AFL Rankings: Round 4 2020

Port Adelaide is now the #1 ranked team.

With four wins to start the 2020 season and a percentage of 236.3, Port Adelaide have moved to the top of the rankings this week, replacing Richmond.

Port’s four wins have been against Gold Coast, Adelaide, Fremantle, and West Coast. Those are currently the three bottom teams on the ladder, and 2019’s last-place side. Are Port’s good performances due largely to the quality of their opposition?

Port Adelaide’s four wins this season have come with a point differential of +199. After my adjustments for home ground advantage and opponent strength that is reduced to +170. That is still the best run of combined adjusted net margins in a stretch of four matches over the past year other than Richmond’s Round 23 and finals series. The rankings system arguably still overrates West Coast based on its form this season, but on that argument it would arguably still underrate Gold Coast.  

That places Port Adelaide as comfortably the best performed team so far this season, based on ranking points (see table above). They are also the best performed team over their past 11 matches, though most of that comes from their recent performances. In contrast, reigning premiers are high up in terms of ranking points over their past 11 matches, but have been below average so far this season.

Port’s biggest danger may be the bookmakers’ current premiership favourite Collingwood. Despite losing to GWS on the weekend, the Magpies are still rated highly from their big wins against the Bulldogs and St. Kilda, along with their performances last season. Port Adelaide and Collingwood lead the league this season in disposals, and are the two teams with a percentage of over 150. It has been a while since the former Magpies and the current Magpies played off in a major final, but perhaps this could be the year for it.

AFL Rankings: Round 3 2020

The GWS GIANTS may not be the attacking machine they are perceived to be.

In 2019, the Greater Western Sydney Giants famously made their first grand final, after three excellent wins in the finals series. While they ran out of petrol for the big one and were thrashed, they were still considered one of the leading premiership contenders ahead of this season. They had star players Stephen Coniglio and Callan Ward to return to a side that had just finished second.

On the rankings though they finished the season in ninth, rated about average. After consecutive losses to North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs they are now ranked eleventh. Including last year’s Grand Final they have scored less than six goals in three out of their past ten matches.

Over the past 22 matches, GWS’ best stretch of form was those first few weeks of the finals, when they thrashed the Dogs, and beat Brisbane and Collingwood on the road (see chart below). Outside of that they’ve been average overall.

Despite player departures over the years, they still seem to have heaps of talent. But perhaps it is not quite as much as often thought.

The Giants get the ball a lot, but it is also about where and how you use it

When heading into the season Champion Data rated GWS’ midfield as only the twelfth-best in the AFL, the queue to ridicule Champion Data was almost as big as western Sydney itself. Ruckmen aside, on paper the Giants seemed to have the deepest collection of talent in the land rotating through the midfield: Coniglio and Ward, Josh Kelly, Lachie Whitfield, Tim Taranto, and Jacob Hopper, with Zac Williams and Toby Greene being able to push in and star as required.

Without going so far as to say Champion Data were ‘right’, there are a few things that place doubt on whether GWS’ engine room is as powerful as commonly thought. First, as Champion Data’s ratings capture, while Williams and Greene are excellent players and can play in the midfield usually they do not (Williams plays back, Greene forward). Whitfield also spends a lot of time starting centre bounces up forward and moving into defence.

Part of why GWS’ on-ballers are considered to be so strong is that they get a lot of possessions. GWS were second for disposal per game differential in 2019, close behind Collingwood (see table below). They were second in differential for contested possessions and clearances, and first for uncontested possessions. (They rank near the bottom in these categories so far this year.)

However, GWS ranked only sixth for scoring shot differential, and eleventh for inside 50 differential. The Giants may get a lot of the ball, but they don’t seem to get it down forward into dangerous attacking spots as often as a good team should.

Further, if we look at the Giants’ main ball-winners, a more significant amount of their work than other top teams is done in the defensive half of the ground. GWS’ top 10 disposal-getters averaged 3.14 inside 50s per game (per player) last year, but 2.91 rebound 50s (see table below). Other teams that Champion Data rated as having top midfields only averaged 2.36 rebound 50s among their top 10 disposal-getters. (North Melbourne’s midfield was also rated highly, but this was less of a ‘consensus’ pick among other experts, and is helped by having an elite ruck in Todd Goldstein.)

Included here would be defenders Heath Shaw and Nick Haynes, but again wingmen/half-backs Williams and Whitfield picked up a lot of their possessions away from their own goal. It does help them to defend very well, including in last year’s preliminary final, but it is a bit different to the attacking machine GWS may be perceived as.

Another reason why Champion Data rated their midfield so low is that some of their players were not exactly the best users of the ball last season. Tim Taranto (currently injured) led the league in clangers last year with almost five per game, and Hopper, Shaw, and Greene averaged about three to four per game each. Given that Taranto and Hopper are two players that spent most of their time in the ‘guts’, the perception of GWS’ midfield strength may still be somewhat ahead of their young players’ development.

As last year’s finals series showed the Giants can still be very good. But we should perhaps not be that surprised if they cannot make it back to the Grand Final this season.

P.S. Essendon and Melbourne, who had their match postponed this week after the Bombers’ Conor McKenna tested positive for COVID-19, are treated as having a bye for the purpose of the rankings. Their ranking points can still change slightly as their past results are re-assessed based on how other teams have performed this week – e.g. Melbourne’s win against Carlton is rated as slightly better given the Blues’ win this week against Geelong.

AFL Rankings: Round 2 2020

This week: Collingwood and Richmond again ensure that neither team wins, and how ‘bad’ are the Crows?

Collingwood and Richmond fight each other to a stalemate

After a three-month hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the AFL 2020 season resumed last Thursday night with a ‘blockbuster clash’ between Melbourne’s two current heavyweight clubs, Collingwood and Richmond.

The match was as close as many were hoping for, with the teams playing in their first draw since 1917. The scoring on the other hand was probably not what many were hoping for, with the two teams combining for just 72 points – the lowest combined game score since 1999.

Quarter lengths have been reduced this year from 20 minutes to 16 minutes each (plus time-on), and therefore scores are expected to be lower. And each team did have about 80 per cent of the disposals that they had on average last year (see table below). Yet they only had about 50 per cent of the scoring shots. What happened?

For many viewers, the enduring memory of the game’s second half is probably of Richmond booting the ball into their forward line, being spoiled by the Collingwood defenders, and then the Magpies chipping the ball back only to be repelled by a wall of Tiger tacklers, who then pick up the ball and boot it forward … with the the whole cycle repeating again.

Each team had about as many turnovers as they had on average last season in longer game time (see table above). After accounting for game time Richmond had a lower ratio compared with last season of effective disposals, handballing less and kicking more. Collingwood had a higher ratio of one percenters (spoils, smothers, etc.), led by backmen Darcy Moore and Jeremy Howe with nine and eight respectively. Richmond had a much higher ratio of tackles, with ruckman Ivan Soldo recording nine(!), and midfielder/mid-forwards Trent Cotchin, Dion Prestia, Shane Edwards, and Shai Bolton recording five or more each.

It was the football equivalent of putting a pox on each other’s house. Which, given Collingwood and Richmond’s history with each other, and the horrible standstill the world has been brought to this year, was perhaps a weirdly appropriate result.

Are Port Adelaide that good? Are Adelaide that ‘bad’?

For the first time, some fans were allowed to attend an AFL (men’s) match this season, as about 2,000 people watched Port Adelaide take on Adelaide before both teams head off to the Queensland ‘hub’ for a few weeks. Fortunately most of those were Port Adelaide fans, as the Power smashed the Crows by 75 points, giving them two wins so far by a combined total of 122 points.

Is Port Adelaide a ‘top four side’? Or is it just that Adelaide is a ‘bottom four side’? Perhaps both. When this blog checked in on both teams before last season’s first Showdown the two sides were fairly even, and about average. By the end of the season, Port Adelaide was still rated about average, but Adelaide had fallen away somewhat. This season, that disparity has become even bigger.

Port Adelaide’s past six matches have been overall fairly impressive, with an average net margin adjusted for opponent strength and home ground advantage, and adjusted to 16 minute quarters, of 24 points (see chart below). Apart from their two big wins this season the Power finished last season with comfortable wins against Essendon, Sydney, and Fremantle, with a big loss against North Melbourne their only blemish. None of those teams they beat are probably among the top sides, but Port is getting the job done well.

In contrast, Adelaide’s average adjusted net margin over their past eight matches is -24 points (see chart below). After their massive win against Gold Coast last season, the Crows lost to Essendon and Carlton, and got well beaten by Collingwood at home. Their best performance over that period was a close loss to West Coast in Perth. Only the Gold Coast Suns – who actually had quite a good win on the weekend – have fared worse in that time.

As it was last season, Port Adelaide’s performance is still being powered by their work in the midfield, as they rank first in disposals and inside 50s and second in clearances. The Crows meanwhile rank at or near the bottom in those categories, despite having Rory Sloane and the Crouch brothers. The problem for the Crows is that after their three primary midfielders the cupboard is fairly bare. Meanwhile Port’s Travis Boak had plenty of support from his midfielder-forwards, most notably second-year player Connor Rozee who had eight clearances, five inside 50s, and six tackles. Other young players like Xavier Duursma and Zak Butters were not half-bad either, and veteran Steven Motlop had one of his finest games since moving to the club.

Port Adelaide now sits fifth on the rankings. Adelaide sits fourth-last. On the evidence of the weekend and other recent matches, that seems a fair reflection of where both teams are currently at.

AFL Rankings: Round 1 2020

My AFL Rankings are back for their tenth season.

Anything major happen while they were gone?

...

OK – so with the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been some changes to the 2020 AFL season. The home and away season has been reduced from 22 matches per team to 17 matches, and the length of quarters has been reduced from 20 to 16 minutes.

I spent some time between seasons making significant changes to my rankings Excel file. Preparing all 23 rounds now seems a bit like a waste of time, at least for this season. On the other hand, my changes to the file made it much easier to adjust my rankings for the shorter quarters.

I’ve adjusted down all 2019 margins and home ground advantages to 80 per cent of their previous values, to reflect the shorter quarters this year (though there are arguments to adjust the home ground advantage down further). This did not affect the order of teams, before Round 1.

Anything interesting happen in the actual matches?

Collingwood had a good win over the Western Bulldogs in Round 1, by 52 points. That moves the Magpies up from seventh to second in the rankings, and the Bulldogs down from fifth to eighth. After Richmond at the top it’s all pretty close, so teams may move up or down several spots each week over the first few rounds.

The tips

Here are my predictions for the next round of AFL matches. I have adjusted my probability distribution for the shorter quarters as well.