A nuclear Round 15 throws the AFL season into glorious chaos

What a round, the AFL exploding into a fire of goals, tight finishes and upsets aplenty. If you weren’t glued to the footy all weekend, you must’ve been doing something pretty fun.

First things first, we experienced what was far and away the highest scoring round since the state of the game chatter kicked off in earnest. At 93.3 points per team per game, there were more points scored in Round 15 than any to date in 2018, and almost 14 more points per team per game than the average from Round 4 to 14. That’s an interesting development worth some examination.

The clubs hit the scoreboard an average of 24.1 times each per game, up just over once each per game on the season-long total. Not much to see there. However, their collective scoring accuracy took a huge leap forward: 57.3 per cent of scores were goals, compared to the season-long average of 52.2 per cent. So we had slightly more shots at a much greater accuracy – the former accounting for 4.1 points of the variance and the latter 6.2 points on the season average.

More specifically, the result was driven by a better suite of performances by the losing teams. The average winning score in Round 15 was 103.4 points, up just 3.7 points on the season average (99.7); the average losing score in Round 15 was 83.1 points, up 16.8 points on the season average (66.3 points). The average loser’s crude scoring accuracy in Round 15 was 59.6 per cent, up a stunning 22 per cent on the season average (48.8 per cent).

Which is to say Round 15 will not be the straw that breaks the ‘state of the game’ camel’s back. It was an outlier round, albeit one driven by the subtleties and nuances of the particular match-ups we had over the weekend. The fact that the losers performed so well is, perhaps, because the losers were teams we’ve grown used to seeing on the winners list.

Sydney, Geelong, West Coast, Melbourne and North Melbourne all started the weekend inside the top eight with records of 8-5 or better. All were shown up by their opponents to varying degrees, and as a result the ladder has taken on a different complexion to the one we’d expected a week ago.

Geelong might have fallen out of the top eight all together were it not for Essendon’s stunning assault on North Melbourne under the roof of Etihad Stadium. Go back in time not more than six weeks and read that sentence to your past self. Your past self would summarily laugh you back to the present.

The Cats were bested by a Western Bulldogs team that played out of its skin, harkening back more to their late 2015 wide open form than the sludge-loving premiers of two years ago.

(Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

In what is surely a contender for game of the year, the Dogs kept on the Cats’ case all evening, though the match was bereft of turnovers (131 in total, compared to the season average for both of these teams of 144). That was likely a product of the Cats being unable to manufacture a spare man in defence, nor impose their bully-balling ways on a Western Bulldogs team moving the ball with a rarefied swagger.

Last week the Bulldogs capitulated in the last two minutes of their loss to North Melbourne. This week they capitulated again, but it didn’t cost them the four points: Harry Taylor missed a kick for goal after the siren that would’ve given Geelong victory. Dogs by two.

Theirs wasn’t the only close game of the round. Indeed, four of the nine outings met our arbitrary definition of a close game – a margin of 12 points or under – and one other was a missed set shot from joining them. Adelaide’s win over West Coast (ten points), GWS’ win over Hawthorn (11) and St Kilda’s win over Melbourne (two points). Each may come to rue the lost four points.

West Coast once again looked impotent with ball in hand as its forward personnel crisis claimed a third victim (Mark LeCras). Where the Eagles were soaring – averaging a league-high 13.1 marks inside 50 per game through Round 11 – they are now sinking.

After their victory against St Kilda in Round 11, the Eagles were 4.5 games and 34 percentage points clear of their Round 16 opponent, the GWS Giants. Post-Round 16, they could be half a game clear. How quickly things are changing in 2018.

(Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Media/Getty Images)

(Speaking of which, Adelaide looked a damn sight better with more of their quality players available, and if that holds, the Crows have a fixture that could see them inject another dose of chaos into the season.)

The Giants have recovered their position, which looked untenable after a shocking May, with a clean sweep of their June opposition. GWS are one of three teams to have won their last four games, albeit two of them were against Gold Coast and the Brisbane Lions. Still, wins are wins, and the Giants needed them given their next three opponents (West Coast, Richmond and Port Adelaide) are tough.

As for Melbourne, well, the fans grow increasingly restless. The Dees’ defensive system has broken down, be that by design or by lack of effort from the players. Through 14 games, Melbourne sit in 12th on my opponent-adjusted defensive rating, their scoring power not enough to keep turnover-feasting teams like St Kilda and Collingwood (and Richmond and West Coast) at bay.

We know Melbourne’s strength is around the ball, but it could all count for naught unless Simon Goodwin and his team can paper over the defensive cracks that have been exposed in recent weeks.

Finally, to Essendon’s impressive win over North Melbourne, in which no team played defence for the first two quarters of the game. Halfway through the second, Channel Seven flashed up an obscene statistic (although they didn’t contextualise it as I will do here): scores from stoppages were 7.1 to Essendon and 6.1 to North Melbourne – a combined 80 points. The average for an entire game in 2018 is 52 points (according to Adrian Polykandrites, who keeps tabs).

There was no defence played for the first two quarters.

In the end, North Melbourne’s defensive structure couldn’t cope with the rapid-fire ball movement of Essendon’s forward line and midfield group. They managed to land enough counterpunches to keep the margin close, but the Dons were the better team on the day.

(Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Media/Getty Images)

We’d just got all comfortable with the notion that it was a ten-team race for finals. Adelaide and Essendon, and to a lesser extent the Western Bulldogs and Greater Western Sydney, have conspired to keep the door slightly ajar for the Crows and Dons. Each sit a game behind Geelong in eighth, but perhaps more importantly have a lot of ground to make up percentage wise.

Given the rampant scoring of this weekend, perhaps those percentage gaps are now too not so large that they can’t be made up over the final eight games of the year? Just when things started to make sense here we are questioning everything again.

Well, not quite everything.

Richmond now sit a game clear of second, and have a 68-point margin buffer over Melbourne in the percentage stakes. The Tigers dispatched the second-placed Sydney Swans under the Etihad Stadium roof on Thursday night.

And because we aren’t in the year 2058, a likely top two finish for Richmond means it is within reaching distance of putting one paw on this year’s premiership cup as the rest of the league stutters and stumbles below them.