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.
Jed Anderson
After a dire return to AFL football, Jed Anderson put up a half-decent score against Port Adelaide in Hobart.
The catalyst for this was his return to the midfield. He attended 15 centre bounces which were 56% of the overall attendance for the Kangaroos and ended up with an AFL Fantasy score of 71. Whilst it’s not a massive score by his standards, it’s a fieldable one in keeper league teams given you can play him in your forward line.
Another interesting fact is Jed Anderson only had one tackle on the weekend. As a sole inside midfielder, he usually racks up high tackle numbers so this probably indicates he’s still struggling with fitness. But if he were able to play his usual game, his fantasy score should have been higher.
So does this mean Jed Anderson is back?
Well, it’s hard to say.
As mentioned, it looked to me that he still hasn’t quite built the tank to return to being a full-time midfielder. Also, Jy Simpkin and Hugh Greenwood were out of this game, so this provided more midfield opportunities. Who knows what his role would have been if those two weren’t missing?
However, if Jason Horne-Francis will be out for an extended period with his hamstring, there’s every chance Anderson absorbs his numbers and gets a reasonable run in the midfield over the next couple of weeks.
Greg Clark
After pumping out a massive score in his first game, Greg Clark could only back it up with a score of 61 in his second outing for the West Coast Eagles.
In his first game, he played more of an outside role on a wing before featuring at the centre bounces later on in the game. In this game, he played a lot more inside midfield time going to 72% of the centre bounces for West Coast. You would assume this would be better for fantasy scoring, but not in this case.
Clark was given a ‘run with’ role on Christian Petracca who was best-on-ground by a country mile. So it’s safe to say that this role didn’t suit him. As he needed to be minding Petracca around the ground, he wasn’t able to go and win his own pill.
It’s worrying signs for Clark and his prospects in the Eagles’ midfield, but given it’s his second game, it’s not quite panic stations yet.
Hopefully, he can be freed up in the coming weeks and put up some good scores.
Will Day
I didn’t see this game, but this one really surprised me.
On Saturday afternoon, a struggling Hawthorn team sent Will Day to 12 centre bounces which equated to 34% of the team’s centre bounce attendances.
I’m not really sure why this happened, as Will Day very much strikes me as an outside player and not the type you’d typically see on the inside. But I assume it had something to do with his kicking ability and trying out a quality user on the midfield.
For a player that doesn’t suit this kind of role, I thought his fantasy scoring would be putrid, but he managed to put up a respectable score of 71 which you’d take in most back lines.
Do I think this will continue?
Probably not, but it’s hard to tell with Hawthorn’s midfield at the moment. They seem to be more focused on developing players than winning games so there’s a chance that Will Day sees a bit more midfield time. However, I think he’s better suited to a wing or half-back role so we’ll likely see him back there soon.
Watch the role with interest though. If it continues, we could see a slight bump.
Cam Zurhaar
Kaes and I have been talking about this guy for years.
He’s an absolute bull on the field and we’ve always said we’d like to see him in the guts at some stage as an enforcer.
He scored 83 points on the weekend and that’s mostly because he kicked three goals to pump up his score, but it was great to see him get a run in the midfield.
He attended 5 centre bounces (19% of CBAs for the game) after not registering an attendance since round 3 and only averaging 4% of the CBAs for North Melbourne this year. As a result of this minor CBA bump, we saw a few possessions added to his tally which helped his score.
As I said earlier, there were quite a few midfielders missing in this game so he may have just been used out of necessity, but if he can score a pinch-hitting role in the midfield in the future, he could produce some decent scores for us as a forward.
Jacob Koschitzke
This one is an unlikely name to feature in the weekly CBA article, but here we are.
With Ben McEvoy and Ned Reeves out for extended periods, the Hawks are running with Max Lynch as their number one ruck. As we’ve stated on the podcast numerous times, it doesn’t look like Lynch has the ability to run out full games. Also, he’s often spending time off the ground due to various injury concerns.
Last weekend was no different with Lynch coming under another injury cloud during the game, meaning Koschitzke went into the ruck.
As a result, Koschitzke attended 14 centre bounces and put up a fantasy score of 85 points. However, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. In round 5 when Ned Reeves got injured, Koschitzke rucked the remainder of the game as cover. In recent weeks, Conor Nash has been used as the backup ruck but doesn’t register many hit-outs so his efficiency in this role is questionable. This tells me he’s the next in line to cover the ruck role when Reeves, McEvoy and Lynch are all injured (which is an unlikely but entirely possible situation).
So whilst I wouldn’t be getting excited over this one, he might become a good streaming option for a few weeks if Lynch goes down.
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
