Field Theory by Hadyn Green

I'm writing this before I head down to watch the Munster game. I'm looking forward to it because I'm a big Munster fan. I've got the entire first season on DVD (ho ho, although seriously I do). But what I really want to talk about are statistics. [Note: the bit on the Munster game is below the pretty pictures]

We've talked here before about the commentators' use of the word "average", when what they usually mean is "bad". Now, it could be argued that they mean the global average and not the local average of the player in question. But I think it's safe to assume they don't.

So I thought I'd take a look at the statistics and see what exactly "average" was for a number of players. I used Tracey Nelson's stats as they are the easiest to find and are broken down nicely by player.

I selected six players in total: Ma'a Nonu, Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Rodney So'oialo, Ali Williams and Jerome Kaino. The players were selected because they have been criticised or glorified for their performances (or I was just curious).

For each player I used the stats for: Tackles; Assists (tackle); First Three to the Breakdown; Missed tackles; and Missed Tackle Ratio (number of missed tackles divided by all solo tackles attempted). And I only analysed the games played so far this year (mainly because I hate data entry), so we've got data for 11 games (I don't have the numbers for the Samoa game or the Hong Kong game).

Here are the players averages in each stat for the games played so far this year:

	Tackles	Assists	First 3 to the Breakdown	Missed Tackles	Missed Tackle Ratio
Nonu	4.1	1.5	8.0	0.9	0.2
Carter	8.5	1.2	5.5	1.0	0.1
So'oialo	7.9	1.8	19.4

1.3	0.1
McCaw	10.5	3.0	29.0	0.8	0.0
Williams	4.8	1.4	16.5	0.9	0.2
Kaino	6.7	1.2	16.4	0.6	0.1

Sorry about the awful html

From this it should be easy to see the Richie McCaw really is "Captain Tackles". In fact if it wasn't for the injury in Christchurch and not starting in Edinburgh his numbers would be much higher (we'll come to that soon). Also note that McCaw misses so few tackles compared to who many he attempts that his missed tackle ratio is effectively zero. So if you're an opponent best not to run at him.

It can also be seen that our tackles are generally one-on-one situations.

For each player I created a graph (click if you need the bigger version) showing the three main stats: tackles, missed tackles and first three to breakdown (first 3). And then for each of those data series I added in the linear derivation of that series (which can be taken to be the average performance in that statistic for that player).

For example we can see that Nonu is clearly increasing in his role at the breakdown while there is an overall slight decrease in his number of tackles and (thankfully) his number of missed tackles.

Here are the others

What is really cool is Richie McCaw's average for Tackles and First 3. The only games that dip below his average are the game where he was injured and the game where he was subbed on.

The most interesting chart for me is Ali Williams. If you look at his First 3 stats you'll see that it oscillates wildly from game to game both home and away, against various opponents. He did get injured against England but still that's some crazy variation. To be honest I wasn't expecting that and thought I would see that pattern in Nonu's numbers.

When I compared the players to one another I used the First 3 stat because for me it's the only offensive and defensive stat. Which means it should show the least variation in a win or loss and so should be a better indicator of "work" (the averages should just different for backs, midfielders and forwards).

Let's look at Nonu and Carter first (who I called "backs").

We can see that they started going in opposite directions, until Sydney where they became in sync (Edinburgh being an anomaly as Carter was a sub).

Now for the forwards we can see that McCaw is the beautiful and wonderful God of Tackling we all thought he was. Note that his linear average is higher than the overall maximum of any other player.

If I had more time I would do a comparison of more players (though there is are very few for whom there is a large amount of data) and analyse by differing variables (such as line breaks, kick recoveries, tackles broken, passes completed, passes caught etc) for differing positions.

The Munster Mash
NZ 18 - Munster 16
So I've watched the Munster game now (well most of it, stupid work) and what a horrible game that was. Even the fights were dull. Stephen Donald looked like a horse's arse most of the time, thank god he held on to it a bit more in the second half.

The haka was very cool; all four Munster men seemed to get really into it. But the earlier helicopter bringing in the match ball was a bit much.

We were munstered in the scrums (see what I did there?). Ben Franks looked out of his depth and was shown up every time (though the refs calls of "pushing" weren't very helpful). On the other side MacIntosh was complaining that his opposite was walking backwards. As soon as Afoa came in the scrum seemed to get better instantly.

Franks also wasn't so good with the ball in hand. While others seemed to be able to push over the first Irish tackler at will, Franks would fend and roll to the ground gaining very few metres.

I was informed, by my Irish workmate, that Munster #8, Dennis Leamy is a "feckin' ligind" in Limerick. Or so she was told numerous times while watching rugby there.

There were a few good passages of play, when the All Blacks had the ball in hand and our defence seemed very well trained. But could the Munster players stay uninjured for more than two phases? It was killing momentum in both directions. Stringer behind the rucks was slower than Andy Ellis.

The crowd was once again a sea of serenity during the kicks. We were joking that the shhhh-ing before the silence was actually meant to mimic the ocean, relaxing the kicker. It was also hilarious to hear the commentators whispering to each other, afraid of being shhhh-ed.

As I had to leave early I missed what was apparently the only good bit of work by New Zealand. But I'm just happy we didn't lose and that I'm not going to get bollocks from my Irish workmate for the next 30 years.

I'm waiting for Tracey Nelson's stats to go up so I can start to do some trend analysis and player analysis. But until then here are my notes from the weekend (and in case you were wondering, yes, this is almost all about rugby). Oh and these are literally the notes I made during the game.

Ireland 3 – New Zealand 22

After writing on Friday about how I irrationally hate the New England Patriots and how I've started to hate Ireland, I was not surprised to see an Irish fan wearing a Patriots jersey.

Also during the anthem is not the best time to goof off if you're a player, because that's when the cameras will definitely be on you. It's ok not to sing, but don't look about and lean out to look down the line.

Canterbury of New Zealand you should be fucking ashamed of yourselves. Those Irish jerseys are disgusting. The font on the back is terrible. Were you trying to make them look like green androids from the future? Also the Canterbury logo seemed way too big, though I did like the text in the centre that read "Ireland v New Zealand 15/11/2008". But why did only a few players have it? (it's here, but not here).

How did you like that haka? The whole crowd roaring and drowning out the players. And the All Blacks busting out Kapa O Pango, with Ali Williams going nuts out in front. Mother Fucker, it's on like Donkey Kong! (I may have actually have yelled that out in my living room).

Speaking of the crowd, I was totally impressed. During the moment of silence for the murdered rugby player they slipped slightly by applauding but then you could've heard a pin drop. Later they used that deathly silence to great effect during the kicks, by keeping quiet and then getting loud just before foot met ball. Murray Mexted, in fine form, said at one point: "Listen to the silence".

This was not the case at the lineout where the crowd was drowning out the calls, causing me to wonder why they don't use hand signals. Surely they're just yelling codes anyway (and not: "Throw it to Rodney"). Which is why I call "bullshit" on the "respect shown by the crowd during the kicks" line that everyone seems to be throwing about. Lineouts are in some ways as important as kicks, so where was the respect then?

The crowd was also not shy about informing the referee if they were unhappy with a decision. There was quite a ruckus during the sin-binning of Tommy Bowe and penalty try combo. I felt ok when Tony Woodcock was sent off later, because at least he wasn't sent off for a wussy infringement.

And as for infringements, in the second half Ireland seemed to be playing far too angrily. They just seemed really grumpy and maybe frustrated. There was a lot of scrappy play at the breakdown and after the whistle (like kicking the ball away).

And weren't the scrums much better this week? I wonder how much is due to the packs being more experienced, the referee and the playing surface (there seemed to be fewer slip-ups in general this week). Though I did like the penalty against Jimmy Cowan for pushing his opposite number. Cowan looked like he was yelling "Fuck off! Fuck off!" Aren't you filled with pride?

While the All Blacks didn't exactly put up a cricket score, the Irish defence was fairly woeful. When Jimmy Cowan can fend a player to the ground you know that your team needs to do some more tackling drills.

Sometimes I wonder why Sky sends their commentary crew on such expensive trips overseas when they clearly aren't calling the same game I'm watching. Though Mexted was in one of his more lucid periods and late in the match there was a wonderful bit of schadenfreude from Mex. Tony Johnson had just quoted (without naming) Stephen Jones as saying Ronan O'Gara was a better first-five than Dan Carter. Mexted said: "I don't know who wrote that, but I'd say they didn't know much about rugby".

It was a fairly "average" performance but the commentators. O'Gara had been belting the ball up the field for most of the match and then knocked a clearing kick off the side of his boot that went maybe five metres. The call was naturally: "that was an average kick from O'Gara". Actually it was neither mean, median nor mode guys.

I arrived home the other night in time to catch the last five minutes of the Colts vs Patriots game on ESPN. I am indifferent towards the Colts but I hate the Patriots. Hate them with a passion I usually reserve for television psychics.

But why? Well as the old t-shirt equation goes: I support X and anyone playing Y (where Y is the nemesis of X).

There is nothing the Patriots can do in my eyes that isn't cheating or poor sportsmanship. I can't help it. They may have the best players (something I naturally resent them for) but if it's a good play I am sure that they must have cheated somehow, or the ref is biased or... or… or something illegal because they're evil!!!

You get my point right? This is an irrational hatred. It's something that just becomes part of your support for your team. If your opponent is winning then somehow they must be cheating.

For certain teams this is just a natural and constant state (for example the Patriots have always been dirty cheats, you know it, I know and they know it). For other teams it's a fleeting hatred, like the Irish rugby team.

Ever since the Lions tour of '05 I have felt that the Irish team tend to be full of whingers. Irish supporters out there know what I mean. Leading up to the World Cup they were beaten by the Scots and since then they've gone downhill (I mean look at the official splash page for goodness sake!). Last year they could only manage wins over Namibia and Georgia (in the World Cup) and, Scotland and Italy (in the Six Nations). And they don't travel well.

This is of course an irrational and unfounded dislike of the Irish. Even the "whingers" comment above was just put there to shit-stir. I used to like Ireland. I used to support them in the Six Nations (for no real reason) but now I support … I dunno, France?

And of course it's nice to know that we are the target of haters too. The All Blacks are not very well liked up north. Irrational demented hatred is really the only possible reason for this:

As ever, the All Blacks will be about half as good as their followers think they are, though still hardly bad. The power and pride of their collective, the magnificence of their basic skills and ability to adapt to any circumstances cannot hide the fact that a large number of their individuals on this trip would not make a Guinness Premiership club roster. Take, say, Piri Weepu or Jimmy Cowan, the two All Black scrum-halves in Hong Kong yesterday? Hardly galacticos. We'll get back to you, lads.

Though it always scares the hell out of me when I find myself agreeing with Stephen Jones.

Feel free to share your best irrational hatred story. Either your own or someone else's hatred of you. I'll be spending the afternoon with one eye on the Jets-Patriots game, making sure those cheating bastards don't get away with it.

As fun as it is to bitch about things we hate (and even more fun to swear about them) it always does the spirit good to look at the good things happening in the world. And in particular (for this blog) the sports world.

First up, an historic day as an underprivileged minority is finally acknowledged! On Monday a group of individuals finally had their contributions to the sport of golf honoured: Lefties. Oh and New Zealanders

Sir Bob Charles became the first left-handed player to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. And I suppose he is also the first New Zealander too, but the left-handed thing is bigger.

Charles, 72, the first New Zealander and the first lefty to be selected to the shrine, won the 1963 British Open. It is the highlight of a lengthy career that is still ongoing--he finished T-20 last week in the Russian Seniors Open in Moscow. "I've actually lost count," Charles said when asked how many times he has equalled or bettered his age. "I started bettering my age at 65. I've been able to [do it] every year since then." Charles has six PGA Tour victories, 24 international titles and 23 wins on the Champions Tour.

And check out how he wowed the ladies in this shot. They can’t even stand straight.

And remember the marathon runner from last week who Nike wouldn’t say was a winner even though her time was faster than the “elite” runners? Well it looks like they missed a trick:

On Thursday, representatives from Reebok, Nike's arch-rival, surprised O'Connell with a special awards ceremony at her Beginning with Children Charter School in Brooklyn, New York.

Reebok presented O'Connell with the following: a free pair of shoes every month for a year, T-shirts for everyone in her class, and a $2,500 donation to her school.

They also gave her a F.U.N. Award with a trophy inscribed with "Winner and Heroine of Non-Elite Runners Everywhere." According to Reebok the N "does not stand for Nike".

Another quick uniform note: despite the minute of silence for Remembrance Day before the Scotland test, neither team had poppies on their uniform. Strange given that it’s not an unprecedented thing for the All Blacks.

I also did some (very quick) analysis of Tracey Nelson’s stats (what is it with geeks and data).

What's clear to see in Tracey's numbers (after playing with the numbers in excel for a few minutes) is that we had a much more productive second half. For example we made 45 tackles in the first half and 59 in the second (this may be due to Scotland's increased possession in the second half where they were camped on our line). From informal observation this often seems to be the case with the All Blacks (especially against second tier nations) as fitness prevails and quality subs become important.

I also created a variable called "Total Tackle Incidents" (TTI). It's a very basic proxy and is just "tackles made" + "assisted tackles" + "first 3 to breakdown". First 3 is a weird stat, because I assume it's both offensive and defensive, and is simply a proxy for "attempts to secure the ball".

Also if you take it that only the first three players to the breakdown are effective in gaining possession then First 3 can be considered to be a similar stat to "tackles" or "line breaks", and it becomes a unit of work on the field. (I am also looking at changing First 3 to a rate per 15 men on the field, but I'm still figuring out how that works)

So with that in mind...in the

first half we had 121 TTI and in the second half we had 226 TTI (almost double!). This mainly comes from our reserves like McCaw and Filipo who came on with an amazing work-rate. Also players like Toeava*, Tuitavake and Boric making more tackles in the second half.

*UPDATE: I checked this and naturally there was a mistake in my calculations. Toeava’s tackles were counted in the second half instead of the first.

Interestingly our assisted tackle numbers drop considerably in the second half, especially in the forwards.

The stats also show that Mealamu was the only player not to record a tackle, but he did miss one.

And our new work-horses are Read, Messam and Thompson (I know, duh)

For those who like such things we can guesstimate what McCaw would've done if he was on the field all game (sort of, it's based on the performance of his "lesser mortal" teammates):

• 5 tackles
• 2 assists (rounded)
• And first 3 to the breakdown 41 times!

But, is he one of the 25 hottest men in the world? Depends on who you ask I suppose.

At the international and professional level of any sport there is only one goal. One. You are not there to showcase your skills. You are not there to advertise your country. You are not there to do anything but win the goddamn game.

That is why at certain times this week I have become angry at Graham Henry. Don't worry; I'm not joining Chris Rattue on his Robbie Deans-is-the-sexiest-man-alive soapbox. I just feel that there were some questionable personnel decisions on the weekend.

But let's start at the beginning…

The All Blacks ran out onto Murrayfield and I'm not sure anyone knew they were there. Like the world's first team of rugby-ninjas they made their way onto the pitch undercover of darkness as the lights of the stadium were left off until the anthems began. And the anthems had no vocals, so we were able to hear that wonderful melodic sound of rugby players trying desperately to remember all the words and sing in tune.

After the haka the Scots sent out their very successful Olympic cyclist as a ceremonial ball-boy. The commentators (including Murray Mexted, groan) had decided that this was yet another evil scheme to disrupt the effect of the haka. The haka that the opposition don't really have to let us do.

I get very annoyed when opposing teams supposedly "disrespect" the haka. In my mind they can do whatever they want while we do our little dance. And if it's their home ground and they want to sing a wee song afterwards then why would we see that as disrespect?

Quick uniform notes (I'll get them out of the way now):

• The All Blacks shorts now have logos on them. One leg has the silver fern and the other has the Adidas logo, but they are on opposite sides to their placement on the jersey.
• Some All Blacks, including Kevan Mealamu, wore long sleeves under their jerseys. This undershirt came with the obligatory Adidas logo just above the elbow.
• This means that some players had eight Adidas logos on them! One on the jersey, one on the shorts, one on each sock, one on each long sleeve and one in each number on their back
• The Scots, playing in their alternate strips, out did us in that category though. They had Canterbury logos on the front and back of their shorts, an extra logo on the back and, of course, the trademarked Canterbury Wallabra.
• And speaking of the white jerseys, I thought Scotland played in Navy at home and only donned the white when playing the All Blacks on the road. Do I have that backwards?
• Although the ugliest uniforms of the weekend were those bizarre red get-ups the English were wearing. Nike, stop ruining our duds.
• To the clothing manufacturers, can we please go back to the days of jersey swapping? It might still happen in the locker room, but for some reason it doesn't feel right.

Now to the game. Wayne Barnes blew his whistle a lot, however, for the most part he was correct in his rulings. His sending off of Scottish midfielder Nick de Luca for "cynical" play was harsh but justified. However, it did send the commentators into a feedback loop. First one said "cynical play", then they were agreed with "yes, cynical play", then "clearly cynical", then "we don't need cynical play like that". All in all I think I counted 10 or so uses of "cynical". Interestingly I'm not entirely sure de Luca was being cynical, unless he really didn't have any belief in his team.

The thing that got me about Barnes was his scrums. He constantly penalised All Black debutant Jamie Mackintosh for early engagement. Listening carefully, it was clear that Mackintosh (or perhaps the guys behind him) was finding it hard to predict Barnes' scrum call cadence (crouch, touch, pause… engage!). Here in the antipodes the refs tend to say "engage" directly after the (unnecessary) word "pause" (ie. crouch, touch, paaaaaaaauuuuuusssseeengage!). Mackintosh might be a good sizable option in the scrum but to my mind he is not a starter in the All Blacks, especially if he can't change his scrum tactics on the fly.

Ma'a Nonu had another one of his crappy games (which means he'll be good next week). When Nonu is playing like that you can assume that he will not get better. I cannot remember a game where Nonu starts out flat-footed and fumbly and then comes right and is brilliant.

These choices had me yelling at Henry (though he was in Scotland and the broadcast was delayed). You play to win the game, and you are more likely to win the game with Mackintosh and Nonu on the sideline.

Also, Scotland, WTF? When the opposition's kicker is lining up you do not sit quietly and respectfully while he tries to slot it. You do everything in your power (as the 16th man) to disrupt him. And usually that means some kinds of shouting or general disturbance. Poor showing Scottish crowd, remember, they play to win the game, you shout to win the game.

There are a bunch of new players that I wouldn't have benched for anything (other than injury). Kahui, Messam, Tuituvake and Donald (yeah I can't believe the last one either). Toeava had a good game too before wrecking his shoulder quite painfully. Shame, because he seemed to be coming around.

After the World Cup there has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth about every player that leaves for the overseas dosh. And everytime we seem to have someone who can slot in and be as good. For example Andy Ellis has busted his ribs and Alby Mathewson is stepping in. Admittedly all Alby has do is be average and he'll fill Ellis' shoes nicely, but you get my point.

And the comebacks are doing quite well thank you. Rokocoko and Weepu were having a grand old time out there.