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.
Willem Drew
Much to the disgust of many fantasy coaches this week, Willem Drew did a job on Christian Petracca.
Like last week with Andrew McGrath, Drew was sent to 83% of the centre bounces to mark the 2021 Norm Smith medallist and did a fantastic job. When you compare this to Drew’s season average of 55.5%, you’ll notice a 27.5% increase. On the back of this, Drew put up a fantasy score of 101 AFL Fantasy points.
We’ve seen Drew play similar roles before but it doesn’t always equate to good scoring. One of the major factors that helped him was his time-on-ground. This week, he played 88% of game time which was the first time he’s gone over 80% since round 17 last year.
Willem Drew will continue to be a roller coaster ride in fantasy, but he should be capable of some good scores depending on his role week-to-week.
Jai Newcombe
We think Hawthorn has plans for Jai Newcombe to be one of their main inside midfielders.
This year we’ve seen many Hawthorn midfielders dip in their CBA attendances, with players like Tom Mitchell (58% CBAs for Hawthorn in 2022) and James Worpel (49.8%) dropping their numbers this season.
Could the reason for this be they’re paving the way for the next crop to come through under Sam Mitchell’s tutelage?
Last year we heard rumours players like Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara were being shopped around to other clubs. The rise in Newcombe’s numbers could be a result of paving the way for him to be their next premier inside midfielder.
This is of course all speculation, and we have a lot to play out to see if it comes to fruition, but right now it seems like Newcombe is going to get plenty of opportunities this season.
Noah Anderson
This guy increased his CBA attendances by 50% on Sunday and put up a monster score of 112 AFL Fantasy points as a result.
Usually, Anderson plays more of an outside role for Gold Coast so it was encouraging to see him on the inside. What was also encouraging was the fact Gold Coast got the win so we could see it continue into the future.
However, I also feel the Gold Coast still haven’t figured out the exact roles they want their midfielders to play. Look at Matt Rowell for example – his role seems to change on a weekly basis.
So Anderson moving into a midfield role was nice to see, but I’m not sure if I trust it to happen on a weekly basis just yet.
Josh Ward
Last week we saw Josh Ward removed from a large number of centre bounce attendances.
In round 3, he attended a season-high 73% against Carlton and put up a respectable score (for a rookie) of 63. However, this week he only attended 18% of the CBAs and scored a putrid 27 points.
I’m not 100% sure why this happened, but last week on the podcast we flagged that the young midfielders at Hawthorn may tire at some stage resulting in them being rested whilst other midfielders get a bump.
This could be starting to happen right now, so monitor what happens at Hawthorn.
Harry Schoenberg
Last week’s match was a little concerning for Harry Schoenberg.
It was the first week we saw all of Rory Laird, Matt Crouch, Ben Keays and Rory Sloane in the same midfield.
Given what we saw in the pre-season, we thought Keays would be the one who suffered from this and would be forced to play more up forward. But when Laird got injured, Keays took the opportunity with both hands and played himself into a position where he couldn’t be removed from the Crow’s midfield.
Unfortunately, this might take its toll on Harry Schoenberg in the short term.
With all these midfielders playing in the same team, we saw Schoenberg’s CBAs dip by 45% from last week’s numbers and 25% on his overall season average.
However, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the long-term prospects of Harry Schoenberg. Sloane’s performance on the weekend indicated that is entering the twilight of his career and Matt Crouch was largely ineffective playing little time-on-ground, so there will be opportunities for Schoenberg going forward.
Kaes had tipped a breakout year for Schoenberg this season. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen, but I still think there’s plenty of upside for the future.
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
