Ok, here's some more!
Average score has not really increased. If the rule changes were meant to be a revolution leading to more scores, this is looking like the Russian Revolution . . . of 1905!
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Average score in 2023 was 83.4, which is around the mark for the years 2018 to 2022, In 2017 the average was 89.1 and prior to that was around the high 80s. No prize there for the morons looking for more scoring.
Goals per game a similar story.
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As you can see, a drop after 2017 and pretty flat thereafter (note, this graph does include 2020, unlike most of the others).
A couple of other things I have looked at - we'll start with inside 50 efficiency, so here is what that looks like, scoring shots per inside 50 entry:
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Again drops after 2017 and does not recover.
It occurred to me that the game is always evolving in terms of possessions and scores, so I thought I'd look at Possessions per point scored, a simple measure but indicative - how many possessions does it take to score a point:
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So we are seeing more possessions needed for each score, which reflects the more defensive game these days. The rule changes have done nothing to help this, in fact, it is worse than ever if you take the AFL line that they want more scoring. If they want more scoring then their rule changes should have, and even look like they may have been aiming for, more efficiency in terms of more scores for a similar or lower number of possessions. Fail again.
DS
