For the Richmond Football Club, the 2019 AFL season began six months ago with a devastating knee injury to their five-time All-Australian, Alex Rance. It concluded on the last Saturday in September, with the Tigers winning their second AFL Premiership in three years, courtesy of an 89-point demolition of the GWS Giants.

2019 was a season where the Gold Coast Suns claimed the wooden spoon in such alarming fashion that the AFL has decided to thrown even more draft concessions their way.

It was a season where the Geelong Cats dominated the home and away season, but whose campaign once again face-planted at the season’s most critical juncture, losing their fourth consecutive preliminary final.

We saw the Fremantle Dockers skipper, Nat Fyfe, claim his second Brownlow Medal, the Giants' Jeremy Cameron finally break through for a Coleman Medal, while Carlton’s young gun, Sam Walsh, averaged 25 touches per game en route to winning his club’s first-ever Rising Star Award.

Hovering over the entire season was the fallout from nearly a full third of the competition opting to remove their tenured coaches, with the axe still being wielded into September. 

But, the story must come back to Punt Road.

After struggling through the first half of the season, and, with additional injuries and suspensions to the likes of Trent Cotchin, Jack Riewoldt and Dustin Martin, at the end of Round 14, the Tigers were out of the Top 8 and an AFL Finals position, with their season on the line.

At that point in time, the Stats Insider AFL Futures model was granting Richmond just a 3.5% chance of winning the 2019 AFL Premiership, while their chances of simply making the AFL Finals were sitting at a not particularly convincing 59.1%.

*Futures Projections after Round 14 according to Stats Insider

From that point on the Tigers won 12 straight games, including Saturday’s Grand Final triumph, to secure their 12^th V/AFL Premiership, punctuating a truly excellent three-season run which has the football world now contemplating whether we have the makings of a genuine dynasty at Punt road.

The Tigers' flag was the culmination of an extraordinary season which witnessed the incredible resurrection of the Brisbane Lions as well the Giants qualifying for their maiden AFL Grand Final.

And, so after 206 games of AFL football, we bid farewell to an incredible 2019 season... but not before taking one last spin aboard the statistical hovercraft.

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THE TIGERS DO SO MUCH FROM SO LITTLE

While the depth and brilliance of the Richmond list has been well established - along with the brainpower of Damian Hardwick and his coaching group - an area where the Tigers continue to challenge the fabric of modern football philosophy is in regards to how they’ve prospered these past few years while being such a relatively low possession team.

On average this season, the Tigers conceded a differential of 19.2 possessions per game to their opponents, which was the fourth-worst mark in the league in 2019. 

It is also quite easily the lowest mark among recent premiers.

Even in the Tigers' 89-point mauling of the Giants on Grand Final day, they won the disposal count by just a single possession, yet were able to generate an extra 19 inside 50’s, shining a light on the Tiger’s ‘surge ball’ mantra, which is a game plan more befitting a bulldozer than a bonsai.

In recent seasons, Richmond has redefined what a successful football club looks like, both from a list and gameplan perspective, which is, in turn, having a profound effect on traditional list-building norms.

THE AFL WENT ‘SACK CRAZY’ AND IT ACTUALLY WORKED

Ironically, in the inaugural season of Stats Insider launching the Sackometer, all hell broke loose on the AFL coaching front.

The first domino to fall was the Kangaroos' Brad Scott, with Carlton’s beleaguered Brendan Bolton relieved of his duties just a couple of weeks later. Alan Richardson’s tenure as coach of St Kilda was terminated after six years without a Finals appearance, while Fremantle confirmed their divorce from Ross Lyon with just one round of the season left. The carnage continued into the AFL Finals, with Adelaide deciding next year’s pre-season camp would be best served without Don Pyke cooking the bacon.  

The first three clubs to dismiss their coaches ultimately decided to stick with their caretakers who did particularly well in trying circumstances.

Prior to their respective coaching departures, the combined records of North Melbourne, Carlton and St Kilda sat at a rather uninspiring 9-27 (25%).

Once the caretakers took over, it was a totally different story with the trio combining for an excellent 17-13 (56%) mark.

Not only did all of Rhyce Shaw, David Teague and Brett Ratten start delivering long-promised wins to their clubs, but they all installed far more expansive, attacking gameplans, which, for the most part, won over their long-suffering fanbases, with all three clubs full of hope heading into season 2020.

CLEARANCES DON’T MATTER... AND MAYBE RUCKMEN DON’T EITHER?

If Richmond’s lack of disposals wasn’t enough to throw a spanner into the way we analyse contemporary football, then their approach to clearances has worked as a further wrinkle.

Over the last few seasons, Richmond has routinely ceded clearances, preferring to not cluster numbers at stoppage situations, opting to utilise players elsewhere in these situations to better sure up their rebound and attack opportunities.

The Tigers generated just 34 clearances per game in 2019 - which ranked dead last in the competition - and, which was a number which correlated with their lowly 32.2 hitouts per game - the fourth-worst mark in the league.

Football has long functioned on the assumption that matches - and particularly Finals matches - are won at the furnace, with a monster ruckmen servicing them. It’s been a notion the Tigers have been happy to set fire to and watch burn.

SHOT ACCURACY REALLY, REALLY MATTERS

One of the many areas Stats Insider contributed to challenging the way the sport is evaluated in 2019 was through the release of it’s Shot Charting platform, which has delivered in transforming the way we consider how and where teams take their shots, as well as the location of their forward entries.

One of the many nuggets of information the data sent back was indeed how paramount shot accuracy was to ultimate team success.

Eight of the league’s 12 most accurate teams indeed made AFL Finals this season, with Richmond and the Giants - the two Grand Finalists - ranked third and second, respectively.

Only six teams kicked at an accuracy of 45% or worse in 2019 and all six missed out on playing in September.

THE GOLD COAST SUNS WERE TRULY DREADFUL

No matter what spin the AFL puts on it, the Gold Coast Suns’ performances in 2019 - largely due to it’s pulverised playing list - was not a good look for an apparently professional sporting organisation.

The Suns lost their last 18 games in consecutive fashion to easily claim the wooden spoon, dragging along a dismal 60.53 point-percentage with them.

It is the second season counting that the Suns have failed to surpass a 60-point percentage, while the club has won just 7 of their last 52 competitive matches.

They had easily the league’s worst attack, the worst defence, they won the least quarters, and got their hands on the footy less than anybody else in 2019.

It all resulted in a club, who has fast become a football irrelevance, see their average home attendance falling to 11,417, which was not only the lowest mark in the league, but the worst return since the club was established.

The Suns have become the AFL’s 'black eye,' with season 2020 looming as a critical one as far as its future in South-East Queensland is concerned.

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KEY FORWARDS STILL MATTER... 

When the trade and draft period heats up, you’d better hope your club is trying to recruit key forwards as reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.  

The Tigers pulled off the biggest coup in last year’s free agency period by adding Tom Lynch to their already deep squad, with the former Suns co-captain playing a pivotal role in their latest premiership.

Teaming Lynch in concert with Jack Riewoldt, Richmond averaged 12.1 marks inside 50 per game in 2019, which was the third best return in the league.

In fact, of the four teams to average more than 12 marks inside-50 per game (Western Bulldogs, Collingwood, Geelong and Richmond) all qualified for the AFL Finals, with three of course still alive come Preliminary Final weekend. 

Richmond's ability to take marks inside-50 earned them 295 set-shot opportunities in 2019 which was the league's highest number, while also generating 134 shots from close range (0-24 metres).

While people point to the possible extinction of 100-per year goal kickers, this really shouldn’t be a seen as a referendum upon the imperative of having big, dependable marking options up forward.

The Eagles certainly wouldn’t have won last year's flag without the twin-tower forward line of Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling. The Hawks three-peat definitely wouldn’t have been achieved without Lance Franklin, Jarryd Roughead and Jack Gunston roaming their forward line either.

While the contemporary game isn’t peppered with the traditional monster forwards we came to know and love in the 1980’s and 90’s, the importance of long-ball, bail-out options in an increasingly cluttered game is as important as ever.

... AND SO DOES PRESSURE INSIDE 50

In an ideal world, your club would be like Richmond and have perhaps the game’s best key forward in Tom Lynch, one of the best of the last decade in Jack Riewoldt, along with a devastating ground force which ensures that when those big guys don’t mark it, their army of small forwards such as Jason Castagna, Daniel Rioli and Shai Bolton will work like veritable demons to keep the ball locked in.

Pressure inside-50 has become a key pillar of Richmond’s premiership blueprint and one that is already starting to have a big effect on how clubs formulate their lists.

Brisbane, who have copied so much from the Tiger template, saw their tackles inside 50 jump from 9.9 in 2018 up to a league-best 13.9 in 2019, largely through the likes of recent list additions Charlie Cameron, Lincoln McCarthy and 2017 #1 AFL Draft pick, Cam Rayner.

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THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT THE ‘MINOR’ PREMIERSHIP

For so much of 2019, Geelong was the toast of the AFL.

After Round 12 they sat two games clear at the top of the ladder with an 11-1 record and 151.3%, nearly twenty points better than the next team at that stage, the Giants.

While they wobbled late, the Cats still claimed their first minor premiership in eleven years, while also sending a league-high four players (Tim Kelly, Tom Stewart, Tom Hawkins and Patrick Dangerfield) to the 2019 All-Australian team

Yet, for all of Geelong’s regular season excellence, they faltered terribly, once again, in the AFL Finals, and while they did qualifiy for their sixth Preliminary Final of the decade, they managed just two second-half goals, exiting 2019 empty-handed.

Curiously, regular season excellence is continually failing to translate into the Finals success in recent seasons. We, in fact, have to go all the way back to Hawthorn in 2013 to find the last team to parlay their minor premiership into an actual premiership.

This decade saw just two minor premiers convert their home and away superiority into a Grand Final win, which was the lowest return in history. 

2019 made for an incredible AFL season, and while its showcase event didn't make for intense drama, it did emphasise the complexity of the sport as well as its perennial evolution. 

Season 2020 will again see incredible change from a coaching perspective, as well as intense planning by every club to bring Richmond down from the lofty position they currently enjoy and have worked so hard to occupy. 

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