Five useless stats from Round 5

Thanks to our friends at Useless AFL Stats, we have you covered on all the latest quirky figures of footy.

STAFF WRITER | April 21, 2021 - 4:36pm

Its back for Round 5! Zero Hanger’s weekly ‘five useless stats’.

Every week Aaron Delaporte from Useless AFL Stats will take a look at the top five most useless, but captivating, statistics from the weekend.

Round 5 once again had us searching for the record books to see what stats had been toppled and here are the best of them.

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5. Slow starters best finishers

Round 5 saw a rather interesting pattern with six teams who weren’t leading at quarter time going on to win matches; namely Richmond, West Coast, GWS, Melbourne and Geelong - who all were behind at the first break whilst Fremantle, winners by 12pts, were level at quarter time with Adelaide.

This is just the 16^th time in history six teams have done this in a round with just Round 22, 1997 the sole occasion where seven teams who failed to lead at the quarter break went on to win.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - APRIL 11: Kysaiah Pickett of the Demons is congratulated by Christian Petracca and Alex Neal-Bullen after kicking a goal during the round four AFL match between the Melbourne Demons and the Geelong Cats at Melbourne Cricket Ground on April 11, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

The huge turnaround by Richmond getting home by 86pts after trailing by 1pt at the opening break may sound like its close to a record but it is actually way off. The same two teams played in Rd 16 1980 with the scores at 33-43 to St Kilda at quarter time before the Tigers came over the top to win 222-70.

The 152-point margin is the biggest ever recorded victory after being behind at the first break.

So just how common is it to win after trailing at quarter time you may ask? Of teams trailing at quarter time, 10351 have lost, 4923 won and 153 drawn - so 31.9% or roughly once every three games.

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