By The Numbers | Round 6

Peel slumped to their sixth straight loss in the shortened 2020 WAFL season as they were defeated by Swans by 29 points last week.

These are some of the standout numbers from another tough day at the office for a young Thunder side.

Photo by Dana Jolliffe, 22^nd August, 2020. Curtin University.

3 

BEHINDS – Livewire forward Blair Bell couldn’t get the radar online during Saturday’s loss, failing to kick a goal yet kicking three behinds. Those three behinds tied a career high for Bell who has kicked three behinds in a game four times in his career. This was the first time in those four games though that Bell failed to score a goal when kicking three behinds. Those three behinds were a season high by an individual Peel player in a match in 2020.

4

30 STREAK – For the fourth game in succession Peel finishing with a final score in the thirties. This is the first time in Peel’s history that the Thunder have failed to pass 40 points in four straight games, with the final score of 4.9.(33) being the club’s lowest score in over 12 months dating back to August 17, 2019 when the Thunder scored 3.10.(28) against West Coast Eagles WAFL

7

SCORE INVOLVEMENTS – Peel Colts Grand Final player Jack Sears had a career day on Saturday, finishing with a team high seven score involvements. After kicking his first goal last week, Sears added another goal on Saturday to take his career tally to two. Sears also had career highs in tackles, inside 50 entries and free kicks during the game with Swans, showing more promising signs from the Thunder youth.

13 

HANDBALL RECEIVES – Jackson Merrett constantly found himself in the right spots, to lead Peel with 13 handball receives during Saturday’s game. James Sturrock was another to constantly put himself in a position to receive as he collected 10 handball receives for the game amongst his 21 disposals. 

15 

SPOILS – Key Peel defensive duo Josh Bootsma and Lachlan Cullen combined for 15 spoils in Saturday’s match. This effort by the two Thunder defenders equated to over half of the team’s 25 spoils on the day. While the veteran Bootsma has been doing this for a career, the ongoing development of Cullen down back has been a bright spot for the Peel side.

16

KICKS – Michael Randall continued to prefer to dispose by foot in Saturday’s game as he finished with 16 kicks and only two handballs in his 18 disposals. Across the season Randall has had 82 kicks as opposed to just 14 handballs. His kick ratio of 85% is the highest for the Thunder and highest across the entire WAFL in 2020 so far.

26

DISPOSALS – Hard working midfielder Jackson Merrett led the Thunder with 26 disposals against Swans. This was his second highest disposal count of the year, previously having 31 against West Perth in Round Three. Fellow midfielder Ben Hancock had 25 disposals, which was the highest disposal count by a Thunder player in 2020 not named Jackson Merrett.

33

POINTS – Peel led Saturday’s match in red-time of the third quarter, but were left to rue a lapse either side of three quarter time where Swans piled on 33 unanswered points, kicking five goals in that blitz. With a final margin of 29 points, it was this run by Swans that was the ultimate difference in the match.

36

CLEARANCES – One strength of the Peel performance at the weekend was in the clearances where they outpointed their opponents by five, 36-31. This came despite losing the hit-out count by 25 and indicated some strong work by the inside midfielders and ruck division for the Thunder.

60

DISPOSAL EFFICIENCY – After being a strength of the Peel game in recent weeks, Peel struggled with their disposal efficiency converting at only 60% in Saturday’s game, compared to their opponents 68%. The usually reliable Josh Bootsma converted at only 44% while Brad Holmes disposal efficiency was only 17%. 

69

TACKLES – One feature of the Peel game on Saturday was the tackling pressure as the Thunder laid 69 tackles, some 27 more than their opponents. Ben Howlett, Ben Middleton and Brad McGowan all laid seven tackles. For McGowan and Middleton these seven tackles each represented a career high. For Middleton, he over doubled up his career tackle count having only had five tackles in his previous five games.

263 

TEAM DISPOSALS – Peel finished Saturday’s match with 263 disposals for the game, which was their most in a match in 2020. Half the team collected at least 10 disposals in the game. Peel have lost the disposal count in every match so far in 2020.