2016 Game results 12 points or under

[cooee bulldogs]

Looking back at the results for both the AFL and VFL for the year I found that we have been involved in 14 games where the final margin was 12 points or under. 6 of these games where AFL and 8 in the VFL.
The only AFL game of the 6 that we have lost was by 3 points to Hawthorn. In the VFL we have lost two, a 6 point and a 8 point game.

Does this mean we never give in or we know how to defend in the final stages. Maybe fierce determination to win. Or maybe something else....

Just for the lols back in 2013 North''s AFL team played in 10 games with this result margin and LOST 7 of these.

 

[Testekill]

I certainly think that we've worked on the mental side of things.

 

[conrad_437]

Although we seem to come out on top most of the time, we seem to have trouble hanging on while being in a pole position in the final quarter. For example, against West Coast we were 21 points up with 7 minutes to go and in four minutes that margin was 3 points. Another example was the Hawks game (19 points up at the beginning of the final quarter, ended up losing by 3 points after a last minute goal).

 

[dogwatch]

I remember early in the season someone saying"why do we ALWAYS lose the close ones?"

Well it hasn't turned out to be the case this year and I don't think it's just blind chance. Despite being the youngest side in the top 8 we have clearly developed a strong mental approach and we easily don't buckle when the pressure is applied. That hasn't always been the story with us, as underlined by that despairing post early this year.

Credit must go to the coaching staff no doubt, but also to the players themselves and the recruiters/list managers who have profiled the sort of players we want in our squad.

 

[Arkangel]

It's because we're paying the umpires. That's why we had to move our CEO and assistant coach on---not enough cash to go around.


Seriously though, I'm going to go with random chance. If the outcome of 14 close games were decided by a fair coin toss, roughly 3% of the time we would win 11 or more of them. While this is below the arbitrary criterion usually used to argue against a "random chance" explanation, it's worth remembering that we've played a lot of football seasons, and this is the first I can remember where our success rate in close games has been notable. Put another way, in 100 seasons, we could expect to win 11/14 close games purely by chance in three of them; this may just be one of them.

 

[Floridog]

Just to play devil's advocate, could it be because we just don't have the killer instinct required to put away teams when we have them on the ropes?

 

[maddog37]

Winning close games is a learned skill and comes with experience. We also have Bont and Jake and Caleb and Bev.

 

[Yojimbo]

It's the footy gods that decide everything in life and their
constant belief in ying and yang and overall balance it's
kind of like the movie "The Lion King".

The ying is all the close victories and the yang is with
every one of those victories comes a crippling injury just
to balance out the ledger.

The footy gods give and they take equally like some
sort of sick reminder of the way things are meant to
be and our overall place in the universe. Life is like a
Delta Goodrem song, not very memorable.

 

[dogwatch]

It's the footy gods that decide everything in life and their
constant belief in ying and yang and overall balance it's
kind of like the movie "The Lion King".

The ying is all the close victories and the yang is with
every one of those victories comes a crippling injury just
to balance out the ledger.

The footy gods give and they take equally like some
sort of sick reminder of the way things are meant to
be and our overall place in the universe. Life is like a
Delta Goodrem song, not very memorable.

Are you posting this cross-legged in your sari on the top of some mountain peak?

 

[Yojimbo]

Are you posting this cross-legged in your sari on the top of some mountain peak?

Neither, after hours of constant meditation on the merits of a
Richmond victory this afternoon.

 

[Scenester]

In my opinion there might be some skill, determination, mental attributes, etc involved in winning games by between 6 and 12 points. But any game decided by less than a goal is purely luck of the draw .... the ball was in Collingwood's fifty at the end of the game on Friday night and they could have easily kicked a goal and won the game. I think that Luke Beveridge even said in his post match interview that had the game gone on for a few more minutes that there could have very well been a different result.

But then .... Hawthorn's obviously an absolutely incredible team, and they've won all those games by less than a goal this year, so, who knows, maybe there is something more than just luck involved in games decided by less than a goal.