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.
Connor Rozee
The injury to Zak Butters had a flow-on effect on Connor Rozee on Saturday.
Travis Boak was already out for the week with COVID protocols, so we already expected a bump for the young gun, but when Butters went down we saw his CBA numbers skyrocket.
Rozee went to 18 centre bounces, which was a 16% increase on last week’s numbers and a 35.2% increase on his season average. As a result, he put up a handy 94 AFL Fantasy points.
It has been reported that Butters has suffered a medial ligament injury and will miss some football, so expect a bump for Rozee over the coming weeks.
Lachlan Keeffe
After Matthew Flynn was a late withdrawal and Brayden Preuss got injured (and later suspended), Keeffe stepped up in their absence and went to 24 centre bounces on Saturday night.
Going up against English he actually held his own, winning 24 hit outs and scoring 80 AFL Fantasy points.
We think the likelihood of Keeffe remaining as the number one ruck should be low, but looking at the VFL numbers to see who would be next in line we’ve discovered that Kieren Briggs didn’t play and the only other AFL-listed player who could ruck for GWS was Wade Derksen (mid-season draftee).
Flynn has now been ruled out for 3 weeks and Preuss has been suspended, so it will depend on what happens at the selection table with the VFL rucks, but if we see Keeffe named as the number one ruck he could be in for a scoring bump this week.
Jake Stringer
After a poor performance in round 13, Jake Stringer had something to prove this week.
Prior to the game on Friday night, coach Ben Rutten said on Fox Footy that we were going to see more of ‘The Package’ in the midfield and he lived up to this throughout the game.
In his return from a hamstring injury last week, Stringer only attended 16% of the centre bounces last week. In round 14, he went to 33%, more than doubling last week’s attendance numbers.
Not only did the numbers look good, but Stringer himself also looked good. He appeared to be hunting the ball a lot more with a season-high 16 touches and got on the end of a couple of goals for 94 AFL Fantasy points – his highest score of 2022.
We are hoping that the big turnaround on Friday night will ignite Stringer. Hopefully, we see some big games from him in the coming weeks on the back of increased centre bounce attendances.
George Hewett
A little flag for George Hewett owners.
Last Thursday we saw a season-low centre bounce attendance rate of 57% for the Carlton midfielder. This seems especially low when we compared it to his season average of 74%. As a result, we saw Hewett put up his lowest score of the season – 76 AFL Fantasy points.
I’m not sure if this is indicative of his starting position, but he seemed to get a lot more of the footy in defence over the weekend and we know he was often used as a defender at his former club Sydney.
Whether this was a one-off or we’re about to see Hewett play more time in defence remains to be seen, but it’s something to watch with interest over the coming weeks.
Preview of Advanced CBA Stats:
| Player | Club | Pos | LG% | LG%vsPG% | Avg% | L3Avg% | LG%vsAvg% | L3G%vsAvg% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Steele | SK | C | 86 | -7 | 89.7 | 88 | -3.7 | -1.7 |
| Reilly O'Brien | AD | R | 84 | -4 | 89 | 86 | -5 | -3 |
| Rowan Marshall | SK | R | 76 | -20 | 87.7 | 87 | -11.7 | -0.7 |
| Lloyd Meek | HW | R | 90 | 11 | 86.2 | 87 | 3.8 | 0.8 |
| Tom Green | GWS | C | 80 | -5 | 86.2 | 85 | -6.2 | -1.2 |
| Max Gawn | ME | R | 92 | 6 | 86 | 88 | 6 | 2 |
| Luke Davies-Uniacke | NM | C | 80 | -5 | 85.5 | 84 | -5.5 | -1.5 |
| Jarrod Witts | GC | R | 93 | 11 | 84.6 | 87 | 8.4 | 2.4 |
| Ned Reeves | HW | R | 82 | -5 | 84.5 | 79 | -2.5 | -5.5 |
| Toby Nankervis | RI | R | 83 | -7 | 83.8 | 84 | -0.8 | 0.2 |
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
