Trends with Marc McGowan - an AFL podcast

Understanding how player interactions impact sporting success can be a complex process, but it's a topic Deakin University PhD candidate Chris Young has tackled at length. Young's study sets about proving why the most successful teams are also commonly the ones that work best as a collective. It might seem commonsense but Young's research means coaches can remove the guesswork on this subject.

From playing in the TAC Cup alongside Josh Gibson and Andrew Carrazzo to coaching the Canadian national team and interviewing the sharpest minds in world sport, Cody Royle leads a fascinating life. Royle is now an author, podcast host and international keynote speaker who has extensively researched what gives the world's leading sports teams, including the New England Patriots, their competitive advantage. Within that work, he believes there are four key puzzle pieces that lead to sustained success.

The AFL finals are upon us and everyone has an opinion on how this week's four matches will go. But setting aside all of our biases, what do the raw numbers tell us? Champion Data analyst Corey Mobilio has run his eyes over the key statistics to deliver you the ultimate finals preview.

Seth Partnow spent three seasons as the Milwaukee Bucks' director of basketball research before accepting a job this year with media juggernaut The Athletic. He rose from part-time blogger to in-demand NBA analyst, using his deep analytics knowledge to develop on-court and recruiting strategies for the Bucks. And he knows more about Australian football than you might think.

There aren't many people better positioned to discuss the structures in place to produce future AFL draftees than Ryan O'Keefe. The ex-Swan came through the then-TAC Cup competition and transformed himself into an AFL star, before working in development coaching at Adelaide and now being in charge of the Western Jets' under-18 program. O'Keefe has firm beliefs on how the system can work better and what can make the next batch of footballers a greater success.

Daniel Giansiracusa has transitioned from Western Bulldogs playing great, to one of Luke Beveridge's coaching lieutenants, to now being in charge of the club's VFL team. There have been challenges at every stop, but the man they call 'Gia' had a line-in-the-sand moment before his coaching hat went on that set him on the right path.

Whether you're organising the backline or telling the forwards what to do, outsiders might think every coaching job is the same. St Kilda assistant Henry Playfair quickly discovered otherwise. He started his coaching journey overseeing Sydney's forward line before later switching his attention to the other end of the ground. Throughout those experiences, Playfair learned the value of understanding a player's personality before even thinking of the practical elements.

The AFL's new kick-in rule has largely gone under the radar compared to the debate about the 6-6-6 starting positions. Teams are finding it harder to go inside 50 from a kick-in, and scores are down for the defensive and offensive team in that scenario, so have the changes failed? We speak to the AFL's game analysis and stakeholder manager Brett Munro on that topic, and we also explore the different ways teams are succeeding in season 2019.

Cohesion: the action or fact of forming a united whole. It's a word former Wallaby and Gain Line Analytics co-founder Ben Darwin has become an expert in as he challenges the way professional sporting teams chase success. The less teams change, the better they become, according to Darwin, with average players and even coaches often made to look greater in a cohesive environment. It's what Darwin calls the 'Melbourne Storm Mirage'.

When people hear the words virtual reality, they often relate them to video games. But this sophisticated technology actually has the potential to change the way elite athletes prepare. Damian Farrow, a former AIS skill acquisition specialist, is using VR to improve AFL umpires' decision-making and says it could also help footballers perform better in high-pressure moments on the field.

The importance of school football in the AFL pathway is all too often overlooked or downplayed. But one man who will never be accused of that is former AFL footballer and coach Robert Shaw, who coached Brighton Grammar to three premierships. Among his AFL graduates were top-10 draft picks Andy McGrath, Josh Kelly, Christian Salem and Jack Watts. Those players may have always made the grade, but Shaw was also able to help identify talented athletes from other sports, including McGrath, who are now on AFL lists.

Player tracking data is the AFL's next frontier, and Victoria University professor Sam Robertson is one of the country's leading experts in the area. He travels regularly to the United States to present at conferences and meet with the world's best sporting teams, giving him an insight into where Australia is behind - but also where we are leading the way.

Every football statistic you read and hear about comes from one source - Champion Data. The AFL's official number-cruncher has spent the past two decades giving great insight into the game and continually tries to make its offering more sophisticated. One of the key men at Champion Data is Karl Jackson who created the AFL Player Ratings system. Karl deals with clubs on a weekly basis to better understand their needs and develop stats that help them find an edge.

Leigh Adams played more than 100 games for North Melbourne, twice finished in the top five of the club's best and fairest, and was regarded as one of the competition's most courageous players. Sadly, he called time on his AFL career in 2015, after a fifth concussion within a year affected his mental health and left him with migraines and blurred vision. The silver lining to the premature end of his playing days is a burgeoning coaching career. At age 31, the man known as 'Patch' has already coached South Croydon to a premiership in the strong Eastern Football League, and is now in charge of VFL club Coburg.

The search for a competitive advantage in recruiting has seen AFL clubs increasingly turn to player analytics, although it still remains foreign to some. The idea is to remove bias from decision-making and to challenge the traditional thought process. The Adelaide Crows and their expert, Binuk Kodituwakku, are at the forefront of this development in the AFL.