Its back for Round 7! Zero Hanger’s weekly ‘five useless stats’.
Every week Aaron Delaporte from Useless AFL Stats will take a look at the top five most useless, but captivating, statistics from the weekend.
Round 7 didn’t fail to deliver plenty of stats but here are the most useless ones that you never knew you needed.
Friday night’s 77-55, 22-point win by Richmond over the Western Bulldogs is the 73rd time both teams have scored numerical doubles in a V/AFL game which was also decided by a double-digit margin.
The 11th time it happened Carlton defeated Fitzroy 44-33 by 11 points in Round 14, 1908. The 33rd time it happened Richmond defeated Carlton 66-33 by 33 in Round 14, 1951. The 44th time it happened Hawthorn defeated Western Bulldogs 99-55 by 44 in Round 16, 1963.
We look forward to seeing if we can get a 77-point margin (which has occurred just once when Carlton defeated Geelong 99-22 in Round 4, 1919) in the 77th occasion, expected to take place in the next 3-7 years based on trends for this stat.
A rare statistical anomaly occurred when Sydney defeated Geelong by three points on Saturday. The Cats won in virtually every major statistical category possible; +80 in disposals, +14 in marks, + 26 Inside 50s, +7 Tackles, +7 Free kicks, +3 clearances but along with a couple of controversial non-umpiring calls late in the game, Sydney got home.
This is just the third time a team has lost contested possessions and inside 50’s by 25 and won the game - the clear secret to overcoming this is accurate goal kicking in all three cases.
Sydney won that aspect kicking 14.6 to Geelong's 12.16. The eight scoring-shot deficit wasn't even close to the AFL record of 15, which occurred back in Round 16 1997 when Collingwood butchered it going down 12.25.97 to Geelong 16.6.102, losing by five points despite a remarkable 15 extra scoring shots.
Tim Kelly set a Western Derby record, picking up 42 disposals as the West Coast Eagles ran riot over Fremantle, destroying them in the second half enroute to a 59-point win.
Kelly was rightly awarded the Glendinning-Allan Medal as best player on the ground and breaks the previous record of Chad Fletcher, who had 38 disposals in 2004.
Kelly’s 21 kicks and 21 handballs ranks equal second behind Jordan Lewis for disposal parity. Lewis had 22 kicks and 22 handballs in Round 21, 2014 for Hawthorn also against Fremantle. However Kelly did set a record, as he did not record a mark during the match. The 42 disposals without a mark is now the most ever, passing Gary Ablett Jnr and Jack Steven who both recorded 41.
The term three-headed monster has been bandied around amongst AFL experts this year, but West Coast created a special six-headed version in the Western Derby.
The Eagles became the first team ever to have six different players with the same first initial kick multiple goals in the same game. Well done to Jack Darling, Josh Kennedy, Jake Waterman (3 goals), Jarrod Brander, Jamaine Jones and Jamie Cripps (2 goals).
The previous record of five was held jointly by West Coast in Round 1 2016 (initial J) and Collingwood Round 21 1996 (initial S) both with five.
Adelaide and Port Adelaide come into the showdown both coming off arguably their worst performances of the year. Adelaide kicked 4.15 in their loss to GWS whilst Port didn’t do much better kicking 5.14 against Brisbane. The combined 9.29 with a 23.7% accuracy is easily the worst ever of the two SA clubs in the same round, beating the 10.22 31.3% in Round 5 2020.
When the two clubs battle it out on Saturday night, they'll be doing so for the showdown edge, as they currently sit at 24 wins each it is worth noting that Port sit with a 6-2 advantage in the eight games played where both sides entered with a loss the previous round.
On a side note and something truly useless to finish with; should Charlie Dixon kick a goal in this match he will become the 257th player to kick 257 goals in V/AFL history - something to impress the family and friends with should it happen.