Stats - Conversations with Aussie cab drivers, 1

I would suppose it's still a lucky country when you can spend almost the whole of a taxicab journey talking about footy.

On the way to the airport last week, the cabbie suddenly flicked the back of his hand contemptuously on a page of The Australian: 'Look at this joker,' he said, referring to a photograph of one of the columnists. 'All he ever talks about is the Melbourne teams. There are seven interstate teams now. Bah!' He slammed shut the paper - as much as you can slam shut a broadsheet.

'I was listening to some of these blokes from interstate the other week,' he said, 'the Adelaide game - and they were going on: "Cogden this, Jurezicz that*". So I had a look at the stats come Monday.' He reopens the paper to the stats page and flicks his finger at the rundown of the weekend's AFL games. 'And yeah, Cogden 24 disposals, Jurezicz 25. That's good. But when I looked at our blokes - Bartocchio 23, Iveson 22. That's a pretty even match. But you wouldna known it from their commentary. I mean, you gotta go to the stats.' He's pointing to that page in The Australian again.

'And you know, you can see there where a game changes quarter by quarter. Look at this,' he pointed to some handball tables. 'First quarter: Carlton 38, Richmond 36; second quarter: Carlton 45; Richmond 39; third quarter: Carlton 41, Richmond 62* - they ran away with it.'

'But the stats can lie, too,' he conceded. 'You might have 17 handballs and none of them make their mark. Or five shots for goal and they're all out on the full.'

The cabbie told me there is a company that compiles stats for the AFL [Australian Football League] - they collect something like 53 different stats. I was thrilled by the amount of analysis you can apply to football and, actually, how much of the game is re-liveable.

The airport came up. I remembered how we'd started our journey with the cabbie complaining about the slim pickings so far this morning. As I gave him his fare, I attempted a light signoff remark. 'Oh well, you've had a fare to the airport to make up for the slow morning,' I said.

'Suppose so,' he said, flipping the paper over to the front page. 'Economy's buggered but.'


* Not real names (I can't remember the names).
* Fictional game (I'd have to have another look at the stats).