DON'T go rushing to judgement.
Five rounds aren't enough for the AFL's coaching innovation and education manager David Rath to make too many firm statements on the influence of the game's nine new rules and interpretations.
However, he still had plenty to offer on this week's Trends podcast, where he joins AFL.com.au reporter Marc McGowan to discuss what he's seeing and what the numbers are really telling us.
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Rath contends that scoring off turnovers is still the name of the game despite the implementation of the '6-6-6' starting positions at centre bounces.
Teams are scoring an average of 48 points per match this year from turnovers – down slightly from 50.5 last year and 53 the season before – but only 16.7 per cent of turnovers are resulting in a score.
That is the lowest percentage Champion Data has ever recorded in that statistic.
For Rath, it's part of a wider development in the way clubs are moving the ball, including uncontested marks and defensive-half marks being at their highest level since 2010.
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"We have teams who will play faster and teams who will play slower, and sometimes teams will play faster in certain moments of the game and possess the ball more slowly in others," Rath told Trends.
"What we're seeing now is teams are being a bit more conservative a little more often and they're, perhaps, not thinking necessarily of scoring now but, perhaps, thinking of scoring next.
"So it's maximising their probability of scoring from that opportunity and not necessarily scoring in a hurry."
Rath, who was a key man behind the scenes in Hawthorn's four premierships between 2008 and 2015 before joining the AFL, also breaks down some of footy's most complex jargon.
Trends is a podcast for the hardcore and average football fan who wants to learn more about what they're watching each weekend.
Podcast summary
1:05: How much should we read into the early trends?
2:05: Traditional statistics aren't stacking up anymore
4:09: Ten weeks of data is the magic number
5:20: The interaction between attack and defence
7:59: The modern game is still a turnover game
9:57: Why certain clubs are thriving in the new centre-bounce system
12:17: No dominant strategy has emerged at centre bounces
14:40: Breaking down footy's complex jargon
17:52: Why was 'Clarko's Cluster' so successful?
