There's been a bit of talk on this site about how, for alot of supporters, the past three years of the Floss Lyon era has been probably the least enjoyable time in our 24 years of supporting Freo.
It seems to most of us oldies that, even in the bad old days when Dan Parker was holding down a key defensive post and Darren Capewell was showing his wares on a half forward flank, we were not only more fun to watch but also more competitive. There was a sense that when it all came together (albeit rarely), we could beat almost anyone in the comp and we didn't consistently get flogged the way we have in recent years.
I started wondering if this was just selective memory or if things now really are as bad as they seem. So I looked back at the ladder over the past 24 years focusing not on wins and losses but rather percentage (how competitive were we over the season, even when we lost alot of games) and points scored (how fun were we to watch).
I'm sad to say that things are indeed as bad as they seem - our percentages in 2016 (74.3) and 2017 (74.4) are the worst in our club's history aside from the horror show year of 2001 (72.0) and also 2000 (72.0), when we won 8 games but lost a number of games by big margins. But even in those two years, we still still scored more (1886 pts and 1794 pts) than we did in 2016-17 (1574 pts and 1607 pts).
While our percentage this year is a little less sick than the previous two years (currently 80.3), we are on track to have our lowest scoring season of all time (1563 pts if our current scoring average holds).
So basically, if it feels to you like we get flogged more often than we used to, don't put teams away by big margins when things are going well like we used to, and can't kick goals to save our lives anymore, it's because it's true.
But how much of is this the fault of Floss Lyon's dour game plan? According to the stats, not entirely. We actually had our biggest percentage years in Floss' first four years 2012 - 2015 (ranging from 115.7 to 134.1) - higher than our previous finals appearance years in '03, '06 and '10. We also scored at a healthy rate in 2012-2014, averaging around 2000 pts per season which is up their with our best years apart from 2010 and (surprisingly) 2007 when we scored a bit higher.
But as we all know, something changed drastically in 2015. Even finishing on top we still found it hard to score and our total points plunged to 1857 pts, which is down near the lowest we had ever scored previously in a season, even during the dark Damian Drum years.
And it's all gone horribly, horribly wrong from there. So we're not deluding ourselves, this really is the most rubbish footy we've all been forced to watch in a long, long time.
