New injury setback for the battered Eagles; Saints’ most recent roster change revealed amid overhaul: Monitor Watch
The already severely injured West Coast Eagles have suffered an injury setback prior to the season.
In addition, St Kilda has made a few off-field changes.
Check out Fox Footy’s Track Watch for all the most recent preseason updates!
Jack Darling, a forward for the West Coast Eagles, is now officially listed as injured after suffering a hamstring strain during practice.
Darling, 31, will be managed in upcoming sessions after suffering what the team is calling a “minor hamstring setback” at training on Friday.
Several key players, including Dom Sheed, Elijah Hewett, and Liam Ryan, are sidelined for the Eagles.
The Eagles’ official preseason matchup is against Adelaide on March 2, but their round one matchup is against Port Adelaide on March 17.
Hugh Greenwood and Bailey Scott of North Melbourne are more worn out than ever before their preseason matches.
The Herald Sun claims that during the match simulation, Scott only made a fleeting appearance to run laps before collapsing from calf tightness, and Greenwood was forced to leave the track due to a rolled ankle.
In 2023, Greenwood participated in 14 senior games for the Kangaroos; however, with the retirement of fellow midfield powerhouse Ben Cunnington, he should see more playing time in 2024.
Playing 23 senior games and coming in third in the club’s best and fairest count, Scott had a fantastic 2023 campaign.
The Kangaroos’ rehab group featured Zac Fisher, Aidan Corr, and Eddie Ford. Tarryn Thomas, a 23-year-old, is still not with the team while the league looks into allegations of domestic abuse against him.
Simon Dalrymple, a seasoned professional who joined the club as Talent Identification and Player Movement Manager, has joined St Kilda’s list management team.
Dalrymple played for the Sydney Swans for six years after spending seven years with the Western Bulldogs.
According to Saints Executive General Manager of Football David Misson, “We are thrilled to have Simon join the Saints.”
We started out with a very clear idea of the kind of abilities and qualities we needed for this new role after reviewing our List Management Team, and Simon perfectly meets these requirements.
“Simon has demonstrated the capacity to recognize, pursue, and acquire talent while simultaneously maintaining a broad awareness of a list’s overall requirements.
“We are excited to have Simon and his family join the club.”
It comes after Jarryd Roughead and Chris Toce left the list management team; Roughead went on and joined Hawthorn, while Toce’s position was rendered redundant.
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Getting lucky: The AFL teams that will rise and fall in 2024 are revealed by the Moneyball theory
It is time to look back in order to look forward for the eighth year in a row.
This is Foxfooty.com.au’s yearly Pythagorean wins prediction article, which projects which teams will improve or regress in the upcoming season based on their past season’s performance.
It sounds complicated from the name, but all you really need to know is that it is accurate. Thirteen of the fifteen most accurate predictions produced by this formula since 2010 came true.
Naturally, one of those bad advices was from the previous season and was evident in black and white.
The fundamental idea behind Pythagorean wins is calculating how many games a team “should” have won, who was fortunate and who wasn’t, and projecting who will improve and decline this season as luck returns to the mean.
It’s not just about how well you play in close games, which is how we’ve simplified Collingwood’s discussion over the past 18 months. It’s about who is performing better or worse than their win-loss record alone indicates, as past performance indicates that if things go seriously out of control, they will revert to their previous form the following season.
No, this isn’t just another column detailing the Magpies’ incredible good fortune from the previous season. partially due to the fact that in 2023 it didn’t exactly work out for us. Additionally, they weren’t even among the two luckiest teams from the previous season!
Now let’s get started.
How do Pythagorean wins operate and what are they?
The fundamental idea is a formula called Pythagorean expectation, which was created by baseball stats expert Bill James (who is actually relevant to the title, which is why we used the word Moneyball in it!). It calculates the number of games a team “should have” won according to its scoring average. This refers to runs allowed and scored in baseball.
This is effective because it considers a team’s overall offensive and defensive performances rather than just their victories or losses.
Let’s take things too far. Consider two AFL teams. Club A had a 9-1 record, winning one game by a single point and dropping the other by a hundred. Club B had an 8-2 record; its two losses were by one point, and all of its victories were by 100 points.
Which team is superior, or has a higher chance of winning, if they play the following week? Although the first team prevailed in one extra game, both its performance and percentage were undoubtedly inferior to that of the second team. Pythagorean expectation applies the same principle, and we would contend that the second team was more impressive.
Here’s the fundamental idea at play: Strong teams win games. Excellent teams win a lot of games.
Tony Corke, a football statistician, conducted research that we
It doesn’t mean we forecast every team; statistical significance is only significant when there is a significant difference (at least 1.5, ideally 2+) between a side’s actual wins and Pythagorean wins.
Since 2010, the formula has accurately predicted whether a team will rise or fall 19 out of 28 times (67.9%) if there was a gap of two or more games between their actual and Pythagorean wins. The rate increased to 14 of 18 accurate predictions (77.8%) if the difference was 2.5 games or more.
Brisbane in 2018 is the best example of a prediction coming true in the modern era. With only five victories, they were in the bottom four, but their percentage of 89.1% was equivalent to an 8.5-win team. Unfortunately for them, Pythagoras
Collingwood is one of our best bets to decline the following season after their incredible 2022 campaign, in which they went 11-1 in games decided by two goals or less.
Personnel is just one of the many issues that this formula does not address. As has been widely reported, the Magpies had a fantastic trade period following their heartbreaking loss to Sydney in the preliminary final, winning a Norm Smith medal among other things.
This helped the Magpies become a much better team and ultimately win the championship, along with the organic development of outstanding young players and the career years of veterans like Jordan De Goey.
We were therefore correct to predict that the Magpies would not win 11-1 in close games during the regular season. Instead, they simply went 6-1, and
They obviously had a ton of recent experience with their close-game scenarios because they played them so well. We will continue to argue that close game performance is not sustainable year after year, even if they win 9-1 in close games. This is the case, according to history in every sport. even in football.
due to the existence of Port Adelaide. After going 9-0 in close games during the home and away seasons of 2020 and 2021, the Power finished 2-7 in 2022, and we fully expected Ken Hinkley’s team to improve as they returned to a level more akin to average.
Rather, they went 6-2 in close games during the 2023 home and away season, nearly matching Collingwood; all of those victories were a part of
