Analysis Season 2025 - Statistics and Analytics Thread

[Grasshopper17]

Saw this yesterday



From what I've seen so far, we'll be rolling with a similar M.O this season, at least until or unless we get feedback from the rest of the comp that we need to change.

 

[Elixuh]

Saw this yesterday



From what I've seen so far, we'll be rolling with a similar M.O this season, at least until or unless we get feedback from the rest of the comp that we need to change.

I think we got that feedback on the fly during finals last year and we saw another style which complements the foundation kick mark shift approach. Holds us in good stead of dealing with different opposition as the season rolls.

 

[Tom14]

Saw this yesterday



From what I've seen so far, we'll be rolling with a similar M.O this season, at least until or unless we get feedback from the rest of the comp that we need to change.

Definitely think this is Plan A. I'm curious to see when/if we decide to go into break the shackles mode as we did in the prelim - where we had the most metres gained by handball in a final since the Tigers in 2017 (over 500m gained by handball). We haven't really had to do that much at all because usually plan A works so well, and we had Joe up the line to contest if we got first to go long.

We'll need a key forward to stand up and compete hard in aerial contests to give us that security which is why I'm leaning Day > Gallop atm - just think there is too much youth and lack of compete in a Hippy, Morris, Gallop forward line.

 

[Tom14]

For my first orignal post in this thread shout out to a couple of different independent sites covering footy. I've recommended the Shinboner before (https://theshinboner.com/) but definitely sign up and follow along with their coverage.

A new one for me is the Onepercentas blog/substack, which you can read without having to sign up to/paying.

This blog provided great coverage in the off-season about the current use of analytics in the AFL and what the future looks like with some interviews with anonymous data analysts working for clubs. This included the frankly bonkers insight that Champion data charges clubs incredible expensive subscription prices, and this comes out of the soft cap. Even within that, different clubs pay for different tiers of champion data access. The AFL is the 49% owner of champion data and is a not for profit organisation - why are they encouraging yet more inequality between clubs through such a pricing structure?

I say to Darcy that if there is such a large spectrum on the detail of opposition reports, then it sounds like some clubs are at vastly different stages of their analytics journey. Darcy prefers to talk about trade-offs, and clubs choosing to invest in areas of need. This is the part where they dropped the biggest bombshell of our entire interview on my head. Buying data packages from Champion Data comes out of the soft cap (the part of the salary cap reserved for non-playing staff and football programs). “The cost of Champion Data & Video Analysis software runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, then there is a choice of different tiers which are variable within tens of thousands of dollars,” they said. “The higher tier tracks event data by X/Y coordinate. You can get a medium tier – which is what most clubs get – and you can get a slightly lower tier. There’s also an associated labour cost, as well. If I spend all my time building game-day dashboards, I can’t spend time doing something else, unless we hired someone, whose salary would go towards the soft cap as well.”

2 articles here running through this: https://www.onepercenters.net.au/p/beyond-the-eye-test-how-analytics

http://onepercenters.net.au/p/the-process-goes-like-this-more-news

Onepercentas also recently did a season preview for the Lions: https://www.onepercenters.net.au/p/2025-afl-season-previews-brisbane

Some highlights:

Number of top-10 draft picks: six (T-10th)

Average age at Opening Round: 25.4 (2nd)

Average number of games played: 85.9 (2nd)

A year ago, you could easily find pundits who believed the Lions were too old, too psychologically scarred from the 2023 Grand Final, and too dependent on a pair of flaky key forwards to win a Premiership. Winning a grand final by 10 goals is a good way to get everyone to admit the obvious truth – the Lions’ list is absolutely bursting with quality. On paper, it’s slightly weaker than last year (Joe Daniher for Levi Ashcroft and Sam Marshall will be a worthwhile “trade” in five years, but probably not in 2025), but the reintroduction of Coleman, Doedee and McCarthy following their knee injuries will add more depth and quality to the Lions’ defence and half-forward lines.

The closest thing the Lions will have to a problem area is their forward line – all because of the slightly surprising retirement of Joe Daniher. I’d always thought that looking slightly goofy meant many people didn’t really grasp how good Joe was. He was a unicorn – a great mark, excellent at ground level for a man his size, a creative user, and a very handy part-time ruck. He will leave an enigmatic, mustachioed hole. I see three options. The first is to simply replace Daniher with Sam Day (or Darcy Fort, should Day be unavailable). The best way for this to work is to probably split the key forward responsibilities more evenly (i.e. kick it to Eric Hipwood more) and give Day the relatively simple remit of crashing packs and bringing the ball to ground. The second option is to adopt the small-ball style used in the second half of the prelim with Hipwood as the sole tall forward, thereby delegating more of the scoring responsibility to the Lions’ smalls and mediums. In reality, Fagan will probably opt for a combination of the two, starting with Day or Fort as a marking target while also directing his half-forwards to drift into midfield positions post-clearance and stretch the play.

The case for optimism
​

I mean – they’re the reigning Premiers. And, with the exception of the tricky but by no means unsolvable tactical problem created by Daniher’s retirement, the Lions look well set up for sustained success. Brisbane’s is the second-oldest list in the AFL. But that's a fact in need of context. One perspective is, bluntly – who cares? AFL lists are made to win flags, not fulfil the fetish for the potential of youth. Another is that calling the Lions old is more of a function of how misleading it can be to assess list age by just looking at raw numbers. A better way to do it is instead considering how much on-field value players in different age brackets are contributing. Most ways you slice it, the Lions are doing just fine.

Sean Lawson, a great writer and analyst whose work has appeared in the ABC and the footy nerd bible, Footballistics, created this neat chart which shows the age distribution of the top 25 players (by player rating) for each list. Small caveat: each player appears to be a few months older than they are in reality. Nevertheless, the data shows that young players like Darcy Wilmot, Kai Lohmann, Will Ashcroft, Jaspa Fletcher and Logan Morris are all contributing on-field value, as are mid-career players like Coleman, Rayner and Bailey. We’re not talking about The Expendables here. Drill a little deeper and you’ll find that three of top-10 rated Lions players for the last 20 games are 22 or younger. Adelaide, by way of comparison, have just one. None of this even considers the potential impact of Levi Ashcroft, the father-son pick #5 who many serious draft watchers touted as the most talented midfielder in the entire draft crop.

The case for pessimism
​

I’ll repeat what I’ve already mentioned above – the case for pessimism is that the Lions can’t (or take too long to) make a Daniher-less forward line work. To quote Moneyball, there are plausible ways to recreate Joe in the aggregate. But it’s tough to see any of them, at least in the short term, being quite the equal of the real thing. Daniher was a skilled and versatile player. Just four players since 2020 have recorded at least 400 disposals and kicked 40 goals in a season: Isaac Heeney, Toby Greene, Shai Bolton, and… Joe. He was also a creative player, willing and capable of doing things that other key forwards couldn’t see or wouldn’t try. Beyond what he did on the field, he was also clearly beloved by his teammates. He was always going to do things his way. But there’s no denying that it’s thrown a spanner in the works.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Definitely think this is Plan A. I'm curious to see when/if we decide to go into break the shackles mode as we did in the prelim - where we had the most metres gained by handball in a final since the Tigers in 2017 (over 500m gained by handball).

I had not seen/heard this stat... That's extraordinary if true given we also took 111 marks.

We haven't really had to do that much at all because usually plan A works so well, and we had Joe up the line to contest if we got first to go long.

We'll need a key forward to stand up and compete hard in aerial contests to give us that security which is why I'm leaning Day > Gallop atm - just think there is too much youth and lack of compete in a Hippy, Morris, Gallop forward line.

I'm not so bothered about the youth; Hipwood is 27 now. I'm more concerned by the lack of a recognised 2nd ruck. I'd be happy for Hipwood to compete around the ground, it's the centre bounces which would concern me. I can see opposing ruckmen absolutely lining him up as often as they can with a knee to the sternum etc, with a view to weakening an area of the ground we arguably have the least coverage at the moment.

 

[Tom14]

I had not seen/heard this stat... That's extraordinary if true given we also took 111 marks.



I'm not so bothered about the youth; Hipwood is 27 now. I'm more concerned by the lack of a recognised 2nd ruck. I'd be happy for Hipwood to compete around the ground, it's the centre bounces which would concern me. I can see opposing ruckmen absolutely lining him up as often as they can with a knee to the sternum etc, with a view to weakening an area of the ground we arguably have the least coverage at the moment.

Yeah youth isn't the issue with Hippy, but I think it is fair to say that contested marking/competing at stagnant marking contests isn't his strength. He has got a mile better at this in the last few and I have confidence in him to do his job when he needs to, I just want a real mature body to proctect him a bit and do the grunt work.

Second ruck is even more of a reason to pick a mature body; Gallop isn't big enough anyway height wise to do it (nor a mature to do it so undersized a la McStay) so Day or Fort make sense.

Basically I think we replace Joe's output primarily from our smalls scoring more; to do that we need to not badly get outmarked when we have to go high and long.

 

[Tom14]

I had not seen/heard this stat... That's extraordinary if true given we also took 111 marks.



I'm not so bothered about the youth; Hipwood is 27 now. I'm more concerned by the lack of a recognised 2nd ruck. I'd be happy for Hipwood to compete around the ground, it's the centre bounces which would concern me. I can see opposing ruckmen absolutely lining him up as often as they can with a knee to the sternum etc, with a view to weakening an area of the ground we arguably have the least coverage at the moment.

Reckon it was brought up on the First Crack from prelim finals weekend or on 360?

After 20 mins of searching found a reference to it here: https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/af...s/news-story/90585577d9471b1a460c02752dae6a0b

BRISBANE LIONS — KEYS TO THE FLAG

Adjusting their ball movement method accordingly



Like the Swans, the Lions will need to adapt to the game conditions on Saturday.

Brisbane ranked first in the competition this year for accumulating uncontested marks as it sought to control the Sherrin, but against Geelong in last Saturday’s preliminary final, the Lions impressed with their ability to switch gears.

In what was a frenetic, high-pressure contest at the MCG — the second-highest turnover game of the year, as a matter of fact — Fagan’s side utilised handball plenty more than it typically would in order to circumvent Geelong’s press.


The Lions registered 532 metres gained by handball, which was its most for the season, as well as the most handball metres gained in a final since Richmond in 2017.

“Brisbane has now been able to go from a controlled game to a chaos game — they’re a dual threat now,” King told Fox Footy on Wednesday night.

“You just don’t see many teams in finals go through that part of the ground (the corridor) with such ease — they really went to town on Geelong in that second half.

“I like that they’ve got this gear in them and they are now a dual threat with chaos and control.”

If the pace of the game is anything like last Saturday, Brisbane might again need to lean on this less-utilised string in its bow.

 

[Section 5]

Saw this yesterday



From what I've seen so far, we'll be rolling with a similar M.O this season, at least until or unless we get feedback from the rest of the comp that we need to change.

It only really worked for 2 of the top 8

 

[Section 5]

I really don't think stats from the grand final is going to tell how we play in 2025.
We were just too good, or they were off or a combination of both. On the day no Lions fans cared which it was.
Before the first finals game i thought Carlton and Sydney were the teams we would beat during the series.
The question was when would we play Sydney.
The others even Port i had doubts about.

I know we lose Joe, but the reality is we lose the difference between Jo and say Day.
With Day injuries over the years, it is hard to throw some raw stats to see what we actually lose.
I compared Days 2020 year as it is the last season he played more than 6 AFL games.
This really is going to be a test on how good our medical and conditioning staff are and how Days mental and physical attitude is.
As expected, Day is no Danaher except their surname both start with D.
One thing to take into consideration is Joe spent 20% more TOG than Day did.
Below from footywire

Player Statistics Comparison​ Year 2024 Year 2020 Joe Daniher​ Name​ Sam Day​ Brisbane Lions​ Team​ Brisbane Lions​ Forward​ Position​ Forward​ 204​ Career Games​ 155​ Calder Cannons​ Origin​ Sturt​ March 4, 1994​ Date of Birth​ September 6, 1992​ 30yr 11mth​ Age​ Turned 28 in 2020​ 201cm​ Height​ 196cm​ 96kg​ Weight​ 106kg​ 2012 National Draft​ Last Drafted In​ 2024 Pre-Season Draft​ Round 1, Pick #10​ Last Draft Position​ Round 1, Pick #2​ Essendon Bombers​ Last Drafted By​ Brisbane Lions​ 2024​ Stats for Season​ 2020​ 27​ Games​ 17​ 12.2​ Kicks​ 4.0​ 3.4​ Handballs​ 4.7​ 15.6​ Disposals​ 8.7​ 6.4​ Marks​ 2.8​ 2.1​ Goals​ 0.7​ 1.9​ Behinds​ 0.4​ 1.1​ Tackles​ 1.2​ 2.1​ Hitouts​ 3.2​ 4.1​ Inside 50s​ 1.5​ 0.6​ Goal Assists​ 0.6​ 1.0​ Frees For​ 0.5​ 1.2​ Frees Against​ 0.9​ 5.6​ Contested Possessions​ 4.0​ 9.7​ Uncontested Possessions​ 4.5​ 9.3​ Effective Disposals​ 5.8​ 59.6%​ Disposal Efficiency %​ 66.7%​ 3.3​ Clangers​ 2.1​ 0.8​ Contested Marks​ 0.8​ 2.4​ Marks Inside 50​ 0.9​ 1.4​ Clearances​ 0.2​ 0.5​ Rebound 50s​ 0​ 1.0​ One Percenters​ 2.1​ 0.5​ Bounces​ 0​ 97.3​ Time On Ground %​ 77.7​ 0.5​ Centre Clearances​ 0.1​ 0.9​ Stoppage Clearances​ 0.1​ 6.9​ Score Involvements​ 3.3​ 374.1​ Metres Gained​ 109.0​ 4.2​ Turnovers​ 2.1​ 1.4​ Intercepts​ 1.0​ 0.4​ Tackles Inside 50​ 0.3​ 81.5​ AFL Fantasy Score​ 40.1​ 84.8​ Supercoach Score​ 55.5​

 

[Sizzlepack]

For my first orignal post in this thread shout out to a couple of different independent sites covering footy. I've recommended the Shinboner before (https://theshinboner.com/) but definitely sign up and follow along with their coverage.

A new one for me is the Onepercentas blog/substack, which you can read without having to sign up to/paying.

This blog provided great coverage in the off-season about the current use of analytics in the AFL and what the future looks like with some interviews with anonymous data analysts working for clubs. This included the frankly bonkers insight that Champion data charges clubs incredible expensive subscription prices, and this comes out of the soft cap. Even within that, different clubs pay for different tiers of champion data access. The AFL is the 49% owner of champion data and is a not for profit organisation - why are they encouraging yet more inequality between clubs through such a pricing structure?



2 articles here running through this: https://www.onepercenters.net.au/p/beyond-the-eye-test-how-analytics

http://onepercenters.net.au/p/the-process-goes-like-this-more-news

Onepercentas also recently did a season preview for the Lions: https://www.onepercenters.net.au/p/2025-afl-season-previews-brisbane

Some highlights:







View attachment 2232112

Hey, that's me! Thanks a lot for reading and sharing, really appreciate it.

 

[knaf]

Hey, that's me! Thanks a lot for reading and sharing, really appreciate it.

Have signed up, can’t get enough genuine footy talk.

 

[Nunez]

Definitely think this is Plan A. I'm curious to see when/if we decide to go into break the shackles mode as we did in the prelim - where we had the most metres gained by handball in a final since the Tigers in 2017 (over 500m gained by handball). We haven't really had to do that much at all because usually plan A works so well, and we had Joe up the line to contest if we got first to go long.

We'll need a key forward to stand up and compete hard in aerial contests to give us that security which is why I'm leaning Day > Gallop atm - just think there is too much youth and lack of compete in a Hippy, Morris, Gallop forward line.

We trained the shit out of fast handballs from stoppages in the pre season last year and tried to implement early on and failed during our losing period. Parked it so we could train it more. Ironically, it probably wasn't until the GWS game where we really succeeded with it again and from there we were able to blend the fast kicking style with the fast handball out of stoppage style so well. No secret to me that Will Ashcroft was the key ingredient missing early last year.

Levi is very good at this stuff too BTW

 

[Sizzlepack]

Have signed up, can’t get enough genuine footy talk.

Thank you very much, really appreciate it.

 

[Maboo]

Not Sure if anyone is aware of this stats & ratings site, it is similar to footywire but the layout is easier to navigate I think, and you can download any of the lists as a csv file allowing you to create charts, trends etc.

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