Teams and refs: a very rough assessment of 2013

Seeing as it's the silly season. I've decided to look at the test teams and their relationship with the refs. Always a difficult subject, so take this with a heavy does of skepticism.

What I've done is looked at each game involving Rugby Championship or Six Nations teams in 2013. I've looked at the stats on penalties conceded, free kicks conceded and time that teams were a man down due to cards. To make it easy for myself I've combined them to make a number (i.e. a virtual penalty where 2 free kicks = 1 penalty and 5 minutes in the bin is worth 1 penalty). By no means perfect I know, but the info's on the Scrum.com so it wasn't to much of an effort on excel.

Following that I've looked at the count relative to the opposition in each match and categorized them into 5 categories (-6, -6 to -2, -2 to 2, 2 to 6 and 6+). For example Italy was heavily penalized/carded against England. The had a rough night against Wales and France. It was relatively even in whistle stakes against Ireland and South Africa. Had a distinct edge against Scotland (2x), Samoa and South Africa. The did very well against Fiji and Argentina. So overall they were ahead of the ball game (6 +ve vs 3 -ve). Here is my interpretation, for what it's worth:

We love you ref, my sisters available for a date tonight.

Wales

I think you ref better than people think, drinks are on us

South Africa
England
France
Ireland
Italy

The ref was ok, couldn't say if he was good or bad

Scotland
Argentina (didn't include include games against 2nd tier nations as no data)

Did I see you drinking with the opposition after our last game?

New Zealand
Australia


What ever went on between our captain and the refs sister, could he please get over it

...

So teams like NZ and Australia had the majority of measurable decisions go against them this year, Wales had a stellar year. What's it mean? I don't know. As usual there some home bias involved. This was particularly true in November had a penalty/card count that favored the home team. It might be a product of the way the scrum and ruck are being reffed, or the way teams approach games. I don't have a breakdown of where, when or what they were for. There's no realistic way of accurately  assessing the accuracy of the refs (i.e. what should they have called).

Thoughts?

I think this suggests that your interpretation of the laws isn't quite rights. If you think the refs like 6 teams and is unfair or average with 4....well, that suggests to me your average is in the wrong place  

Two very poor decision that were key in Wales last match, wouldn't say Wales get an easy ride. On the other side Wales are not a team that push the boundaries of the rules as hard as others.

Maybe better to look at the referees themselves and the quantity of their mistakes rather than try to find a theory based on the relationship of the teams to referees in general.

The way to approach it is to isolate one thing at a time.

The decisions of Ref(x) against Team(y) in the distribution of his decisions against all Teams. The all refs against Team(y) and see where the individual points lie in the distribution. Then possibly add home and away as a dimension.

Although my observation is that a hard done by team is usually unfairly favoured subsequently, creating another hard done by team and it just cascades in a ridiculous way.

Why dont the IRB just provide funding to clone Nigel Owens?

If I look at number of Cards dished out I think we will fall more in the category of "WTF"

Could it just be that some teams were less disciplined than others?

CJ, in what way does that substantiate a plausible conspiracy?

Oh, I didn't realise that was the aim. In which case, it was all a conspiracy by Bryce Lawrence to use a mind control technique to make refs make mistakes in matches with Aus and NZ in them so they will complain and get every other referee dropped off the elite panel, forcing the IRB to welcome him back into the fold. However, he has been thwarted by Owens, who is 25% Sheep due to his Welsh heritage and thus is immune to all brainwashing techniques

Interesting. My personal feeling based on watching the games is:

We love you ref, my sisters available for a date tonight.

---

I think you ref better than people think, drinks are on us

South Africa
England
France
Ireland
New Zealand
Australia

The ref was ok, couldn't say if he was good or bad

Scotland
Argentina (didn't include include games against 2nd tier nations as no data)
Italy

Did I see you drinking with the opposition after our last game?
Fiji

I'm Irish and I think we had a fair shake of the refs this year.

I think Nigel Owens is the best ref there is he talks to the players he listens to what they ask and then gives them an answer to what he saw and he is in total control of the game. Take the New Zealand vs South Africa was an out standing game but it wasn't just spoke about because of that but on how well Owens refried

welshboii15 wrote:I think Nigel Owens is the best ref there is he talks to the players he listens to what they ask and then gives them an answer to what he saw and he is in total control of the game. Take the New Zealand vs South Africa was an out standing game but it wasn't just spoke about because of that but on how well Owens refried

mmmmm I love mexican

Yeah, I have to agree that the lesser nations don't seem to get a fair shake some time.

I think that in general there are some preconceptions and we see them refereed rather than the game some times.

For example, the PI's tend to get pinged an awful lot for dangerous tackles, even when the tackle isn't dangerous. The saffers seem to be on the receiving end of yellows for thuggery when a fair number are just fine. Australia get nailed for their scrum one game in every 5 or 6 when to me (granted I'm no Brian Moore) I can't see they do a lot differently. As for NZ? well, we seem to get totally different rulings during world cups than the intervening years. Baffling.

ChequeredJersey wrote:Could it just be that some teams were less disciplined than others?

+1

And the refs are closer to the action than we are.

It's natural that preconceptions get reffed as much as the actual matches and frankly unavoidable. I've mentioned it before, and sometimes it frankly helps the All Blacks and I feel it might help the Wallabies regarding things like borderline forward passes ( ) it's all swings and roundabouts because in the end these preconceptions and stereotypes were all earned and are still being earned at some level

I think Nigel Owens has been unfairly advantaged - being given 2 ABs games to excel in.

Tehre will always be home advantage - its inevitable and has been shown in football beyond a doubt. the roar of the crowd influences refs. Its the home teams generally who have got the better decisions from refs.