AFL Rd 13 2024 Post Game Celebrations - Carlton vs Essendon

[kruddler]

You know what I'm getting from all these stats is this...
Hit out stats are totally useless.
HTA stats are also pretty useless given their low frequency.
Even clearance stats aren't that reliable unless the clearance clearly advantages your side.

The thing that really matters is the connection between your ruckman and his midfielders in terms of positioning, both attacking and defensive, and the second efforts of all players in the vicinity.

That's not something you can measure with a statistic.
It's something you observe.

If you're in any doubt about who was the most effective ruckman in our game last weekend just watch the game again.

Remember our chat about sample size of data....thats what is important.

Any individual game can be an anomoly.
Look at the same information, over weeks and years and you will get trends that 'absorb' these anomolies.

For example, look at the results this week. Look who won, who lost and the margin. Use that information to tell me who the best team is.
Now, if that is the only data you have, what information could you get out of that in terms of overall strength of any one team relative to another? Relative to last week? Last year? Last decade?

Our first 5 games of R13 were this....
North Melbourne won.
Richmond won.
Hawthorn won
Brisbane won
St. Kilda won

Based on that and that alone, you would think that those teams should be in the top half of the league (they won, same amount of teams lost, so they are top half).
Based on that, you would probably look at the margin each team won by....which would rank them in this order....
Brisbane
North Melbourne
Richmond
Hawthorn
St. Kilda

Extrapolate that out and you would assume that Brisbane and North Melbourne are the most successful in recent years as they had the best margin.

In isolation, thats all you have.

Then you look at the ladder...
12th - Hawthorn
13th - Brisbane
14th - St. Kilda
17th - Richmond
18th - North Melbourne

That paints a completely different picture.

Then go back and look at where they finished last year.
Look at average finishing position over the past 10, 20, 50, 150 years.
Look at finals made, flags won...
Eventually you will get a better understanding of who is actually good now, last year, over the past decade or 2, 50 or 150 years.

You see the point?
More data gives you a better understanding.

Don't throw out any particular stat because of their low frequency. Just get more data before using it.
There is more hitout to advantage then there are goals.
Do we deduce that Elijah Hollands is the best goal kicker in the league because he kicked 3 goals this week?
Is Charlie and Harry just average forwards because they didn't kick as many?
Is McGovern as good a forward as Harry given they kicked the same amount of goals?
No, get more data. It will show you trends and give you better information.