During a discussion on whether certain teams rely on one or two players, I decided to graph the output of some teams’ best 22 this year so far*.
For brevity, I’ve included only the Top 4 + Sydney (Top 5 teams on Squiggle Flagpole), although I can show other teams on request.
Geelong rely heavily on the talent of their best 3 players: Dangerfield (135), as well as Duncan (107) and Selwood (104). However, their 5th to 9th best players (Tuohy [88], Zac Smith, S Selwood, Blicavs, Henderson [78]) are much worse than their counterparts in rival teams.
Adelaide also rely on their best 3 players: Sloane (107), M Crouch (104), and Rory Laird (104) are 3 of the highest performing players going around. But once again, that second tier is below the standard of their rivals. Players like Brad Crouch (92), Sam Jacobs, Tom Lynch, Taylor Walker, Hugh Greenwood, and Jake Lever (81) are not as good as the ~#4-9 players at rival clubs.
GWS clearly have immense talent all the way to their 12th ranked player. Their top 3 (Josh Kelly [112], Whitfield [101] and Mumford [100]) may not be quite as good as the elite at Geelong and Adelaide, but unlike those teams, there’s almost no drop off until the 13th ranked player. Shiel (99), Greene, Ward, Cameron, Williams, Scully, Shaw, Patton, and Devin Smith (83) are all well above average for their ranking within the team. For example, GWS’s 8th ranked player, Zach Williams, has a score of 92, well above the other 8th ranked players, e.g. Adelaide’s Greenwood (85), Geelong’s Blicavs (81), Port’s Polec (83), and Sydney’s Jones (86). And this difference is seen across all of their 4th-12th best players!
Port Adelaide have perhaps the flattest talent curve, with lower performing elites but better performing 2nd tier players than the pack. Their top 3 in Ebert (106), Wines (102), and Ryder (99) are scoring below the top 3 of Geelong and Adelaide. But their next four players in Wingard (95), Dixon, Westhoff, and Robbie Gray (91) are the best in their category, bar GWS. Their worst performers (comparative to rival sides) are in the 13 to 16 mark, i.e. Broadbent, Houston, Powell-Pepper, and White.
Sydney, somewhat to my surprise, aren’t reliant on only Kennedy and Buddy as I thought they would be. Their top 3 (Kennedy [106], Heeney [101], and Hannebury [98] are tracking similar to Port’s top 3, but their next tier of players is impressive too. On an aside, my boss just came in and I had to minimize this. I think she knows it wasn’t work, despite the Excel graphs. Anyway, so Sydney’s 4th-8th players are all solid and above-average compared to their rivals. These players are Parker (96), Franklin, Lloyd, Newman, and Zak Jones (86).
The reason for these differences is likely a result of the salary cap. If you pay for the big bucks to get the stars, you have less to spend on that second tier. What remains to be seen is which way is the best to win a premiership. History says that a champion team will defeat a team of champions, but history couldn’t have predicted last year and might be useless again this year.
*Based on Supercoach scores, so comes with all of the flaws associated with that system.
UPDATE
Thanks to Ron The Bear and his excellent dataset, I have a new way to analyse team dynamics and the extent to which each team relies on certain players.
I’ll be looking at the distribution of AFLCA MVP coaches votes across teams to see how many players are influencing the outcome of matches in each side.
I’ll start off with the most uneven and the most even sides in the comp, Brisbane and Port Adelaide.
The most uneven side: Brisbane
Unsurprisingly, Brisbane’s output is dominated by Dayne Zorko (57 votes, 33%) who is having a spectacular year so far, accounting for a third of the team’s votes thus far. Dayne Beams, Tom Rockliff and Stefan Martin are also solid contributors, amassing 41% of the votes between them. Hipwood has already earned 8 votes but Schache is yet to trouble the voters. Other contributors include Lewis Taylor, Daniel Rich, Harris Andrews, and Daniel McStay.
Brisbane have one of the shortest lines with only 13 votewinners, demonstrating the lack of top end performers at the moment. They also have the second least AFLCA votes in total (169), just ahead of North Melbourne.
Brisbane have one “major carrier” (>20%), three “minor carriers” (10-20%) and nine “contributors” (1-10%).
The most even side: Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide have a strong variety of players both in terms of matchwinners and other important contributors. Paddy Ryder has been the biggest difference from last year and is currently leading Port Adelaide’s AFLCA MVP count (48 votes, 15.4%). Ebert, Wines and Wingard have been powerful alongside Ryder in the midfield, winning a lot of stoppages and clearances. While Robbie Gray and Charlie Dixon have combined for 73 goals this year. Moving down to their second tier of players; Polec, Jonas, Boak, Powell-Pepper, Broadbent, and Sam Gray have all earned their fair share of votes as well.
Port Adelaide has the longest line with 20 individual vote winners so far, and they have accumulated the second most AFLCA votes of any team (311), after Adelaide.
Port Adelaide have zero “major carriers” (>20%), six “minor carriers” (10-20%), and fourteen “contributors” (1-10%).
