Trent Knoble

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

He cant mark, cant find posession, has poor skills even for a big man.  He had for his standards a relatively good 2005, but comparing his 11th in the comp for average hitouts last year, he still performed around the ground worse than anyone above him and the next 10 after him.

I think one thing that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at average hitouts is the actual amount of ball ups/thrown ins etc in a game. Our style of play might not be as conducive to stoppages, and thus we have a lower amount of ball ups for him to get a hit out. What would be a better stat to look at (and I don't know if I can get it now, but I'll try) is the % of hit outs he wins. Another stat to take into consideration, is the number of hit outs to advantage he has, as a %. There was an article I posted here last year, which showed that, as a percentage, the amount of hit outs to advantage Knobel gave was far and away above the next best in the league (which just happened to be Troy Simmonds).

Stats can be interpreted lots of ways, but you have to keep into consideration all the qualifying factors that go with them, such as time on ground, etc.

Excellent points General. Champion Data (and perhaps other organisations) compile these stats and more on ruck contests, and the clubs pay good money to obtain the figures. I'm pretty sure the HS would have paid to use the stats in the article you refer to (unless they were made available for promotional purposes).

Sometimes a player's value is greater than the raw stats indicate, e.g. Earl Spalding was a favourite of Parkin's but many Carlton supporters saw things differently.