Figuring Footy on West Coast’s unique reliance on Josh Kennedy:
A narrow focused, key-forward structure has typified the Eagles’ year so far. Unlike other teams who rely on either midfielders pushing up or a multi-faceted forwardline to kick a winning score, the 2017 Eagles have relied on a few key forwards kicking bags, and when they haven’t been able to, the whole team has struggled.
Source: Are West Coast too Dependent on Kennedy? – Figuring Footy
Figuring Footy has another excellent analysis based on shot quality, this time examining the Saints in particular:
The Saints have created better quality chances (xScore) than their opponents 6 times this year. In all 5 of their wins and also in their loss to an incredibly accurate West Coast. If this result went the other way, they’d be sitting equal first heading into round 9.
The AFL’s arrangement with Champion Data means that only basic stats are released to the public, which is a real barrier to those of us who’d like to do interesting things with it. For example, with shot position data, you can compile an awesome list like this one from Figuring Footy:
Since 2012 there were 28,530 goals kicked, but only around 150 of them were kicked from further out than 60m. And a fair chunk of these were kicks to full-forward which somehow slipped through the contest and over the goal line without taking a touch.
There are probably only about 40 odd examples over the last 6 years of a player backing themselves in from outside 60m and then actually delivering. These are 6 of my favourites.
Source: The 6 Best Long Range Goals of the Last 6 Years – Figuring Footy
