Whats in a statistic?

Aside from all the big games this weekend, an interesting looking at what the numbers may, or may not mean...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/6456754/Moneyballs-mantra-helped-ABs-win-World-Cup

It's all bogus taylorman, I have been educated and have seen the light.

Stats are for nerds who no nothing about rugby.

My days of statistical analysis are over.

I am just joking, I love stats and are happy there is some proof of the method behind my madness.

Be interesting to see what Smith and co have built up as a statistical set on players, matches etc. Its been reported before they have spent more time gathering data than anyone I believe with full time staffers on it.

They're currently collecting it for the 6N's and Northern club rugby so be good to be a fly on the wall...

biltongbek wrote:It's all bogus taylorman, I have been educated and have seen the light.

Stats are for nerds who no nothing about rugby.

My days of statistical analysis are over.

Great news.You are not the sanctimoneous plonker that you pretended to be.Oh no!Just seen your next post.Still,I live in hope.

This is cool, the pro and con of stats. I love this.
As I said before, context provides stats thier meaning. Otherwise it is just a bunch of numbers. It is the context which gives meaning to everything.

But for phun, here are statistics about Billy Beane:
1. First statistic about Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics:
- They have never won a Wrold Series

2. Second statistic about Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics:
- They have never gotten to the World Series (by winning the American League)

Statistics?
Yes or no?
Techno-weenies v. Luddites
Bill Gates v. Cave Dwellers
Blade Runner v. Indiana Jones

I love them too but there will always be a disconnect between what you see in the match and how you can measure it accurately as the sport is not ideal for gathering them easily.

For example in the way Tennis, cricket, Darts, golf etc is where there is ongoing and regular feedback of each individual action through a point or run scored, a wicket taken or wide conceded, % greens hit or an average of 99.99 as in darts over a period.

This article extends the need to wrap the raw stats around with some additional analysis in terms of what they're really saying to be really useful.

Yards, tackle numbers and percentages etc say certain things but what about other factors- where the incidents occur on the field, the opposition factors etc, the relative effort in making or missing the tackle. The numbers provided now don't reflect how they were obtained.

Watching one player run his 89 metres might be far superior to watching another run his 238 when actually watching them, so they need much larger subsets of scoring against these raw stats to be meaningful. A player could have run 68 meters across his own tryline, got smashed, and had a try scored form the resulting tackle. The recorded stat: Joe Egg: Running: 68 meters

You need a lot more quality information to be able to make key decisions when its used for actual selecting players or targeting of opposition players.

Thats why I'm skeptical about on the field rugby stats- they just don't seem to go far enough to be emphatic enough. And thats why I'd love to see what benchmarks the selectors use as useful tackle stats etc.

Taylorman I am sure that is where the would use video tape analysis in conjunction with those stats, like I said many times the meters ran of a back three player who has the ball kicked deep by the opposition might have ran half his yardage just to get the rest of his team behind him or where he meets the first opposition tackler.

For us it isn't so easy to use video analysis as we don't really have the time or facilities, hence we will go on what we saw during a match.

Analysis without both methods present is useless, but combining statistical analysis with on field performance will give a more complete picture.

Thats correct. And when they put the two together they need to create a usable scoring system that can be used for comparison easily. Its having visibility of that final analysis that I'd like to see because given the right balance and treatment of the data, its likely to pinpoint excactly who is the best 15, 10 etc in a way the average fan wouldnt have a clue.

True, I think the biggest challenge for the observer is that he is not privy to all the statistics available, for example I can get some statistics from espnscrum.com, but like you say you have to see it in context as it doesn't show effective tackles, it doesn't show how the meters were made, it tells you the basic stats, but you still need to interpret them for full value, which I have seen simply too much of a brain teaser for some.

Be cool having the job to come up with the rules as well. It could also be tiresome, treading through all that data/ video...especially if you didnt like the match when you first saw it!

Changing the topic slightly but on the trend you mentioned about laws.

The biggest problem with the laws is every time they look at the law, they add something to it.

It goes something like this.

Law1.
Tackle above the shoulders - yellow card.
law 1.1
tackle above the shoulders when ball carriers dives or ducks - warning
law 1.2 tackle above the shoulders (butch James) - red card
tackles above the shoulders second offence - red card
tackle 1.2.1 tackle above the shoulders.....


They should throw that law book away and start over.

63 % of the laws are fine.

78 % of people who follow rugby know that.