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.
Thomson Dow
I thought the name ‘Dow’ would never be mentioned on the podcast again, but here we are.
Thomson Dow attended the most centre bounces for Richmond on the weekend and put up a score of 78 AFL Fantasy points. As you may have heard on the waiver wire podcast (available exclusively to members), any score of 75 at the Tigers is now considered a ‘Richmond Tonne’, so 78 is quite an impressive score.
Before the season we thought there may be a midfield spot open for a young player to take at the Tigers. We thought Riley Collier-Dawkins and Jack Ross were ahead in the pecking order, but it has been Thomson Dow who has grabbed this spot in previous weeks.
Listed as a forward this season, he’s a player you need to seriously look at given the number of centre bounces he received on the weekend.
Lachie Ash
Lachie Ash was talked up as being a tagger for a lot of the preseason, and it finally came to fruition on the weekend.
In rounds 1 and 2, he spent a lot of time on the wing but only managed to put up scores of 37 and 60. In round 3, he scored 76 AFL Fantasy points and this was on the back of attending 71% of the centre bounces.
Whilst this may look encouraging, the issue with Ash being used as a tagger is that his primary focus will be on stopping his opponent rather than winning the ball (and scoring fantasy points). Last season, he was used in a fantasy-friendly role coming out of defence but this doesn’t seem like it will happen again.
The positive thing is he has defender status after last season’s efforts, and if you’re going to own a tagger then it’s best they have dual position status.
Long term, I still have high hopes for Lachie Ash. Sometimes these run-with roles can provide invaluable experience for younger players and the tag never seems to last forever. Let’s hope he can score well while listed as a defender and use this experience to become a well-rounded midfielder in the future.
Andrew McGrath
Speaking of taggers, here’s a guy who was used in a similar role to Ash on the weekend.
Andrew McGrath was given a tagging role on Christian Petracca and became public enemy number one among many fantasy coaches after successfully shutting down the Demon’s stat machine. As a result, Andrew McGrath saw a spike in CBAs attending 79% for Essendon which was a 58% boost on last week’s numbers.
Earlier in the season, McGrath was tipped to play on the half-back flank and gain defender status, but this now looks in jeopardy. We saw quite a few successful tags over the weekend and the role appears to be back in vogue and looks like it may stick for some time. Couple this with Zach Merrett being out for an extended period, Essendon may opt to negate an opposing midfielder over trying to replace Zach Merrett’s ability to find the footy.
If I were a McGrath owner, I probably wouldn’t be too pleased with this turn of events.
Jaidyn Stephenson
Jaidyn Stephenson looks lost out there at the moment.
In round 2, he was sent back to the VFL after a lacklustre performance the week prior. Despite going back to the lower level, he still failed to assert his dominance, only putting up an AFL Fantasy score of 72 points.
Last weekend, this looked like it was going to continue after he only had 6 touches in the first half but then David Noble threw him into the midfield after halftime. After not attending a centre bounce in the first half, he went to 12 centre bounces in the second.
Looking at his fantasy scoring, he only managed 18 points in the first half but scored 55 points in the second after he was moved into the midfield. So it’s obvious this is the role he needs to play to become a decent scorer.
Will he hold his spot in the midfield though? It’s tough to say.
With Davies-Uniacke and Thomas out on the weekend, I’m not certain he has a full-time role in the guts. But if he can hold his spot we know he’ll score well.
Luke Edwards
We’re big fans of this guy at The Keeper League.
After a delayed start to pre-season, we saw Luke Edwards come on as the sub in round 2 and score 41 from 50% time-on-ground.
Last week, he started the game and also scored 41 points but again still had low time-on-ground (68%). However, this time we saw him attend 23% of the centre bounces for West Coast. We usually see Luke Edwards play on a wing for the Eagles so it was good to see him get experience on the inside. Although, we must factor in that Tim Kelly and Luke Shuey weren’t playing in this game so I’m not sure if we’ll see this continue.
Regardless of role, we know that Luke Edwards was a big fantasy scorer as a junior so it’s good to see him getting a run at the senior level. Hopefully, it continues and he shows some signs of being the fantasy scorer we know he has the potential to be.
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
