WITH the Demons enjoying the bye in round five and preparing for Thursday night against the Eagles, it’s a good time to look deep into the numbers to spot any trends from the first few rounds of the season.
I’m not going to beat around the bush - this is pretty hardcore stuff and a far cry from kicks, marks and handballs. But it should give you an insight into another way of analysing your own club, and the opposition.
Luckily the days of manipulating pages of excel spreadsheets are over.
We now have the tools to instantly highlight anything of note without having to gather together much data ourselves.
Over the past few years, the club has developed a customised statistics system through Prowess Sports, which is tailored to our coaching philosophy.
One area which we can focus on very quickly is the scoring percentages. In an instant, we can see where modern footy is headed - how much scoring is created from stoppages? How important are turnovers in the various areas of the ground? Are teams still scoring heavily from kick-ins?
Following the completion of round five, 36.31 per cent of scoring across the competition has come from stoppages. Turnovers through the middle of the ground account for 35.53 per cent of scores. These are the two most common areas for scoring in the modern game.
It is no secret that the likes of Collingwood, St Kilda and Geelong have made an art form of creating goals from pressure through the middle.
This has seen a major increase in midfield turnover scoring over the past few years - from 29.3 per cent in 2008, 32.3 per cent in 2009, 34 per cent in 2010 and 35.53 per cent so far this year.
This increase has led to a natural downturn in stoppage scoring - from 37.9 per cent in 2008 to 36.31 per cent in 2011. Only a slight change, but significant in the overall figures.
But there are other ways of scoring, obviously. Across the competition in 2011, five per cent of scoring has come from kick-ins, while just over 11 per cent of scores have started from a turnover in the defensive 50.
It is now tougher than ever to move the ball from one end of the ground to the other, but it can be done.
Another very important aspect of scoring is the turnover in the forward 50 - so-called forward pressure.
With teams applying so much pressure in their forward line (those zippy small forwards can cause havoc at times), scoring from this area is super important. More than eight per cent of scores this season have come from forward turnovers.
With this customised system we can also see how a particular team stacks up against the competition averages.
The Demons are an interesting case - stoppages make up the largest portion of their scoring with 37.5 per cent. This is at the expense of turnovers in the midfield (29.46 per cent - around six per cent down on the competition average).
The most outstanding number is the scoring from defensive 50 turnovers - the Dees have launched 15 per cent of their scoring from this area.
Naturally, this can be attributed to the constant battle of creating more turnovers in the midfield before the ball enters our defensive 50. But what it does show is that our defenders are holding firm and the side has the ability to move the ball efficiently to the other end - and score.
You can expect the midfield turnover scoring to increase as the young Demons become more adept at creating midfield turnovers. In turn, the reliance on launching scores from our defensive 50 won’t need to be as strong.
So when analysing the opposition using these methods we can get an idea of what sort of team we are up against. We can figure out their ‘personality’, so to speak.
Take the Magpies, currently the competition benchmark. Only a small percentage of their scoring comes from kick-ins (1.43 per cent) and defensive 50 turnovers (9.29 per cent). With teams struggling to get the ball into their forward 50 against the Pies this comes as no surprise.
One standout figure for Collingwood is the scoring from stoppages in their forward 50. Almost 15 per cent of its scoring has come from this area, and was a major factor in its win over the Blues in round three and the Bombers in round five.
Also, the Magpies are the best team at pressuring the opposition through the middle, with 39.5 per cent of their scores launched from midfield turnovers.
When you play the Sydney Swans you know that the game will be filled with plenty of stoppages. Not surprisingly, the Swans launch a massive 44 per cent of their scores from stoppages, almost 10 per cent more than the competition average.
This week against the West Coast Eagles, the Demons will have to combat their strength at midfield stoppages. While their centre bounce scoring is lower than the 2011 average (6.6 per cent compared to 10.6 per cent), their scoring from ball ups and throw-ins through the midfield is quite strong. They have launched 19 per cent of their scores from midfield stoppages, almost 5 per cent more than the competition average.
What these figures also tell us is how hard it is to score from a defensive 50 stoppage. Less than 2 per cent of all scoring this year has come from this area.
This week against the West Coast Eagles, the Demons will have to combat their strength at midfield stoppages. While their centre bounce scoring is lower than the 2011 average (6.6 per cent compared to 10.6 per cent), their scoring from ball ups and throw-ins through the midfield is quite strong. They have launched 19 per cent of their scores from midfield stoppages, almost 5 per cent more than the competition average.
What these figures also tell us is how hard it is to score from a defensive 50 stoppage. Less than 2 per cent of all scoring this year has come from this area.
Because of this, most teams are happy to set up their stoppage players to simply deny the opposition from scoring.
The chances of clearing the ball and navigating all the way down the other end are very slim - denying the opposition and gaining some ground the other way is a good result from those situations.
We can also flip the numbers around and look at how teams are being scored against.
We can instantly look for holes to exploit in our opponent, and become aware of any areas our own club needs to improve. These figures are great ammunition for our opposition analysts and the coaches.
And finally, we can access all the vision relating to these scoring categories. In just a couple of clicks we can run through all the video examples of Geelong scoring from centre bounces, or the Hawks turning the ball over inside their forward 50.
This is perhaps the greatest weapon of our customised system.
Linking the statistics to the vision allows our coaches to put all the numbers into a visual context.
And there is no better teaching tool for the players than football vision - as much as I hate to admit it, sometimes the pure statistics just aren’t enough.
Send through your thoughts to @StatsIncredible on Twitter.
The chances of clearing the ball and navigating all the way down the other end are very slim - denying the opposition and gaining some ground the other way is a good result from those situations.
We can also flip the numbers around and look at how teams are being scored against.
We can instantly look for holes to exploit in our opponent, and become aware of any areas our own club needs to improve. These figures are great ammunition for our opposition analysts and the coaches.
And finally, we can access all the vision relating to these scoring categories. In just a couple of clicks we can run through all the video examples of Geelong scoring from centre bounces, or the Hawks turning the ball over inside their forward 50.
This is perhaps the greatest weapon of our customised system.
Linking the statistics to the vision allows our coaches to put all the numbers into a visual context.
And there is no better teaching tool for the players than football vision - as much as I hate to admit it, sometimes the pure statistics just aren’t enough.
Send through your thoughts to @StatsIncredible on Twitter.
