The stat that suggests the last four weeks are crucial

CHAMPION Data’s Daniel Hoyne has revealed a statistic is crucial for premiership teams to tick off in the last month of the home and away season.

After looking at the data across the last decade, Hoyne found that each of the 10 premiers have a combined 35-5 win-loss record in their last four home and away games.

Hoyne believes that this shows sides must have their game in top shape in the month before finals if they’re hoping to win the premiership.

“What we’ve sort of come to the conclusion of is from here on, you’ve got five games to get your system in good shape,” Hoyne said on SEN Sportsday.

“If your game is not in good shape by round 20, pretty much forget about having a chance of winning the flag this year.

“Over the last 10 years, the last four home and away games, that’s a 40-game sample size, the eventual premiers have a 35-5 win-loss record.”

Hoyne went through all of the premiers dating back to Hawthorn in 2013 and revealed what their win-loss record was across the last month of the home and away season.

“You’ve got five games to go [to get it right],” he said. “Think of Geelong last year, they won their last four.

“Melbourne [in 2021 won their last four, Richmond won their last four [in 2020], Richmond in 2019 won their last four.

“West Coast [in 2018] were three and one, Richmond [in 2017] were three and one, the Dogs [in 2016] were three and one, Hawthorn were three and one [in 2015 and 2014] and four and zero [in 2013].”

Hoyne said that this formula suggested Geelong were likely to win the 2022 premiership given they were beginning their march before that all-important final month.

“Last year we were having a look at this and it basically led us to Geelong at round 16, round 17 thinking, ‘It is theirs to lose and if they lose this, we will be shocked, absolutely shocked’,” Hoyne said.

“If your game’s not in good shape over the next five weeks, forget about it.”

With all of the top four teams currently having areas of improvement in their game, Hoyne said now is the time for coaches to figure out how to get their team firing on all cylinders ahead of round 20.

“There’s just a couple of little things in each in each profile at the moment that just need to be tidied up.” he said. “You’ve got five weeks to do it.

“Whether that’s having a look at positional changes, whether that’s actually changing the way that you want to play slightly, now’s the time to do it.

“You do not want to be doing that from round 20 onwards because as history suggests, you will not have success at winning the flag.”

– LACHLAN GELEIT