AFL Scorigamis
While origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into different objects, shapes, and animals, scorigami (a portmanteau of score and origami) is a scoring combination that has never happened before in a sport or leagues history. Jon Bois, a sportswriter for the National Football League, is credited with coining the term in 2016.
AFL scorigamis were discussed in Episode 3 of the Useless AFL Stats podcast, where stats guru Liam Crowhurst was tasked with finding out how many scorigamis West Coast have had in the 2023 season, where they have been on the end of some very one-sided losses.
Scorigamis have been represented in at least two different ways in the AFL. The first is by the final team score, which mirrors how scorigamis have been used since Bois first introduced the term. There’s a great Twitter (X?) page, AFL scorigami, that reports on all AFL games. The second is looking at the combination of goals and behinds scored, which the Useless AFL Stats team have previously reported on.
I’ve gone and done Liam’s homework again this week, so let’s dive into what I’ve found.
Method 1: Final team score
West Coast have been involved in five of the 25 scorigamis to date this season (Table 1).
Table 1: Scorigamis involving West Coast in 2023 (to Round 19)
| Round | Opponent | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | Carlton | 152-44 |
| 10 | Hawthorn | 142-26 |
| 13 | Adelaide | 174-52 |
| 15 | Sydney | 205-34 |
| 17 | Brisbane Lions | 116-35 |
While this might sound impressive, Gold Coast and Sydney have also been involved in five scorigamis this year – meaning there is a three-way tie for the lead. However, this may change come the end of the season. Essendon is the only team not to be involved in a scorigami in 2023, at the time of writing (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Scorigamis by club in 2023 (to Round 19)
Carlton holds the all-time record for the most scorigami involvements (1163, Table 2), closely followed by Essendon (1139), Geelong (1137), and Collingwood (1132). It’s not surprising that the ‘older’ clubs have much higher totals compared to newer/expansion clubs, such as GWS, Gold Coast, Port Adelaide, and Fremantle.
Table 2: All-time scorigamis by club (to Round 19, 2023)
| Team | Scorigamis | Most recent scorigami |
|---|---|---|
| Adelaide | 161 | R13, 2023 v West Coast (174-52) |
| Brisbane Bears | 84 | SF, 1996 v Carlton (170-73) |
| Brisbane Lions | 131 | R17, 2023 v West Coast (134-53) |
| Carlton | 1163 | R17, 2023 v Fremantle (98-45) |
| Collingwood | 1132 | R16, 2023 v Gold Coast (120-42) |
| Essendon | 1139 | R22, 2022 v Port Adelaide (146-62) |
| Fitzroy | 1003 | R22, 1996 v Fremantle (157-71) |
| Fremantle | 109 | R17, 2023 v Carlton (98-45) |
| Geelong | 1137 | R17, 2023 v North Melbourne (125-63) |
| Gold Coast | 52 | R16, 2023 v Collingwood (120-42) |
| Greater Western Sydney | 51 | R16, 2023 v Melbourne (47-45) |
| Hawthorn | 791 | R15, 2023 v Gold Coast (101-34) |
| Melbourne | 1113 | R17, 2023 v Greater Western Sydney (47-45) |
| North Melbourne | 796 | R17, 2023 v Geelong (125-63) |
| Port Adelaide | 102 | R12, 2023 v Hawthorn (151-96) |
| Richmond | 1013 | R16, 2023 v Brisbane Lions (134-53) |
| St Kilda | 1057 | R2, 2023 v Western Bulldogs (92-41) |
| Sydney | 1126 | R15, 2023 v West Coast (205-34) |
| University | 103 | R18, 1914 v St Kilda (93-52) |
| West Coast | 198 | R17, 2023 v Brisbane Lions (116-35) |
| Western Bulldogs | 703 | R6, 2023 v Fremantle (118-69) |
It’s also not surprising that the number of scorigamis per year has been trending down over time, especially from the highest number of scorigamis (which occurred in 1979, with 83).
Figure 2: Scorigamis by season (to Round 19, 2023)
Method 2: Goals and behinds
This was deemed to be the less interesting of the two methods by the Useless AFL Stats boys, so I haven’t done as much of a deep dive into this one.
West Coast have five instances of this type of scorigami, but none of them were this year:
- Round 3, 1988 – 29.18.192 versus Brisbane Bears
- Round 20, 1992 – 29.12.186 versus Brisbane Bears
- Round 4, 2012 – 5.21.51 versus Hawthorn
- Round 18, 2012 – 28.7.175 versus Brisbane Lions
- Round 8, 2020 – 18.3.111 versus Collingwood
The Eagles’ total of five puts them 14th on the all-time club scorigami list, well short of top-of-the-table Collingwood’s 102 (Table 3). Gold Coast and GWS have never kicked a unique combination of goals and behinds.
Table 3: All-time (goals/behinds) scorigamis by club (to Round 19, 2023)
| Team | Scorigamis |
|---|---|
| Collingwood | 102 |
| Carlton | 92 |
| Essendon | 87 |
| Geelong | 84 |
| Fitzroy | 72 |
| Melbourne | 67 |
| Sydney | 62 |
| Richmond | 50 |
| St Kilda | 46 |
| Hawthorn | 41 |
| North Melbourne | 16 |
| Western Bulldogs | 7 |
| Adelaide | 6 |
| West Coast | 5 |
| Brisbane Lions | 3 |
| University | 3 |
| Brisbane Bears | 2 |
| Fremantle | 2 |
There have been 747 unique combinations of goals and behinds scored by each team in a game of AFL football. Click here for a list of the first time each unique combination occurred.
Thanks to Liam for copying my answer again on Episode 4 of the podcast. As always, apologies to anyone who has already looked at this stat!