Darkie,
reading between the lines, the AFL have been concerned that the number of boundary throw ins has been rising in the past few seasons. I don't have the figures to quote you, but I remember a commentator referring to them in one of the NABs, and they have nearly doubled in the past few seasons. One of the concerns expressed, was it was making the quarters run longer and longer. This might be one of the reasons there has been marked increase in the number of hitouts, particularly last season.
I think your reasoning is sound, that it will impact all Rucks. My memory is hazy, but if I recall correctly, the commentator was saying there was an average of around 75 boundary throw ins per game in 2015, and this had gradually increased from something in the 40's only 4 or 5 years ago. I will admit, I am prepared to say I may have that wrong, and if anyone has figures one way or the other, it would be good to see them! Let's assume it drops by 15-20/game. For the better Rucks that can equate to a drop in H2A's of about 2 to 3/game. That's a pretty big point hit for them to take!
Always happy to help, Darkie.
Just to further demonstrate the point, here are some stats on the top Rucks from 2015:
[table="width: 550"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Ave Ruck[/td]
[td]Average[/td]
[td]Percentage[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Contests[/td]
[td]Hitouts[/td]
[td]H2A's From[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]
Player[/td]
[td]
Involved In[/td]
[td]
To Advantage[/td]
[td]
Cont's Involved In[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Goldstein[/td]
[td]87.5[/td]
[td]14.1[/td]
[td]16.1%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Martin S[/td]
[td]75.4[/td]
[td]8.1[/td]
[td]10.7%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Jacobs[/td]
[td]82.7[/td]
[td]12.5[/td]
[td]15.1%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Sandilands[/td]
[td]67.9[/td]
[td]13.5[/td]
[td]19.9%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Mumford[/td]
[td]84.8[/td]
[td]12.4[/td]
[td]14.6%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Naitanui[/td]
[td]58.4[/td]
[td]10.8[/td]
[td]18.5%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Gawn[/td]
[td]75.7[/td]
[td]11.9[/td]
[td]15.8%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Blicavs[/td]
[td]34.1[/td]
[td]4.3[/td]
[td]12.7%[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
From the table, we can see that these Rucks are averaging 15.4% H2A's from contests they are involved in. If the number of contests drops by around 15 due to the new "Deliberate Out Of Bounds" interpretation, then these guys do indeed lose on average around 2 H2A's per game.
Also, for Rowsus: I'm curious as to the reasoning behind the estimated drop of 15 throw-ins per game.
average of 36 throw ins per game which is similar to last season, good to hear!
I knew there was a chance I either mis-heard, or mis-remembered those numbers! I was actually mucking around on the internet about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and I found a site that broke up Ruckmen's tapout stats to Boundary throw ins/Centre bounces/Stoppages, but for the life of me, I can't find it again, so if anyone knows this site, or where we find those stats, please let me know.
So in the meantime, let's take a slightly different approach to work this out.
In 2015 there were 206 games played, which means there were 824 quarters. There were 5,176 goals kicked, that gives us exactly 6,000 Centre Bounces for the season. There were 17,707 Hitouts recorded for the season, so if we take the 6,000 off, that leaves 11,707 from Throw Ins and other Stoppages. Right there we can see I obviously got my Throw In numbers wrong, as that equates to a combined average of 56.8/game combined Throw Ins and other Stoppages. Of course, we need to acknowledge that not every Stoppage results in a Hit Out, so there are more Stoppages than Hit Outs, but let's ignore that for now. According to the link Darkie provided (thanks Darkie
),
there are roughly 37 Throw Ins in a game, which leaves around 20 ball ups. Visually that seems wrong, but I'm not prepared to stick my neck out and say it is. If there are only 37 Throw Ins/game, then the number will likely only drop by
5-7 game, so the better Rucks may only lose around 4-5 points/game because of it.
The 5-7 is just my guess, and remember, it is made up of Throw Ins lost to Free Kicks paid, AND where the player decided to keep the ball in play, due to the new interpretation.
Interestingly, we do know Sandilands Hit Outs from Throw Ins (423), which resulted in 120 H2A's.
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