Three rounds have been played in this year’s AFL competition.
I have been using the data provided by the AFL to explore the contestability of games.
As with other seasons, I am interested in the relative position of teams at the end of the third quarter in games. This is my visualisation of the data:
I have been thinking about how to characterise each of these games and have come up with this list:
I have used the AFL’s score graphic to exemplify each type of game:
A dominant performance (Sydney v Collingwood, Round 1):
A competitive game for the first quarter (Adelaide v Richmond, Round 1):
A competitive game for two quarters (up to half time) (St Kilda v Collingwood, Round 3):
A competitive game for three quarters (Port Adelaide v St Kilda, Round 1):
A game that was contested over all four quarters (Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs, Round 3):
I have another category that I term ‘contested’. In such games there is evidence of challenge to the game flow. I found what I consider to be three games in this category, one from each round of this season’s games. My example is North Melbourne v Melbourne in Round 3:
I will continue to monitor this taxonomy of games. I am hopeful that it is an inclusive approach to describing performance.
Photo Credit
Aussie Rules at the MCG (Simon Yeo, CC BY 2.0)
