Scoring Anomalies – Round 12

Written by The Salamander on June 14 2019

Technically, we’re supposed to be focussing on last week’s games, but last night, TrooRoo wanted to know why Matt Crouch only got 91 for 35 disposals at 71 percent (11 contested, 223 metres gained, 7 score involvements), 7 score involvements, and 7 clearances. Digging a bit deeper, I think part of it is that he only had 1 tackle – the oft-repeated theme this year of a player racking up a big disposal count, but not laying many tackles leading to a middling score – as well as the fact that his 12 kicks only went at 58.3 percent. Plus, 223 metres gained divided by 35 equals an average of 6.4 metres gained per disposal, which suggests there were probably a fair few backwards and sideways passes on his part.

Moving back to last round, Sydney Stack somehow managed to rack up 70 points for 12 disposals at 75 percent (4 kicks at 50 percent, 8 handballs at 88 percent, 8 contested, 122 metres gained, no score involvements), 2 clearances, 4 marks (all uncontested, 1 intercept, none inside 50), and 3 tackles. He did have a further 12 pressure acts beyond those tackles, but surely 70 points is a bit much for this?

Dane asked in his excellent Round Review why Gold Coast’s Chris Burgess got 72 points for just 8 disposals, 3 marks (2 contested, 1 intercept), and 1 tackle. His 8 touches (2 kicks, 6 handballs, 6 contested) did go at 100 percent DE, but he only managed to gain 66 metres from this, and 1 score involvement. However, he did rack up 6 intercept possessions and 13 spoils, so this is probably what boosted his score.

Surely, with 38 disposals at 81.6 percent (18 kicks at 66.7 percent, 20 handballs at 95 percent), 16 contested possessions, 8 clearances, 460 metres gained, 7 marks (3 inside 50, 1 contested, 1 intercept), 19 pressure acts, 9 score involvements, and 4 goals – hailed by many as the best individual performance of the year – CD had to find a way to get Patrick Cripps over 200. Instead, he was left on 194. Perhaps the one knock on his game is that of those 19 pressure acts, only 2 were tackles. Now, he was neither my VC nor my C, so I probably shouldn’t be complaining, but I can’t help but feel like he’s been short-changed here.

Finally, as a Rory Sloane owner (Sloaner?), I’m not about to complain, but on the face of it, 103 points for 17 disposals (11 kicks at 64 percent, 6 handballs at 83 percent, 11 contested, 5 score involvements, 297 metres gained), 2 goals, 5 tackles, and 2 clearances, and 4 marks (1 contested, 2 inside 50) probably seems a little high. He did rack up a further 18 pressure acts apart from his 5 tackles, and the goals almost certainly helped. From memory, I think one or both of those goals might have happened late to seal the win, and, after a very quiet first half, he was huge in the final quarter-and-a-half, when the game was on the line, in which case he probably has some friendly scaling to the thank.

I’ll leave you this week with this rather insightful line from SuperCoach’s official Terms & Conditions:

4.11. Some scores involve an element of judgement by Champion Data. No correspondence will be entered into regarding the allocation of scores.

And that’s why we have this column!


Were there any scores that seemed off to you on the weekend? Let us know in the comments below!

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13 thoughts on “Scoring Anomalies – Round 12”

  1. I watched MCrouch closely last night and was very disappointed with his score. At one stage, he did three handballs in the space of a minute and his score stayed the same.

    Take the point that metres gained per disposal was low but that’s because he was shooting a handball out of congestion to an outside player who was then able to break free and kick long.

    Without that handball, the ball stays clogged up in the contest so surely that deserves to be scored better than the mere metreage gained.

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    1. I agree. And I don’t actually think metres gained is part of the scoring system. Look at Cripps in round 5 (I think it was), 37 touches for 87 metres gained

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      1. And only 110 points. 😉

        There’s a lot we don’t know about the scoring system – metres gained isn’t mentioned in the list of stats they tell us about, but there are a lot that go into it that they don’t disclose, so we can’t know for sure. From all the scores I’ve poured over, I’m reasonably confident that they at least weight other stats by metres gained, even if they don’t give out points for it directly.

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        1. And Dusty had 641 metres gained last night which didn’t help him. In the Cripps game 110 SC points vs 93 DT points is still a pretty favourable return.
          The scoring system should be made public. The umpiring and stats in AFL are all open to interpretation which makes it frustrating for everyone involved.

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          1. | And Dusty had 641 metres gained last night which didn’t help him.

            Touché. I’m not saying it’s definitely a part of the system – no one outside of Champion Data knows that for sure – but from my analysis, I’m fairly confident that it’s at least a factor. But I fully admit that I could be wrong. Either way, I think that unless CD comes out and says that metres gained have no effect on scores, I think it’s worth including in the rundown of the stats – after all, if I’m publishing an article labelling a score ‘anomalous’, then I want to make sure I’ve got my bases covered.

            | The scoring system should be made public.

            No argument there!

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    1. Well, he was my captain, so my answer might be a tad biased. 😉

      But to answer your question seriously, he went at 44 percent kicking efficiency, and, as Nateo said, only had 8 contested possessions, so this is probably what held him back.

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    2. Very similar to Dusty last night. Except Dusty had more efficiency, inside 50s, rebound 50s, goal accuracy and marks; and less frees against and turnovers. Both should have still been 120+ games

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    1. 2 tackles
      3 marks
      18 of 43 contested
      60.47% disposal efficiency
      27 of 43 disposals were kicks but only 11 were efficient
      7 Turnovers

      Slight improvements in several of the aforementioned categories last night would have warranted a 150.

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  2. Don’t want to be harsh but even though crouch bros are ball magnets i dont recall them ever really tearing games up, just good solid performers.

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