Rugby Stats
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@bobily2 said in Rugby Stats:
@dan54 said in Rugby Stats:
@bobily2 said in Rugby Stats:
@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.
Lol bobily, I just read on another thread on here about how good a hooker was from so called lineout stats , which is exactly why I find them so little use. When people read stats on lineouts won and lost and mark the hooker down or up against such things, as I pointed out stats don't show why lineout was won and lost ie was throw off, did jumper just miss ball, did lifter/s do their job. I was thinking when I played as a lineout target I would of loved the hooker etc being balmed for all the lineouts where I was simply outjumped etc!!
Just shows the importance of people needing to be educated around what the stats mean before they use them. Peer review is also useful in these cases. A chainsaw is a great tool, but msybe not everyone should be using one.
Agreed.
I think one of the better things about this site is that when people start trying to interpret stats/numbers, others will pretty quickly jump and and question them if the logic of their use doesn't stack up.
So, it's not the numbers, but the interpretation.
I'm guilty of interpreting stats incorrectly too at times, but as this is a discussion board, I guess that it was makes it interesting.
Those stats did seem to show that Taukei'aho's running game is really a sustained strength. I'm looking forward to the locks next!
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@bobily2 said in Rugby Stats:
@dan54 said in Rugby Stats:
@bobily2 said in Rugby Stats:
@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.
Lol bobily, I just read on another thread on here about how good a hooker was from so called lineout stats , which is exactly why I find them so little use. When people read stats on lineouts won and lost and mark the hooker down or up against such things, as I pointed out stats don't show why lineout was won and lost ie was throw off, did jumper just miss ball, did lifter/s do their job. I was thinking when I played as a lineout target I would of loved the hooker etc being balmed for all the lineouts where I was simply outjumped etc!!
Just shows the importance of people needing to be educated around what the stats mean before they use them. Peer review is also useful in these cases. A chainsaw is a great tool, but msybe not everyone should be using one.
Bang on bobily. and I suspect not very many of us on here are educated on how to use them, or we wouldn't bother quoting them! Well not the ones we see!
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I was doing big data statistics before it was trendy.
Probably explains why I was quite shit at it.
For me, stats are great but they don't explain the one big thing. That being why.
Why did Akira Ioane top most statistics vs Australia and then become a bit of a non entity against the Boks? What was it that changed?
Thats the most important thing. Stats don't tell you a lot on top of what you see.
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One reason why teams should keep their statistics to themselves is that anything that is a measure will be gamed.
So if you tell players to raise their tackle statistic, they will make more tackles. They may well be useless tackles, but that is the cost of using statistics as a measure. Tell them they need to make more dominant tackles, and they will make more dominant tackles, but possibly fall off more simple ones trying too hard to make them dominant. The person using the statistics needs to say "X isn't tackling as well as we would expect" and the coach then work on their tackling in general.
Don't use statistics as a measure of success, well rather, not a measure that the target knows. And one way to ensure that is not publish them.
Except fitness statistics. Which I suspect is the one measure that professional coaches all care deeply about.
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@majorrage said in Rugby Stats:
I was doing big data statistics before it was trendy.
Probably explains why I was quite shit at it.
For me, stats are great but they don't explain the one big thing. That being why.
Why did Akira Ioane top most statistics vs Australia and then become a bit of a non entity against the Boks? What was it that changed?
Thats the most important thing. Stats don't tell you a lot on top of what you see.
It probably won't be that much more helpful but if we had a table of say all 6 loose forwards across both ABs and opponents and their relative %stats across all those games it might indicate where Akira was complemented better or negated more by the opposition?
I also wonder if it is possible and helpful to have time each player holds onto the ball and correlate it to overall possession time, field gained and points taken..(is one person likely to be hindering or speeding up play?) probably not but I wonder.
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From rugby database
With Ma'a Nonu signing on for the 2024 season with San Diego Legion he is set to equal Jimmy Gopperth for the most calendar years playing first-class rugby by a New Zealander.
Making his debut in 2002, this will be his 23rd year.
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@Chester-Draws said in Rugby Stats:
One reason why teams should keep their statistics to themselves is that anything that is a measure will be gamed.
…
Don't use statistics as a measure of success, well rather, not a measure that the target knows. And one way to ensure that is not publish them.
This is an interesting discussion and @Chester-Draws point resonates. Players will optimize for whatever coaches measure and value. In my limited experience that can be useful.
Most of us loosely judge our performance on whatever we idealize as the key part of our game: “I took 2 tightheads”, “made a heap of turnovers”, “caught that ruck rat a few times, eh.?” And of course “ran 40 yards through 16 defenders and scored a beauty.”
Your more fanatical teammates might even have logged simple stats like tackles, turnovers & lineouts won, tries scored. More rarely knock ons, penalties given away, tackles missed.
But it’s eye-opening to see detailed, team-wide stats week on week. Especially when you’re forced to face your two turnovers against 3 breakdown penalties. Or tries v points directly conceded.
And really useful to motivate players to work harder on the hard graft v flash stuff. Hilarious to see props and centres bragging about first arrivals at rucks.
And especially for kids it’s a good way to encourage them to appreciate all the work that needs to be done to create a try and get them keen to do it.
If you’re coaching youngsters try getting the subs to keep simple stats on the game and then ask them what they see that should be a focus at halftime. Takes a few games, but soon enough they’ll start delivering pretty solid insights.
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@Smuts I am sure with the software available, they have all the stats they need for the specific positions, but I guess how many dominant scrum hits, TH losing his grip on impact, two handed lineout takes, successful ruck protection, static pass vs moving pass etc dont make for great stats like tackle busts, turnovers, metres gained or missed tackles.
That said, I'd love to have a bigger range of stats.
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As a fan the stats I’m most interested in at the moment are scrum resets/collapses to penalties, scrum collapses on own ball v opponents’ ball & broken down by field position.
I’d also like to see rucks that ended with no offensive player on their feet per team…
We can dream
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@Smuts said in Rugby Stats:
I’d also like to see rucks that ended with no offensive player on their feet per team
that one is easy, just look at the total ruck stats
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I was reading today that Sevu Reece's try against the Reds now means he has 100 tries in first class rugby. He is one of 5 current NZ players who have achieved that feat. That got me thinking of who were the other four. I've worked out two of them (see below) but some of the other likely candidates are short of 100 tries. Maybe I am forgetting about an obvious player, or there are some non-ABs with a lot of NPC tries.
Julian Savea
Rieko IoaneDoes anyone know who the other two players are?
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@Duluth said in Rugby Stats:
Will Jordan 22 NPC, 38 SR, 42 Rep sides
Snap! Is that the data?
Turns out TJ is short then.
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Will Jordan Rugby Career & Stats | Rugby Database
