Author: Sean

Every year there are a near–constant series of calls for the good old days of State of Origin football, usually on Wednesday nights or Thursday mornings after the NRL equivalent. The reasons that it isn’t currently on the AFL schedule are plentiful. They include overscheduling, injury concerns, a likely competitive imbalance and

After a number of disappointing years, and with the departure of their marquee star, the Gold Coast Suns have been the epitome of an off-Broadway show in 2018. Due to the Commonwealth Games happening on the Gold Coast (remember that? We barely do), the Suns have hosted games at four

In round five at the SCG, in front of a television audience of more than a million people, two extraordinary passages of football unfolded in quick succession. After intercepting a wayward kick from Adelaide defender Rory Laird near the middle of the ground, Sydney’s Lance Franklin weighed up his options.

The Giants in 2018 have been hobbled by injury, but they have shown some creativity and originality in how they’ve tried to play footy given this reality. GWS have nothing if not top end talent at their disposal, and some of the quirks of the Giants 2018 methods suggest Leon

The always excellent James Coventry called up Cody from HPN to have a chat about the then-upcoming Showdown between Port and Adelaide for ABC Grandstand. We collaborated with James alongside a cast of other excellent people on the upcoming book Footballistics, which you can buy via presale now (with a $5

Read the title back again and think for a moment. The Eagles lost Sam Mitchell, the all-time leader in clearances (well, since 1998 when we first had the stat) over the off-season. Moreover, they also lost the player who was 4th-ranked in Matthew Priddis. Despite his age, Mitchell was a

Look, the Roos probably won’t make the finals, but there are some really promising signs for a Kangaroos side which had been expected to give Brisbane, Carlton and the Gold Coast company at the bottom of the ladder. North has largely built their competitiveness on a vastly improved defence, although

There’s a lot to get through here, so we’re going to get right to it with a roundup of the current state of what we’re running this year. The HPN Team Ratings In 2015, HPN was sitting at HPN HQ (which was an actual physical location at that time) and

The AFL recently released its annual report for 2017, which includes a breakdown of AFL money given to all 18 clubs. The 2017 Annual Report is particularly interesting (trust us here) because 2017 was the first year of a new and larger broadcasting deal, where the AFL has fully applied its

After three years and at least as many requests, we have finally come up with a tipping model. Perhaps the longest part of the process was coming up with a name, like all good statistical models. We’d like to introduce our new friend PERT (Player Estimated Result Tipping), named in