So many Cookers on social media aligning Walsh’s with May’s last night. WTF? This is why BT has to go.
Not only is he a substandard commentator, his stupid biased comments are dangerous.
He’s the Donald Trump of commentators - inciting hatred and sowing division by tossing out stupid, unjustifiable and extreme comments which appeal to the deplorables.
It's serious ...but "moaning Brian" has hacked LL's account
Seems to have been lost on a few commentators, but I thought Walsh tapping the orange on his shoulders after the goal was a 'nod' to the "Respects" jumper.
I saw it but I didn't believe it. He has an agenda whenever he opens his mouth. Just trying to work out what it is!
Regarding Scott talking us up in his presser....
There is a method in his madness, and it is a typical Scott deflection. It's a bit like saying you lost a 100 metre race to Usain Bolt. The fact you lost by 50 metres gets missed a bit in the telling of how good the opposition was...
You heap praise on the other side and say how awesome they are, and it makes your effort seem just a little bit better....and they weren't complete duds. They were OK in patches, they were just overwhelmed by a 'machine'. And I'm not sure Scott, and a whole lot of other coaches, slept too well last night.
I dont think anyone said ignore the stats, but most have said beware of putting too much stock into them.
Exactly They're part of the total package of assessment that also includes observation, and the tricky one "bias".
As has been pointed out...the blokes with the best stats aren't us. It's also true that the blokes with the most complete football experience aren't us either.
Should we have a view then?.... of course we should! That's what drives this place....opinion, discussion and argument There's a wide variety of football watching, experience and opinions amongst the group. Over the years folks have pointed out different aspects of players and coaches that others may not have noticed. Quite often a suggestion that may seem strange at the time turns out to be quite valid as time progresses.
The thing though, is that our views must be seen with a bit of an 'asterix' because they don't come with all the detailed information that those at the club possess.
So a point of view must always come (even subconsciously) with the caveat...."In my opinion" To think we know better than those with much more 'hands on' experience and closer to the action is just a tad arrogant.
It has to be about more than access to statistics. If our coaching staff have the same footy knowledge and footy IQ as a few big mouths on social media, then we are seriously wasting our time and money, and the club should pack it in and go and play in some dust bowl league out in the boonies, where the local waste collection guy is the coach, physio, high performance manager, list boss………
Yep Of course it's more than stats....even advanced ones. Naturally they play a part in some decisions and the coaches have access to better ones than we have but...
Our head coach has 289 playing games. He has around 15 years experience as a senior or assistant coach. Add the experience of our other assistants.
Then add an in depth knowledge of the playing group.
-their strengths and weaknesses -their injury and form situation at any one time -priorities they may be working on at any given time. -what their training loads look like - development plans. -how players fit in the team structure and roles they play -team balance considerations - opposition strengths and weaknesses in up coming games -proposed match-ups -personal issues players may be dealing with (relationships and family illness) etc etc.
We think we might know. We actually have little idea
My issue isn't with the use of statistics. It never has been. It's the 'selective' use of statistics that sees data included because it supports an argument, while other data is omitted or ignored because it doesn't. Given that the really advanced data isn't even available to the average punter, or even it seems to general subscribers to some of these stats sites, you only get a limited picture.
I've spoken a bit about variables affecting stats. Well there, hidden in those very very advanced statistics are some of the 'variables' being somewhat addressed.
The question that stems from that then Kruds, is this.... if all that is true.
Should we question a coaching group, armed with University level stats, who goes with two rucks instead of one, based on our primary school level info?
Perhaps Champion Data does have some meaningful stats that they are keeping to themselves. I suspect that it’s more a case of manipulating dodgy data to promote controversy and interest.
They're a business, much like any other... They'll put out some statistics to the general public that give half a picture. That's a bit of a carrot They'll sell more advanced (flashy) ones to subscribers. The more in depth ones they'll give to the clubs and commentators...at a price.
At each level they'll probably carry a bit more weight than the previous level, but still the unpredicatbility and changing nature of the game mean they're only ever a snapshot of a point in time and record of the past.
They have little bearing on team and individuals in the games ahead, as both develop or change things up. As a predictive tool for individuals they have limited value. They may be useful as a review tool to initiate changes in tactics or roles but those are probably the stats we don't see.
The complexity changes in the observation and the complexity of the mathematics change along with it. Everything can be taken into consideration if you have enough time.
If mathematics can be used to help model and predict the weather, a game of afl is nothing. 😉
Not suggesting otherwise lods. But that is the point. Looking at the data over a large period of time will show you these changes. As it will not just be club to club that is varying but league averages as a whole. Year to year, decade to decade.
The thing is though it will all be relative. In the 70s all the teams were scoring more than any of the teams now. But there will be an average (afl/vfl wide) over that period and looking at the teams above that vs the teams below that will tell you a story of relative strengths to each other.
You can also analyse that to see how much better a team is vs the average at the time and that would be comparable to today.
In simplistic terms, looking at how many wins a team has will vary year to year with teams output but also amount of games in a season. So instead look at % of game they have won. A 18-2 team is the same as a 9-1 team, 90% win record. That eliminates the season length variable. There are other tricks to use as well.
All data will fit on a bell curve with 99%(?) Of data fitting within 3 STD deviations of the mean. The further away from that the rarer it is....the outliers.
You compare year to year based off of that. You could do it over a decade or 3 weeks or whatever time period you want. But you 100% can compare and in an unbiased way.
I don't want to get bogged down in a maths lecture, suffice to say, low numbers does not make it negligible.
We should probably agree to disagree Kruds. Neither of us are going to change our opinion
I really don't discount statistics completely. I often use them myself...but I give them less value than I do observation, even observation that contains a bit of the occasional bias.
I guess the way I see it is you're trying to apply the "logic of mathematics" to the most illogical and unpredictable of games. A game where things that shouldn't happen often do. A game where things such as 'momentum' in a match can change in minutes just by a side lifting their effort.
Remember our chat about sample size of data....thats what is important.
Any individual game can be an anomoly. Look at the same information, over weeks and years and you will get trends that 'absorb' these anomolies.
For example, look at the results this week. Look who won, who lost and the margin. Use that information to tell me who the best team is. Now, if that is the only data you have, what information could you get out of that in terms of overall strength of any one team relative to another? Relative to last week? Last year? Last decade?
Our first 5 games of R13 were this.... North Melbourne won. Richmond won. Hawthorn won Brisbane won St. Kilda won
Based on that and that alone, you would think that those teams should be in the top half of the league (they won, same amount of teams lost, so they are top half). Based on that, you would probably look at the margin each team won by....which would rank them in this order.... Brisbane North Melbourne Richmond Hawthorn St. Kilda
Extrapolate that out and you would assume that Brisbane and North Melbourne are the most successful in recent years as they had the best margin.
In isolation, thats all you have.
Then you look at the ladder... 12th - Hawthorn 13th - Brisbane 14th - St. Kilda 17th - Richmond 18th - North Melbourne
That paints a completely different picture.
Then go back and look at where they finished last year. Look at average finishing position over the past 10, 20, 50, 150 years. Look at finals made, flags won... Eventually you will get a better understanding of who is actually good now, last year, over the past decade or 2, 50 or 150 years.
You see the point? More data gives you a better understanding.
Don't throw out any particular stat because of their low frequency. Just get more data before using it. There is more hitout to advantage then there are goals. Do we deduce that Elijah Hollands is the best goal kicker in the league because he kicked 3 goals this week? Is Charlie and Harry just average forwards because they didn't kick as many? Is McGovern as good a forward as Harry given they kicked the same amount of goals? No, get more data. It will show you trends and give you better information.
Try this little exercise Kruds.
Go back over the last 50 years and look at our season goal tallies
I suspect what the 'extended data' will give you is a wide range of scores,
They'll be affected by
Our ability at the time Pesonnel available Coaches Game plans The way the games is played. Rule changes.... and a host of other factors.
Each of these variables also affect the statistics of teams and individuals. You often see a team change tack mid season and a weakness in the first half of the season becomes a strength in the second half..or at least not the same issue.
Watch Melbourne in the second half of the year.... With Petracca missing some may step up and increase their individual stats, others will find an extra burden and attention and their stats may actually drop...and that's just the effect of one player.
Football stats are more likely to have a very limited life span as variables affect the way the game is played.
