Hitouts vs Clearances - Is there any Correlation?

[samoht]

http://www.afl.com.au/stats/tabid/73/de ... #page=team

I've gleaned and isolated the hitouts vs clearance stats per team, from the above site.



Team Hitouts (Average Per Game) Clearances (Average per Game)

Adelaide 44 40
Brisbane 34 37
Carlton 43 39
Collingwood 36 39
Essendon 43 36
Freo 45 37
Geelong 36 36
GCS 30 34
GWS 36 36
Hawthorn 40 42
Melbourne 41 34
N. Melbourne 38 38
Port Adel. 35 38
Richmond 39 38
St Kilda 34 37
Sydney 42 40
West Coast 51 39
western Bulldogs 44 39

So West Coast Eagles had an impressive 51 hitouts on average per game - yet only achieved 39 clearances which is about the average result achieved by all the other afl teams.

We only achieved 34 hitouts per game on average - yet had 37 clearances per game (on average) - only 2 short of the West Coast (Even though their "master" tap ruckmen had 17 more hitouts per game !!).

Draw your own conclusions - I've already made up my mind about the (non) importance of hitouts.

[Enrico_Misso]

GT was sort-of right.

But whilst the value of a tap ruckman is overstated you need to have someone in there to contest lest your opponents get clean possession.
Cox/Nik Nat might dominate the tap work without any profound influence on clearances, but they do have other uses.
Both are agile enough to play a midfield linking role.
And both are tall enough to take marksd and kick goals up forward.

[samoht]

GT was sort-of right.

But whilst the value of a tap ruckman is overstated you need to have someone in there to contest lest your opponents get clean possession.
Cox/Nik Nat might dominate the tap work without any profound influence on clearances, but they do have other uses.
Both are agile enough to play a midfield linking role.
And both are tall enough to take marksd and kick goals up forward.

Which means if we're on the look-out for a new ruckman - above all ;
we should look for a ruckman who can gather 20 kicks around the ground on average and take a few saving marks and kick a goal on average and chase and pressure opponents, more than one that can jump up and down and flail around at ruck contests for the sake of amassing impressive (yet meaningless) hitout numbers.

[gringo]

Sometimes a hit out to advantage can be hard to measure. One that clears over the pack out to a waiting runner for a fast break forward thrust can break open a game. Yet that can be the same stat as one that palmed to a mid who was immediately tackled. I hate stats because they level every thing out to an average and fail to highlight the small stuff that is often the difference.

[samoht]

gringo - don't discount the straight down the throat "hitouts to disadvantage" - the wayward hitouts that can break the game open the other way around and hurt your own team.

I remember our ruckman tapping one straight down Wanganeen's throat at a critical stage vs Port Adelaide in the final. Wanganeen's goal cost us the game.

Ruckmen are lucky there are no "hitout to disadvantage" stats.

I'm sure there are as many "hitouts to disadvantage" as there are to advantage.

[gringo]

gringo - don't discount the straight down the throat "hitouts to disadvantage" - the wayward hitouts that can break the game open the other way around and hurt your own team.

I remember our ruckman tapping one straight down the throat to Wanganeen at a critical stage vs Port Adelaide in the final. Wanganeen's goal cost us the game.

Ruckmen are lucky there are no "hitout to disadvantage" stats.

that was one of those haunting moments in a final. I still remember the pain. The one you wish had a rewind button for the match. the other was the final against Sydney where goose got punched by Bazza. That one we just couldn't lose. Or the 97 GF actually I need a rewind button for plenty.

[Dis Believer]

The stats seem to indicate that teams that were strong in both areas were thereabouts at the pointy end of the season. Those who were deficient in either stat tended to have a strength compensating for a weakness and therefore had a lower overall output. So in our situation a weak hit-out (ruck division) was covered by a reasonably strong midfield, whereas the WCE strong hit-outs (ruck) compensates for a slightly weaker midfield.

Those who are strongest in both played in a grand final.

[samoht]

True Believer, an impressive 51 hitouts from a top team (West Coast) that has a strong midfield only resulted in 39 clearances !
That's only an average amount of clearances, from a top team !

We had 37 clearances (just 2 short of West Coast) - from 17 fewer hitouts.

That tells me there's no correlation and that Cox and Nat hit as many to "disadvantage" as they do to "advantage" !

[Dis Believer]

True Believer, an impressive 51 hitouts from a top team (West Coast) that has a strong midfield only resulted in 39 clearances !
That's only an average amount of clearances, from a top team !

We had 37 clearances (just 2 short of West Coast) - from 17 fewer hitouts.

That tells me there's no correlation and that Cox and Nat hit as many to "disadvantage" as they do to "advantage" !

Tells me that maybe WCE midfield is made to look better than it really is courtesy of two gun ruckmen??

Also tells me that our midfield is still better than many think, despite a poor ruck supply?

[samoht]

True Believer, an impressive 51 hitouts from a top team (West Coast) that has a strong midfield only resulted in 39 clearances !
That's only an average amount of clearances, from a top team !

We had 37 clearances (just 2 short of West Coast) - from 17 fewer hitouts.

That tells me there's no correlation and that Cox and Nat hit as many to "disadvantage" as they do to "advantage" !

Tells me that maybe WCE midfield is made to look better than it really is courtesy of two gun ruckmen??

Also tells me that our midfield is still better than many think, despite a poor ruck supply?

True Believer it could just be that the two gun ruckman tap the ball into a very contested area with multiple players within breathing distance of each other and so hit the ball to the opposition as often as to their own team mates' advantage.

[spert]

Ruck is just one position in a team, and if you want to win a premiership, then all positions needs to be winning or at least breaking even on the day. As has been said on this thread, if the rucks and onballers are both having a good day, then you're on your way to a win. Our GF losses in recent times just showed that if a couple of important positions are not really winning or breaking even, then it is hard to win in a GF. We lost Everitt and Vidovic in '97, so went into the GF without any ruck strength in clearances or around the ground marking, goalkicking etc. and Adelaide had too much advantage on ball. In 09 and 10, our forward line as a unit just didn't stamp themselves on the game, and although the backline did OK, the rest just barely broke even or mostly lost in one-on-ones.

[samoht]

spert .. re: '97 don't discount Everitt being missed around the ground and Vidovic would have probably bruised a couple of opposition players in some fierce contests.

Plus, who was that flash in the pan one hit wonder (not Jarman) who bobbed up unexpectedly and kicked 4 goals and did little else for the rest of his career ?

Anyway, the stats don't lie - half of Nat's and Cox's extra hitouts were either wayward or went to contests with 50/50 outcomes, when it's all boiled down. That is the logical conclusion.

[Spinner]

All about the quality of clearances.

Maybe look at where West Coast finished on the ladder to get your correlation.

[Superboot]

Pearson Product Moment correlation = .42 (can be anything between -1.0 and +1.0; the further away from zero the more significant the correlation)

Hence moderate positive association between hitouts and clearances. Hitouts predict approx 18% of variability in clearances, so there are other factors operating, but the answer to the original question is Yes.

But correlation does not imply a particular causal direction. It might be that the ruckman is more likely to win the hitouts if he thinks that he is playing with mids who are likely to win the clearances!

[WinnersOnly]

Agreed Spinner we need to look at scores from clearances to see the true benefit of quality ruck work !

[samoht]

Quality of clearances may have more to do with the clearance players themselves - how they manage to extricate the ball from traffic and create space for themselves and how cleanly they feed it out to team mates and combine with them.

The fact that it takes Nat and Cox 51 hitouts in order for their team to achieve the same number of clearances as we do from only 34 hitouts suggests that their hitouts are less effective - or they don't find the mark. i.e. they are less efficient than our tap ruckmen.

[Superboot]

Good teams will do most things well and you will get spurious associations between aspects of the game that may or may not be related.

Hitouts probably predict goalkicking accuracy but it's unlikely that one leads directly to the other.

[samoht]

But hitouts can also (inadvertently - the wayward ones, that is) influence (directly or indirectly) the opposition's goalkicking accuracy.

We need to realise that Hitouts are not laser guided smart bombs - half go to the opposition or to 50/50 contests !!

Cox's real value is around the ground - gathering his 20 odd possessions and taking important marks.

[Superboot]

That's true but then it's quality rather than number of hitouts that is the key.

[Sobraz]

All I know is McEvoy is crap at taps, as we kept being told on this forum... So much so that some even believe his position in the side should be in jeopardy.

Forget the fact that he is the best ruckman under 25 around the ground, and has some of the best hands overhead in the business, and will only improve all these aspects (including the taps) as he matures into a genuine star...

In that, taps are the most overrated 'stat' in the game... Just ask Mark Blake, Peter Street et al...

Occasionally they come off and make the midfield look like a machine, in which all the commentators will have a circle jerk claiming 'set play set play', but the vast majority of the time, the clearance is won by the team with the better collective midfield, including the work of the ruckman, post tap out..

[samoht]

All I know is McEvoy is crap at taps, as we kept being told on this forum... So much so that some even believe his position in the side should be in jeopardy.

Forget the fact that he is the best ruckman under 25 around the ground, and has some of the best hands overhead in the business, and will only improve all these aspects (including the taps) as he matures into a genuine star...

In that, taps are the most overrated 'stat' in the game... Just ask Mark Blake, Peter Street et al...

Occasionally they come off and make the midfield look like a machine, in which all the commentators will have a circle jerk claiming 'set play set play', but the vast majority of the time, the clearance is won by the team with the better collective midfield, including the work of the ruckman, post tap out..

I've seen just as many (of those occasional ) hitouts embarrassingly go straight down the opposite teams throat - that makes the opposition midfield look like a well oiled machine and the ruckman look like a machine just ran over them.

If it takes celebrated quality tap ruckmen in a top team 51 hitouts, a number which is a lot higher than the average , for their team to achieve the same amount of clearances (as the average teams) one must question what is being celebrated - their inefficiency ? .. or is it just that hitouts themselves are being way over rated - and that, in reality, for every one that comes off- there's one that doesn't..

McEvoy is good around the ground and a tireless contributor - and I don't mark him down for his tap work as I don't attach a lot of importance to hitouts- but one area that I will mark McEvoy down in, is his lack of pace and ability to chase down opponents etc.. which I see as very important. Athletic, around the ground ruckmen who can gather 20 possessions is what it's all about, imho.

[sunsaint]

Agreed Spinner we need to look at scores from clearances to see the true benefit of quality ruck work !

and you will find that Natanui, roved his own ball, ran twenty meters, and scored

[Spinner]

People who have actually player football as a midfielder will know the worth of a dominate ruckman.

Seems everyone on Saintsational must have been a forward.

I envy your height.

[dragit]

Both clearance and hitout raw figures mean very little over a year…

I remember looking at the total clearances from last year and a handful of the highest clearance winning sides were in the bottom 4.

[Dave McNamara]

Pearson Product Moment correlation = .42 (can be anything between -1.0 and +1.0; the further away from zero the more significant the correlation)

Hence moderate positive association between hitouts and clearances. Hitouts predict approx 18% of variability in clearances, so there are other factors operating, but the answer to the original question is Yes.

But correlation does not imply a particular causal direction. It might be that the ruckman is more likely to win the hitouts if he thinks that he is playing with mids who are likely to win the clearances!

Thanks SuperB for a wonderfully refreshing post.

We are so used to most posters taking the tried and proven approach of 'baffle them with BS', but you've taken the intellectual high ground and 'blinded us with science'.

Love it!


Question (to now expose my ignorance):
Since "correlation does not imply a particular causal direction",
then what you are really saying is that the answer is 'yes' (but only moderately so),
and even then, maybe not at all...?