Cause for 2024 optimism: (Unsurprising) correlation between injury number and win rate in season 2023

Mr Meow · Oct 6, 2023

I was going to continue to post this in the trade/FA thread to follow up on my week by week tabulation. But it somewhat spams the thread from its central topics.

There is a bit of debate around to what degree accumulation of injuries (including those game-breaking in-game injuries) derailed Geelong's 2023 season, and to what degree form, hunger, talent, age profile etc did the same.

Also: have we simply exaggerated the injury factor as an easy excuse, a defence of the doe-eyed optimist? I argue NO. Here are the raw injury numbers of our best 22 - players that were selected > 80% of the time when available.

Round	Pre-game	In-game	Total	Win/loss
1	3	4	7	L
2	4	1	5	L
3	5	1	6	L
4	2	2	4	W
5	3	1	4	W
6	4	0	4	W
7	5	2	7	W
8	6	1	7	W
9	8	0	8	L
10	7	0	7	L
11	6	1	7	L
12	7	0	7	W
14	3	2	5	L
15	3	1	4	W
16	3	0	3	D
17	5	0	5	W
18	3	0	3	W
19	2	0	2	L
20	1	2	3	L
21	3	1	4	W
22	4	2	6	L
23	5	2	7	L
24	12	0	12	L
Mean	4.5	1	5.5
Median	4	1	5

How many injuries did Geelong have for win/draw results as opposed to losses?

	Win/draw	Loss
		7
	3	5
	4	6
	4	8
	4	7
	7	7
	7	5
	7	2
	4	3
	5	6
	3	7
	4	12
Mean	4.7	6.3
Median	4	6.5

It seems like 5 or more injuries (pre-game + in-game) was something of a tipping point. We had the misfortune of enduring this circumstance 13 out of 23 times - I'd contend well above the league average in 2023, or the GFC average of the past decade.

So what was the win rate in games Geelong had 5 or more injuries, compared to games with 4 or less?

	5 or more	4 or less
Win rate	28.6%	77.8%

If I get even more bored I'll run a 2022 comparison. But, it would seem with a good run of injuries in 2024 we would be more than competitive barring an overall decline in form of the squad (possible, and a different debate).

OzeSparky · Oct 6, 2023

Great Work.

BlakeyNoFlakey · Oct 6, 2023

Nice work.

I agree with you that injuries destroyed our season. I think next year we still have a team who could compete for a GF based on two factors. First, hopefully, the Cats will have a better run with injuries in 2024. Not playing finals this year means our guys get a good rest/injury recovery period before pre-season training starts. This is something we haven't had for a few years. And second, finishing tenth this year will mean an easier drawer next year. Our drawer in 2023 was the hardest I've ever seen us get.

Lana · Oct 6, 2023

Mr Meow said:
I was going to continue to post this in the trade/FA thread to follow up on my week by week tabulation. But it somewhat spams the thread from its central topics.

There is a bit of debate around to what degree accumulation of injuries (including those game-breaking in-game injuries) derailed Geelong's 2023 season, and to what degree form, hunger, talent, age profile etc did the same.

Also: have we simply exaggerated the injury factor as an easy excuse, a defence of the doe-eyed optimist? I argue NO. Here are the raw injury numbers of our best 22 - players that were selected > 80% of the time when available.

Round Pre-game In-game Total Win/loss
1
3
4
7
L
2
4
1
5
L
3
5
1
6
L
4
2
2
4
W
5
3
1
4
W
6
4
0
4
W
7
5
2
7
W
8
6
1
7
W
9
8
0
8
L
10
7
0
7
L
11
6
1
7
L
12
7
0
7
W
14
3
2
5
L
15
3
1
4
W
16
3
0
3
D
17
5
0
5
W
18
3
0
3
W
19
2
0
2
L
20
1
2
3
L
21
3
1
4
W
22
4
2
6
L
23
5
2
7
L
24
12
0
12
L
Mean
4.5
1
5.5
Median
4
1
5

How many injuries did Geelong have for win/draw results as opposed to losses?

Win/draw Loss
7
3
5
4
6
4
8
4
7
7
7
7
5
7
2
4
3
5
6
3
7
4
12
Mean
4.7
6.3
Median
4
6.5

It seems like 5 or more injuries (pre-game + in-game) was something of a tipping point. We had the misfortune of enduring this circumstance 13 out of 23 times - I'd contend well above the league average in 2023, or the GFC average of the past decade.

So what was the win rate in games Geelong had 5 or more injuries, compared to games with 4 or less?

5 or more 4 or less
Win rate
28.6%
77.8%

If I get even more bored I'll run a 2022 comparison. But, it would seem with a good run of injuries in 2024 we would be more than competitive barring an overall decline in form of the squad (possible, and a different debate).

The next question is how does this compare to other teams this year and historically

winty · Oct 6, 2023

Another thing I recall is at certain times of the year we had a number of injuries in a particular part of the ground. For example, in Round 1 I think most of the injuries we had were to defenders, whereas the first time we played the Bulldogs in the middle of the year we pretty much had our first string midfield all sitting in the stands.

Hamingja · Oct 6, 2023

I think we can bounce next year and make finals with better fortune. I don't think we have enough to win the flag. Keeping Geelong attractive for free agents is what we need to do now though to avoid a prolonged period outside the 8. We have an ok collection of younger players but really need a couple of elite players to parachute in to develop the younger players around.

Mr Meow · Oct 6, 2023

Lana said:
The next question is how does this compare to other teams this year and historically

Exactly because it is easy to get tunnel vision with this kind of thing. I oughtta at least do 2022 Geelong and maybe the two grand finalists for 2023.

TheMenz Gallery · Oct 6, 2023

Another factor to consider is the guys who played and probably shouldn’t have. We had a good run with numbers back from Round 18-21 but I wonder how many we were carrying with injuries to get them match fit prior to finals.
We know Jeremy Cameron for one was carrying a shoulder injury for 8 weeks prior to going in for early surgery in Round 24. The fact we had 12 missing in the last Round would suggest he wasn’t alone.

God Mode · Oct 6, 2023

This also doesn't factor in the accumulative effect injuries have on the players who have to shoulder the extra workload. Eg. Blicavs, Atkins, Smith etc. They were tired by the time we got players back.

Mr Meow · Oct 6, 2023

Round	Pre-game	In-game	Total	Win/loss		Win/draw	Loss
1	5	0	5	W		5	4
2	4	0	4	L		5	6
3	3	2	5	W		5	6
4	5	0	5	W		5	4
5	3	3	6	L		6
6	5	0	5	W		4
7	5	1	6	L		5
8	5	1	6	W		5
9	4	0	4	L		4
10	3	1	4	W		2
11	5	0	5	W		4
12	4	1	5	W		2
13	4	0	4	W		2
14	2	0	2	W		3
15	3	1	4	W		3
16	2	0	2	W		4
17	1	1	2	W		3
18	2	1	3	W		4
19	2	1	3	W		1
20	4	0	4	W		1
21	2	1	3	W		1
22	3	1	4	W	Mean	3.5	5.0
F1	0	1	1	W	Median	4.0	5.0
F2	0	1	1	W
F3	1	0	1	W
Mean	3.1	0.7	3.8
Median	3.0	1.0	4.0

The 2022 Geelong injury and win/loss analysis. We did actually incur a fair amount of injuries in the first half of the season, but it never quite reached a tipping point (a somewhat manageable 5 was hit several times) or we scraped the close wins we needed to. In 2023 we lost those types of games and various areas of the field got hit too hard at once.

In the back half of 2022 the "injuries" involved careful rotation and management of senior players. In 2023, as Scott said, we were still in "whack a mole" mode while having to push a through injured stars to their limits.

Still, in 2022 we absolutely coped with up to 5 injuries a hell of a lot better than in 2023. I can think of one reason: our best 22 still had one more very good player and great leader: Selwood. But it very rarely tipped into 6 or more (3 out of 25 games) - if it did then perhaps that 33% win rate would've put a big dent in the overall W/L. In 2023 that tipping point was reached a whopping 11 times from 23 games.

Mr Meow · Oct 6, 2023

			2022 injuries
	5 or more	4 or less		6 or more	5 or less
Win rate	77.8%	87.5%		33.3%	90.9%
	9 times	16 times		3 times	22 times

			2023 injuries
	5 or more	4 or less		6 or more	5 or less
Win rate	28.6%	77.8%		27.3%	66.7%
	14 times	9 times		11 times	12 times

This is what I just described above.

5 or more injuries 36% of the time in 2022, 6 or more injuries 12% of the time.

5 or more injuries 61% of the time in 2023, 6 or more injuries 48% of the time.

With a quite obvious effect on results, especially at the 6 or more vs 5 or less comparisons.

cats_09 · Oct 6, 2023

winty said:
Another thing I recall is at certain times of the year we had a number of injuries in a particular part of the ground. For example, in Round 1 I think most of the injuries we had were to defenders, whereas the first time we played the Bulldogs in the middle of the year we pretty much had our first string midfield all sitting in the stands.

Round 1 - J. Henry & Kolodhashnij in the stands, along with Bowes who may or may not have been best 22/23 at that time if we had a full strength squad

In the first quarter we lose Stewart for the match, and then SDK goes down in the second quarter but comes back on in the second half - if we hadn't already lost Stewart, and/or at least one of Jack or Jake were playing, do we keep SDK benched for the second half and then also round 2 just to ensure his knee was fine?

You'd hope to be able to cover the loss of multiple premiership players to an extent, but not sure too many teams would be able to cover the loss of multiple premiership players from the same part of the ground, especially when talking about KPP type players

Mr Meow · Oct 6, 2023

cats_09 said:
Round 1 - J. Henry & Kolodhashnij in the stands, along with Bowes who may or may not have been best 22/23 at that time if we had a full strength squad

In the first quarter we lose Stewart for the match, and then SDK goes down in the second quarter but comes back on in the second half - if we hadn't already lost Stewart, and/or at least one of Jack or Jake were playing, do we keep SDK benched for the second half and then also round 2 just to ensure his knee was fine?

You'd hope to be able to cover the loss of multiple premiership players to an extent, but not sure too many teams would be able to cover the loss of multiple premiership players from the same part of the ground, especially when talking about KPP type players

I think Bowes was picked basically every time available. Did he play any VFL, unless maybe one or two for fitness?

That was a disastrous start as you said - Stengle and SDK were clearly not right in the second half and the early loss of Stewart was telling given the absentees you mentioned.

cats_09 · Oct 6, 2023

Mr Meow said:
I think Bowes was picked basically every time available. Did he play any VFL, unless maybe one or two for fitness?

That was a disastrous start as you said - Stengle and SDK were clearly not right in the second half and the early loss of Stewart was telling given the absentees you mentioned.

In his return from his initial injury during the pre-season, he came straight into the senior team for his debut in the hoops

After his second calf injury he did return via the VFL where he played 1 game. He then played 3 consecutive games as our starting sub without much of an impact in any of them - that was a really weird month for Bowes as he may have been better off playing another VFL match or two instead of the 3 matches as sub where he wasn't necessarily building up his fitness anyway

BlakeyNoFlakey · Oct 7, 2023

I was listening to Trade Radio yesterday, and Tom Morris said he didn't think the Cats would make the 8 again next year because "there were no up-and-coming players" in the top 10 of Carji votes. Meaning we had no real young talent pushing through to carry the Cats forward and the old guys are done. God, I laugh at this hack. Geelong had 3 players named in the best under-22 players squad of 2023, and 1 got selected for the final team this year. Not to mention some good young prospects we've got coming through like Knevitt, Clark, Conway, Dempsey, Neale, and Mullin. I love it when they underestimate us.

Partridge · Oct 7, 2023

cats_09 said:
Round 1 - J. Henry & Kolodhashnij in the stands, along with Bowes who may or may not have been best 22/23 at that time if we had a full strength squad

In the first quarter we lose Stewart for the match, and then SDK goes down in the second quarter but comes back on in the second half - if we hadn't already lost Stewart, and/or at least one of Jack or Jake were playing, do we keep SDK benched for the second half and then also round 2 just to ensure his knee was fine?

You'd hope to be able to cover the loss of multiple premiership players to an extent, but not sure too many teams would be able to cover the loss of multiple premiership players from the same part of the ground, especially when talking about KPP type players

To an extent. But some of those players didn't miss nearly as much footy as it seemed.

Stewart for example. Got injured against Collingwood, and missed the Carlton game. That was it. He missed one game. Was back by Round 3 (which we lost), and played every game after that. So it isn't like he missed half the season or anything. DeKoning is the real weird one - it felt like he missed tons of footy, but in total it was only 4 games. Really strange.

Others have already said it. Injuries were definitely a factor, but I doubt very much it was the factor. Cameron freely admitted they didn't come back as fit as they should have, and that's on them. Plus there's another element that hasn't been discussed - we've still got a lot of veterans on the list. Once players are the wrong side of 30, they don't get better, and sooner or later, they either start breaking down or slowing down (or both). It isn't bad luck when veterans start getting injured; it's inevitable.

Next year is a big unknown for me between how much more the veterans decline (and they were looking very shaky late in the year even before the Dogs game - we lost 5 of our last 6 and looked very flat and slow in a number of them), and how much the younger guys improve. If the latter is more than the former they should be better. But who knows.

cats_09 · Oct 7, 2023

BlakeyNoFlakey said:
I was listening to Trade Radio yesterday, and Tom Morris said he didn't think the Cats would make the 8 again next year because "there were no up-and-coming players" in the top 10 of Carji votes. Meaning we had no real young talent pushing through to carry the Cats forward and the old guys are done. God, I laugh at this hack. Geelong had 5 players named in the best under-22 players squad of 2023, and 2 got selected for the final team this year. Not to mention some good young prospects we've got coming through like Knevitt, Clark, Conway, Dempsey, Neale, and Mullin. I love it when they underestimate us.

Can I ask where you got those numbers from?

Our 3 nominations were: SDK, Holmes and O. Henry

SDK was the only player to make the final team

BUT - the 22 Under 22 is a popularity public votes, it's not a peer voted thing or by an expert panel

BlakeyNoFlakey · Oct 7, 2023

cats_09 said:
Can I ask where you got those numbers from?

Our 3 nominations were: SDK, Holmes and O. Henry

SDK was the only player to make the final team

BUT - the 22 Under 22 is a popularity public votes, it's not a peer voted thing or by an expert panel

Hey, I could have had that ass up. LOL.

Mr Meow · Oct 7, 2023

Partridge said:
To an extent. But some of those players didn't miss nearly as much footy as it seemed.

Stewart for example. Got injured against Collingwood, and missed the Carlton game. That was it. He missed one game. Was back by Round 3 (which we lost), and played every game after that. So it isn't like he missed half the season or anything. DeKoning is the real weird one - it felt like he missed tons of footy, but in total it was only 4 games. Really strange.

Others have already said it. Injuries were definitely a factor, but I doubt very much it was the factor. Cameron freely admitted they didn't come back as fit as they should have, and that's on them. Plus there's another element that hasn't been discussed - we've still got a lot of veterans on the list. Once players are the wrong side of 30, they don't get better, and sooner or later, they either start breaking down or slowing down (or both). It isn't bad luck when veterans start getting injured; it's inevitable.

Next year is a big unknown for me between how much more the veterans decline (and they were looking very shaky late in the year even before the Dogs game - we lost 5 of our last 6 and looked very flat and slow in a number of them), and how much the younger guys improve. If the latter is more than the former they should be better. But who knows.

But one thing is for certain: we had a 78% win rate when we had 4 or less injuries (pre-game + in-game) compared to 29% when we had 5 or more injured - which occurred a whopping 14 times. We had 6 or more injured/missing 11 out of 23 times - I said "around half of the season" and you said "complete myth". Are you at least willing to retract the latter statement?

Mr Meow · Oct 7, 2023

Partridge said:
To an extent. But some of those players didn't miss nearly as much footy as it seemed.

Stewart for example. Got injured against Collingwood, and missed the Carlton game. That was it. He missed one game. Was back by Round 3 (which we lost), and played every game after that. So it isn't like he missed half the season or anything. DeKoning is the real weird one - it felt like he missed tons of footy, but in total it was only 4 games. Really strange.

Others have already said it. Injuries were definitely a factor, but I doubt very much it was the factor. Cameron freely admitted they didn't come back as fit as they should have, and that's on them. Plus there's another element that hasn't been discussed - we've still got a lot of veterans on the list. Once players are the wrong side of 30, they don't get better, and sooner or later, they either start breaking down or slowing down (or both). It isn't bad luck when veterans start getting injured; it's inevitable.

Next year is a big unknown for me between how much more the veterans decline (and they were looking very shaky late in the year even before the Dogs game - we lost 5 of our last 6 and looked very flat and slow in a number of them), and how much the younger guys improve. If the latter is more than the former they should be better. But who knows.

Nobody is saying it was the ONLY factor. Just that if you go season to season, this one popped up with an extraordinary amount of pre and in-game injuries. One that would be connected with derailing a sides season.

Edit: Geelong 2023 injuries summarised in same format as two successful sides, Brisbane and Collingwood, and a fellow unsuccessful side Richmond, in 2023.

											Geelong 2023 injuries
Round	Pre-game	In-game	Total	Win/loss		Win/draw	Loss		5 or more	4 or less		6 or more	5 or less
1	3	4	7	L			7	Win rate	28.6%	77.8%		27.3%	66.7%
2	4	1	5	L		3	5		14 times	9 times		11 times	12 times
3	5	1	6	L		4	6	%	60.9%	39.1%		47.8%	52.2%
4	2	2	4	W		4	8
5	3	1	4	W		4	7
6	4	0	4	W		7	7
7	5	2	7	W		7	5
8	6	1	7	W		7	2
9	8	0	8	L		4	3
10	7	0	7	L		5	6
11	6	1	7	L		3	7
12	7	0	7	W		4	12
14	3	2	5	L	Mean	4.7	6.3
15	3	1	4	W	Median	4	6.5
16	3	0	3	D
17	5	0	5	W
18	3	0	3	W
19	2	0	2	L
20	1	2	3	L
21	3	1	4	W
22	4	2	6	L
23	5	2	7	L
24	12	0	12	L
Mean	4.5	1	5.5
Median	4	1	5

Mr Meow · Oct 10, 2023

Round	Pre-game	In-game	Total	Win/loss		Win/draw	Loss				Brisbane 2023 injuries
1	2	1	3	L		3	3		5 or more	4 or less		6 or more	5 or less
2	2	1	3	W		2	3	Win rate	50.0%	75.0%		NA	73.1%
3	2	0	3	L		2	3		2 times	24 times		0 times	26 times
4	2	0	2	W		1	5	%	7.7%	92.3%		0.0%	100.0%
5	2	0	2	W		3	3
6	1	0	1	W		4	3
7	1	2	3	W		2	2
8	3	1	4	W		2
9	2	0	2	W		4
10	1	1	2	W		3
11	3	0	3	L		5
12	5	0	5	L		3
13	4	0	4	W		3
14	3	0	3	W		2
15	5	0	5	W		3
16	3	0	3	W		3
17	2	1	3	L		3
18	2	1	3	W		2
19	3	0	3	L		2
20	2	0	2	W	Mean	2.736842	3.142857
21	2	1	3	W	Median	3	3
22	3	0	3	W
23	3	0	3	W
F1	2	0	2	W
F2	2	0	2	W
F3	2	0	2	L
Mean	2.5	0.3	2.8
Median	2.0	0.0	3.0

Mr Meow · Oct 10, 2023

Round	Pre-game	In-game	Total	Win/loss		Win/draw	Loss				Collingwood 2023 injuries
1	1	1	2	W		2	3		5 or more	4 or less		6 or more	5 or less
2	2	1	3	W		3	2	Win rate	85.7%	78.9%		75.0%	78.9%
3	3	2	5	W		5	1		7 times	19 times		4 times	22 times
4	3	0	3	L		5	3	%	26.9%	73.1%		15.4%	84.6%
5	4	1	5	W		7	6
6	6	1	7	W		6
7	5	1	6	W		4
8	3	1	4	W		4
9	4	0	4	W		4
10	4	0	4	W		4
11	3	1	4	W		7
12	4	3	7	W		2
13	2	0	2	L		4
14	2	0	2	W		3
15	3	1	4	W		2
16	2	1	3	W		1
17	2	0	2	W		4
18	1	0	1	W		5
19	1	0	1	L		1
20	0	3	3	L		2
21	2	2	4	W		1
22	4	2	6	L	Mean	3.619048	3
23	4	1	5	W	Median	4	3
F1	1	0	1	W
F2	1	1	2	W
F3	1	0	1	W
Mean	2.6	0.9	3.5
Median	2.5	1.0	3.5

Mr Meow · Oct 10, 2023

And I included another who similarly struggled through injuries at times, more so the first half of the season.

Round	Pre-game	In-game	Total	Win/loss		Win/draw	Loss				Richmond 2023 injuries
1	3	2	5	D		5	7		5 or more	4 or less		6 or more	5 or less
2	3	0	3	W		3	7	Win rate	25.0%	63.6%		28.6%	50.0%
3	7	0	7	L		5	8		12 times	11 times		7 times	16 times
4	6	1	7	L		7	8	%	52.2%	47.8%		30.4%	69.6%
5	8	0	8	L		6	5
6	7	1	8	L		4	5
7	5	0	5	L		4	5
8	5	0	5	W		3	3
9	5	2	7	W		3	4
10	5	0	5	L		4	6
11	5	0	5	L		3	3
12	5	1	6	W			4
13	3	1	4	W	Mean	4.272727	5.416667
14	3	1	4	W	Median	4	5
15	2	1	3	L
16	3	0	3	W
17	3	0	3	W
18	4	0	4	W
19	4	0	4	L
20	4	2	6	L
21	3	0	3	L
22	3	0	3	W
23	4	0	4	L
F1
F2
F3
Mean	4.3	0.5	4.9
Median	4.0	0.0	5.0

Mr Meow · Oct 10, 2023

So it seems that the two grand finalists did have a much better run with cumulative injuries, although Collingwood in the first half of the season did have a crisis among their average/decent talls. When Collingwood did have injuries they banked the wins, and surprisingly their losses came with basically a full list (fatigue of players pushing through a factor, maybe a heavy training load before finals?). Importantly their midfield rarely missed more than one player at a time. Just 4 times with 6 or more injuries, compared to 11 times for Geelong.

Brisbane were truly blessed throughout the year but then did pick up the unfortunate Payne and Ashcroft injuries before finals. Very rarely did they have in-game interruptions and in the back end of the year, injuries were more rotational rather than stacking up. Brisbane's win rate did drop to 50% on the few occassions they had 5 or more injuries. No times with 6 or more injuries!

Richmond were without Lynch (big) and Gibcus (less big) for most of the year and their season actually was somewhat derailed early due to a stack up of injuries. They had a huge correlation between win rate and having 4 or less injuries, even if they ran out of steam late in the season while relatively healthy. Still, having 6 or more injuries around 30% of the time compared to almost 50% for Geelong was a notable difference. When healthy, Geelong certainly had a stronger win rate than Richmond. 67-78% win rate when "healthy" compared to 50-64% for Richmond. Both sides lacked the depth to cover a big injury list with a win rate of 25-28% in those games.

Mr Meow · Oct 10, 2023

"Every side has injuries"

Sure, but the grading of each sides injury list through a given season absolutely variables and has a demonstrable influence on success of season in most cases. Collingwood 2023: sufficient depth to cover injuries? Perhaps, but it wasn't really tested enough. They made do when lacking a bunch of middling talls but had their A grade midfield and most of their defence to keep them stable. The tipping point was never reached and they won the close ones when they had to.

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Cause for 2024 optimism: (Unsurprising) correlation between injury number and win rate in season 2023

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Cause for 2024 optimism: (Unsurprising) correlation between injury number and win rate in season 2023

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