Monday, June 9, 2014

What Has Happened To Richmond?

- The coach can’t coach?
- They lack leadership?
- They got ahead of themselves?
- They haven’t recovered from last year’s finals loss?
- They are mentally soft?
- They lack confidence?
- They are too slow?
- They recycled the wrong players?
- Their game plan is faulty?
- The team is cursed?

Alright, what has really happened? Maybe some of these explanations are true, but the answer is probably not as extreme as the above explanations suggests. Let us have a look at each player’s SuperCoach rating for 2014 compared to 2013.

The interesting column is the last one. With the players ranked from ‘most productive’ to ‘least productive’ (ignoring for now positional differences in SuperCoach ratings), it shows the cumulative difference between the average ratings of the top x ranked players in 2014 compared to 2013. So for example, the top 4 ranked players in 2014 collectively average over 17 less SuperCoach points in 2014 than in 2013.

2013

Games
SuperCoach average
Total SuperCoach points
1
22
107.09
2356
2
23
104.35
2400
3
23
100.39
2309
4
20
98.95
1979
5
23
91.74
2110
6
21
91.67
1925
7
23
87.43
2011
8
9
84.67
762
9
22
84.00
1848
10
23
82.52
1898
11
21
80.52
1691
12
21
80.38
1688
13
12
77.92
935
14
17
76.47
1300
15
20
76.40
1528
16
18
75.44
1358
17
19
74.37
1413
18
6
73.83
443
19
16
71.56
1145
20
5
70.60
353
21
11
69.00
759
22
22
67.73
1490
23
18
67.33
1212
24
12
62.08
745
25
9
58.44
526
26
16
56.12
898
27
5
53.00
265
28
22
49.14
1081
29
9
46.11
415
30
6
39.33
236
Team avge
1699
Best 22
1827
Ratio
0.9299645

2014
Games
SuperCoach average
Total SuperCoach points
Cumulative difference
1
8
100.88
807
-6.21
2
11
98.73
1086
-11.83
3
11
98.00
1078
-14.22
4
8
95.62
765
-17.55
5
7
94.43
661
-14.86
6
11
88.18
970
-18.35
7
11
87.18
959
-18.60
8
10
86.90
869
-16.37
9
11
85.82
944
-14.55
10
6
83.33
500
-13.74
11
9
81.56
734
-12.70
12
6
81.17
487
-11.91
13
8
75.12
601
-14.71
14
11
75.09
826
-16.09
15
10
74.20
742
-18.29
16
5
71.00
355
-22.73
17
11
70.00
770
-27.10
18
9
69.00
621
-31.93
19
8
68.50
548
-34.99
20
3
68.33
205
-37.26
21
7
63.00
441
-43.26
22
10
61.30
613
-49.69
23
3
56.33
169
24
7
51.57
361
25
6
50.67
304
26
5
46.40
232
27
11
46.18
508
28
4
45.75
183
29
7
44.00
722
Team avge
1642
Best 22
1777
Ratio
0.9238237

What we can see by this is that the drop off at Richmond has been at the top end and the bottom end of the list. At the top end, both Trent Cotchin and Brett Deledio are averaging about 10 less points each in 2014 compared to 2013. It is not completely clear why they have taken a step back – for Deledio early season injuries may have played a part – but their drop in form looks to be a significant part of Richmond’s deterioration in 2014.
The middle part of Richmond’s list – which is the part which seems to be under the most fire – is actually collectively pretty much the same as in 2013. Brandon Ellis, Reece Conca (despite being dropped recently), and Jack Riewoldt are performing a bit better in 2014 (with Ellis and Conca being young this is not that surprising), while Bachar Houli, Alex Rance (who has been injured), Tyrone Vickery, and Shaun Grigg are performing a bit worse. Collectively though, it pretty much evens out.
The other drop off then has been among the bottom seven. It is a little hard to compare because the bottom seven is fairly variable due to injuries, omissions, and positional differences, but the cumulative column suggests there has been a fall in performance among this group. In particular, Chris Newman and Nick Vlastuin have taken a step back. In Newman’s case this may be because he is relatively old, but Vlastuin is only young, so it is less obvious what is affecting his form. The retirement of Shane Tuck, the reduced use of Nathan Foley, and the absence of Jake King also look to have contributed to the reduced performance from the lesser lights.
Overall then, keeping in mind the caveats around SuperCoach player rankings, a drop off in form among Richmond’s best two players and also their bottom players seems to be what is driving the Tigers’ lesser performance in 2014. Given that, it is not clear what the solution should be. In terms of the lower rung players, maybe it is going to take a while for the Tigers to bring through more productive players to replace the departed Tuck, and the aging Newman, Foley, and King. In terms of Cotchin and Deledio, maybe they are out of form or being more heavily targeted by opposition clubs. In any case, sacking the coaching staff, gutting the list, and detonating Punt Road may be a little extreme as a way of fixing what ails the yellow and black in 2014. 

Amendment: Readers may wonder, as I did later, why Ivan Maric and Jake King do not appear on the 2014 list. I got the stats from Footywire, and they had limited the view to players with 3 games or more. In any case, it is clear the absence of Maric, who was one of the Tigers' top players in 2013, has also hurt them in 2014,

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