for a small to qualify as inside I reckon their CP count has to be within 85% or so of their UP count. let's test this
Dangerfield - 146% Thompson - 89% Sloane - 90% Redden - 83% Rockliff - 77% Black - 87% Judd - 90% Murphy - 94% McLean - 79% Carrazzo - 95% got bored Swan - 65% Watson 97% Stanton 48% Selwood 105% So yeah, as we can see ~85%+ = inside , 75-85% = balanced <75%=outside as a general rule. Let's look at North North Swallow - 98% Ziebell - 120% Cunnington - 89% Wells - 56% Bastinac - 37% Adams - 68% Anthony 40% So really, cases can be made for Swallow/Ziebell/Cunners. Adams can do a little inside work but rarely. ANthony/Bastinac are outside as a rec park and Wells is pretty fucking outside. Aside from those three there's nothing. Most teams have 2-3 80-85%+ers regularly in the middle and the rest sit between 68-85% with ONE being below, North have virtually half their midfield in probably the bottom 10% of contested possession ratio ranks for mids in the afl. 3 players != team
For the record the crows and blues both are well up there if you consider their top 3 midfielders' inside ratios but watch them play and it's obvious they're lacking as you need the 3-4 other midfielders in the rotation to pull weight. At north, they don't. Teams can only afford one, two TOPS of the Anthony/Bastinac mold in a game or else it becomes unbalanced and a liability. I'm not insulting those players or north either - they've got a lot of afl standard players and a lot of good midfielders. But north also have decent players in every other area of the park yet wonder why they're distinctly average? it's because their midfield isn't a cohesive unit, it doesn't gel at all. Swallow's tackling his ass off, Ziebell and Cunnington are both inside with Swallow too - almost too much so and then you've got Anthony/MacMillan/Wells/Bastinac hanging off outside the pack constantly running away from any form of contact with only Adams (who for some reason is forward too much) providing any sort of balance at all. If 75-80% is the midpoint for CP you'd want the majority of your players grouped around it; 'balanced' midfielders as opposed to inside/out purely as the ability to play both roles is integral with the pace of the game - and then you'd, like a bell curve, want less and less players branching out from it (numerically not percentage wise). I'll qualify though that someone who gets 280 UPs a year and 400 CPs a year is still more valuable as an outsider than a 240/170 though. So if Swallow/Cunners/Ziebell were each racking up 27-30 touches a week it'd be fine and you'd be cruising; Sydney got away with it via pure weight of numbers given Kennedy/O'Keefe/Jack all got so much of the ball despite being heavily inside in ratio their uncontested possession count would still > most outside mids. With north, the Insiders save for swallow don't get enough of the ball to make that viable.
Ideally in terms of balance you'd want 1 real insider, 1 real outsider and 3 real balanced players in the midfield. Sewell - 93% Mitchell - 80% Lewis - 71% Hodge - 68% Shiels - 58% Well, what do you know.
Lol @ dismissing clearances as a stat. Rucking ridiculous. We're talking entire teams here, it doesn't matter who gets credited the clearance as the team still gets it.
yep. I was dismissing them as an indicative stat of a players insideness. When we're talking about the best midfield of course clearances are fucking important. I just don't think they're inside or outside relevant.
We were talking units here though. I disagree anyway, because I think your definition is wrong. I'm pretty sure the extractor gets credit. Look at last year's clearance leaders: 1 Josh P. Kennedy Sydney 25 7.6 2 Jobe Watson Essendon 22 7.0 3 Scott Thompson Adelaide 25 6.8 4 Matthew Priddis West Coast 22 6.7 5 Joel Selwood Geelong 21 6.7 6 Dane Swan Collingwood 21 6.7 7 Gary Jnr Ablett Gold Coast 20 6.6 8 Patrick Dangerfield Adelaide 25 6.5 8 Andrew Swallow North Melbourne 23 6.5 10 Scott Pendlebury Collingwood 21 6.4 I think that's a pretty good collection there.
I stand corrected then. I reckon it's changed as I emailed CD about it 3-4 years ago. That said North lie 7th for clearances with 3 teams within 0.5 a game of them anyway. Hardly proves they've got the best inside midfield.
Dangerfield's abilities as a contested ball-winner are amazing going on those statistics. Towers above the rest number-wise
Add to that his effectiveness outside too. He's just such a good player. He, Pendles and Gary would be my 3 must tags every week. No matter what, you set someone to run with. No ifs or buts.
Yeah, Adelaide are a very good inside mid team. They averaged 11.6 more contested disposals (1st) and 5.6 more clearances a game (2nd). For those playing at home, North was 10th in clearance differential (-0.2 per game) and 13th in contested possession difference (-3.6 per game).
North so biased. In before youngman comes into this thread and makes about 4 no more than 7 word long posts saying how we're all idiots and north are the best and only north fans have any idea about afl but doesn't back it up at all and then lays specific aim at me calling me a moron, nerd and dire cunt without backing it up etc. and i really hope he doesn't see this before posting his vitriol and tripe as it'd be gun