Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i Inside Sport

Our chaotic and often random football code can generate fascinating data sets A FEW years ago, while reporting a story about a record comeback victory by St Kilda during the AFL season, I came across a website called Matter of Stats. The brainchild of data scientist Tony Corke, the site is right at the forefront of the analytics movement sweeping through our home-grown code. The Sydney-based Corke told me he didn’t grow up with AFL – his interest grew out of the fascinating data sets that this chaotic and often random football code can generate. If there’s a sport that statistics can help make more comprehensible, Australian rules might be it. In this spirit, for our 2017 AFL Season Preview, we’ve incorporated Corke’s insights into our team-by-team outlook. You will…

“You find me another major sport that can boast having a different premier for the last seven years.” Sorry soccer (football) fans out there, but I have got news for you: rugby league is the “beautiful game”. It matters not the number of countries who choose not to embrace the 13-aside code. Their loss not mine; South America, the USA, and many more regions abroad. I have always said the Chinese in particular would love league. I think they’d really love the explanation of how the modern-day scrum works ... Ronaldo. Pfffttt. What about Johnathan Thurston? Tom Brady? Nah. Give me Cooper Cronk (one of the great names). Throw your best in from the AFL or rugby union and I’ll throw back a highlights reel of the New Zealand Warriors’…

SCHEDULE STRENGTH MATTER OF STATS Interestingly, consider who Geelong doesn’t get to play – MoS posits a “true” 34-match home-and-away, and formulates a team’s “missing” schedule when it is cut down to 22 games. Of those games that are not played, the Cats turn out to the most disadvantaged team in 2017. Cat people The Cats still have one of the competition’s best lists, and it hasn’t changed a whole lot, apart from some significant departures over the years. If they get it right, they’ll enjoy a dominating forward line. Tom Hawkins is still proving valuable up front. If they get Harry Taylor at centre-half-forward and the midfield firing, they might still be up there, and to be honest, they should. Chris Scott inherited a great side and he still…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH Early exit, no respite: the Hawks face the toughest schedule in 2017. But by MoS’ system, the difference between the hardest and easiest schedule translates to a little more than one extra scoring shot (or 3.7 points) a game, which amounts to under one extra win. Not done yet They will look different this year. For a start, their forward structure will be more formidable with Jarryd Roughead back, and Ty Vickery appearing in a new setting. The recruitment of Tom Mitchell was designed to address another shortcoming: a diminished ability to get the inside ball. Coach Alastair Clarkson’s tactical smarts and his team’s depth covered for it last year – that should tell you just how great a side, and club, this really is.…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH Melbourne fans won’t be able to blame transit for any issues with their team this year – the Demons were one of four clubs with the biggest net positive in MoS’ travel penalty measure, thanks largely to the fact they don't have to travel too far for their away fixtures this season. Demon-stration The Demons definitely are on the rise. They shot themselves in the foot a few times last year after mightily impressive wins against top sides. Paul Roos did his job of putting in place some fundamentals at Melbourne. Ladder position wasn’t so much a consideration. Roos’ patience in the face of impatient fans and media criticism never ceases to astound. He had a plan; he stuck to it. New coach Simon Goodwin…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH Handed perhaps the toughest fixture relative to where they finished last year, the Dockers won't likely get to enjoy their usual home advantage out west – their visitors in 2017 perform relatively well at Subiaco, posting MoS’ highest venue performance rating. After the free-fall Falling so far in 2016 may prove a blessing in disguise for Fremantle’s future. Indeed, while they slumped further in one season than any AFL team in history (top in 2015 to 16th in 2016), the fact they were out of finals contention midway through the year allowed them to take a softly, softly approach with injured stars Nat Fyfe (five games in 2016), Michael Johnson (four), Aaron Sandilands (five) and big-name recruit Harley Bennell (he played none). Had the Dockers…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH Blessed with the easiest schedule of the Victorian clubs, they only have to play one top-six team from last year twice (the GWS Giants). Curiously, the Tigers perform well at the SCG, according to MoS’ venue effects, but don't get to play the Swans there this season. Eyes on the Tigers The last thing Richmond needs as it embarks on another season with potential is the loss of star midfielder and reigning Jack Dyer-medallist Dustin Martin. That Martin has put contract talks on hold entering 2017 will ensure the media converges on coach Damien Hardwick at every opportunity. Should the losses mount early on, talk of Martin’s contract would add another layer of scrutiny to a club that seems to attract the scrutineers on a…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH A relatively neutral schedule, made harder only because of the travel factor coming from interstate. The fixture wasn’t unfair either – MoS’ “missing” schedule measure (the 12 extra games it would play in a true round-robin) had the Lions as the least-disadvantaged team in the AFL. Restore the roar The sacking of Justin Leppitsch last season wasn’t just your typical losses-in, coach-out scenario. Coming right after Michael Voss’s tenure from 2009-13, it was a symbolic burial of Brisbane’s greatest era, as two former club champions from the triple premiership of 2001-03 couldn’t revive the club. Even Leigh Matthews, the coach of those sides, stepped down from his front-office roles. In a rebuke of the past-greats model, Chris Fagan was installed as coach. Fagan never played…

“It took me so long to settle throughout 2013 … that my only good game for the year came in the grand final.” Pre-season is always an interesting time of the year. Some clubs are trialling their new toys and their new game plans, while others are seeing how they will cope without some of their recently departed stars. This summer, the Hawks were doing both. Eight premierships walked out the door when Sam Mitchell left for West Coast and Jordan Lewis packed his bags for Melbourne. But the collective blows of their departures were softened by the acquisitions of Jaeger O’Meara, Tom Mitchell and Brad Hill. Still, the off-season changes at Hawthorn – as well as at a number of other sides across the competition – makes predicting their…

Madness Ensues One of the absolute gems of the American sporting calendar, college basketball’s NCAA Tournament (from March 15), brings its customary madness to March. And there’s a good bet this year there’ll be an Australian imprint on the tournament bracket. Saint Mary’s, long our outpost in northern California, has seven Aussies on its roster, led by 211cm big Jock Landale, one of the breakout stars of this college season. Several big schools boast some of our boys, including Kentucky (Isaac Humphries, pictured above), Louisville (Deng Adel and Mangok Mathiang), Duke (Jack White) and Baylor (Jo Lual-Acuil) ... so if you’re after a team to support, choose accordingly. Of course, the allure of March Madness is about the underdog making good; that small school that rises up and knocks out…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH Only the Hawks have a harder schedule according to MoS – although it must be noted that GWS was in the top-three for schedule difficulty last year as well. The Giants don’t get many easy marks on the road either, “missing” five of the nine lowest-rated opponents. One small step As a club that’s yet to write its history, the GWS Giants authored a significant entry with last year’s appearance in the preliminary final. They left Spotless Stadium vanquished by the Western Bulldogs, on a historic quest of their own. But the Giants had just played in an epic, a match to be seared into the memory of even the most venerable clubs. It was an intriguing contest of styles, a back-and-forth that Dogs’ coach…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH A stern path lies ahed for the Swans in 2017 – they easily have the toughest slate of road games in the league, according to MoS, which is not quite counterbalanced by the SCG’s status as this season’s fortress (they have the weakest home schedule in the league, just ahead of Port). Fresh Bloods Even after a bitter-tasting loss in the Grand Final to the Western Bulldogs – one that coach John Longmire wasn’t quite prepared to let go of during the offseason – the Swans are uncommonly well-positioned among the class of familiar title contenders. The breeze is still blowing strong off the harbour and into a wide-open premiership window. Sydney defied any dip in performance while accomplishing some generational turnover during the last…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH A desirable schedule: the Eagles have to face a strong set of opponents at home, but they're opponents that tend to underperform after the long trip to Subiaco, according to MoS' venue performance rating. Correspondingly, West Coast gets the easier set of opponents, on balance, on the road. Heading West After a grand final appearance in 2015, last season’s sixth placing was a disappointment. However, the seventh-placed eventual premiers were still a long way off and no one expected them to dominate the Eagles in the West the way they did. It was the first indication we had that the Bulldogs were very serious contenders. Nic Naitanui’s season-ending injury had a devastating effect on the Eagles’ momentum. Still, they have Coleman-medallist Josh Kennedy in career-best…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH St Kilda’s win totals outpaced their metrics in 2016 – their points differential projected to ten wins rather than 12 – which goes part of the way to explaining their schedule difficulty. MoS also has the Saints facing the third-toughest set of opponents when they go marching out on the road. Lives of the Saints St Kilda was one of the success stories of the 2016 season. After four wins in 2014, and six in 2015, last year the Saints won 12 matches (including three of their last four), missing the eight by percentage to North Melbourne (North 105.22 to St Kilda 95.69). The bold decision, at the end of 2013, to hire one of the league’s finest development coaches in Alan Richardson was rewarded…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH While something of a middle-of-the-road schedule, it is somewhat harsh for a team that finished last in 2016. According to MoS, only Fremantle (third-toughest) has a considerably more difficult fixture relative to its spot on the ladder the previous season. Sticking together Essendon’s list management guru, Adrian Dodoro, deserves his own statue outside the club’s True Value Solar Centre. Not only did he hurriedly sign the “top-up players” in time to field a side for round one in 2016, but over the next few months he set about re-signing all of the club’s players suspended because of the doping scandal. The result: of the 12 remaining players from 2012, Dodoro re-signed ten, including former captain Jobe Watson, star utility Michael Hurley, 2015 best-and-fairest Cale Hooker,…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH Carlton will get some unwelcome guests – with the third-toughest set of visiting opponents, and by far the hardest of any team in the bottom third, the Blues’ home strength of schedule ranks only behind Hawthorn. They do have the second-easiest away slate, if that's any consolation. Bolt from the Blues The decision by the Carlton hierarchy to hire former Hawthorn assistant Brendon Bolton as senior coach at the end of 2015 appears an inspired choice. While he only managed seven wins in his first season, Bolton’s biggest impact has been through his positive, teach-first approach: Carlton is a fun place to be around, it’s all-inclusive, and, importantly, the players love playing for their energetic and enthusiastic young leader. All signs point to a bright…

“Hiddink relied on Arnold heavily when he took over the Socceroos … he described Arnold as funny, with a good heart.” Prowling the sideline with a fair degree of dread, he looks like a grump. He has the body language of a grump. He pleads at the top of his voice if he can see it going awry. Like a grump. If he could quack, he’d sound like a grump, too. But to those who matter most, Sydney FC coach Graham Arnold isn’t a grump. To his players, he is the total opposite. He’s more a father figure who happens to be very good at teaching them about how to win football games. Or not lose them. In that regard, he’s the best the A-League has seen. At the time…

We received a tremendous response to The Clubbies, our community sport awards co-presented with the Confederation of Australian Sport and our partner Polar. In the second year of these awards, we were again inundated with hundreds of entries. The submissions aÿrmed our belief that the grassroots are what makes a great sporting nation go. We read countless stories about coaches who care, volunteer committees working invaluable hours and clubs full of participants who prove that the passion to play knows no age requirement. We’ve selected finalists in our five categories – here we present our list for the Best Club category, which was the most keenly contested. It takes in a wide range of activities – from footy clubs to horse riders to field archers (love that name, Renegade Bowmen)…

As statistical analysis of the AFL has become ever more sophisticated, we enlisted the aid of data scientist Tony Corke and his indispensable Matter of Stats website. Corke’s rating system for AFL teams is known as MoSSBODS, short for Matter of Stats Scoring Shot Based Offence-Defence System. As the name suggests, the basis of the system is the number of scoring shots a team would accumulate and concede during a game, with historical effects of venue and travel factored in – as Corke notes, the most stable factors in an AFL side’s performance over time (goal-kicking accuracy, in a statistical sense, is considered random). The ratings measure teams’ abilities in terms of scoring shots relative to an average team – so a team with a plus-three offensive rating can be…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH A middle-strength schedule for the reigning champions, which is a neat thing to have as they embark on their title defence. Better yet, MoS projects the Dogs to have the easiest run of home games of all the Victorian clubs, with only Sydney and Port having easier home fixtures overall. (Next) Year of the Dogs The Bulldogs have the best reasons possible to win again this year. Firstly, if they’d fallen short last year, the season would have been a major turning point for them anyway, along the lines of Essendon in 1999. They might easily have been unlucky challengers last year, but for the fact that everything went their way at the right time. The ducks lined up, they won against big odds, and…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH The Crows have some major luck of the draw, with MoS rating their schedule the most favourable entering the season. Adelaide only plays seven of a possible ten games against other teams in the top-third of the league, and doesn’t have to play either the Sydney sides or the Bulldogs on the road. Paying off The list management experts wouldn’t normally counsel signing a player heading for the other side of 30, and a small forward at that. But Eddie Betts is not just another player, and as he inked a deal this offseason to remain with the Crows through to 2020 – and likely finish his career in Adelaide – the acclaim on all sides was palpable. Ground staff at Adelaide Oval are surely…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH The Wood indeed has a testy fixture for a middle-third side, although one that's balanced in difficulty between home and away. Perhaps the biggest sign of hope in the statistics for Magpies die-hards – their team had the biggest disparity between MoS rating and their actual finish last year ... Not black and white The Copeland went rightly to Scott Pendlebury last year, but Adam Treloar (pictured right) must have come close. However, their midfield, though spangled with stars, is thinner than it seems. Dane Swan left a huge, waddling gap last season following that career-ending foot injury. They have plenty of dynamic young blokes who will dominate the highlight reels, like Jordan de Goey, Darcy Moore, Jeremy Howe and Will Hoskin-Elliott. What might bring…

SCHEDULE STRENGTH MATTER OF STATS Boosted by a favourable set of opponents coming to Adelaide Oval (the weakest collective group of visitors and the second-easiest home schedule in the competition overall), the Power has a manageable run in 2017. The only letdown – the Crows have an even easier one. China calling On a preseason acclimatisation trip to Shanghai late last year, Port players were lavished with treatment that they wouldn’t even normally get back in Adelaide. “We roll out of the airport and we’ve got our own bus, with our players’ heads all over it,” Travis Boak said. “That was pretty exciting.” How the locals react to a bus adorned with these foreigners and their random football is anybody’s guess. But when Port plays the Suns in round eight,…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH A schedule of two halves: North Melbourne has the second-hardest path with their home games in 2017, yet at the same time the Kangaroos have the second-easiest away. The potential divergence in form and results will only deepen the question marks hovering over this team. North exposure North Melbourne is one of the great unknowns entering 2017, the club embarking on a new era after the forced departure of games-played record-holder Brent Harvey, and fellow veterans Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo. Add the unexpected loss of game-breaker Daniel Wells, and no less than 1,588 games’ worth of experience walked from Arden Street during the off-season. Coach Brad Scott has hedged his bets on youth, and the footy world will be keenly watching…

MATTER OF STATS SCHEDULE STRENGTH The second-easiest draw in the competition this season, but that’s a slight downgrade –they actually had the easiest one in 2016. The Suns also get a boost from a favourable travel schedule, but how the stats account for their trip to Shanghai to play Port, we’re not yet sure. Suns and stars Could it be, just a couple of years removed from Gary Ablett’s one-man act on the Gold Coast, that the Suns have again landed the best player in the comp? He doesn’t have similar name recognition yet, but Tom Lynch is already getting raps as potentially the AFL’s finest. If the ultimate measure is endorsement by past greats, the 24-year-old is in good stead. Jonathan Brown was already talking him up last season,…

THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR RUNNING. I DON’T MEAN SHUFFLING AND I DON’T MEAN JOGGING, I MEAN “RUNNING”. As you read this, approximately 28,000 people across the country and internationally are in the middle of preparing for the upcoming 2017 Gold Coast Airport Marathon ... or at least thinking about their plan of attack. Realistically, it would be highly ambitious of any novice runner to think they can start training now and be ready for the event’s 42km sojourn, so it’s a good thing there’s a variety of distances on offer at the July 1-2 event. With the marathon, wheelchair marathon, half-marathon, wheelchair 15km, 10km, 5.7km, 4km and the 2km junior dash to choose from, there’s something for everyone. Here, Australia’s chef de mission at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Gold…