Champion Data: North Melbourne really are that bad this season, damning statistics reveal

North Melbourne’s leaked emails this week focus on the accountability of administration when appointing coaches rather than the coaches themselves, which despite some of the cringeworthy corporate-speak language in the coterie member’s rant, makes a reasonable point. Major sport executives have a deft way of passing the buck on their own appointments.

However, when it comes to play on the field rather than the boardroom, North Melbourne’s CEO Ben Amarfio’s reply piqued interest.

“We’ve built a series of ’Marginal Gains’ statistical measurements that we track. To this point we have achieved 23 of those versus 13 at the same time last year,” he said – yet those marginal gains and associated KPIs he referred to remain confidential.

For bleeding North Melbourne fans, it’s akin telling a starving person, ‘We know where the food is but we can’t give you the map’.

So Champion Data has taken a look at a range of statistics to see whether North’s predicament is as bad as many are painting it.

Roos fans, you’ve been warned.

The Geelong horror show 

Let’s start with last week, the 111-point loss to Geelong which bordered on farce. Was it that bad? Well, yes, it was.

The statistic that jumped out on the night was the almost-comical 12 forward 50 disposals for the game. Twitter lit up, with justification.

It is the worst result on that measure that Champion Data has ever recorded, since 1999.

Most of the measures of ability to get the ball inside 50 and do something with it, categories that make a team competitive on the scoreboard, were abnormally low. Even for North Melbourne’s ordinary season.

It can be comfortably said this was the worst single-game performance since 2018, but that may be charitable. It could be argued this was the most uncompetitive performance since the birth of expansion teams GWS and Gold Coast.

Starving forwards

The above is backed by inside 50 differential data. North Melbourne 2022 sits only behind the first season of GWS, when the Giants went with a clear youth-first strategy. What should also be noted is the 2013 Melbourne team that North are also being compared to had a similar differential to this year’s West Coast Eagles. North fans can at least take comfort in having a comparably-poor contemporary.

System? What system?

Uncontested possessions where players can get the ball in space and create can be a signifier to the game system. If the discrepancy is large, it shows an inability to defend, but also an inability to give players a chance to show their creative skills with the ball. It’s particularly relevant when a team is going down a youth path, where lightly built draft picks’ greatest chance to show their virtues is via uncontested possessions.

The suitability of the current game plan depends on whether you’re a glass half-full person. Historically, there were a bunch of teams worse than North Melbourne in this regard.

The downside is they are the worst since the 2018 Gold Coast Suns. It’s desperately hard for young players fighting for their careers to make an impact when the discrepancy is this large.

Finding a bright spot

The worry for North Melbourne is that there doesn’t appear to be one facet of the game that they are making progress on as compared to others.

West Coast’s performances have rivalled North Melbourne‘s at times this season but they have been able to produce centre clearance scoring numbers that sit among the best in the league. It doesn’t win games but it may at least be a building block towards an identity.

As you can see below, it’s hard to find a bright spot when you’re ranked bottom four in the league in most major statistical measures of success.

North fans, if you’ve gotten this far, it’s time to email Amarfio and ask about those mystery KPIs he speaks of, because Champion Data can’t find them.

Wins and (big) losses

Ultimately, fans want wins. But if they can’t have wins, they at least want to turn up to games hoping their team might get close.

The current losing streak has not seen them get closer to an opposition than 47 points. It’s cold comfort that the 47-point loss was to ladder leader Melbourne.

But North’s percentage after round 16 is only comparable to the expansion Giants of 2012-13. Beyond that, you need to go back 67 years; or to put it another way, their percentage is in the same ballpark as the last season of University.

The sad thing is that given how overwhelming the numbers are, it’s hard to assess David Noble’s coaching ability objectively or singularly. He has now dipped below Mark Neeld’s stint at Melbourne for win percentage and you need to go back to 1972 and Brian Dixon, also at North Melbourne, for a worse winning percentage of coaches in charge for more than 30 games.

For context, it was another age. Dixon coached on the weekends, while Monday to Friday he was an MP in the Victorian state parliament.

It may have been a one-man show in Dixon’s day but given the drama surrounding the Roos this year, not all the blame can be levelled at Noble.

The omen for North fans? The departure of Dixon led to signing the messiah Ron Barassi and three seasons later, a premiership.

Has anyone got a number for Clarko??