Blow-out Me Down With A Feather.

The 2011 AFL season was the most lopsided in the history of the competition. The number of blowout games (on most measures by margins), and also by ladder percentage disparity (since 1970, when a 22 week home and away season became the norm). I don't put this down to the start of the Gold Coast Suns, but to that commodity every team, and everyone else, wants more of.

I had tweeted about this during the season, with charts etc, but I felt it also warranted further study and analysis. It may be that I have also found a possible root cause... more on that in the next post though.


The Blow-outs Of The Season.
There was a lot of media chatter about the 2011 season, particularly the blow-out games that have been posted in the back-half of the season. It all really fired up after this result:
        30/7/2011:   Kardinia Park  - Geelong  37. 11. 233  def  Melbourne  7. 5. 47

The aftermath of course brought the downfall of Dean Bailey, and an apparent push by the leading clubs to 'fly the flag' and post huge scores against lowly clubs as well. Which may have been the impetus for these results:

       06/8/2011:   Football Park  - Port Adelaide  3. 3. 21  def by  Collingwood  23. 21. 159

       06/8/2011:   Kardinia Park  - Geelong  29. 14. 188  def  Gold Coast  6. 2. 38 

All of this brought out talk (and tweets) about how blowouts were a big problem for the AFL, which His Andrew-ness said was an over-reaction (ABC News).

         "I just think they are a very rare occurrence," he said .... "We always knew that the

         Gold Coast would have a couple of largish results ... I don't think it's one that requires

         a crisis meeting and hysteria."

          - Andrew Demetriou: Aug 10 2011.

The following week, despite the head-honcho's assurances that massive blow-outs were rare, brought another belting (or big-club-showing-it-could-also-beat-up-a-lowly-club... read that as you will) 
       13/8/2011:   M. C. G.  - Hawthorn  31. 11. 197  def  Port Adelaide  5. 2. 32

So in the space of 3 weeks, the AFL served up the incredibly rare event of 4 blowout matches, for a combined scoreline of    120. 57. 767  -v-  21. 12. 138    Margin:  629 pts

And of these four, only one was a Gold Coast game... so much for His Andrew-ness's logic. Adding to the increasing rarity of these blowouts was the two earlier +120 point games in 2011 as well:

       01/5/2011:   Docklands  - Essendon  31. 11. 197  def  Gold Coast  8. 10. 58

       22/5/2011:   Subiaco  - West Coast  26. 19. 175  def  Western Bulldogs  8. 4. 52

Which benchmarks this season as the worst season EVER for
   - Margins 60 points and over           46 games
   - Margins 100 points and over         10 games (equal with 1991 season)
   - Margins 120 points and over         6 games (equal with 1991 season)
   - Margins 140 points and over         3 games

To put that in perspective, the chart below shows all results with margins of +60 points since 1897 (broken down into 20 point increments)

Click to expand.

And while this year has set a new high-watermark in un-evenness of the competition, the scoring rate (blue line) remains relatively stable at just around 180 pts scored per game.
Also interesting that the 2011 season has run against the trend of the last 10 years, which had been reasonably consistent.

You could also look to the disparity between teams ladder percentages over the years. Since 1970, when the now standard 22 round season was first introduced, 2011 is again the most unbalanced.

Click to expand.

The chart above shows the Standard Deviation of all teams scoring percentages in 2011 to be 31.8, And the net difference between the maximum and minimum teams scoring percentages in 2011 to be 111.4%.

     * NOTE: Removing results of games involving the Gold Coast, adjusts this to a Standard Deviation of 30.4, and
     total difference between the maximum and minimum teams scoring percentages in 2011 to be 104.2%. Both of
     these adjusted figures are still record levels.

The Reaction So Far
So has this sent alarm bells ringing down at AFLHQ?
Well, it possibly triggered an internal season review (read as "crisis meeting" if you like), because His Andrew-ness came out at seasons end on Melbourne radio (MTR) to advise that...

         “What will happen you will see more one side affairs, you will see more one sided
          affairs, and western Sydney and Gold Coast suffering big losses as they build their
          team ... It will probably take three years for a correction to happen into the game
          where we get back to much more even games, get back to the pure draft after next
          year ... But for the next couple of years you will see these things that are skewed
          to blowouts"
          - Andrew Demetriou: Sep 28 2011.

...none of which is any surprise to football followers. Thanks, Andrew, for the concession speech, and lets assume this was written up in the Grand Final Edition "Football Record", on page 31, small print, bottom inside corner under the title "We Were Wrong"...?

Or, maybe not.

And to cap it all off, we can expect more in 2012, as

          "The AFL called a press conference yesterday to announce it was making ''no major
          rule changes'' for next year."
          - Sydney Morning Herald: Oct 12 2011.

 It will be interesting to see what happens further both in the off-season and during 2012.
- Will any post-season analysis and review bring up any root cause, or mirror to the past?
- Will AFLHQ read and consider any external opinion and study?
- Is Andrew planning on buying new curtains for the office and hoping it all goes away?


I will post up some ideas on why I think all this has happened and the link to the dollars later.
And also why I don't think this is a result of the arrival of a new team.

Feel free to offer your theories now.