Preview Round 1 - Brisbane Lions v Port Adelaide 7.10pm Sat 19th March - Gabba

[Grasshopper17]

I read this and thought, no way. 9 games in a row. Don't believe it. But it's true!

Went hunting for what that means and found this, it is a few years old

The First Goal – How Much of an Advantage?

www.footyalmanac.com.au

59% winning chance when you kick the first goal. So giving the first away so often is not great

It does drop down to 53% in finals which softens the blow.

So yes an interesting stat - not that I would as coach be saying kick the first goal! But i would be looking at HOW we are conceding the first goal and if there is any pattern addressing that. EG is it loose defending that tightens up after the first goal? Centre square set up?

The 6% difference between regular season and finals smells a lot like the difference between correlation and causation.

Correlation is when they both increase/decrease in parallel but there's a different cause, e.g. the better team is more likely to win, and the better team is more likely to kick the first goal.

Causation would be that the team that kicks the first goal has a impact on who is going to win.

The fact that the correlation drops to almost equal in finals when both teams are presumably higher quality (unless they're Essendon) strongly suggests there is not a great deal of predictive value in the statistic.

Good arguments both sides. That 59%... I wonder how that compares to the team who kicks the 2nd/3rd/last goal of the game...

The underachieved thing could be a myth because we were destroyed by injury and just tried to scrape through, but I guess we'll find out this year.

With you guys and your game style though you are right. We are very much a clearance based team. We rely on winning clearances, locking the ball in our forward half and then when the ball is in open play we have some very effective ball users who can help us transition to again get it forward and lock it in. Realisticall our defence is then very reliant on our whole team defence and our scoring comes more from creating turnovers and repeat entries.

Somehow though, every time we play you guys, you absorb our early forward forays and clearance wins and you find ways to not just break through our team defence and forward press, but you kick end to end goals with ease. This has happened time and time again where your backline absorbs our pressure, forces us into low percentage options, and then you dont only rebound but you go end to end and carve us up. Even when you don't go end to end, you somehow manage to at least rebound from deep in defence to a target outside 50, and prevent us from creating repeat entries. Then once you have momentum and scoreboard pressure you tend to get a run on in clearances and you penetrate deep with them. Then the chaos that causes when the ball hits the ground causes our defence to go to water and your smalls have a field day if your talls haven't already outmarked us. As such you guys have banged on huge runs of goals against us the last 4 times we've played.

Honestly we have had an ordinary pre-season. We don't look sharp, certainly no where near what you guys looked like V the Dogs, and usually we hit the season and round 1 at full pace, but we dont look anywhere near that level at the moment. So given you guys look wound up, we look sluggish, this game is in Brisbane, where we possibly face muggy/slippery conditions (which are a nightmare for us), and you guys have clearly got the wood on us, a Port win would be a massive upset. As a Port fan I've personally loaded up all my multis with Brisbane included as I think you're a lock. For us our season almost effectively starts rnd 2.

Great analysis. Best wishes for the season... except tomorrow and whenever else you play us

 

[Section 5]

With 3 games played their is a strange trend in each game so far
The run of unanswered goals from both teams in each game is very unusual
Round 1 is always very frantic and very draining on the players. This happens every year so that may only play a small part in this early trend
Can't be 6-6-6 as that should just equal everything up after each goal scored
Two more games before we play Saturday evening so hopefully it does not continue.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Can't be 6-6-6 as that should just equal everything up after each goal scored

I think the 6-6-6 exacerbates the prevailing momentum within the match, because that the team who is on the back foot is unable to drop any extra numbers back into defence. Swinging momentum back your way seems to involve more of a wrestle over 5-10 minutes, rather than seeing teams go goal-for-goal out of the middle. What you're saying makes perfect sense but it doesn't really seem to be playing out that way.

 

[luthor]

I always do. Whether he has an up game or down game he is always box office.

Footy is ultimately for entertainment and Joe entertains.

Irrespective of whether Joe does something ridiculously brilliant or horrendously stupid, I can't help but have a good belly laugh.

With Joe you take the good with the bad

As you say, he's just fantastic value and he makes me smile either way.

 

[Section 5]

Irrespective of whether Joe does something ridiculously brilliant or horrendously stupid, I can't help but have a good belly laugh.

With Joe you take the good with the bad

As you say, he's just fantastic value and he makes me smile either way.

True
Be it good or bad he usually gives us that big smile
it is like a little puppy weeing on your carpet and looking up with those puppy eyes
You just have to forgive

 

[iBeng]

Where gameday thread dlanod

 

[iBeng]

 

[ZoBlitz]

Gameday thread is up.