SF
Mako Shark
The statistics used on this site are totally unofficial, and in many cases are incomplete, and in a number of cases, not necessarily accurate. They should only be used for an approximation. The NRL or the club should be consulted for official statistics.
Importantly, the statistics are calculated from the match and team data entered on this site. When this data is incomplete, as is often the case with older matches and non-NRL or non-Premiership matches, then the statistics calculated from that data will be inaccurate. A full description of what is complete and what is incomplete follows below. It should be noted though, that for first grade matches and players in recent years, the statistics correspond fairly well to the official statistics.
Statistics collection
The first statistics used on Sharks Forever came courtesy of Paul at http://stats.rleague.com (who graciously allowed them to be used here). These statistics covered the scores, crowd details, referees, dates and venues for all Cronulla matches from 1967-2004, and point-scorer details from 1980 onwards. The stats.rleague.com statistics have proven, in my experience, to be very accurate, considering the volume of statistics stats.rleague.com covers, and the difficulty of finding statistics from earlier years. It should be noted that any errors that I have introduced into those statistics are mine alone, and you are best to check at http://stats.rleague.com for their official statistics.
I then extended these statistics in early 2005 to include point-scorer details for all matches from 1967 onwards. These new statistics were based on old magazines, and newspaper reports (including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph and The Australian). Unfortunately, there was no one source that provided an unbroken line of statistics for these years, due to issues such as some matches not being reported, printer's strikes etc. There were also inconsistencies between various papers, or even within the one newspaper's report. As much checking was done as possible between newspapers to try to find the most accurate report.
Team lists (and therefore details of player appearances) were also added, though in an ad hoc manner. Basically, this depended on whether I had quick access to these statistics, via magazines, videos etc. In some cases, the team lists were clearly not 100% accurate (particularly in the 1980s), but it was decided to make do with what was available for the time being.
Many thanks go to Bryden of the Sharks Finatics, who added well over a hundred team lists.
While entering team lists, I noticed in several cases disagreements between the various sources, which also were reflected in which source was used by the stats.rleague.com stats. This generally involved a try or goal being credited to a different player by the different sources. Cross-referencing match scores, leading point-scorers and leading try-scorer tallies, and end-of-season tallies, led to me deciding to modify the existing statistics on one or two occasions (only). This is not to say that the source I chose is necessarily correct, it is simply to explain why you may notice a discrepancy with the stats.rleague.com statistics on the very odd occasion.
For matches from 2005 onwards, I have entered the stats independently, so you can blame me for any errors!
As you can see, the above 'methodology' (using the term very loosely) is obviously far from perfect. Unfortunately chasing down old statistics takes quite a lot of time, and the work is never finished! Hopefully one day a more comprehensive entry and checking process could be carried out, particularly if a reliable continuous data source was found.
Statistics presentation
There are three important points in the way the statistics are presented:
1. Despite the data which the stats are based on being incomplete, taliies of the statistics are still presented, and could be misinterpreted as being complete and accurate. For example, very few of Tommy Bishop's appearances are recorded, as the team lists for many of his matches are not available. Only the matches he scored in, and one or two other matches, are recorded. Therefore, at the time of writing, he is only listed as having made 23 appearances, when in fact he played 60 games for the Sharks (according to the Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players).
Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil. In order to allow the other features of the site, such as sorting player statistics, updating statistics automatically after each match, and presenting statistics by grade and competition, the automatically calculated tally must be used. The alternative would be to hold off these tallies until the site reaches some sort of guaranteed completeness - and that won't be any time soon!
Notes are presented at the top of each statistics page to explain that the statistics are incomplete.
2. As many of the match statistics as can be verified are presented, even if not all are available. For example, if two of the three tryscorers in a Jersey Flegg game are known, these will be recorded and presented, even though the third tryscorer is unknown.
3. Almost every page of statistics can be displayed based on three criteria: Grade, Competition and Season.
For example, you may notice various URLs as you navigate the site, including:
http://www.sharksforever.com/players/
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/Premiership/players/
http://www.sharksforever.com/Premier_League/Trials/2006/players/
http://www.sharksforever.com/All_Grades/All_Comps/2005/players/
These specify how we limit our searches on the statistics. The first part (if present) is the grade (e.g. NRL, Premier League, Jersey Flegg). The second part, if present, is the competition (e.g. Premiership, Trials, Amco Cup!), and the third part, is the season (e.g. 2005, 2006).
The designated grades are as follows:
The main reason to explain all this is to say that you need to be aware of which criteria are being used to present the statistics on a given page, or otherwise you may end up quoting the wrong stats!
For example, in the old version of the site, only NRL Premiership statistics were included, so the following URL was used for the players list:
http://www.sharksforever.com/players
However, in the new site, that would present the statistics for all grades and all competitions. The URL to view only NRL Premiership statistics would be:
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/Premiership/players
And if you only wanted to view NRL Premiership statistics for the year 2005, it would be:
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/Premiership/2005/players
Clearly, this creates a lot of room for confusion. Over time I hope to continually improve the navigation and visual indicators to the state where it makes some degree of sense. In the meantime, I hope you don't get too lost! I still think it will be worthwhile in the long run, allowing a lot more flexibility in the statistics.
For anyone who likes to enter URLs directly to change pages (not most users), it should be noted that if trying to enter the URL directly, the following combinations are allowed:
- No grade, competition or season (this will mean that we present statistics for all grades, competitions and seasons)
- The grade only
- The grade and the competition only
- The grade, the competition and the season
However, trying to enter the grade and season only will likely result in an error, e.g.
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/2005/players/
will be misinterpreted as Grade=NRL and Competition=2005. Instead use:
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/All_Comps/2005/players/
Importantly, the statistics are calculated from the match and team data entered on this site. When this data is incomplete, as is often the case with older matches and non-NRL or non-Premiership matches, then the statistics calculated from that data will be inaccurate. A full description of what is complete and what is incomplete follows below. It should be noted though, that for first grade matches and players in recent years, the statistics correspond fairly well to the official statistics.
Statistics collection
The first statistics used on Sharks Forever came courtesy of Paul at http://stats.rleague.com (who graciously allowed them to be used here). These statistics covered the scores, crowd details, referees, dates and venues for all Cronulla matches from 1967-2004, and point-scorer details from 1980 onwards. The stats.rleague.com statistics have proven, in my experience, to be very accurate, considering the volume of statistics stats.rleague.com covers, and the difficulty of finding statistics from earlier years. It should be noted that any errors that I have introduced into those statistics are mine alone, and you are best to check at http://stats.rleague.com for their official statistics.
I then extended these statistics in early 2005 to include point-scorer details for all matches from 1967 onwards. These new statistics were based on old magazines, and newspaper reports (including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph and The Australian). Unfortunately, there was no one source that provided an unbroken line of statistics for these years, due to issues such as some matches not being reported, printer's strikes etc. There were also inconsistencies between various papers, or even within the one newspaper's report. As much checking was done as possible between newspapers to try to find the most accurate report.
Team lists (and therefore details of player appearances) were also added, though in an ad hoc manner. Basically, this depended on whether I had quick access to these statistics, via magazines, videos etc. In some cases, the team lists were clearly not 100% accurate (particularly in the 1980s), but it was decided to make do with what was available for the time being.
Many thanks go to Bryden of the Sharks Finatics, who added well over a hundred team lists.
While entering team lists, I noticed in several cases disagreements between the various sources, which also were reflected in which source was used by the stats.rleague.com stats. This generally involved a try or goal being credited to a different player by the different sources. Cross-referencing match scores, leading point-scorers and leading try-scorer tallies, and end-of-season tallies, led to me deciding to modify the existing statistics on one or two occasions (only). This is not to say that the source I chose is necessarily correct, it is simply to explain why you may notice a discrepancy with the stats.rleague.com statistics on the very odd occasion.
For matches from 2005 onwards, I have entered the stats independently, so you can blame me for any errors!
As you can see, the above 'methodology' (using the term very loosely) is obviously far from perfect. Unfortunately chasing down old statistics takes quite a lot of time, and the work is never finished! Hopefully one day a more comprehensive entry and checking process could be carried out, particularly if a reliable continuous data source was found.
Statistics presentation
There are three important points in the way the statistics are presented:
1. Despite the data which the stats are based on being incomplete, taliies of the statistics are still presented, and could be misinterpreted as being complete and accurate. For example, very few of Tommy Bishop's appearances are recorded, as the team lists for many of his matches are not available. Only the matches he scored in, and one or two other matches, are recorded. Therefore, at the time of writing, he is only listed as having made 23 appearances, when in fact he played 60 games for the Sharks (according to the Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players).
Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil. In order to allow the other features of the site, such as sorting player statistics, updating statistics automatically after each match, and presenting statistics by grade and competition, the automatically calculated tally must be used. The alternative would be to hold off these tallies until the site reaches some sort of guaranteed completeness - and that won't be any time soon!
Notes are presented at the top of each statistics page to explain that the statistics are incomplete.
2. As many of the match statistics as can be verified are presented, even if not all are available. For example, if two of the three tryscorers in a Jersey Flegg game are known, these will be recorded and presented, even though the third tryscorer is unknown.
3. Almost every page of statistics can be displayed based on three criteria: Grade, Competition and Season.
For example, you may notice various URLs as you navigate the site, including:
http://www.sharksforever.com/players/
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/Premiership/players/
http://www.sharksforever.com/Premier_League/Trials/2006/players/
http://www.sharksforever.com/All_Grades/All_Comps/2005/players/
These specify how we limit our searches on the statistics. The first part (if present) is the grade (e.g. NRL, Premier League, Jersey Flegg). The second part, if present, is the competition (e.g. Premiership, Trials, Amco Cup!), and the third part, is the season (e.g. 2005, 2006).
The designated grades are as follows:
- NRL - This essentially means First Grade. The term is a little confusing, as NRL is used to refer both to the top level grade, and also the regular season as opposed to trials, along with the body organising the game. As used here, it covers all First Grade games from 1967 onwards, whether they were played under the auspices of the NSWRL, ARL, Super League or NRL. The most modern term for the grade is used, as opposed to 'First Grade' which looks fairly antiquated when shown too often in navigation.
- Premier League - Similarly, this essentially means Reserve Grade, including all games from 1967 onwards.
- Jersey Flegg - This is slightly different. While Jersey Flegg is now the 'third grade' competition, it used to be below President's Cup. Therefore Jersey Flegg only refers to games that are actually in the Jersey Flegg competition (which has run since 1961).
- President's Cup - No matches are recorded for this at present, however it would cover all third grade matches that were played before the abolition of President's Cup.
- All Grades - This is when you want to view statistics from all grades, for example, the players who have played either NRL, Premier League, or Jersey Flegg. It simply means that we do not limit the search to just the one grade. For example, such an URL would be http://www.sharksforever.com/All_Grades/players
- Premiership - The regular season... the one we all worry so much about!
- Amco Cup, Panasonic Cup etc.
- World Sevens
- Super League World Club Challenge
- World Club Challenge - hopefully this will be needed by early 2007
- Trials - While not a competition in themselves, this term is used to group together all the pre-season matches that are not part of a tournament.
- All Comps - This is used when you want to view statistics from all competitions, such as both Premiership and Trial matches.
The main reason to explain all this is to say that you need to be aware of which criteria are being used to present the statistics on a given page, or otherwise you may end up quoting the wrong stats!
For example, in the old version of the site, only NRL Premiership statistics were included, so the following URL was used for the players list:
http://www.sharksforever.com/players
However, in the new site, that would present the statistics for all grades and all competitions. The URL to view only NRL Premiership statistics would be:
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/Premiership/players
And if you only wanted to view NRL Premiership statistics for the year 2005, it would be:
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/Premiership/2005/players
Clearly, this creates a lot of room for confusion. Over time I hope to continually improve the navigation and visual indicators to the state where it makes some degree of sense. In the meantime, I hope you don't get too lost! I still think it will be worthwhile in the long run, allowing a lot more flexibility in the statistics.
For anyone who likes to enter URLs directly to change pages (not most users), it should be noted that if trying to enter the URL directly, the following combinations are allowed:
- No grade, competition or season (this will mean that we present statistics for all grades, competitions and seasons)
- The grade only
- The grade and the competition only
- The grade, the competition and the season
However, trying to enter the grade and season only will likely result in an error, e.g.
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/2005/players/
will be misinterpreted as Grade=NRL and Competition=2005. Instead use:
http://www.sharksforever.com/NRL/All_Comps/2005/players/
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