Demons' Preview

[chammond]

Check out Nick W's detailed analysis of this week's opposition at

http://redandwhiteonline.com/content.php?id=233_0_2_0_C

[stellation]

Excellent analysis Nick, I enjoyed reading it.

[liz]

Wow - a huge amount of effort clearly went into that analysis. Thanks Nick.

[Nasher]

Great article. As a Dees fan myself, I couldn't fault anything you said. Well researched and nicely written.

[dendol]

Great work Nick W. Its a pleasant surprise to see we are second only to Brisbane in clearances.

"Sydney is currently ranked second, behind Brisbane, in clearances per game, a major improvement from last year, and with Brisbane, has the greatest positive difference between own clearances and opposition clearances. "

And to do this against three very formiddable midfields in Brisbane, Freo, and the Kangas (Geelong beat us as well until Q4) leads me to think our midfield may be stronger than most people think. Lets get some more of THAT please!

[NMWBloods]

Thanks guys - I appreciate the comments, particularly when a Demons fan has no major problems with it.

BTW - one thing I did mean to put in, but forgot, was an acknowledgement of the two major sources of data I used.

They are:

http://stats.rleague.com/afl/afl_index.html

and

http://www.prowess.com.au/pro-stats/

Excellent sources of data.

[liz]

Originally posted by dendol
Its a pleasant surprise to see we are second only to Brisbane in clearances.

"Sydney is currently ranked second, behind Brisbane, in clearances per game, a major improvement from last year, and with Brisbane, has the greatest positive difference between own clearances and opposition clearances. "

That stat surprised me a bit too. We had probably evened it up against the Cats by the end of the game but I got the impression we were killed, especially out of the centre, by Freo. How much is this stat distorted by the appalling effort served up against us by the Roos?

[NMWBloods]

Clearances:

v. Brisbane 34-25

v. Fremantle 41-46

v. Geelong 36-29

v. Kangaroos 39-27

The Brisbane one is the most amazing - easily their worse result for the year so far and probably for some time.

Against Brisbane, 19 Swans players managed a clearance stat, with Goodes leading on 5. For Brisbane, Voss and Akermanis were down on clearances and Power was off the ground.

Against Freo, Fosdike and J Bolton had 7 each, and Kirk had 5, and 14 players managed a clearance stat.

Against Geelong, Ball had 7, and J Bolton and Crouch had 5 each. Only 12 players had a clearance stat.

Against the Kangaroos, Fosdike and Kirk had 6 each, and 17 players managed a clearance stat.

[Triple B]

The Brisbane one is the most amazing - easily their worse result for the year so far and probably for some time.

Against Brisbane, 19 Swans players managed a clearance stat, with Goodes leading on 5. For Brisbane, Voss and Akermanis were down on clearances and Power was off the ground

And we still got beat....

They are the benchmark.

[penga]

great read and great analysis, top work!

im also amazed at our clearance stats - ive been watching the individual clearance stats but not the team as a whole...

kirk seems to be leading the charge at a quick glance

who are our top 5 clearance getters??? or more if youre so inclined

[CHF]

Nick,

An excellent analysis, well done.

I would make one point though about the stats and the results thus far in the season.

Because of the small number of rounds so far I think some of the results may be distorted.

Melbourne's inside 50s/Goal would be distorted by us kicking 12.25 against the Doggies. In a small sample a result like that would tend to distort it a little.

I am sure that there are similar instances in the four rounds for the Swannies.

As you say in your article, Melbourne's defence is the one are on the ground where there are still question marks. I think we can cover you in our forwards and in the midfield. I think that we have, finally, got a viable set of backs and think they will stand up on Saturday night.

Good luck on Saturday.

[Go Swannies]

Thanks Nick - good work and saved us all hours of brain power.

Anyone else thinking that we have been wasteful inside 50 this year? Maybe it's the absence of Nick D and Magic putting too much load on Bazza but I no longer presume that the Swans will kick the goal from the set shot.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by CHF
Nick,

An excellent analysis, well done.

Thanks CHF.

I would make one point though about the stats and the results thus far in the season.

Because of the small number of rounds so far I think some of the results may be distorted.

Melbourne's inside 50s/Goal would be distorted by us kicking 12.25 against the Doggies. In a small sample a result like that would tend to distort it a little.

I am sure that there are similar instances in the four rounds for the Swannies.

You are right - the small number of rounds can distort the figures. If you had kicked 16 goals (4 more) against the Bulldogs your I50/goals would be at the comp average. But there are lots of 'ifs' in sport, so we'll just have to see what the stats look like over the next few weeks or so. Note that I also provided the I50/goals for the previous two years, which were at the average or higher.

As you say in your article, Melbourne's defence is the one are on the ground where there are still question marks. I think we can cover you in our forwards and in the midfield. I think that we have, finally, got a viable set of backs and think they will stand up on Saturday night.

It doesn't look bad, and certainly appears better than previous years. I was pretty impressed with Nicholson last year in his few outings. Will be an interesting test for both sides.

Good luck on Saturday.

Thanks, same!

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by penga
who are our top 5 clearance getters??? or more if youre so inclined

Top clearance getters (total clearances/CB clearances)

Fosdike (19/5)
J Bolton (18/3)
Kirk (15/6)
Ball (14/3)
Williams (9/6)
Goodes (9/3)
Mathews (9/3)
Crouch (9/3)
Maxfield (6/5)
McVeigh (5/2)
Saddington (5/2)
Hall (5/0)

As a comparison, our top 10 in 2003 were:
J Bolton (97/42) - (99/17)
Goodes (74/21) - (50/17)
Kirk (69/32) - (83/33)
Maxfield (54/23) - (33/28)
Williams (54/21) - (50/33)
Ball (51/14) - (77/17)
Fosdike (49/12) - (105/28)
Cresswell (47/17) - np
Crouch (39/17) - (50/17)
Mathews (38/14) - (50/17)
Rest of Team (198/37) - (231/55)

Next to each of the names above, I have put the 2004 levels extrapolated for a full year to give a very (very) rough idea of the comparison to last year's efforts.

Note the difference in the 'rest of team' amounts is about equal to Cresswell's amount. Note also that McVeigh (5/2) and Bevan (4/1) are new this year and are adding to the clearance tally (pro-rata total of 50/17, which is also about Cressa's amount).

Overall totals: 2003 (770/250), pro-rata 2004 (825/259)

One other thing, relative to last year our clearances have improved about 2 per game so far, while the competition average seems to have dropped 2 per game, hence our large improvement relative to other teams.

[liz]

Originally posted by Go Swannies


Anyone else thinking that we have been wasteful inside 50 this year? Maybe it's the absence of Nick D and Magic putting too much load on Bazza but I no longer presume that the Swans will kick the goal from the set shot.

An interesting stat (that could be derived from the ProStat data) would be scoring shots per inside 50. That would isolate goal kicking accuracy from the ability to create genuine scoring opportunities. Obviously kicking straight is crucial but so is a team's ability to "have a go" when they get it forward.

I don't have a feel for how we're going against last year on this measure but it was something Dermie was talking about during the commentary on the Roos game - how every time we got the ball into our forward arc it looked as if we'd score. This was the case even during those horrible first 15 minutes. We probably deteriorated badly in the final quarter but for the first three we seemed to be pretty efficient, notwithstanding the ordinary kicking for goal.

Given we are currently at the lower end of the goal kicking accuracy, moderate for inside 50s and mid-table for total scoring I suspect we'd be right up there on this stat. I might do the calcs later today if I have the time.