Premiership coach Mick Malthouse has called for stats to be banned from coaching boxes.
In what would be a radical shift in game-day coaching, the West Coast and Collingwood premiership coach says stats are distorting the coaches’ view and believes a stat free environment would allow for better interpretation of what’s unfolding.
“I would ban stats from the coaches’ box and let coaches go on gut feel instead of looking at who’s had the last five possessions, how entries and how many of this and that,” Malthouse said on SEN Footy.
“Go on gut. Have a look at the game and coach on that performance.”
While advocating statistics as a weekly preparation tool to review and preview performances, the SEN footy analyst believes information overload, both statistical and verbal, can be detrimental to the decision-making process.
“There is room for info but you don’t want three (assistant coaches) giving you all different information,” he said.
“You don’t have time for debate in the coaches’ box during the course of a game. That can be done at halftime and during the week in the lead up. It’s a democracy for nine tenths of the week but for that two hours of the game you’ve got to be a despot.”
Malthouse’s comments are likely to raise eyebrows within the coaching community. Each club has designated IT staff stationed in the coaches box whose job it is to keep the statistical flow to various coaches fluid.
At any one time the senior or assistant coach will demand stats they feel are impacting the flow of the game, while they often enter quarter and three-quarter time huddles with stats sheets in hand.