Half season heroes: Analysing the in-form players heading into 2023

It seems logical doesn’t it – that player who dominated the back half of last season is certain to keep on rising – and you can get them at a discount too because of their poor first half! Well not so fast, let’s take a look historically at how well these picks have performed.

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Since 2015, let’s look at players:

• Aged 24 and under
• Lifted their average by 10 or more points in the second half of the season (H2)
• Average more than 95 in H2
• Played a nominal number of games in each half (at least 3 in H1, 7 in H2)
• Only averaged under 100 previously – i.e. haven’t broken out yet
• Remove any games with time on ground less than 50%

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How well did they do in the next season?

• Let’s call it a good pick if their season average is up 5% or more, bad if their season average is down 5% or more and neutral if in the middle.
• We get some interesting results: 14 bad picks (45%), 8 neutral picks (26%) and 9 good picks (29%). Not as good as I thought it would be …
• On average, this group was 15% down on their H2 average the year after and 3% down on their full season.
• Some examples of winners – Jordan Dawson in 2022 (100.2 to 109.5), Sam Walsh in 2021 (101.1 to 117), Josh Dunkley in 2019 (95.1 to 116.5) and James Sicily in 2018 (88.4 to 105.1).
• And some classic season destroyers – Tarryn Thomas in 2022 (95.3 to 54.4), James Worpel in 2020 (103.7 to 88.3), Jack Billings in 2018 (98.1 to 80.6) and Kade Kolodjashnij in 2016 (96.4 to 70.7).
• It seems easy in hindsight but the rule may be – don’t trust the half-season bump when they are a forward or a defender and be sceptical of the b-grade midfielders.
• Full list below!

This year’s crop

• We have some popular selections indeed! Plenty of teams will have multiple selections out of the below.
• The defenders are suspect to me – I am avoiding Redman, Richards and Rioli. It is also hard to trust Butters after the roller coaster ride of 2022.
• Rozee and Daicos look to be class, as evidenced by their 14 and 11 Brownlow votes – they could be the choice here. Just watch out for the tag.
• I couldn’t blame you for going Anderson or Davies-Uniacke either – but at a price tag of $550k, are they going to be top midfielders? And is the risk greater than the reward?

Full List