Has Jake Stringer already become a Bombers barometer?
It could be premature and the sample size is small as it has taken the former Western Bulldog some time to find his feet at Essendon, but his numbers from the first half of the season show a genuine spike in his team's wins.
They also reveal a changing role at the Bombers. It began with significant midfield time, was stripped back to nearly no time in the engine room for five weeks and in the past two rounds – which have been a couple of his best games for the club – Stringer has found a suitable balance between both areas of the ground.
The 24-year-old, who plays his 100th AFL game on Saturday night as Essendon takes on Richmond, averages more disposals, score involvements, tackles and contested possessions in the Bombers' wins compared to their losses.
He is averaging two times as many goals in Essendon's wins compared to its losses, plus having more clearances and groundball gets when the Bombers take home the four points.
There is a chicken-and-egg scenario to this – is Stringer playing better because Essendon is, or are the Bombers playing better because he has lifted? – but either way the club is pleased with its star recruit's return so far.
Essendon assistant coach Hayden Skipworth, who oversees the midfield group, said Stringer is putting in the work off the field and the past two weeks has started to reap some of the rewards.
"He does extra cross training three or four times a week with Paul Turk, one of the guys in charge of our high-performance program," Skipworth told AFL.com.au this week.
"That's a part of his weekly program – he jumps in the altitude chamber after main training sessions, does a swim, so he's continually working on his aerobic ability and we've seen his GPS [running results] still climbing upwards.
"He ran about 13.5km last week, which was his personal best ever. We're really happy with his progressions since he got here. He's still aware he's got work to do and areas to improve, but we can't be happier with the way he's improving."
Structurally Stringer's arrival has seen some trial and error for Essendon's coaching staff. The premiership Bulldogs forward trained with the midfielders over the pre-season in part to help him learn the stoppage craft, but also to surround Stringer with the club's best runners.
They didn't anticipate he would be playing the large majority of his game time in that position, but in the opening three rounds of the year Stringer spent on average 53.7 per cent of his time on the ground in the midfield.
The next five weeks, of which Essendon won one game (when Stringer kicked four goals against Port Adelaide), that figure dropped to 8.5 per cent of his game time as he stayed closer to goal. Against Carlton, the Bombers' worst loss of that period, he spent 100 per cent of his game time in the forward line.
Bombers coaching staff found he played his deep-forward role in a similar way to Cale Hooker, but Hooker's move to defence, coupled with Joe Daniher's injury, has allowed Stringer to have a better mix in attack and around the ball.
"For a few weeks there was a bit of 'suck it and see' where he fitted," Skipworth said.
Essendon sees things Stringer does that can go unnoticed, like the way he will go and stand in the 'hit zone' of a ruck contest when his team is under the pump at the stoppages. Or how he made Giants defender Heath Shaw more accountable in last week's win by dragging his man over to the free-wheeling backman to create a two-on-one contest.
The Bombers will continue to experiment with Stringer, who is the club's second leading goalkicker with 14 majors, but they know why they got him to the club at the end of last year and are confident he will produce what they were looking for.
"The reality is we know he can play forward and he's been an All Australian forward. But we had to replace midfielders [Brent] Stanton, [Craig] Bird, [Heath] Hocking, [Ben] Howlett and [Jobe] Watson and we didn't draft any inside midfielders, so he was available and we thought he could develop into being a forward who could play as an inside midfielder as well," he said.
"I'm not sure where it's going to get to, but hopefully in a few years he might be like Patrick Dangerfield and Dustin Martin and these type of guys who can play forward and on the ball and impact in both areas."
Jake Stringer's averages in Essendon's wins v losses (statistics supplied by Champion Data)
Wins Losses
Disposals 16.0 12.0
Score Involvements 6.0 5.0
Tackles 4.3 2.3
Contested Poss 10.3 6.0
Goals 2.0 1.0
Clearances 2.3 1.5
Groundball Gets 6.3 3.8
Player Rating Points 13.5 10.0
