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Thread: Free kick differential over the last 15 years

  1. #13
    Oh look. Swans on the bottom of the frees kicks for the last decade and a half, and by a country mile. All my friends, who have been telling me that I'm biased can suck it.

  2. #14
    Can you feel it? Site Admin ugg's Avatar
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    Given that GWS have been in existence for less than half the time period shown in the graphic, double their tally and it�s clear there�s an anti-Sydney conspiracy.

  3. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by liz View Post
    Hawks fans reckon Buddy has had a far better go from the umpires since he donned the red and white than he did at Hawthorn. It's hard to say whether that's true or not, but certainly his worst two season differentials were when he was a young player at Hawthorn. He's probably got smarter and less impetuous as he gets older.

    As a general rule, most big forwards don't get protection from umpires when they are held in marking contests (unless their opponent is Heath Grundy, by the looks of things). Often their opponent can completely wrap their arms around them and they still won't get a free. Nick Riewoldt was an exception to the rule, and it seems that Ben Brown is fast becoming one, regardless of what Brad Scott reckons.

    Selwood and Buddy aren't a great comparison for other reasons. Selwood attends far more contests and in more congestion as a midfielder, and his height makes him more likely to get high contact frees than any tall forward (even ignoring his penchant for creating that head high contact himself - at least some of his head high frees are genuine infringements by opponents, and he does tend to attack the ball at ground level a lot, even compared to most midfielders).

    Big aggressive forwards are treated differently. Think Lockett and Hall who got hardly any. Buddy not quite the same but similar. Hall and Lockett hardly ever went to ground. Buddy is hard to knock over as well.

  4. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by stevoswan View Post
    In addition to the above, I was reading an article in the Hun (I think) showing home ground free kick differentials of all clubs since, I think, the early 2000's but I'll concentrate on the non Victorian teams. Our home ground diff. was +72.....slightly surprising that we were actually positive but of no surprise was the largest positive differential.....West Coast +452. Yes, +452 !!!

    The Adelaide based teams also had very healthy positive differentials, Freo positive but not as favoured as WC, Crows and Power. GWS also positive but similar to Freo. Brisbane fair badly for some reason but not as badly as us. We have the lowest positive differential of all the interstate teams.......

    ......and back to the player free kick differentials, here are the top five end of season differentials since 1999, ie: player most loved by the umpires.

    BEST DIFFERENTIAL SEASONS SINCE 1999

    Joel Selwood (Geel) 2013 +45 free kicks
    Joel Selwood (Geel) 2008 +42
    Joel Selwood (Geel) 2017 +40
    Angus Monfries (Ess) 2008 +39
    Joel Selwood (Geel) 2014 +38

    Wow!

    Conclusion? AFL umpires have little to no integrity.....just like their employer.
    To be fair, Selwood knew how to stage for the free kick, it wasn�t necessarily the umpires fault. Selwood used to drop his knees to force high contact, or duck into tackles. The umpires just call the high contact. As for the 2016 GF (and season in general), well, I feel I�ve already said enough.

  5. #17
    Surprised to see the hawks near the bottom, looks like they got smashed between 2005 and 2011. What happened there?

  6. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by ugg View Post
    Given that GWS have been in existence for less than half the time period shown in the graphic, double their tally and it�s clear there�s an anti-Sydney conspiracy.
    Can't tell whether you're stirring, ugg. I think you are. Not that the stats aren't alarming. I don't think it's anything as simple as a 'get Sydney' conspiracy' (unlike the trade ban).

    I think the problem is that our crowds aren't as vocal as the others. Crowds in Perth strongly and loudly favour the home teams, ditto in Adelaide. Not so much in Sydney and Brisbane. How do the big Melbourne clubs go against out of towners at home? (The effect would be less pronounced when they're playing other Melbourne teams represented in the crowd.)

    SCG crowds are relatively polite and quiet except when something happens or the game is very close. I haven't been to Adelaide Oval but on TV you get the impression the crowd noise never falls below a dull roar and is wild when free kicks should be paid or goals scored by home team etc.

  7. #19
    Regular in the Side crackedactor's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bloodspirit View Post
    Can't tell whether you're stirring, ugg. I think you are. Not that the stats aren't alarming. I don't think it's anything as simple as a 'get Sydney' conspiracy' (unlike the trade ban).

    I think the problem is that our crowds aren't as vocal as the others. Crowds in Perth strongly and loudly favour the home teams, ditto in Adelaide. Not so much in Sydney and Brisbane. How do the big Melbourne clubs go against out of towners at home? (The effect would be less pronounced when they're playing other Melbourne teams represented in the crowd.)

    SCG crowds are relatively polite and quiet except when something happens or the game is very close. I haven't been to Adelaide Oval but on TV you get the impression the crowd noise never falls below a dull roar and is wild when free kicks should be paid or goals scored by home team etc.
    The loudest of the crowd should gave no bearing on umpires decisions. They are suppose to Be professional And the best in the land.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

  8. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by crackedactor View Post
    The loudest of the crowd should gave no bearing on umpires decisions. They are suppose to Be professional And the best in the land.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    Too true.

  9. #21
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    Attached images have a habit of vanishing for me...let's see how this goes.

    I've been thinking about this data. There's at least one error in there: -4 for Adelaide in 2017 should be +4 (based on FootyWire statistics), so we should be cautious.

    I have some issues with the presentation:

    • Free kicks are summed over a long, arbitrary period during which personnel and game style changed
    • There's no indication of what's "normal" - i.e. average, over time, by team or for the league as a whole
    • It's hard to see whether teams are going "better" or "worse" than average over time
    • It would be informative to see the numbers for home versus away games


    So I made a very minimalist chart which strips away all the axes, labels, years, numbers...and just shows the trends for 2010-2017. Coloured by home or away, with the averages across those seasons, for all teams (dotted lines) and each team (dashed lines), allowing comparison to each season.

    I haven't shown any zero lines, on purpose. Partly to avoid clutter. But also because I'd like people to focus on the trends or comparisons, not whether frees for equals frees against. We tend to assume that equal free kicks awarded equals a "fair game" - but why? There are many legitimate reasons why free kick counts could be different. Go on, think of some

    afl_fd.jpg

    Some initial observations.
    Adelaide are very close to the league average for both home and away games, as are Essendon and Richmond.
    Brisbane, GWS and St Kilda get nothing.
    For all the cries of "free kick Hawthorn", their free kick differential away is close to the league average, and lower than average for home.
    West Coast at home is outrageously high. But both home and away have declined in recent years.
    A lot of the Bulldogs differential in 2016 was driven by much higher than average away values.

    As for the Swans: our home average is close to league average, our away average somewhat less than the league and both have been below the team average the last couple of seasons.

    Make of all that what you will. I don't know that any of it alters outcomes, but West Coast sure is interesting.

  10. #22
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    Thanks for that, neilfws!! A lot of effort went into that, it would seem.

    Can I propose we have a separate thread each week regarding umpires, please? Keep the topic away from the match thread? Happy to start one each week myself. I, personally, would rather not read about umpires every week.
    C'mon Chels!

  11. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by penga View Post
    Thanks for that, neilfws!! A lot of effort went into that, it would seem.

    Can I propose we have a separate thread each week regarding umpires, please? Keep the topic away from the match thread? Happy to start one each week myself. I, personally, would rather not read about umpires every week.
    Seconded

  12. #24
    Great post, neilfws! Thanks for the effort.

    One thing that strikes me is that "interstate" teams (i.e. non VFL) seem to have a bigger gap between their home and away free kick averages than the Melbourne teams overall. The WA teams and Port in particular do, us to a fair extent too, but GWS, Adelaide and Qld teams not so much. To me this lends credence to the 'sound of acclamation' or crowd noise theory - particularly when you factor in that the expansion teams and Brisbane don't get such great home support. Doesn't account for Adelaide though. Collingwood seem to have the smallest difference between home and away averages and perhaps this is due to the vocal and strong support they get from their dedicated fans even when they're away from home.

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