Dig down a little. This season so far, six games, is a very small sample, but already the trend line is there.
A mate (not a Freo supporter) and I track umpiring stats pretty closely - he's got stats-related qualifications – and his view is that getting 56 per cent or more of frees awarded in a game means two things;
i. It's outside the margins of random distribution of frees – something other than chance is at play; and
ii. The uneven distribution of frees becomes a factor - sometimes a determining factor - in the outcome of games.
One reason for that is that, in nearly all cases, a free kick determines the result of a contest; add to that the effect of the new 10-metre exclusion zone that makes the advantage of a mark or free kick far greater than it was previously, and each free kick becomes both a contested possession and, potentially at least, a very effective one.
Our argument is that once the differential in free kicks becomes greater than 56 v 44 per cent (say, for example 26 frees to 20) you are, in effect, adding an extra player to one team.
Now the Eagles this year are running at 55.8 per cent over their six games - in effect, on average, going in with an extra player. That's a little misleading (although instructive) – it's better to say that there was an "extra player" in four of their six games - for the Eagles against St Kilda, Sydney and Freo, for the opposition against Hawthorn.
The most egregious example was the Eagles game against St Kilda where that "extra" player won 15 contested possessions! He was, without doubt, among the best players on the field - never got tired, played at both ends of the ground. If you're looking for a reason why the Saints were finally over-run, look no further than the fact that they were paying against 19 men all day, and the extra man was in great form.
In Freo's six games we have an extra player once, against Geelong (barely), and our opponents have had one twice, against Melbourne and West Coast.
