With the bye rounds behind us, I thought it would be a good time to have a deeper look at how the top eight teams have performed against each other and see what each team has been doing well and not so well compared to their opponents.
First up I decided to do a quick breakdown of the top eight against their fellow contenders. In the table below winning records are coloured green, break even records are yellow, and losing records are red.
Geelong is the clear front runner and would sit two games clear if we made a ladder based on just these games. If GWS earn the right to home finals (and the AFL does not screw them by changing venues) they will have a strong home ground advantage, however they have yet to prove they can win away. Adelaide’s record also shows they will likely need to push up the ladder and earn some home finals if they want to play deep into finals. While the Kangeroos overall record against contenders is in the red to this point, they do have five ‘eight point’ games remaining, so their destiny is in their own hands.
While winning and losing is certainly the most important aspect to look it, it’s not the whole story. Margins can often show us who is winning comfortably and who might be benefiting from a bit of luck going their way.
The thing that jumps out is West Coast’s failure to win a game against a contender so far this season. The Eagles have four games remaining against contenders so they have a chance to right their record but considering they are losing by an average, in excess of, five goals a game, I do not see it happening.
The best teams generally win big while losing small. Hawthorn this season so far has been doing the opposite; winning by about two and a half goals a game and losing by roughly six-and-a-half goals a game. Can they continue to afford the big losses while squeezing home narrowly?
The Bulldogs and North Melbourne have the smallest average winning margins, with neither winning a game against a contender by three or more goals. Will both their lists getting healthier will they put a contender to the sword in the last part of the season?
Too often in the media these days we have commentators pick out a single statistic and attempt to base everything off it. It’s lazy and flawed. There is more than one way to win a game of footy. Every team has different key indicators that are important to the way they play.
What I have done in the following table is picked ten of the most common, and available (#freethestats), stats and ranked each team from 1 (best) to 18 (worst) based on average differential compared to their opponent. Teams in green are ranked in the top four, yellow are ranked 5th–8th, orange are 9th–13th, and red rankings are the worst five teams in a particular stat.
*All rankings taken prior to completion of the Adelaide vs Melbourne game
NOTE: If there is a stat you feel should have been included in this table, please let me know in the comments below. I will ask The Roar Editors to amend the table if your argument is persuasive (and the stat is available #freethestats).
Again, Geelong and GWS are at the top with both being inside the top eight in all ten statistics. Sydney very nearly joining them, just being outside the top eight in hitouts. Bulldogs are interesting because what they are good at they are nearly always the best at, leading the way in five categories and coming second in a sixth. North Melbourne only excels at one stat, but avoids being bottom five in any, while Hawthorn is bottom five in four statistical rankings.
In order to provide some sort of summary of all those numbers, I simply added them all up and then ranked teams lowest to highest. This is my overall statistical differential ranking ladder.
| Total | Overall ranking | |
| Geelong | 29 | 1st |
| GWS | 39 | 2nd |
| Western | 52 | 3rd |
| Sydney | 55 | 4th |
| Adelaide | 63 | 5th |
| North Melbourne | 84 | 6th |
| West Coast | 85 | 7th |
| Hawthorn | 103 | 8th |
Do any of these numbers tell us anything? Do they prove who will win and who will not? Probably not, but being a ‘numbers guy’ I enjoyed compiling them and hey, I had no idea my team would end up on top at the end, bonus!
Micko
Roar Rookie
I tip the Western Bulldogs! :stoked:
Penster
Guest
It's the same as that stupid "scoreboard" stat where they publish these bulls##t numbers each game and then the siren goes. Astute commentators ignore it and concentrate on traffic light graphs that clearly explain why their least favourite team can win the flag. Again.
New York Hawk
Guest
I think AB was just trying to be funny. And he succeeded! All stats-related articles where the methodology is not sophisticated (as you stated in your article it is a bunch of publicly available stats given equal importance and scored based on the rank) are for fun. I agree that Hawthorn can't win the flag if they don't improve over the rest of the regular season. But there are still 8 games left, so they have plenty of time. Think about how they flogged (and I am being kind here) Freo and Sydney in successive weeks last year after a sloppy start to the season. Not saying this improvement it is guaranteed to happen but I am confident it will and I certainly wouldn't bet against it - or write articles about how they can't win the flag like Cam did.
Griffo
Guest
20% on my count.
andyl12
Guest
Hawthorn are about to get on a plane for 2 straight weeks, something West Coast are yet to do this year. But you won't hear any compliants from Hawthorn. Their goal when they travel is to win, not whinge.
Richard
Guest
I'd suggest that Adelaide's flags in 97 & 98 exceeded what they'd shown in the regular season. Pretty average win/loss record during the season, not the best team, yet won when it mattered.
Brian
Guest
or like how you forgot any stats about winning a final the previous year before winning a grand final when you wrote this article
Brian
Guest
you mist have missed the 2014 grand final. its on YouTube for you
fairsuckofthesav
Guest
The teams playing out of the MCG and Etihad have a distinct advantage. How many times do they get on a plane? Certainly not every second week. And virtually never in consecutive weeks.
Cat
Roar Guru
Isn't it funny how Hawthorn fans spend months telling everyone how being top of the ladder before September means nothing, but soon as they find themselves on top it suddenly means everything?
Derm
Guest
Mate your a genius, let's see how great your stats are at actually predicting the premiership winner. For the past 5 years, the following teams have finished on top: 2011 Collingwood 2012 Hawthorn 2013 Hawthorn 2014 Sydney 2015 Fremantle Looks like you've only got a strike rate of 40%. Maybe it's not all that accurate, hence the basis of this article. Good attempt at being clever though.
AB
Guest
Interesting analysis. But I'd like to propose my own statistical metric. Let's call it "winning games of football". I know it's quite radical, but here goes (somebody correct me if I've got this wrong, because it's a bit tricky): Hawthorn 11 Geelong 10 GWS 10 Sydney 10 Adelaide 10 Bulldogs 10 North 10 West Coast 9 I've used a secondary metric - let's call it 'percentage' - in cases where teams are equal on the primary metric. I know this is a bit of a radical idea. I mean, 'winning games of football' - who ever heard of such a crazy and irrelevant stat, right? But I find that it can be a really useful predictor of the truly important stats, like 'marks inside 50 differential' and 'contested possessions by left footers in the last seven minutes of each odd-numbered quarter.' Who knows, it may even be something that Champion Data decides to start tracking one day.
Cat
Roar Guru
Season long form is a good indicator of what a teams maximum potential come finals time is though. Any team can perform worse on any given day. What I haven't seen is any proof that a team can suddenly become better in finals than they were in the regular season. This is what Hawkthorn fans are relying on, that they can suddenly produce more than they have all season. A teams best during the season is the best they may achieve during finals.
anon
Guest
Saints lost the 2009 Grand Final because they were awful in front of goal. The had twice the inside 50's by half time but couldn't convert.
Brian
Guest
Teams can't flick a switch but the problem with this analysis is that March-May form is not a good indicator of September. Think St Kilda 2009, Collingwood 2011, Fremantle 2015. Many teams get on a roll early but that form does not help them in September. This year the top 8 are so close its a lot between the ears and lady luck on any day two of them. We are just too far away from getting any meaningful patterns of who will win the flag.
Big Tony
Guest
Fair enough. Although if you add up all the wins/losses for all top 8 teams against fellow top 8 teams interstate you will no doubt get an extremely lop-sided number. I did it after round 11 and it was sitting at 2 wins 15 losses. I can't be bothered tallying it up since then. Anyway, tells you it's going to be bloody hard for teams traveling interstate in finals. Ladder position will be key to avoid those nasty road trips!
Cat
Roar Guru
If it was the same umpiring crew every time there may be something to it but it's probably nothing more than having a loud vocal majority crowd on your side. Something no Melbourne team ever gets and something Geelong loses every time it is forced to play 'home' in Melbourne.
I hate pies
Guest
I was referring to the free kick differential at home games, particularly for the non-Melbourne teams. Have a look at West Coast's free kick differential at home for the past 10 years; it's gobsmacking. Yet, the AFL will tell you all games are umpired fairly.
Cat
Roar Guru
I agree, I originally set out to include just that. However when I started to break it down there just wasn't enough data. Three or four games for most teams into four categories, Home wins, Home loses, Away Wins, Away losses just leaves a lot of empty cells.
Big Tony
Guest
Geelong's situation has been unique in the AFL probably until GWS came along. I didn't really have Geelong and GWS in mind when making the comment to be honest... more saying that there are 4 clubs outside Vic who will be in the finals. "Away" games for the Vic clubs against fellow Vic clubs will be much easier than if they had to travel interstate in the finals. And I think the same can still be said of Geelong anyway... they would much rather an "away" game at the MCG than an "away" game at the SCG I would think. The degree of difficulty increases. I'm not having a go at you by the way, good read. Just thinking it is more complicated than simple home and away games. There are away games within your own state, away games interstate, then there are "half-travels" for Geelong and GWS to complicate things further.