Stats Insider: What’s The Magic Number To Guarantee Victory?

Since 2009, when Champion Data first started capturing in-depth match statistics for Australia’s national netball league, there have been an average of 110.8 centre passes per match.

Therefore if a team can score more than 55.4 goals a game, it gives them a very good chance of winning.

But in 2018 these figures are even higher.

In 2018, Suncorp Super Netball is producing fast, action-packed play and the score averages have ballooned as a result.

So far this season there have been an average of 118.9 centre passes in a game -a huge 8.1 more than the 10-year average. Based on the fact netball is unique with alternate possession, if all things are equal a team that converts every centre pass (59.5 – half of 118.9) only needs to score one goal from an opposition turnover to win.

Unlucky Losers

Out of the 32 games played this season, there has only been six occasions when a team has scored more than 59.5 goals has gone on to lose. This means 81.3% of the time when teams score over 59.5 goals they win.

Only three teams are scoring above 59.5 goals per game.  The ladder leading West Coast Fever are actually scoring 5.6 goals more, and 3.2 goals better per game than any other team.

Convert Your Way To Victory

In terms of converting their own centre passes to goal, the Melbourne Vixens are the best at it. They are currently converting 73.6% of their own centre passes to a goal (359 goals from 488 centre passes). The next best are the Fever with 73.1% (375 goals from 513 centre passes), the Firebirds with 72.6% (340 goals from 468 centre passes) and the Lightning with 71.5% (318 goals from 445 centre passes). Any team converting more than 70% of their own centre passes is giving itself the best chance to win.

The Fever’s 73.1% translates into 46.9 goals per game from their own centre pass. This means they only need to score 12.6 goals from a gain or an opposition turnover to give themselves an 81.3% chance of winning. To ensure victory, they only need to convert 16.1 turnovers to reach an even more magical number of 63 goals in a game.

What’s The Magic Number?

Further to the 59.5 centre pass goals needed for an 81.3% winning percentage, since the beginning of 2017 no team has ever been beaten when it has scored 63 goals or more.

That’s 31 times a team has hit at least 63 goals – with victory occurring every time.

This season there have been 17 games when a team has scored 63 or more. The Fever have scored over 63 on five occasions and the Vixens four times. Last season’s premiers the Lightning have only scored 63 goals in a game once this season.

Who’s Dropped Away?

Due to the fact that more goals are being scored across the entire competition, you would think that most, if not all teams, would be scoring more goals per game. This is mostly true, however there are two teams that are actually scoring less this season.

And it’s not who you might think.

Last season’s premiers the Lightning are scoring 1.4 less goals in 2018 and last season’s minor premiers the Vixens are scoring 0.2 less goals.

The Fever are scoring a massive 16.4 more goals in 2018. The winless Thunderbirds are also doing much better in 2018, scoring 4.6 extra goals per game. This places them third for scoring improvement. But while the Thunderbirds have increased their scoring output, unfortunately so have five other teams.