The 2018 Grand Final Stats Preview
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The Goalpost Padding presents: The 2018 Grand Final Stats Preview After a long season of football, everything is set to be decided at the MCG, when the West Coast Eagles and the Collingwood Magpies face off for the chance to immortalise themselves in the history books, and win themselves the ultimate glory. Being the football fans we are here at The Flag, we couldn’t let such a day go past without providing something of our own for it. So we have, with a 30-page booklet filled to the brim with all sorts of interesting, entertaining, yet ultimately frivolous statistics. We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all of you reading this for helping support us - if all goes well, we aim to do this for a career when we’re older, and knowing that our work is going out there and being praised really lifts our spirits. Hopefully you all enjoy the game and find something cool in here. -Nick/Claire Fredriksson theflagsports.wordpress.com on Twitter as @NickTheStatsGuy Note: statistics based on the players involved in the match assume that there’s no change from the preliminary final squads, and so won’t include players added to the team. Contents The Goalpost Padding presents: The 2018 Grand Final Stats Preview 1 Contents 2 The Club Grand Final Player Leaderboard 3 Divisor Scores and Margins 4 On Captains’ Names, and Precedents 6 Scores to Get (or Not) 8 The Individual Stat Leaderboards (Game) 9 Scoring the Year 11 The Club Premiership Player Leaderboard 13 Margin Milestones 14 On Coaches’ Names, and Precedents 15 Day by Day 17 The Individual Stat Leaderboards (Career) 19 Jumper Streaks, Droughts, and Miscellanies 20 Conversions 24 Echoes of Names Gone Past 26 Bite-Sized Statistics 29 The Club Grand Final Player Leaderboard Unsurprisingly, given they’ve played in 14 more Grand Finals than any other team, Collingwood have a big lead when it comes to the number of Grand Final players they’ve had. Before this year’s match, they’ve had 341, from Alan Didak to William Jones. This gives them a 68-player lead over Carlton, one that they’re going to expand on Saturday. 17 of Collingwood’s squad are set to play in their first Grand Final this weekend, while another two players (Chris Mayne and Travis Varcoe) will play their first Grand Finals for Collingwood, having made it previously for Fremantle and Geelong respectively. This is set to bring Collingwood’s tally to 360, pushing their lead up to 87. Only Tyson Goldsack, Scott Pendlebury, and Steele Sidebottom are left from the Magpies 2010 triumph. West Coast have fewer first time Grand Final players, given they played in one as recently as 2015. Nine players are set to play their first Grand Final ever, as well as Lewis Jetta playing his first for the Eagles after two at Sydney. This will bring West Coast’s tally of Grand Final players from 77 to 87, which won’t help them move up the table - they’ll still be in 12th, seven short of North Melbourne. List of clubs by number of Grand Final players 1. Collingwood, 341 2. Carlton, 273 3. Essendon, 264 4. Richmond, 205 5. Sydney, 203 6. Geelong, 186 7. Melbourne, 177 8. Hawthorn, 152 9. Fitzroy, 113 10. St Kilda, 103 11. N Melbourne, 94 12. West Coast, 77 13. W Bulldogs, 61 14. Adelaide, 49 15. Pt Adelaide, 34 16. Brisbane, 29 17. Fremantle, 22 18. Gold Coast, 0 19. GWS Giants, 0 20. University, 0 Divisor Scores and Margins In our 2017 Grand Final preview, we wrote about teams winning premierships and making Grand Finals in prime numbered years. Unfortunately for us all, 2018 isn’t a prime number, it’s composite - but we still came up with cool stats for it! Being a composite number, 2018 has divisors (numbers that you can divide it by without a remainder).1 So we looked over the history of Grand Finals, to try and find out years when either a team scored a divisor of that number year, or the margin was a divisor. There was a fairly unsurprising lack of divisor scores - out of 224 team scores in Grand Finals, only two of them (0.89%) have been divisors of the year of the Grand Final. Because most divisors are small numbers, it makes sense that the lowest Grand Final score ever (Collingwood’s score of 14 in 1960) was one of them. The other result, Richmond’s score of 92 to win the 1932 Grand Final, is both one of the coolest and most pointless statistics we’ve ever worked out. Years where the Grand Final had a team score a divisor of the year of that Grand Final ● 1932, Richmond 13.14 (92) - 92 x 21 = 1932 ● 1960, Collingwood 2.2 (14) - 14 x 140 = 1960 We get a higher proportion when it comes to margins, which is certainly because margins are lower than scores. 11 of the 122 Grand Finals have had a divisor margin (9.02%), although this falls to 7 (5.74%) when we take out the four 1-point margins (which makes sense, because every number has 1 as a divisor). Years where the Grand Final margin was a divisor of the year of that Grand Final ● 1899, 1 point (1 x 1899 = 1899) ● 1900, 4 points (4 x 475 = 1900) ● 1908, 9 points (9 x 212 = 1908) ● 1914, 6 points (6 x 319 = 1914) ● 1936, 11 points (11 x 176 = 1936) ● 1947, 1 point (1 x 1947 = 1947) ● 1964, 4 points (4 x 491 = 1964) ● 1966, 1 point (1 x 1966 = 1966) ● 1968, 3 points (3 x 656 = 1968) ● 1970, 10 points (10 x 197 = 1970) ● 2006, 1 point (1 x 2006 = 2006) 1 Technically speaking, every number has two divisors - itself and 1. It’s just that composites have more than 1. If you’re hoping we can get a similar statistic this year, then we hate to inform you that you’re probably out of luck - the only divisors for 2018 are 1, 2, 1009, and 2018. So unless we get an extremely close Grand Final, or an absurdly low scoring one, we’ll be out of luck. Better chances will come in 2020 (when a score of 101 will do), 2023 (119), and 2024 (88 and 92). On Captains’ Names, and Precedents For the second year in a row, and the tenth time overall,2 both Grand Final captains have a first name starting with the same letter. Last year it was T, with Trent Cotchin of Richmond being victorious over Taylor Walker of Collingwood. This year, it’s S, with Collingwood being represented by Scott Pendlebury and West Coast by Shannon Hurn. The notable thing about this is that it’s the first time that it’s happened consecutively with different letters. In both the 1955 and 1956 Grand Finals, the captain’s names both started with N - but that wasn’t that impressive, considering the captains were the same (Noel McMahen for Melbourne and Neil Mann for Collingwood). So congrats to both of these teams, and especially the winning captain - set to become the first Scott or Shannon to captain a premiership. Premierships by captains, based on first name initial 1. J, 15 (John Nicholls 3, Jim Flynn 2, John Beckwith 2, John Worsfold 2, Jim Caldwell, Jack Bisset, Jack Dyer, Jack Clarke, James Hird, Jarrad McVeigh) 2. D, 14 (Dick Reynolds 4, Dan Minogue 2, Don Scott 2, Dick Wardill, Dave Smith, Don Cordner, Darrel Baldock, David Parkin, David Dench) 3. M, 13 (Michael Tuck 4, Michael Voss 3, Mike Fitzpatrick 2, Mark Bickley 2, Murray Weideman, Mark Thompson) 4. S, 9 (Syd Coventry 4, Syd Barker snr 2, Stephen Kernahan 2, Sam Mitchell) 5. A, 8 (Allan La Fontaine 3, Alec Sloan 2, Alan Belcher, Alf Baud, Alex Jesaulenko) 6. B, 8 (Bill Walker, Billy Dick, Bert Chadwick, Brighton Diggins, Bob Chitty, Barry Davis, Bruce Monteath, Barry Hall) 7. T, 8 (Terry Daniher 2, Tom Harley 2, Tod Collins, Ted Baker, Tony Shaw, Trent Cotchin) 8. C, 7 (Charlie Ricketts, Con McCarthy, Chris Lethbridge, Cliff Rankin, Charlie Sutton, Chris Judd, Cameron Ling) 9. L, 7 (Luke Hodge 3, Lardie Tulloch 2, Lou Richards, Leigh Matthews) 10. F, 6 (Fred Flanagan 2, Fred Elliott, Fred Hughson, Fred Wooller, Fred Swift) 11. R, 6 (Ron Barassi 2, Royce Hart 2, Reg Hickey, Roger Dean) 12. G, 5 (Gerald Brosnan 2, George Stuckey, George Angus, Graham Arthur) 13. W, 4 (Wayne Carey 2, Wal Johnson, Warren Tredrea) 14. N, 3 (Noel McMahen 2, Nick Maxwell) 15. P, 3 (Percy Bentley 2, Percy Wilson) 16. E, 2 (Ern Henfry, Easton Wood) 17. H, 2 (Harry Collier 2) 2 After 1925 (Cliff Rankin and Charlie Tyson), 1948 (Don Cordner and Dick Reynolds), 1955, 1956 (Noel McMahen and Neil Mann both times), 1966 (Darrel Baldock and Des Tuddenham), 1986 (Michael Tuck and Mark McClure), 2005 (Barry Hall and Ben Cousins), 2010 (Nick Maxwell and Nick Riewoldt), and 2017 (Cotchin and Walker). 18. K, 1 (Ken Fraser) The captains do have different surname initials, which means that there’s some incentive to push their letter up the leaderboards. When it comes to this, the Eagles have a big advantage. The premiership cup has been lifted by a H captain 12 times, the third most of any letter - helped by the recent winners of Barry Hall, Tom Harley (twice), and Luke Hodge (three times). The Ps, meanwhile, only have one champion, David Parkin. Premierships by captains, based on surname initial 1.