Rugby Stats
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@tim personally don't take a hell of a lot of notice of stats as 1; they tell you bugger all and 2; there are so many different ones for same matches that don't match up, you wonder how they get counted by different stats keepers!
I find it better to watch a game of rugby (preferably live) and take notice of how players go. . Watch how quick a player gets off ground to be available to part of next play whether attack or defence.. We actually did a bit of a look at stats when I was coaching, and as a coaching group found them pretty useless in working out how good a player was. For tackles for instance, you could see a player had attempted and made say 6 tackles, but unless stats actually tell you if they were in a position to make difference etc doesn't help all that much, or whether the player actually had to move far to make tackles etc. They good for Joe Bloggs who doesn't really watch the game as a rule, but would never use tham as a tool for picking a team.
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@dan54 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@tim personally don't take a hell of a lot of notice of stats as 1; they tell you bugger all and 2; there are so many different ones for same matches that don't match up, you wonder how they get counted by different stats keepers!
I find it better to watch a game of rugby (preferably live) and take notice of how players go. . Watch how quick a player gets off ground to be available to part of next play whether attack or defence.. We actually did a bit of a look at stats when I was coaching, and as a coaching group found them pretty useless in working out how good a player was. For tackles for instance, you could see a player had attempted and made say 6 tackles, but unless stats actually tell you if they were in a position to make difference etc doesn't help all that much, or whether the player actually had to move far to make tackles etc. They good for Joe Bloggs who doesn't really watch the game as a rule, but would never use tham as a tool for picking a team.
I'm a data analyst, so I have to defend the use of stats, or I couldn't have any professional pride - albeit the defense will be closer to a muddled collection of thoughts, rather than a well laid out argument. But, aside from that, I also believe they are of huge value in most areas of life, particularly sport. Though I think it is important to note that we don't necessarily see a lot of the more important stats - though they are likely still collected and circulated to the coaching staff).
Our memories are far from perfect. We can't possibly process all the information we experience, so we use a bunch of shortcuts, which are usually pretty useful. However, these lead to a whole bunch of biases and flaws e.g. confirmation bias, where one looks to confirm information they already believe. The result being that intelligent, informed rugby viewers can see the same game, but come out with different opinions. Stats are an objective alternative that can be used in situations where people might disagree - e.g. if some people think Akira Ioane is lazy, and others disagree you can find stats to resolve this including tackles made, rucks hit, turnovers won, metres run without the ball and compare to other players in a similar position.
At some of the sport analytic conferences I've been to, the sport stat providers talked about how they had their own analysts who'd look at how closely particular stats would predict a win. They'd then try to market these to the sports writers/reporters... however, the reporters weren't really interested in going beyond the usual information we see (e.g. metres gained, tackle breaks). Which is probably why that's all that is available online. I know for AFL they record stats on 300 different areas, and I imagine it would be similar for rugby. So I agree, tackles made isn't a particularly informative stat on its own, but that doesn't mean that stats are useless - just that 'tackles made', on it's own, is not particularly useful. You could, for example, measure how fast it takes for each player to get off the ground, or how long it takes the halfback to get the ball into the hands of his 10. Sport stats providers can probably also do this more accurately than a coach with a clipboard can.
I'm also not sure if it necessarily matters that different companies come up with different stats for the same game. It is possible/probable that some of the more popular companies (e.g. Opta) worked with rugby teams to define what was considered a tackle, and have some strong in-house criteria, that might differ from other companies. Personally, as long as they'd consistently end up with similar figures after recording a game multiple times, it wouldn't bother me that they end up with different results to other companies.
Additionally, there is a popular quote in statistics that goes 'All models are wrong, but some are useful'. The concept being that you'll never perfectly predict an outcome, but if you can predict it very closely then that is really all you need for a model to be useful. I'd say that it a similar idea is useful when considering rugby stats - or even most stats. 'All data is wrong, but some is useful'. They may not perfectly match what happened, but it doesn't mean they can't be useful e.g. if it was found that the Opta's output for percentage of tackles made that were dominant predicted the number of turnovers won, which in turn, predicted the likelihood of a team winning, then the error in this measurement doesn't worry me too much as, even with the error, I have something that could be used to predict future performance.
A real world analogy might be an organisation predicting NZ's population. Maybe this organisations prediction is 10,000 people out, due to a proportion of the population being 'hard-to-reach', and little information existing about them. However, if this organisations prediction of NZs population went up over 5 years, you'd still expect there would be more people in the country, and it might be worth making sure that there was infrastructure there to deal with this increase in population.
I know of at least one prominent rugby team that had their own formula for working out a players impact on defense that included tackles made, the number of dominant tackles, the time the player took to get off the ground, and they believed this was an important part of their success - so stats are definitely valued by some professional coaches. A lot of sports teams in America have found that there is huge value in recording all sorts of different stats, and have whole teams dedicated to interpreting and modeling them - I think some sports are a little better suited to this than rugby, but I wouldn't think it'd be any less relevant in rugby than in American football.
In general, I think you'd want to combine all of the information you have available, and consider all of. Do your own personal views seem to be reflected in the data? If not, why? Is it because the data is inadeuqate, or is it because your views are wrong? I'd expect that coaches would be integrating their thoughts from watching games with training results, stats, intuition to form a complete picture. I guess it'd be similar to a crime scene - forensic evidence is probably the gold standard. Having DNA that links a killer to a crime is hard to argue with. However, if every single witness says that perpetrator was female and your DNA evidence was from a male, you might want to look at it a little more closely.
You can probably view it as pieces of a puzzle that we will never completely finish. With both data and a coaches insight, you can fill in more of the puzzle then just data or a coaches view alone.
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@bobily2 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@dan54 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@tim personally don't take a hell of a lot of notice of stats as 1; they tell you bugger all and 2; there are so many different ones for same matches that don't match up, you wonder how they get counted by different stats keepers!
I find it better to watch a game of rugby (preferably live) and take notice of how players go. . Watch how quick a player gets off ground to be available to part of next play whether attack or defence.. We actually did a bit of a look at stats when I was coaching, and as a coaching group found them pretty useless in working out how good a player was. For tackles for instance, you could see a player had attempted and made say 6 tackles, but unless stats actually tell you if they were in a position to make difference etc doesn't help all that much, or whether the player actually had to move far to make tackles etc. They good for Joe Bloggs who doesn't really watch the game as a rule, but would never use tham as a tool for picking a team.
I'm a data analyst, so I have to defend the use of stats, or I couldn't have any professional pride - albeit the defense will be closer to a muddled collection of thoughts, rather than a well laid out argument. But, aside from that, I also believe they are of huge value in most areas of life, particularly sport. Though I think it is important to note that we don't necessarily see a lot of the more important stats - though they are likely still collected and circulated to the coaching staff).
Our memories are far from perfect. We can't possibly process all the information we experience, so we use a bunch of shortcuts, which are usually pretty useful. However, these lead to a whole bunch of biases and flaws e.g. confirmation bias, where one looks to confirm information they already believe. The result being that intelligent, informed rugby viewers can see the same game, but come out with different opinions. Stats are an objective alternative that can be used in situations where people might disagree - e.g. if some people think Akira Ioane is lazy, and others disagree you can find stats to resolve this including tackles made, rucks hit, turnovers won, metres run without the ball and compare to other players in a similar position.
I agree bobily, and what you are talking about aren't stats as we know them from reading papers. I agree wholeheartedly if when you have a analytics which coaches etc use. Unless you have a proper run down of tackles that are dominant, those that are in which part of field, meters run and passes that are made that create gaps. rucks that hit and when you do it for a reason etc etc. We at a club obviously couldn't get all thoae stats as you need a computer prgramme to do it, and those that coaches use are not even able to be used until the game has been viewed etc an awful lot of times and data fed into computer.
I stand by what I said the stats you get from press is of no use to a coach at all.Lol my granddaughter is a data analyst too, just did her got her masters for it, so I not allowed to rubbish them too much.
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@kirwan said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@bobily2 Agree, that's a great post. I wish we had more access to stats that were put in context (hell, even raw stats for us to argue over and TRY to put in context).
Certainly makes for a good coversation and provides another way to enjoy sport.
Same. My understanding is (and In don't know much about this, so anyone correct me if I'm wrong) is that the AFL basically decided to try and make as much data available as they could, a number of years back. It was considered an investment into their fan base - designed to increase interest. I'm not quite sure what the cost of this would be, but I think you'd definitely end up with a more educated viewership, which could have flow-on effects on the strength of the amateur game.
This is aside from the interest that fantasy competitions etc can spark. -
@nzzp said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@bobily2 good post.
Data has its place, but only used appropriately. Wayne Smith famously ignored the tackle stats except for 'dominant tackles'. What we see in the media is dumbed down to the point of uselessness.
Yes, my understanding is that usually this is the fault of the media. I'd definitely think that Sky Sport, at least, would have access to some in-depth information that they don't know what to do with. My guess is that they don't want to make things too complicated for the casual viewer.
This is particularly frustrating as I think the rise of youtube rugby analysis channels such as Squidge definitely suggests that there is demand for a comprehensive rugby analysis show. Unfortunately, while it's relatively easy for someone to get access to footage to analyse, it is hard for the casual producer to get access to in-depth statistics without some heavy financial backing.
In an ideal world, Sky would lead the way here with shows like 'The Breakdown' actually breaking games down, rather than having former players share their opinions without any further analysis.
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@dan54 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@bobily2 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@dan54 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@tim personally don't take a hell of a lot of notice of stats as 1; they tell you bugger all and 2; there are so many different ones for same matches that don't match up, you wonder how they get counted by different stats keepers!
I find it better to watch a game of rugby (preferably live) and take notice of how players go. . Watch how quick a player gets off ground to be available to part of next play whether attack or defence.. We actually did a bit of a look at stats when I was coaching, and as a coaching group found them pretty useless in working out how good a player was. For tackles for instance, you could see a player had attempted and made say 6 tackles, but unless stats actually tell you if they were in a position to make difference etc doesn't help all that much, or whether the player actually had to move far to make tackles etc. They good for Joe Bloggs who doesn't really watch the game as a rule, but would never use tham as a tool for picking a team.
I'm a data analyst, so I have to defend the use of stats, or I couldn't have any professional pride - albeit the defense will be closer to a muddled collection of thoughts, rather than a well laid out argument. But, aside from that, I also believe they are of huge value in most areas of life, particularly sport. Though I think it is important to note that we don't necessarily see a lot of the more important stats - though they are likely still collected and circulated to the coaching staff).
Our memories are far from perfect. We can't possibly process all the information we experience, so we use a bunch of shortcuts, which are usually pretty useful. However, these lead to a whole bunch of biases and flaws e.g. confirmation bias, where one looks to confirm information they already believe. The result being that intelligent, informed rugby viewers can see the same game, but come out with different opinions. Stats are an objective alternative that can be used in situations where people might disagree - e.g. if some people think Akira Ioane is lazy, and others disagree you can find stats to resolve this including tackles made, rucks hit, turnovers won, metres run without the ball and compare to other players in a similar position.
I agree bobily, and what you are talking about aren't stats as we know them from reading papers. I agree wholeheartedly if when you have a analytics which coaches etc use. Unless you have a proper run down of tackles that are dominant, those that are in which part of field, meters run and passes that are made that create gaps. rucks that hit and when you do it for a reason etc etc. We at a club obviously couldn't get all thoae stats as you need a computer prgramme to do it, and those that coaches use are not even able to be used until the game has been viewed etc an awful lot of times and data fed into computer.
I stand by what I said the stats you get from press is of no use to a coach at all.Lol my granddaughter is a data analyst too, just did her got her masters for it, so I not allowed to rubbish them too much.
Glad I don't have to convince you that stats are great
Agreed, what you get via the press is of little value - and it doesn't really seem to have evolved over the last 10-15 years, either. I think we really need journalists/presenters to up their game and put out some better content - NZ rugby would only be better off for it.
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@bobily2 I don't think the media have access to much do they? When my mate was coaching at the Tahs, they used Opta stats, but they were useless, so they relied much more on their in-house stats guy where they could get the specific things they wanted (dominant tackles, first 3 to rucks, speed off the ground, repeat efforts etc), and they trusted his accuracy. I'd expect the media just have access to the same ESPC stuff that we do?
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@voodoo said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@bobily2 I don't think the media have access to much do they? When my mate was coaching at the Tahs, they used Opta stats, but they were useless, so they relied much more on their in-house stats guy where they could get the specific things they wanted (dominant tackles, first 3 to rucks, speed off the ground, repeat efforts etc), and they trusted his accuracy. I'd expect the media just have access to the same ESPC stuff that we do?
It's quite possible I'm wrong.
I'm generalising from what I've heard about AFL journalism in Australia from a sports stats rep - where they said the media weren't interested in reporting on the measures that were found to best predict success.
It's quite possible there is more to the story, too. I do know that Opta record more in depth information than your bog standard tackles made/missed. Perhaps media need to pay more for these, and don't see it as being a good use of money.
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@nzzp said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
Wayne Smith famously ignored the tackle stats except for 'dominant tackles'.
yep, and I expect they used other data too in and around the dominant tackle (not to disimilar to what @bobily2 mentioend re time to get up and over the ball or reset the line etc)
I cant recall the name of the system they used to use, I expect it is multiple generations better now, I saw a piece of software when doing my L2 coaching, and we had to use it as part of the course to analyse a Super rugby game, it all helps, and I believe this is part of what Schmidt is there for? Analyst?
@Kirwan yeah I love stats, I wish rugby gave us more like US sports do!!
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That was a great post. I'm pretty big into looking at stats, mainly because I like to test theories that I derive from watching, although in the last three years the number of places putting out stats has dropped off a cliff, which sucks balls.
i was looking at the Opta stats page last week and was tempted to see what a quote would look like for a personal 'rugby blogger', but I don't want to be murdered by my wife.
All of @duluth 's work collating teamsheets and past results has been really great for looking into patterns of win results etc.
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I thought that the emphasis in rugby analysis had shifted from a pure stats base to now generating footage of individual player actions for the analysts and coaches to review back with the player after the game. So it is now all about the effectiveness of the tackle or pass or action at the breakdown and also about how quickly a player is getting into an effective position in attack or defence.
I don't like all the harshly critical conjecture from the keyboard. What would be more useful is knowing what techniques are employed by various coaches and teams and how well they are deployed. Can any insiders help inform the forum?
I was involved as an analyst in the early days of super rugby and have kept an interest here. The stats now reported on TV and on rugby websites are largely disappointing and not much has changed there. But I had thought the detailed player review tapes were widely used, but not shared publicly for obvious reasons. Can anyone shed more light on what is actually common at various levels now? -
@gt12 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
i was looking at the Opta stats page last week and was tempted to see what a quote would look like for a personal 'rugby blogger', but I don't want to be murdered by my wife.
I looked into this once (different company) and wasn't given a price, but I was given the impression it would cost me tens of thousands - they didn't go over what this would cover, as it presumably wasn't worth their time.
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The Evolution of Rugby: A Statistical Analysis
Rugby Union is almost an unrecognisable sport from the one which saw its first Test match played back in 1871. Read on as we use Stats Perform’s detailed rugby data to unearth the major ways the sport has evolved.
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@bobily2 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
@gt12 said in All Blacks depth 2022 & 2023:
i was looking at the Opta stats page last week and was tempted to see what a quote would look like for a personal 'rugby blogger', but I don't want to be murdered by my wife.
I looked into this once (different company) and wasn't given a price, but I was given the impression it would cost me tens of thousands - they didn't go over what this would cover, as it presumably wasn't worth their time.
downvote, but as I expected.
If any geeks around here are looking for a hobby, lifting the data for ESPN stats while they are still up could be a good idea. iI haven't figured out a way to fold it into a research project yet...
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I hate stats
Nerds always ruin sports. Look what those poindexters did to the NBA!
I refuse to change my belief that Rugby is too fluid with too many variables to be a stats driven game.
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@mariner4life Agree re rugby but one of the joys of cricket is a deep dive into the stats
