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Home  News Latest News Key Position Ladder |
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Written by FootyGeek
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Jun 01, 2005 at 09:36 PM |
We all know that Key Position (KP) players are important to the fortunes of the team. They are the big men who create play, inspire team-mates and generally lead a team from the front. If a team has a good crop of KP players, or a good ‘spine’ as some like to say, then it can expect success. How important is a good spine, and how important is it to keep those first picked KP players out on the park week in week out? How important is the loss of these players?
The following table shows the percentage of games played by the five first pick KP players (FB, CHB, CHF, FF, R) for each team. For example, after Round 10, a total of 50 games could have been played by your team’s first pick KP players. Therefore, if a team has had their number one Ruckman not play a game and the other four KP’s played 10 games each then the % of KP games played is 40/50 = 80%. As you can see if the KP ladder gives a pretty good imitation of the current ladder. Three of the top four are in the top four of the KP Ladder and 2 of the bottom three are in the bottom three of the KP Ladder. In fact 10 of the 16 ladder positions are within 2 places of each other.
Brisbane, Carlton and Collingwood could all be forgiven for thinking that injuries and suspension to KP players this year have had an impact on their low position on the ladder. On the other hand the dream run that West Coast, Geelong and Richmond have had with their KP players has translated into high ladder positions. Of course missing KP players does not tell the whole story, there are many factors which effect a teams performance over the course of a season. Hawthorn, for example have a very high KP% of 98% yet are 13th position on the ladder. Sure, they have lost a few close games and could be much higher, but maybe other factors such as the quality of their list, coaching and the age of their players are also influential. St Kilda has the opposite situation, a spine of KP players hit by injuries and suspension, but a higher position on the ladder. It may be the quality of the non-KP players at St Kilda is s factor in their position so far this year.
So what does this all mean? Really all this table is showing is the bleeding obvious fact that KP players are an important part of any team. Sometimes though, even if we do think we know something for sure it is nice to have some data to back up your claims.
Thanks to clay (theHalford) and the gang down at TalkingCarlton.com for their help with this article.
Players used in KP ladder.
Team: FB, CHB, CHF, FF, R
Adelaide: Rutten, McGregor, Perrie, Welsh, Clarke
Brisbane: Michael, Lepptisch, Brown, Bradshaw, Keating
Carlton: Livingston, Thornton, Whitnall, Fevola, French
Collingwood - Presti, Wakelin, Rocca, Tarrant, Fraser
Essendon - Fletcher, Bradley, Lucas, Lloyd, Allan
Freo - Parker, McPharlin, Pavlich, Longmuir, Sandilands
Geelong - Scarlett, Harley, Playfair, Ottens, King
Hawthorn - Hay, Croad, Franklin, Williams, Everitt
Kangas - Watt, Colbert, Petrie, Rocca, Hale
Melbourne - Nicholson, Rivers, Miller, Neitz, White
Port - Wakelin, C Cornes, Tredrea, Lade, Primus
Richmond - Gaspar, Bowden, Richardson, Simmonds, Knobel
St Kilda - Penny, Maguire, Riewoldt, Gehrig, Ackland
Sydney - Schauble, C Bolton, Hall, O'Loughlin, Jolly
West Coast - Glass, Hunter, Hansen, Lynch, Cox
Doggies - Harris, Grant, Rawlings, Darcy, Minson
May the Stats be With You.
FootyGeek
www.footygeek.com |
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Last Updated ( Jun 01, 2005 at 09:40 PM )
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