GreatEx, Freo game thread R21 2025 wrote:
One thing I'm curious about, and may deduce from afltables at some point, is how our goalkicking accuracy compares in 1st half vs 2nd half. We've only had one fewer scores in 2h than 1h today but 8.1 vs 2.6 is night and day, and it's definitely not a first. Physically, mentally , we are a joke.
Right, so I dug up the numbers. Here's the breakdown...
OVERALL RECORD: 217. 215 (i.e. 217 goals, 215 behinds)
OVERALL FIRST-HALF vs SECOND-HALF: 119.109 | 98.106
WINS - FIRST-HALF vs SECOND-HALF: 56.45 | 45.36
LOSSES - FIRST-HALF vs SECOND-HALF: 63.64 | 53.70
So you can see a bit of a trend there - in wins we maintain the same level of accuract in each half; in losses we get noticeably worse in the second half.
But what really stands out is if you look at the six - SIX (6)!!! - games that we led at half-time and went on to lose...
GAMES LOST IN 2nd HALF - FIRST-HALF vs SECOND-HALF: 38.27 | 15.34
So when games are in the balance, we go to water. These numbers jive very closely with my lived perception.
The wins also paint a similar picture - when we were up against easy kills like the first meetings vs. WCE and NM, our kicking improved from first-half (7.11 & 9.5) to second-half (10.8 & 15.4). When we were in hard-fought games like St Kilda and Essendon***, it went to shit (8.6 & 8.6 | 3.5 & 3.6).
And in fact, the only reason our overall 1H vs 2H balance isn't more lopsided is because of games where we completely shat the bed first-half and then kicked reasonably well when the game was done (vs. NM second time - 2.7 | 8.6; vs. Port Adelaide 1.6 | 7.6).
Browse the game records, witness the number of 2 or 3-goal second halves; remember the games: what emerges is a team whose legs go to jelly when the heat is on.
Add to that in 14 games we have conceded the last goal in the first half and 15 games conceded the first goal in the 2nd half.