Thanks all for the welcome
Thanks for the welcome all!
Of course, I’d sacrifice you all on a giant bonfire in a second to get the Sharks a premiership
…but I’d do the same to my wife
Thanks for the league work Brad and Scott- I’ll be there.
Thanks Megashark for the endorsement- I’ll have a go with any statistics I can lay my hands on. If anyone knows any other online sources I’d love to look at them. The stats at the FoxSports site seem accurate, though I’d like some stats on metres gained, and kicking (number of kicks, tries from kicks, metres from kicks, kicks diffused etc).
Also, I believe the Sharks had the highest number of dominant tackles last year and conceded the lowest number, but I have no sources- I’d love to know that.
The stats I used here were a little contrived in that they were based on points for the fantasy league, but I think the fantasy league gives good value for most relevant stats. I will do a comparison based on the dream team points as well, when I get a chance…
I put in a few more stats with Sharks players (in bold) below not related to fantasy team points, just for interest’s sake.
I just use Excel- it is great for most statistics, can even do more complicated regression and tests for significance if needed, though I don’t go that far most of the time. I have just copied and pasted the stats from the FoxSports site on tries, try assists, runs, tackles, minutes played etc for each player in to an excel spreadsheet and dlooked at it all with a few simple formulas and Pivot (not 5/8!) tables.
I’ll have a look at the chickenhawks, though without some more stats (about what players/teams concede, not just what they do) it will be a bit general. I can already tell you from my fantasy team that Stewart is a high value back, because of his try scoring strike rate, but you didn’t need stats for that! Hope to get that posted later tonight (since I don’t have to do work tonight- Yay!)
Jimmy (or should I call you Lick?), my team at the moment is:
Player................Cost........Position.....Points.....Club
Adam Peek...........3...........Prop..........272.5.....Sharks
Luke Stuart..........5...........Prop..........417........Souths
Sam Rapira.........5.5..........Prop..........464........Warriors
Anthony Laffranchi.6..........Backrow.....584........Titans
Michael Luck.........6..........Backrow.....558........Warriors
Anthony Watmough.8.........Backrow.....690.5......Manly
Glen Stewart.........6.5.......Backrow.....542.........Manly
Robbie Farah.........10........Hooker.......719.........Tigers
Tim Smith..............5.........Halfback.....311.........Els
Brett Delaney.........5.........Inside Bk.....375........Titans
Daryl Millard...........6.........Inside Bk.....495........Bulldogs
Gavin Cooper.........4..........Inside Bk.....310.......Titans
Michael Witt..........8..........Inside Bk.....581.5.....Warriors
Steve Michaels.....2.5........Outside Bk...332.5.....Broncos
Sam Perrett..........6..........Outside Bk....403......Roosters
Matt Bowen.........11.........Outside Bk....716.5....Cowboys
Steve Turner.......7.5.........Outside Bk.....488......Storm
Points Left 5 Total 8259.5
Coach - Henry 3 -24
As you can see, this team has 5 points left, and I’m not sure how to spend them yet. The most efficient cost to points earned team is this one, but since I have the 5 points left, I can spend them on a less efficient player who earns more points. I can’t quite afford Price (who earned the most points last year) but Asotasi is possibly a good upgrade for Peek. Michaels is a bargain in terms of points earned to cost, and I can’t see him not getting a fair amount of game time again this year, but he is very new and might not play as much with Hunt and Hodges probably getting more game time this year (though Tate is gone). Maybe if Mini plays more Perrett will play less as well. I will probably swap out Michaels or Perrett for Covell, firstly because Covell will score more points overall than either of them (even if not as efficiently for his cost), and also because he is a dead set legend and hoping he does well each week means hoping the Sharks give him plenty of tries to convert.
At the moment Bowen and Farah would swap captaincy depending on the defence of the team the Cowboys/Tigers play each week (you get double points for captains and Farah and Bowen earn a lot of points from scoring or setting up tries).
WARNING: Too many stats can be harmful to your health. The surgeon general advises skipping these if they don’t interest you.
Some more Stats
Looking at just real stats (without weighting them against each other with fantasy points), there are some great snippets as well (though an overall story from last season will take a while to reveal itself).
Kevin Kingston has the highest rate of effective tackles made per minute on the field of all players in the NRL (0.698 effective tackles per minute- he really is a defensive gun).
Selmes is the next ranked Shark (17th) at that stat (partially from only playing for a limited time last year), and
Douglas is 32nd at 0.552 effective tackles per minute.
Ross leads the way for the Sharks in runs per minute, and at 0.306 runs per minute is 21st in the NRL overall.
Also rather intriguing was that nearly every forward has an effective tackle rate of 85% to 90%, with the top 80 or so from 90% to 95% (including
Peek, Ross, Kingston, Cooper and Thompson). Effective tackle rate is the percentage of good tackles compared to all tackles (including missed and ineffective tackles). Nearly every back has an effective tackle rate of 60% to 80%. As outside backs are marginally worse than inside backs I’d say the number of one on one tackles attempted has some effect on this stat.
(I’d love to calculate this stat based on one on one tackles…)
As you’d also expect, the players who make the most tackle busts and line breaks per run are backs- guess who is first?
No prizes for guessing Matt Bowen- he makes a tackle bust or line break on an amazing 72% of his runs. Next closest out of any player who made more than 100 runs last season is Matt Orford, at 59%. Inglis is 3rd at 56%, then some more surprises- Tim Smith is 4th at 56% (but rounded up to 56%) and Mullen is 5th at 55%. Wedged between McKinnon at 6th and Gasnier at 8th (and the only reason I’ve run this stat to 8th rank) is another player that surprised me (though I think he is great)….
Luke Covell busts a tackle or makes a line break (based on 2007 stats) on 54% of his runs (
Covell is second only behind Bowen in tackle busts per run!).
Bird is the 12th ranked forward on this stat, just ahead of SBW.
Just looking at line breaks, Mat Rogers has the highest rate of line breaks per run for any player in the NRL that made 100 or more runs last year, at 10.71%. :cry
Taking try assists per minute played last year, obviously halfbacks top the list (though sadly no Sharks halves…though Noddy is ahead of Rovelli, Hornby, Finch, Perry, Morris, Watts and Smith at this).
Gallen is the second best forward though, just behind Ben Te’o whose stat has been boosted a bit by less game time. This stat would be quite volatile though, as try assists are not very frequent.
Gallen also is just below Cuthbertson, Tupou, SBW and Webb in offloads per minute (not counting a handful of players who made 1 or 2 offloads but only played a few minutes).
I’ll have a look at some chickenhawk V Sharks stats and post back.
