CBAs – Centre Bounce Attendances – is a statistic that measures the number of times a player is present at a centre bounce at the beginning of a quarter or following a goal. A player that has a high attendance rate at CBAs is around the footy more and (in some cases) in a more fantasy-friendly midfield role.
Analyse the CBAs from the weekend of football in our user-friendly tables in our premium resources section – featuring advanced analytical tools to better measure the biggest changes, both seasonally and week-to-week.
Below, see who some of the winners and losers were from a CBA perspective over the weekend.
Jayden Short
It was great to see Jayden Short involved in the centre bounce attendances on Friday night.
Against the hapless Eagles, he went to 62% of the CBAs which is 52% more than his season average. As a result, he put up a monster AFL Fantasy score of 123 points.
Whilst there was a raft of midfielders missing from Richmond’s side, it was promising to see him used in this capacity. With players like Trent Cotchin and Dusty Martin returning in the near future, we may not see him in this role for too long.
But if Richmond’s midfield is struck with some long term injuries, it’s nice to know he’s the next midfielder in line who could potentially put up some monster scores listed as a defender.
Noah Anderson
Noah Anderson returned to the mix this week after a couple of lean weeks of CBA numbers.
On Sunday against Collingwood, he attended 94% of the centre bounces for Gold Coast, which was the most of any Gold Coast player, and scored 113 points.
He had only averaged 52% of the CBAs over the past two rounds but still had managed to score at an elite level. There were some concerns that this may not continue without a bigger share of the CBAs but last weekend has eased those concerns given the high number he recorded.
There are many uncertainties in Gold Coast’s side under Stewart Dew, but it looks like Noah Anderson will be getting a long term role as an inside midfielder over the next few years.
As a high-end draft pick, I think he’ll develop into an elite fantasy player going forward.
Josh Rachele
Whilst Rachele didn’t put up many points on the weekend there were still some positives to take out of his game.
The Crows were getting absolutely spanked on the weekend and needed to flip the game on its head. They tried to do this by throwing Rachele into the midfield and whilst it may not have had an impact on the game or his scoring, it was still a positive thing for fantasy coaches out there.
Rachele attended a total of 8 CBAs, all of which came in the second half. We have seen Rachele have a run in the midfield at times throughout 2022, but this was the highest number of centre bounce attendances so far. And to reiterate, this happened in one half of footy.
As a junior, he was touted as the next Toby Greene who is a player that GWS throw into the guts from time to time and we have seen Greene put up some amazing fantasy numbers as a result. It’s clear that the Crows want the same from Rachele and are going to give him plenty of opportunities to develop into this type of player.
Whilst he’s going to put up some lean scores early in his career, he has enormous potential and I think he’ll eventually turn into one of the better midfielder-forwards in AFL Fantasy.
Darcy Cameron
With Brodie Grundy out, I thought Cameron was going to step into the number one ruck role but was concerned to see Collingwood bring in Aiden Begg at the same time.
But we needn’t worry, as Cameron delivered an awesome performance in Grundy’s absence.
He attended 19 centre bounces to Begg’s 14, won 15 hit outs, collected 16 possessions and laid 5 tackles. He also kicked 2 goals when he went forward and put up an AFL Fantasy score of 104 points.
The added bonus with Cameron is he’s listed as a forward and whilst Grundy is out, I think we can expect some big scores from him.
His owners would be pretty happy right now.
Stephen Coniglio
For most of this article, we’ve been talking about players who increased their CBA numbers over the weekend. But for Stephen Coniglio, his numbers have steadily declined over the past few weeks.
He has only attended 6% of the centre bounces for GWS over the past 3 weeks and has only attended 1 centre bounce in each of his last two games.
But is this a bad thing?
Well if you look at his fantasy scoring, he’s still putting up good numbers. He’s averaging 91.7 this season and over the past three weeks has averaged 94 AFL Fantasy points.
Looking at his role, he’s starting forward and then working up to the contest at the stoppages. So he’s doing enough midfield work to score at a decent rate, but also starting forward enough to keep his forward status.
Given the scarcity of forwards these days, I think most coaches would be happy to sacrifice his ceiling in order for him to retain forward status, so maybe him getting fewer CBAs isn’t necessarily the worst thing.
Preview of Advanced CBA Stats:
| Player | Club | Pos | LG% | LG%vsPG% | Avg% | L3Avg% | LG%vsAvg% | L3G%vsAvg% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Steele | SK | C | 81 | -5 | 88.4 | 87 | -7.4 | -1.4 |
| Reilly O'Brien | AD | R | 80 | -4 | 87.7 | 84 | -7.7 | -3.7 |
| Rowan Marshall | SK | R | 88 | 12 | 87.7 | 87 | 0.3 | -0.7 |
| Max Gawn | ME | R | 90 | -2 | 86.6 | 89 | 3.4 | 2.4 |
| Tom Green | GWS | C | 85 | 5 | 86 | 83 | -1 | -3 |
| Luke Davies-Uniacke | NM | C | 83 | 3 | 85.1 | 83 | -2.1 | -2.1 |
| Ned Reeves | HW | R | 82 | -5 | 84.5 | 79 | -2.5 | -5.5 |
| Lloyd Meek | HW | R | 77 | -13 | 84.4 | 82 | -7.4 | -2.4 |
| Jarrod Witts | GC | R | 82 | -11 | 84.2 | 86 | -2.2 | 1.8 |
| Tristan Xerri | NM | R | 83 | 3 | 83.4 | 82 | -0.4 | -1.4 |
View more CBA Analysis numbers here.
Key:
LG% – Percentage of CBAs last game
LG%vsPG% – Percentage of CBAs last game versus percentage of CBAs previous game
Avg% – Average of CBA percentage in games played
L3Avg% – Average of CBA percentage over the past three games
LG%vsAvg% – Last game CBA percentage vs average CBA percentage
L3G%vsAvg% – Last three games CBA percentage vs average CBA percentage
