Thread by @JonathanJWalsh

Been thinking a lot about 'Goal Kicking Mids' lately (I'm weird that way), Archie Perkins is the one that is really developing his game to be one of those genuine 50/50 or thereabouts players.

#DonTheStat | #GoDons

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1/2 his time as a midfielder, the other 1/2 having an impact in the fwd line.

My theory was that there aren't a lot of goal kicking mids anymore. Not pure Centre Bounce mids at least. Goal kicking mids are predominately kicking goals when they're playing forward...

...rather than from the midfield.

I dug into the Top 50 midfielders by way of Average Centre Bounce attendances a game. Not a perfect model but I thought it would filter out those that play predominately in the midfield.

Of which, Essendon has two. Merrett and Parish.

There are all types of mids in the data. Rucks, attacking mids, defensive mids, contested ball winners, outside players. Low and behold, there isn't a single midfielder averaging a goal a game. Rozee, Bont, Taranto and De Goey aren't far off, but they're rare.

11 CB mids in total average half a goal or more a game.

Merrett ranks equal 16th with Jack Viney, 0.42 goals a game. Just ahead of Tom Liberatore and Luke Parker on 0.37 goals per game.

Parish 35th. 0.2 goals a game. behind Serong on 0.21, ahead of Laird 0.16 & Neale 0.15

Then I looked at Goal Assists. Sam Hayes is an outlier, he has played just the one game and ranks 1st. No one else is averaging 1 a game.

Another 22 though averaging 0.5 a game or more.

Merrett is one of those, ranks 9th on 0.74 a game.
Parish 30th, 0.40 a game. The top 15 👇

You combine the two and you get a sense of what a freak Bontempelli is and how well De Goey was going pre-injury.

19 players at 1+
Dogs with 3 in the list. Port 2 but lets ignore Hayes. Freo & Dees also 2. 4 clubs with 0.

Merrett 9th with 1.16 & Parish 33rd, 0.6

Last but not least, I looked at Score Involvements. Centre Bounce mids aren't kicking a lot of goals, they're not directly setting up many either.

2 teams with 2 in the top 10.
17 players averaging 6 or more.
Parish 5th, Merrett 9th.

This mostly supported my assumptions.

I'm curious to see how someone like Tsatas develops in these areas. He fits the profile of some of those in the Goal + Assists column (no pressure).

@CapitalCityCody I assume also, this where a lot of goal assists are coming from for the likes of Libba, Oliver etc. Forward Stoppages.