In round one there were 220 set shots at goal and the conversion rate was 58.2 percent.
That means about 41.8 per cent of the time, players missed goals from set shots. Many were crucial shots but none carried the intense, knee-wobbling pressure McIntosh's did.
That pressure comes because we ascribe a value to each shot at goal, whether we realise it or not.
If a statistician were to assign a value to McIntosh's goal according to how much the score changes the team's chance of winning the game (a definition Matt Goldman and Justin Rao devised in recent research relating to basketball scoring presented at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference) it would receive the maximum points.
If he kicks a goal, the team wins.
McIntosh's shot at goal was easy to value. But how many times has a commentator reflected our thoughts during the game with the words: "this is an important goal". Yet can anyone measure how important it is?
Truth is, assessing the value of set shots becomes more about perception the further the kick gets from the final siren.
You could argue that the set shots Travis Cloke and Chris Dawes missed early in Friday night's game were nearly as costly as McIntosh's effort.
Logically there was little difference between the misses, except the immediate impact of one kick as opposed to the others.
Collingwood had the ball in its forward half for eight minutes and 45 seconds longer than the Hawks in the first quarter and kicked two goals, seven behinds. Dawes and Cloke kicked three behinds from set shots. The Magpies took a one-goal lead into quarter time. Costly? You bet.
Kicking behinds obviously keeps the ball down one end of the ground but time in the forward half also signals ascendancy in play.
Take that advantage or pay.
Cloke, Dawes, McIntosh, Tom Rockliff, even 'Buddy' Franklin were set-shot culprits on the weekend. Only McIntosh held a press conference to explain what happened.
Of course, McIntosh said he was happy with his routine but he missed: "Hopefully next time if I get into that position I can kick the goal."
Hopefully? Hopefully he learns from the experience thinking of it more as an opportunity get better rather than a mistake to dwell on.
On a spectacular weekend of football, set shot accuracy was down compared to the competition average in 2011 (from 61.5 percent in 2011 to 58.2 percent in round one).
Why the drop?
It could be the round one factors of fatigue, concentration and renewed pressure all kicking in.
Or perhaps it was just a statistical quirk.
Because although debates about set-shot accuracy emerge at the start of every year, we know set-shot accuracy generally returns to the mean of around 60 percent as the season progresses.
This is no comfort to Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon supporters who watched their teams convert at below 42 per cent from set shots to open the season.
The changing game provides some answers why.
In the late 1960s and early '70s, Peter Hudson used to kick about 40 per cent of Hawthorn's goals at about 69 per cent accuracy.
In round one this year, 40 per cent of players kicked a goal with overall accuracy at 52 per cent. That was better than last season's round one overall accuracy of 50 per cent.
More players kicking at goal is likely to lead to more variable numbers.
Different types of players are spending time forward too as clubs rotate players through different parts of the ground to get a breather: Jarryd Blair, Matthew Leuenberger, Grant Birchall and Josh Kennedy all kicked goals on the weekend.
So McIntosh joins Adam Goodes and Robert Warnock as big men to have missed critical goals at that end of Etihad in recent times.
While he might have felt alone when the ball sailed right of the post, he's got plenty of company.
They're not easy to kick. That's what makes set shots so important.
Notes
There were a few other early indicators from round one but we think it's too early to tell whether they are a round one aberration or indicative of a trend.
- In round one there was an average of 131 interchanges per team per game compared to 110 per team per game in round one, 2011.
- The number of players on the ground for 100 percent of the time declined from 11 in round one 2011 to just seven (from just four clubs) this season. And remember, that lower figure comes even though one extra game per round is being played.
- Scoring was up. Two more goals per team per game (14.5 compared to 12.62) were scored compared to round one last year.
- There were 55 scoring shots per game compared to 50 in the same round last year.
Stats supplied by Champion Data
