SA Footy

Another one for spellcheck!

I was discussing footy in general with a mate the other day and we were talking about a side that had a high percentage and a poor record. It was Happy Valley in the SFL a couple of years ago and at one stage they had a record of 2-4 or 2-5 with a percentage of 117% (the year they used the AFL system).

I know that the SANFL system is different to the one adopted by the SFL that year but it got me wondering whether SANFL sides have had as peculiar a record at some stage ... say 55% and a win tally that is two or more fewer than their loss tally (assuming that a team with one more loss than their number of wins and "better than breakeven" percentage my be fairly common).

How common is it?

This is the occasions a team has had two or more losses than wins and has had a percentage of 53% or more:

This is the top ten for 3 and 4 more losses than wins, then 50%+ for the rest:

That's unbelievable ... a 6-16 record and a positive for and against!

Grenville was playing that season wasn't he? Whoever was the full forward, they must have got a swag of goals to keep the % over 50.

Dietrich kicked 101 goals in 1984. The average winning margin for North in that year was 64.83 points. The average losing margin was just 23.88. Biggest loss was 53 points to Torrens in Round 2 - 12.16 to 22.9.

spell_check wrote:Dietrich kicked 101 goals in 1984. The average winning margin for North in that year was 64.83 points. The average losing margin was just 23.88. Biggest loss was 53 points to Torrens in Round 2 - 12.16 to 22.9.

That was a disappointing year for North. In 1983 they made the finals for the first time under Nunan after many years in the cellar, beat South in the Elim final then lost to Sturt. Young side on the up.

1984 it went off the rails, those stats show a team that was prob better than 6-16 suggest based on the losing margins. 1985 they got back on track and were minor premiers as they were in 86,87 and 89 but, as we all know, only managed one premiership in that time .... BUT WHAT A DAY THAT WAS!!!!

hondo71 wrote:

spell_check wrote:Dietrich kicked 101 goals in 1984. The average winning margin for North in that year was 64.83 points. The average losing margin was just 23.88. Biggest loss was 53 points to Torrens in Round 2 - 12.16 to 22.9.

That was a disappointing year for North. In 1983 they made the finals for the first time under Nunan after many years in the cellar, beat South in the Elim final then lost to Sturt. Young side on the up.

1984 it went off the rails, those stats show a team that was prob better than 6-16 suggest based on the losing margins. 1985 they got back on track and were minor premiers as they were in 86,87 and 89 but, as we all know, only managed one premiership in that time .... BUT WHAT A DAY THAT WAS!!!!

There was some major off field drama in 1984 (not that many of us were aware of it at the time) and in fact got so bad that Nunan was nearly sacked during the season. The players backed Nunan 100% and came out and finished the season with quite a rush. Thrashing that year's finalists South (90pts) and Port (76pts) and suffering very narrow loses to Glenelg (3pts) and Norwood (1pt). A sign of things to come the next year.

There was some major off field drama in 1984 (not that many of us were aware of it at the time) and in fact got so bad that Nunan was nearly sacked during the season.

Have heard that Jack Sutter also played a part in Nunan keeping his job.

Any truth to that?

I've always believed in the theory (I really should do the stats on it sometime) that a teams percentage is a better predictor of how they will go the following season than their win-loss record or where they finished on the ladder.

Ecky wrote:I've always believed in the theory (I really should do the stats on it sometime) that a teams percentage is a better predictor of how they will go the following season than their win-loss record or where they finished on the ladder.

I've always thought of it as a better indicator of form than the win-loss ratio. After all, the win-loss ratio is essentially the same information as the points for-against ratio, but with a bit of discretisation noise added.