The game is littered with stats these days.  But there’s stats and then there’s stats.

While possessions, marks and tackles are important and easy to talk about, what about the more obscure stats?  Have you ever wondered who’s had the most footy-card style balks in a game?  What about crumbs, or marks fumbled?

Oh yes, there’s a stat for everything, and thanks to the research abilities of Freedom in a Cage podcast co-host Adi Brown, the answers are here.  (In order it’s Marc Murphy, Dayne Zorko and Cam McCarthy if you’re wondering).

Listen to all seven Freedom in a Cage episodes here, featuring Bont, Libba, Bevo and more.

But what obscure records do Bulldogs players hold? 

If you were watching the Dogs take on North Melbourne in Round 4 last season, you may not realise it, but you were indeed witnessing history.

While the Dogs won by three points, it could have been much more if Luke Dahlhaus’s work upfield had been rewarded more often, for on that night Dahlhaus recorded the highest ever total for ‘behind assists’.   

That is, assists that end up as behinds, and on this night, he had eight.

“That's a great stat,” co-host Bob Murphy said. “See, he's done a really good job there and they've kicked a point.”

“That's like bittersweet that one, his teammates let him down.  That's like six wickets where the slips dropped the catch.”

In other oddities, Wayde Skipper holds the record for most ‘ball up hitouts sharked’ (8), Scott West had the most ever ‘blocks’ in a game (8) and Luke Darcy’s 10 ‘ruck hard-ball gets’ in Round 3, 2002 against West Coast is also a record.

Episode 8 of Freedom in a Cage, featuring Sam Power, the Bulldogs General Manager of List and Recruiting, is available Thursday.  Listen and subscribe here.