Why the Tigers' win over the Blues rates as one of the biggest AFL upsets in recent memory

The unexpected nature of the Tigers' 13-point win over the Blues makes it one of their most famous victories of the past decade, which is saying a lot considering the club has claimed three flags in that time frame.

At one point during last Thursday night's match at the MCG, the Blues were not only in control but had their fans wondering how large the winning margin would be.

"To be in the position that we were in early in the match and give up that lead, I couldn't be more disappointed," Blues coach Michael Voss said after the match.

In raw terms, it was one of the biggest upsets in recent memory.

But how did the Tigers win and what similarities did the result have to other recent AFL upsets?

Good kicking is good footy

Of all the kicks in footy, one stands out as clearly the most important: the shot on goal.

Many were quick to point out the impact on goal-kicking after the Tigers-Blues match, none quicker than Richmond coach Adem Yze.

"Honestly … we lost on expected score," Yze said.

"So we've just won a different way today. But we've just got to get better defence."

Only the scoreboard truly matters in the footy world. But when looking at how teams played, the scoreboard sometimes obscures underlying truths.

There are two words hidden in Yze's response that many inside football treat as a guiding light: expected score.

That's the measure of shot quality adjusted for location, how the ball was gathered and how the kick was taken.

In other terms, it's how well a team plays before the final kick towards goal.

ABC Sport has looked at the 42 biggest upsets in the past four seasons. These are the match-ups where the winning underdog had a chance of victory of less than 25 per cent before the match started.

In these matches, the team favoured to win shot worse than their vanquishers three-quarters of the time.

Often it was conversion that cost the favourite the match, with a slight majority of those close "underdog wins" flipped by their opponent's relatively poor shooting.

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The Tigers scored 21 more points than expected against the Blues, largely a result of unlikely snags such as Toby Nankervis's above.

By contrast, Carlton converted less accurately than expected. According to wheeloratings.com, the 27-point expected score spread is likely to end in a Blues victory 80 per cent of the time.

That doesn't diminish Richmond's effort, but it does place context around the general flow of play and points out a big indicator of how some upsets emerge.

Chaos creates opportunity

One way good teams control matches is to play them on their terms.

There's more than one way to win a footy match, but most teams have a preferred way to do it.

A hallmark of control is holding the ball behind the mark. Controlling the ball can take teams out of a match. Maintaining possession through marks is a classic way for good teams to exert their dominance.

It stands to reason that a more chaotic game can open up the chances for an upset.

The easiest — albeit slightly imperfect — way to measure this is by looking at the total number of ground balls won by both teams against the number of total marks.

A match where an unlikely upset occurs will tend to have a little more chaos about it than either side's typical game.

Similarly, favourites in the biggest upsets can be forced into a more chaotic game than they would like.

In the Tigers' victory over the Blues, their ascendancy came as the ball started to spill to the deck more.

As Carlton lost the ability to soak up pressure and smoothly progress the ball down the field, the upset became more likely.

The stress release of a slow march up the ground ending in a score was removed by hyperactive Richmond defence, ultimately leaving Carlton frustrated.

"As the game went, you could see Richmond clearly were gathering more energy," Voss said.

"Sometimes you just have to stay in that fight when things aren't working for you."

Pressure and territory

Most coaches like to explain two things when given the chance: pressure and territory.

If you get the ball up your end more often than the other team, then you have a fair chance of winning. If you can't do that, make sure you limit the scoring chances from those inside-50 entries.

Getting more inside 50s than your opponent matches up strongly with victory in most games. Territory is not only a key part of how teams score but also how they prevent opposition goals.

In big upset wins, though, that relationship partially breaks down.

In upsets, the underdogs are usually still burdened with a deficit of territory to overcome. That means the second part of the picture — pressure — is so important.

In the last few years, teams generally raise their tackle efforts in wins compared to other matches.

But the biggest upsets see a higher rate of tackles for the victors than in ordinary games. This likely contributes to a drop in accuracy and efficiency when going inside 50.

"We play full team defence, so our forwards were really important in that and we played a really strong — [it] looked like we played a strong — brand on defence," Yze said after the win over the Blues.

The Tigers brought the pressure as the match wore on, just as they brought more of the game to the ground. Whenever the Blues got the ball, it seemed they were surrounded by an ambush of Tigers.

In the last quarter, the Blues managed 19 inside 50s to just eight from the Tigers. They had the ball in their half 83 per cent of the time in the last 20 minutes but lost the match in that period.

Across the entire match, the Tigers had 25 fewer inside 50s than the Blues but managed to lay six more tackles, evidence of the push-pull on display.

Is it sustainable?

Carlton and Richmond fans will frantically try to understand if round one suggests a bigger change in fortunes, or if it's just a lightning strike of good — or bad — luck.

An interesting picture emerges from the 25 biggest early-season upsets in recent years. While plenty were just blips without bigger meaning, quite a few turned out to be "false" upsets.

Some were an early sign of rising strength and others indicated emerging struggles at an assumed contender.

Of those teams causing upsets, a quarter eventually finished higher than the fancied opponent on the ladder, and only one-third of the time did the ladder gap between the two sides surpass five wins.

Some concern from Carlton fans might be well held as only half of the early-beaten favourites finished the season with winning records.

Storied collapses like Fremantle in 2016, Adelaide in 2018 and Melbourne in 2019 were signalled by early boilovers. So too were rises to finals by Collingwood in 2018 and Sydney in 2021.

Carlton has also lived this story before.

In early 2012, the Blues were brought back to earth by Essendon in a match widely assumed to be a foregone conclusion.

Months later, both sides were all square on the ladder and Carlton parted ways with Brett Ratten after the season.

Carlton's 2012 campaign also saw another boilover when they lost to the Suns, who collected just their third win of the season.

And you'd be right if you thought that the start of the season was the most likely place to see big upsets.

However, early-season upsets usually aren't as big in nature as what we saw last week. The frequency of upsets drops off as the season unfolds.

Footy is forever unpredictable and the truly out-of-the-box results never go away. Wild upsets can happen anytime, but they peak in the third quarter of the season.

For Carlton fans, they'll be hoping last week was a glitch, while their Richmond counterparts will cling to the belief this was the first sign of their next premiership team.

For all neutral footy fans who love a surprise, they just hope another big upset is around the corner.

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