IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rpanxx/v20y2020i4p557-568.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characterisation of offensive and defensive game play trends in the Australian Football League (1999–2019)

Author

Listed:
  • Jackson C. Lane
  • Grant van der Ploeg
  • Grace Greenham
  • Kevin Norton

Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterise and quantify offensive and defensive game play in the Australian Football League and analyse how it has evolved from 1999–2019. Nine offensive and twelve defensive variables were selected to represent their respective styles of play. Season averages for each variable were collected as well as an overall 21-season average and standard deviation. Offensive and defensive z-scores were calculated for each season and plotted relative to time. Offensive and defensive z-scores for each season showed a trend of an increase and decrease in offensive and defensive game play, respectively, up until about 2005–2007. These play pattern trends then clearly reversed and continue to evolve towards less offensive and more defensive game styles. Despite rule and interpretation changes to temper these trends, the 2019 season was the most defensive and least offensive in the period of review. Overall offensive game play has decreased across the period 1999–2019 while defensive game play has increased. Offensive play, however, was shown to be more closely related to success when compared to defensive play. This study provides a quantitative method of characterising offensive and defensive game play in Australian Rules Football.

Suggested Citation

  • Jackson C. Lane & Grant van der Ploeg & Grace Greenham & Kevin Norton, 2020. "Characterisation of offensive and defensive game play trends in the Australian Football League (1999–2019)," International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 557-568, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rpanxx:v:20:y:2020:i:4:p:557-568
    DOI: 10.1080/24748668.2020.1758438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24748668.2020.1758438
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/24748668.2020.1758438?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rpanxx:v:20:y:2020:i:4:p:557-568. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RPAN20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.