement in a number of players, too. Not least of which has been Dustin Martin, who I predicted would become a top 10 player before the season started. In The Roar’s Top 50, I remarked that he was one of the best kicks in the game – not just in executing the skill but in making excellent decisions. In Richmond’s past four games, Martin has averaged 22.3 kicks per game. The AFL player average for kicks per game in 2015 is 9.3.

His prospective midfield match up will be very important for the Eagles, who face what is perhaps their biggest test to date. This will be West Coast’s third game in 12 days – yes that’s right – with a trip to and from Tasmania and a flight to Melbourne thrown in for good measure. And for their troubles they get to face a Richmond side coming off 13 days rest.

When I ran the numbers on this differing days of phenomena last year, I found something very peculiar: teams coming off the bye playing a team not coming off a bye had a winning percentage of 41 per cent, or roughly 20 per cent below the baseline win percentage.

One last thing. When I was looking at the numbers for this game, I thought an interesting wrinkle may be looking at the propensity for scoring shots to occur in matches involving these two sides. Given their respective reputations as offence first line ups, I was expecting them to be near the top of the scoring shot tree (that is, scoring shots for plus scoring shots against). Guess what? They’re both below average. That implies the ball stays in the midfield zone more than at either extreme end of the ground.

But both sides are relatively lethal once the ball goes in, scoring on 47 per cent (Richmond, ranked fifth) and 50 per cent (West Coast, second) of their respective inside 50s to this point in the year. And over the past four weeks, the Tigers have improved to a 52 per cent marker, which would lead the league if maintained over the year.

Damn this is a tasty looking match up.

So if this is another statement game for the Tigers, where on the spectrum does it sit? I’d say one notch below Mortal Kombat fatality. Which is fortunate for Channel Seven, because Friday night is a family friendly time slot. I can’t wait for this, and I think the Tigers will squeak home by six points.

That’s my Friday Night Forecast. What’s yours?