Archive for Inside The Numbers
Inside The Numbers: Tri Nations penalties
Posted by: | CommentsA lot has been made in the media and blogs about the number of penalties given away by the All Blacks in this year’s Tri Nations and how there is some sort of dark conspiracy favouring the All Blacks in the upper levels of the IRB. While I don’t believe that to be the case, the numbers do show the All Blacks are the most penalised team in the Tri Nations.
So what are all those penalties for? Is there some way to quantify and analyse them? Luckily, thanks to the South African Rugby Referees’ site, there is. The penalties are broken down into four categories: Tackle/Ruck/Maul (TRM), offside, scrum and discipline. That last category is somewhat all encompassing, running from high tackles to throwing the ball away.
| TRM | Offside | Scrum | Discipline | Total | |
| New Zealand | 31 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 53 |
| South Africa | 27 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 40 |
| Australia | 22 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 30 |
Breaking those numbers down into percentages makes for some very interesting reading.
| TRM | Offside | Scrum | Discipline | |
| New Zealand | 58.5% | 20.75% | 15% | 5.6% |
| South Africa | 67.5% | 7.5% | 17.5% | 7.5% |
| Australia | 73.3% | 3.3% | 20% | 3.3% |
As you can see, the All Blacks give away a higher proportion of offside penalties, while the Boks get hammered in the scrums. Despite all the talk about Richie McCaw’s tactics, it’s the Aussies who give away the most penalties at the breakdown.
Some have also suggested that McCaw gives away more penalties than any other in the Tri Nations, well I have those numbers too.
| Penalties | |
| McCaw | 10 |
| O Franks | 6 |
| Woodcock | 6 |
| Pocock | 5 |
| Elsom | 4 |
| Genia | 4 |
| Muliaina | 4 |
| Read | 4 |
| Steenkamp | 4 |
So McCaw is the leading cuprit by a mile when it comes to conceding penalties, and somehow he managed to concede five of those in just one game. Yet McCaw claims players need to adapt to the referees’ rulings, coming from the most penalised player in the Tri Nations, this is a little rich.
As an All Blacks fan, I’m delighted with how well the team is playing, and I hope their winning ways continue into the 2011 Rugby World Cup, but critics from all around the world have continued to point out these issues with the All Blacks’ game plan and here in New Zealand the best the media can do is accuse them of whinging. Well I happen to agree with McCaw when he says statistics do not always tell the full story, the yellow card stats being an obvious example, but in this case they paint a pretty compelling picture.
Rather than sweep this under the rug, the New Zealand rugby media need to actually put the hard questions to the All Blacks, rather than writing some of the self-indulgent drivel about how great we are. Perhaps then, when the penalty stats aren’t so skewed against us we can dismiss Aussies, Saffas and Poms as whingers.
One final stat that caught my eye, over the Tri Nations 20 different All Blacks have been penalised, 22 Springboks and just 15 Wallabies. Granted the Wallabies have one fewer game on the board, but it goes to show that aside from a few blips like McCaw and Pocock, penalties are fairly evenly shared out.
Inside The Numbers: Do cheaters prosper?
Posted by: | CommentsIn a show of blogging solidarity, I’m going in to bat for Matt over at Green And Gold Rugby for his latest piece pointing out issues around the All Blacks’ tactics. Now while you can question Matt’s motives, you cannot question his point: the All Blacks are the most penalised team in this year’s Tri-Nations and have received the fewest yellow cards.
Matt has come under attack from Herald on Sunday editor Paul Lewis, which he expertly rebuffs as well as Sky Sports Bevan Sanson who attempts to counter Matt’s argument, only to further prove it.
As Matt points out, the All Blacks are the most penalised team in this year’s Tri-Nations, having picked up a total of 56 penalties in five games. By contrast the Aussies have 23 from three games and South Africa 34 from four games.
When turned into a penalties per game stat the reading is not pretty for All Black fans.
| Games | Penalties | PPG | |
| New Zealand | 5 | 56 | 11.2 |
| South Africa | 4 | 34 | 8.5 |
| Australia | 3 | 23 | 7.6 |
As you can see, the All Blacks concede almost three more penalties per game that the Boks and just under 3.5 more than the Wallabies.
The historical stats are not much better. Here’s the same table dating back to 2008.
| Games | Penalties | PPG | |
| New Zealand | 17 | 193 | 11.4 |
| South Africa | 16 | 163 | 10.1 |
| Australia | 15 | 138 | 9.2 |
So both the Wallabies and Springboks are giving away far fewer penalties than their historical averages, while the All Blacks are about the same. The other interesting note is that over this same period both the Boks and Wallabies have received seven yellow cards, while the All Blacks have just four, but this is one instance where the numbers do not tell the full story, context really matters so I’m setting that issue aside for now.
To claim that the All Blacks “get away” with more because they are playing so well right now flies in the face of reality. Sanson claimed that, “They are also smarter, enabling them to “bend” the rules to their advantage,” which is a nonsense.
As Matt rightly points out, the All Blacks seem prepared to give away as many penalties as they need to, keeping their line intact as penalty goals cannot beat tries. The fact that the All Blacks have given away more penalties than their opponents in every single one of their outings seems to confirm this.
Some of us in the New Zealand media need to face up to the facts that the All Blacks are not perfect and no matter how well they are playing, they should never be immune to criticism. Currently their tactics seem to be a little cynical, and I applaud guys like Matt for pointing this out.
Never dismiss well thought out criticism as whinging, even if it is from an England based Aussie.
Inside The Numbers: What’s a yellow card worth?
Posted by: | CommentsMuch of the talk around the 2010 edition of the Tri-Nations has centred around yellow cards and whether they were correctly or incorrectly given. But that got me thinking, what is a yellow card actually worth?
Now, I just need to clear up a couple of things. The data is slightly skewed by Drew Mitchell’s red card but not in the way you would expect; the Wallabies actually scored four more points than the All Blacks after Mitchell was dismissed. Secondly these are point differentials per yellow card. I.e. what points advantage does the team with the superior numbers have.
Now the first thing you’ll notice here is that this stat has been in decline for a number of years before spiking this year. The overall average across all seasons is just over four points.
Also the number of yellow cards bounces around a lot, going as high as eight in 2009 and 2010, to as low as two in 2008.
Other observations I’ve made while researching this: Teams almost always score some points while an opponent is in the bin, and teams with a player in the bin rarely score tries. Hardly earth shattering revelations, I know.
Overall, it’s an interesting exercise to see just how a yellow card affect the outcome of a game. While it’s only worth, on average, four points to the opponent, teams that pick up more yellow cards than their opponents only manage to win around 18% of the time.
Is it the exhaustion, or the emotional drain of playing with the backs to the wall? Hard to say, but the numbers clearly say that even though yellow cards have little effect on the scoreline, they have a major impact on the result.
Inside The Numbers: Blip or bias?
Posted by: | CommentsMatt over at GreenAndGoldRugby has written a very interesting piece which he backs up with some fairly compelling numbers showing that the All Blacks are being given a fairly easy ride by the officials. Now there’s a couple of counter-arguments that I’d like to put forward.
Firstly, errors. I absolutely think there have been four errors when it comes to yellow cards. Danie Rossouw should not have been yellow carded for his nudge on Richie McCaw, nor should Drew Mitchell have received his yellow for a shoulder charge. On the flip side, Richie McCaw should have been yellow carded for repeat infringements by Alain Rolland in Wellington and Tony Woodcock should have gone for his illegal charge on Saia Faingaa.
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Actual
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Adjusted
|
|||||
| Penalties | Yellow Cards | Penalties per YC | Penalties | Yellow Cards | Penalties per YC | |
| Australia | 24 | 3 | 8 | 24 | 2 | 12 |
| New Zealand | 45 | 1 | 45 | 45 | 3 | 15 |
| South Africa | 24 | 4 | 6 | 24 | 3 | 8 |
Now while the All Blacks’ penalties per yellow card is still higher in the adjusted figures, it’s within an acceptable deviation. As I’ve pointed out before, refereeing errors are very much swings and roundabouts, right now they seem to be going in favour of the All Blacks, but that will correct itself over time.
Secondly, the historical data paints a different picture.
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2009
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2008
|
|||||
| Penalties | Yellow Cards | Penalties per YC | Penalties | Yellow Cards | Penalties per YC | |
| Australia | 53 | 4 | 13.25 | 62 | 0 | ∞ |
| New Zealand | 63 | 2 | 31.50 | 74 | 1 | 74 |
| South Africa | 54 | 2 | 27.00 | 75 | 1 | 75 |
Notice that in 2008 the Wallabies did not receive a single yellow card. That’s right, the Wallabies conceded 62 penalties without receiving a single yellow card, but these sorts of localized patterns tend to pop up in small data samples.
There have been the same number of yellow cards in just five games this season as there were in all nine last year, but that stat has been steadily going up since 2008.
It’s also worth noting the types of yellow cards dished out, are they for a single act of foul play as Danie Rossouw’s supposedly was, or are they the culmination of repeated warnings from the referee. Thanks to the South African Rugby Referees, we can take a look at that.
In the last two Tri-Nations, because that’s all I could find, the Wallabies have received seven yellow cards, six of them for dangerous tackles and one to Drew Mitchell for repeated team infringements. That sort of a pattern seems to indicate that appart from some poor tackles, the Wallabies keep themselves out of trouble in other areas.
The Springboks have the most varied record, picking up a total of six yellow cards. Three for professional fouls, two for dangerous tackles, and one for foul play (Rossouw). This time, the pattern here seems to be the Boks infringe when they are under pressure.
The All Blacks have received just three yellow cards in the past two Tri-Nations, Isaac Ross for a professional foul, Isia Toeava and Owen Franks for dangerous tackles. It looks to me like the All Blacks fall somewhere in between their Southern Hemisphere rivals in terms of a pattern.
The last stat I wanted to show is, to me, the most interesting. The total number of penalties conceded in the last three Tri-Nations as both a number and a percentage. Here they are.
| Penalties | Percentage of total penalties | |
| Australia | 139 | 29.3% |
| New Zealand | 182 | 38.4% |
| South Africa | 153 | 32.3% |
That’s right, the All Blacks are the most penalised team in the competition. In fact, if you’re a stats geek, they are the only team more than one standard deviation away from the mean.
So it looks to me that this year is something of a statistical blip which will be consigned to the history books. There is no vast conspiracy to see the All Blacks win, no bias towards a particular team from the referees. The numbers don’t lie, they show that these things regress towards a mean as many sports statistics do and while the All Blacks have the numbers in their favour now, it means sooner or later the numbers will go against them.
How else do the Wallabies go from receiving no yellow cards in 2008 to receiving the most in 2009? It’s the ebb and flow of psychic energy and I can’t believe I just quoted Murray Mexted.
Inside The Numbers: Discipline
Posted by: | CommentsIt is a commonly held idea that in rugby teams with good discipline are more successful than those with poor discipline. On the surface this seems to be a sensible argument, teams that give away fewer penalties hand their opponents fewer scoring chances and teams that stay out of the sin bin spend less time at a numerical disadvantage.
Looking at six weeks worth of data, initially this seems to hold true with the Bulls conceding the fewest penalties per game and leading the competition, while the Lions concede the most penalties and are second from bottom. However on closer inspection, the Force are coming dead last in the competition but concede the fourth fewest penalties, while the second placed Stormers sit mid table in terms of discipline.
|
Team
|
Games
|
Penalties
|
PPG
|
Yellow Cards
|
Table
|
|
Lions
|
6
|
67
|
11.2
|
1
|
13
|
|
Hurricanes
|
6
|
66
|
11.0
|
1
|
8
|
|
Chiefs
|
5
|
54
|
10.8
|
2
|
6
|
|
Sharks
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
5
|
11
|
|
Waratahs
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
2
|
4
|
|
Stormers
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
0
|
2
|
|
Brumbies
|
6
|
61
|
10.2
|
0
|
5
|
|
Reds
|
5
|
50
|
10.0
|
4
|
7
|
|
Blues
|
5
|
48
|
9.6
|
2
|
9
|
|
Highlanders
|
6
|
57
|
9.5
|
1
|
12
|
|
Force
|
5
|
47
|
9.4
|
1
|
14
|
|
Crusaders
|
6
|
55
|
9.2
|
1
|
3
|
|
Cheetahs
|
5
|
43
|
8.6
|
0
|
10
|
|
Bulls
|
5
|
34
|
6.8
|
1
|
1
|
So it would seem that discipline is not as big a factor as rugby purists would have you believe. In fact so far there doesn’t even appear to be a tipping point where conceding more than a certain number of penalties per game leads to a lower spot on the table, with the difference between second and 13th being just one penalty per game.
Even with in a game conceding penalties is not a barrier to victory. In 21 games of 39 so far, the team conceding the most penalties has also gone on to win the game.
Perhaps the number of penalties conceded by winning teams has increased with the change of focus at the tackle this year, it’s hard to say as I don’t have that data, but the one thing that is clear is that there is no correlation between penalties and winning.
