What Has Happened To Richmond?

- The coach can’t coach?
- They lack leadership?
- They got ahead of themselves?
- They haven’t recovered from last year’s finals loss?
- They are mentally soft?
- They lack confidence?
- They are too slow?
- They recycled the wrong players?
- Their game plan is faulty?
- The team is cursed?

Alright, what has really happened? Maybe some of these explanations are true, but the answer is probably not as extreme as the above explanations suggests. Let us have a look at each player’s SuperCoach rating for 2014 compared to 2013.

The interesting column is the last one. With the players ranked from ‘most productive’ to ‘least productive’ (ignoring for now positional differences in SuperCoach ratings), it shows the cumulative difference between the average ratings of the top x ranked players in 2014 compared to 2013. So for example, the top 4 ranked players in 2014 collectively average over 17 less SuperCoach points in 2014 than in 2013.

2013

		Games	SuperCoach average	Total SuperCoach points
1	Trent Cotchin	22	107.09	2356
2	Brett Deledio	23	104.35	2400
3	Dustin Martin	23	100.39	2309
4	Ivan Maric	20	98.95	1979
5	Daniel Jackson	23	91.74	2110
6	Bachar Houli	21	91.67	1925
7	Alex Rance	23	87.43	2011
8	Aaron Edwards	9	84.67	762
9	Jack Riewoldt	22	84.00	1848
10	Shaun Grigg	23	82.52	1898
11	Tyrone Vickery	21	80.52	1691
12	Brandon Ellis	21	80.38	1688
13	Ricky Petterd	12	77.92	935
14	Reece Conca	17	76.47	1300
15	Shane Edwards	20	76.40	1528
16	Nick Vlastuin	18	75.44	1358
17	Chris Newman	19	74.37	1413
18	Orren Stephenson	6	73.83	443
19	Nathan Foley	16	71.56	1145
20	Chris Knights	5	70.60	353
21	Shane Tuck	11	69.00	759
22	Troy Chaplin	22	67.73	1490
23	Jake King	18	67.33	1212
24	Luke McGuane	12	62.08	745
25	Jake Batchelor	9	58.44	526
26	Matthew White	16	56.12	898
27	David Astbury	5	53.00	265
28	Steven Morris	22	49.14	1081
29	Dylan Grimes	9	46.11	415
30	Robin Nahas	6	39.33	236
			Team avge	1699
			Best 22	1827
			Ratio	0.9299645

2014

		Games	SuperCoach average	Total SuperCoach points	Cumulative difference
1	Matt Thomas	8	100.88	807	-6.21
2	Dustin Martin	11	98.73	1086	-11.83
3	Trent Cotchin	11	98.00	1078	-14.22
4	Daniel Jackson	8	95.62	765	-17.55
5	Brett Deledio	7	94.43	661	-14.86
6	Brandon Ellis	11	88.18	970	-18.35
7	Jack Riewoldt	11	87.18	959	-18.60
8	Reece Conca	10	86.90	869	-16.37
9	Bachar Houli	11	85.82	944	-14.55
10	Alex Rance	6	83.33	500	-13.74
11	Shaun Hampson	9	81.56	734	-12.70
12	Ricky Petterd	6	81.17	487	-11.91
13	Tyrone Vickery	8	75.12	601	-14.71
14	Shane Edwards	11	75.09	826	-16.09
15	Shaun Grigg	10	74.20	742	-18.29
16	Sam Lloyd	5	71.00	355	-22.73
17	Troy Chaplin	11	70.00	770	-27.10
18	Nick Vlastuin	9	69.00	621	-31.93
19	David Astbury	8	68.50	548	-34.99
20	Matthew Dea	3	68.33	205	-37.26
21	Chris Newman	7	63.00	441	-43.26
22	Benjamin Griffiths	10	61.30	613	-49.69
23	Matthew Arnot	3	56.33	169
24	Matthew Mcdonough	7	51.57	361
25	Nathan Foley	6	50.67	304
26	Nathan Gordon	5	46.40	232
27	Steven Morris	11	46.18	508
28	Ben Lennon	4	45.75	183
29	Dylan Grimes	7	44.00	722
			Team avge	1642
			Best 22	1777
			Ratio	0.9238237

What we can see by this is that the drop off at Richmond has been at the top end and the bottom end of the list. At the top end, both Trent Cotchin and Brett Deledio are averaging about 10 less points each in 2014 compared to 2013. It is not completely clear why they have taken a step back – for Deledio early season injuries may have played a part – but their drop in form looks to be a significant part of Richmond’s deterioration in 2014.

The middle part of Richmond’s list – which is the part which seems to be under the most fire – is actually collectively pretty much the same as in 2013. Brandon Ellis, Reece Conca (despite being dropped recently), and Jack Riewoldt are performing a bit better in 2014 (with Ellis and Conca being young this is not that surprising), while Bachar Houli, Alex Rance (who has been injured), Tyrone Vickery, and Shaun Grigg are performing a bit worse. Collectively though, it pretty much evens out.

The other drop off then has been among the bottom seven. It is a little hard to compare because the bottom seven is fairly variable due to injuries, omissions, and positional differences, but the cumulative column suggests there has been a fall in performance among this group. In particular, Chris Newman and Nick Vlastuin have taken a step back. In Newman’s case this may be because he is relatively old, but Vlastuin is only young, so it is less obvious what is affecting his form. The retirement of Shane Tuck, the reduced use of Nathan Foley, and the absence of Jake King also look to have contributed to the reduced performance from the lesser lights.

Overall then, keeping in mind the caveats around SuperCoach player rankings, a drop off in form among Richmond’s best two players and also their bottom players seems to be what is driving the Tigers’ lesser performance in 2014. Given that, it is not clear what the solution should be. In terms of the lower rung players, maybe it is going to take a while for the Tigers to bring through more productive players to replace the departed Tuck, and the aging Newman, Foley, and King. In terms of Cotchin and Deledio, maybe they are out of form or being more heavily targeted by opposition clubs. In any case, sacking the coaching staff, gutting the list, and detonating Punt Road may be a little extreme as a way of fixing what ails the yellow and black in 2014. 

Amendment: Readers may wonder, as I did later, why Ivan Maric and Jake King do not appear on the 2014 list. I got the stats from Footywire, and they had limited the view to players with 3 games or more. In any case, it is clear the absence of Maric, who was one of the Tigers' top players in 2013, has also hurt them in 2014,