Goal kicking isn’t one of the most under-rated stats, but it’s maybe one of the most poorly analysed

This article was originally published on ThisWeekInFootball.com

This article makes heavy use of the excellent wheeloratings.com by Andrew Whelan for this piece (and many other pieces). If you’re not familiar you should go have a look, it surfaces a lot of things that will help you understand the game far better than official league stat offerings.

Goal kicking, eh?

Last week for the ABC Cody and Sean poured some much needed cold water on the supposed goal-kicking crisis. More articles followed this week and, apart from the aforementioned, surface level would be a generous description of them.

Goal accuracy = goals / shots. It’s a simple proposition and attractive because of it. However, like many simple explanations it misses more than it hits.

I’ve instead measured teams goalkicking performance based on three different attributes:

• Volume – how many shots is a team generating per game

• Quality – on average, how high quality are those shots (xScore per shot – xScore is a measure of how many points on average you would expect a given shot to result in by comparing it to similar shots taken previously. A set shot from the goal square would have an xScore of almost 6, a shot under physical pressure from the boundary might have an xScore of under 2.)

• Execution – is a team making the most of those opportunities (total score / total xScore)

It’s my tentative view that execution is largely chance based rather than a quality of a given team. Over the past 5 seasons the only team to not record seasons both in the negative and positive is Fremantle. Last year Melbourne were above average in executing while this year they’re abysmal. If you’re going to be weak in one thing you want it to be this because it doesn’t represent a structural problem.

I’ve then grouped teams on overall performance in these categories:

• Elite – overperforms in at least two of the categories

• Poor – underperforms in at least two of the categories

• Strength outlier – A mixed bag, but defined most clearly by a strength

• Weakness outlier – A mixed bag, but defined most clearly by a weakness

• Average – Teams who neither overperform or underperform majorly in any given category

Some interesting things jump out right away.

Geelong and the Dogs excel on all metrics. If you need another excuse to hop on their premiership chances, this will help you get there.

By contrast Adelaide’s quality of shots is lagging a bit. Gone are the days of Tom Lynch or Josh Jenkins getting endless passes out the back to an undefended goalsquare. These “cheapies” have been made up for by volume of shots and maximizing the chances they do take.

Collingwood’s attacking strength has been predominantly the volume of opportunities they create, with fairly average quality and execution.

Gold Coast and North Melbourne are both generating their shots in really dangerous places. The difference between the finals fancy and the Roos at the bottom of the ladder is North’s lack of supply – which continues to be a critical problem.

St Kilda and Hawthorn don’t have a real strength or weakness and hit around average on all three measures.

GWS and Carlton’s execution has been strong through the year, making up significant ground in their attacking space. Fremantle’s quality of shots has covered a similar role for the Dockers.

Brisbane are creating a lot of shots at a decent quality. But so far this year their execution has let them down. If their execution lifts they could easily click into another gear coming into finals.

Melbourne are abysmal at executing on their shots, by far the biggest outlier of any metric by any team.

Sydney’s quality of shots generated is the biggest thing letting them down. This may have to do with the lack of targets they’ve had up forward for much of the year.

The bottom six has several predictable tales. Essendon are executing well enough on the shots they generate. Execution is Richmond’s strongpoint relatively but still below league average. West Coast is underperforming on all three metrics.

We can also apply a similar method to looking at the shots a team concedes. For this one I’m not going to use a three-axis chart, as (in my view) a team has little control over the week-to-week accuracy of their opponent. What is replicable for a team’s defence is how many shots it concedes and where it concedes them.

Collingwood are clearly the best defending team in the league – outperforming in both restricting the quality and volume of their opponents shots. Carlton are the clear next in line.

Adelaide and Gold Coast are quite similar – doing quite well in restricting the volume, but around average for constraining those shots to low quality ones. GWS and Essendon are the reverse but moreso – elite for restricting their opponents to low quality shots, but they do allow a lot of them.

The Dogs and Melbourne can restrict the volume of shots to some degree, but the ones they do concede are dangerous.

Finals chasers Hawthorn, Fremantle and Brisbane are above average on both axes.

While at the other end of the scale is West Coast. They are the Melbourne of this chart, a clear outlier that stretches the axis.