Tigers Benji Marshall (centre) gets a pass away during the NRL Rugby League, Round 16, Penrith Panthers V Wests Tigers game in Sydney, Saturday, June 24, 2006. AAP Image/Action Photographics/Jonathan Ng
Every time I see commentators or panellists break down the statistics of an NRL game, it reinforces for me why people have a natural mistrust of statistics.
Men who are very knowledgeable about the game refer to such stats as the difference in offloads and hold this nugget of information forth as if were a piece of pure gold.
I’ve built a small database of every team’s stats over the period of 2006 to 2008 and tried to see which stats actually seem to matter. And the award for most glaringly overrated stat is the offload.
The offload has a -0.003 correlation to how much a team outscores its opponents by over the course of the season.
For those without much background in stats, that is so low that there is the distinct possibility that the number of potatoes I buy that week has a stronger correlation to my team’s fortunes than how many offloads they had.
On NRL tactics, a show that should be commended for digging deeper into the structure of play of each team, the team of analysts wowed us with Parramatta’s superiority in offloads.
Yes, in the land of the blue and gold it truly is the year of the Offload. But before thanking which ever deity you follow for bestowing upon your team the gift of the single handed pop up, consider these two pieces of information:
The Eel’s have had 20 or more offloads this year seven times for three wins, three losses and a draw. Hardly a dominant display when they offload the ball alot.
They’ve also had more offloads than their opponent for, I think, fifteen times this season for only five wins, nine losses and one draw.
Once again, hardly an indicator of success.
What this tells me is that the number of off-loads the Eels have is a meaningless stat in trying to tell us why they are playing so well. Kind of like it is a meaningless stat for the past three years.
Now in fairness to the NRL tactics crew, they may not actually be aware of what constitutes an offload, as two examples they highlighted during the show were actually just draw and pass moves.
Maybe next week they can pick out one or two of my other favourite meaningless stats to wow us with.
Recommend this story.
- Explore:
- NRL, NRL Tactics, Rugby League
August 20th 2009 @ 8:41am
MyGeneration said | August 20th 2009 @ 8:41am | Report comment
Would it be more meaningful if an offload was defined as a pass whilst being tackled by two or more players? But, like you, I don’t know how a lot of the stats (including who gets counted as making an effective tackle) are defined. Surely there’s a lot of variation depending on who is doing the stats for a given game/team. Anyone know of a place where I can get Rugby League Stats 101?
August 20th 2009 @ 9:26am
AndyRoo said | August 20th 2009 @ 9:26am | Report comment
Sounds similar to the tackling stat, I always wanted to know if they count the second guy in who just sort of comes in to help hold the attacker down. I remember the Newcastle Hooker (circa 1997) who was a pommy bloke (Lee Jackson I htink) and pretty useless. My uncle would fire up whenever he was lauded for his workrate as he was often coming in late putting a hand on a bloke, sometimes 4 tackles in a row without actually doing anything,
“does that count as a tackle, what about that, thats not a bl#@#@y tackle!”
August 20th 2009 @ 9:57am
Michael C said | August 20th 2009 @ 9:57am | Report comment
Interesting –
I tried to discover the main stats from soccer folk, and stuff all people had any idea about the stats that matter.
In AFL circles there’s all the disposal to advantage efficiency stats, and hard ball gets, and clearances, and inside 50s etc etc – - almost too many stats. But – - the thing about identifying the important and meaningful stats allows for a sophisticated ‘fantasy’ team competition.
I’d be very interested if you guys can scratch the surface a bit more on the NRL stats and the ‘tolerances’ I guess around some of them.
August 20th 2009 @ 10:36am
Pippinu said | August 20th 2009 @ 10:36am | Report comment
Good article Mushi
It’s interesting and worthwhile to get to the bottom of stats in team sports.
In the AFL, we’ve been working at it for 30 years, and I think that we have finally got to a situation where they are meaningful (to those who matter most, sitting up in the coach’s box – because if they are working out their moves based on stats – you can be assured that they carry some weight).
Like your offloads example (and I admit, as a casual observer, I too would naturally have thought that high offloads is a strong indicator – we can all think of famour offloads that have turned games), in the AFL, it took us a very long time to distinguish between kicks, marks and handballs that are of some value, and kicks, marks and handballs that are of zero value.
And that is the key to making sense of game stats (in most games I would imagine) – it’s not the primary stat that’s important (number of kicks, offloads, tackles, or whatever the hell it is) – it’s the secondary and tertiary level stats that are the crucial bits of info – that really tell you why one team is defeating another team (the who, how, where, why and what happened next).
So I suspect that if you got down to the secondary and tertiary level: where the offload occurs, who is getting it into their hot little hands, and what happens next that’s of any significance – we will get a far better picture of the value of offloads.
E.g. if someone offloads in their own half on the 6th tackle to someone immediately brought to ground – that’s hardly a stat worth counting!! In the AFL, we would call that a clanger!! And if there’s one stat that has meaning – it’s the clangers!!
I also agree with you that there’s clearly a definitional issue here – if we’re counting offloads that are not true offloads, like drawing the tackle – then we’re in danger of comparing apples and oranges and making zero sense of what’s truly going on.
August 20th 2009 @ 3:09pm
Mick from Giralang said | August 20th 2009 @ 3:09pm | Report comment
Thought provoking article Mushi. I believe the art of the genuine offload (like Arthur Beetson’s) has been lost in the modern game. Few players at the moment seem to know how to position hip and shoulder for maxmimum balance in the tackle, or possess the coolness of head in the heat of battle, to throw a genuinely dangerous offload. And support players rarely position themselves properly, ie trailing closely behind the ball carrier. It all seems more like an afterthought at the moment. Modern Coaches who are preoccupied with minimising mistake rates would also discourage the offload, and would not teach the technical niceities required to perfect the skill.
August 20th 2009 @ 3:38pm
Michael C said | August 20th 2009 @ 3:38pm | Report comment
Is the off load less likely if a more kicking game is used, i.e. Storm for example, a few years back seemed desperate to keep their play ‘flowing’, and would keep the ball alive and offload almost recklessly – - – in the last couple of years, with a bit more AFL x-training on kicking/marking drills – they seem more likely to kick the ball and make the big play the aerial contest near/on the try line.
August 20th 2009 @ 7:16pm
Mick from Giralang said | August 20th 2009 @ 7:16pm | Report comment
I think you’re right there, Michael C. The AFL influence on the Storm has added a new dimension to rugby league attack. The offload is defnitely a higher risk play than kicking wide to a winger, which has proved very effective for the storm.
August 20th 2009 @ 8:51pm
AndyRoo said | August 20th 2009 @ 8:51pm | Report comment
I think the Sharks did it first in the modern game with their two wigers (Richie barnett was one) who were fantastic at taking bombs.
August 20th 2009 @ 9:17pm
Pippinu said | August 20th 2009 @ 9:17pm | Report comment
But the modern game has taken it too an absolutely new level – honestly – we are seeing glimpses of a game that bears little relationship to the one played, say, 30 years ago.
But we could also say the same thing about aussie rules – that’s what increased professionalism does.
August 20th 2009 @ 9:25pm
AndyRoo said | August 20th 2009 @ 9:25pm | Report comment
Well the sharks were good enough that there was a widespread call to change the rules. i think the catch inside the goal leading to a 20 metre tap was the result.
August 21st 2009 @ 1:46pm
GaryGnu said | August 21st 2009 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
I thought the catch on the full leading to 20 metre tap was a result of the tactics Warren Ryan devised for Cantebury in the 1985 GF against St George.
The fullbacks name escapes me right now but he was peppered with high balls all game and was trapped in goal leading to the drop out. Classic Wok Ball really; play for territory, build up pressure and sweat on a mistake by the opposition. It worked too, look at the result 7-6 to the Bulldogs.
August 21st 2009 @ 1:48pm
Pippinu said | August 21st 2009 @ 1:48pm | Report comment
It has to be said that the Bulldogs were a pretty strong outfit all round in that era.
August 20th 2009 @ 4:28pm
oikee said | August 20th 2009 @ 4:28pm | Report comment
Mushi, please dont give up on this stat just yet. I think you will find that in the future it will be a very important stat for players worth , and not just on the feild. The other stat that has gone un-noticed which is becoming critical to the game is drop ball and playing the ball mistakes.
I was watching a super league game the other day and the commentator blew up because the ref missed a fumble at dummy half. Interesting.? We take for granted the skills of players not dropping the ball, but remember how we carried on when Dane Laurie dropped that sitter earlier on in the year.
Off-loads could prove the difference between winning and losing a game. And yes, just lately i have seen more and more forwards starting to back up the player with the ball, 2 forwards scored a good try in the broncos game just from being their. This is a area for future attack, ? the coaches that pick this up quicker will get better results i would say. Cheers.
P.S Adam Blair for the Storm is maybe the best at the Off-Load. He delivers clean crisp off-loads.
August 20th 2009 @ 5:25pm
mushi said | August 20th 2009 @ 5:25pm | Report comment
Oikee I’m not “giving up on it”, I plan to revisit and put in the 2009 numbers at the end of the year and every stat the NRL stats keeps for a player plus a few derivatives of my own, goes into it.
Yes a good offload could be what you remember as the defining moment of a game but two things:
- that is about the quality of a single offload it is not about the quantity of offloads which is what the stat measures.
- Also it accredits far too much to that single offload, and this is the big problem with using subjectivity. You tend to remember only the shinning moments, which essentially trivialises the other 79:59 of game play.
The fact is at the moment the offload is, out of every stat I looked at, the most irrelevant when looking at impact on the scoreboard.
August 20th 2009 @ 5:29pm
Dogs Of War said | August 20th 2009 @ 5:29pm | Report comment
Let me guess, number 1 is completion percentage?
August 20th 2009 @ 5:41pm
mushi said | August 20th 2009 @ 5:41pm | Report comment
Dogs that’s what I expected to find. But it was actually metres gained (kicking and/or runs) that had the biggest impact. Interestingly this stat has more impact on how few points you concede than how many you score.
August 20th 2009 @ 6:00pm
Pippinu said | August 20th 2009 @ 6:00pm | Report comment
That’s understandable – if you keep the opposition pinned back in their own half (by whatever means), they are further away from a try (all things being equal).
August 20th 2009 @ 4:33pm
Pippinu said | August 20th 2009 @ 4:33pm | Report comment
Mick
you might recall that you had a well known MLA who executed the perfect offload in 1994 to swing the advantage towards your home town.
Talk about calmness, can you remember how calm he was that day (having come into the squad as a fairly late replacement, if my memory serves me well), with blokes hanging off him left, right and centre, he laid it off with almost a wry smile: you should check this out you lot – you’re about to miss something special!!
The coolness to think things through under severe physical pressure? Well, you ain’t going to get that running around the training track and in the weights room.
This is a choice that all codes must face: balancing the physical preparedness (which requires more time of dedicated effort than ever before) with developing game intelligence.
August 20th 2009 @ 7:21pm
Mick from Giralang said | August 20th 2009 @ 7:21pm | Report comment
I well recall it Pippinu, I was sitting in the bar on the campus of New England University, the lone Raiders supporter among a bunch of Canterbury tragics at the time. Days like those tend to stick in the mind…
Of course he’s gone on to bigger and better things… CEO of the Eels, no less.
August 20th 2009 @ 4:35pm
oikee said | August 20th 2009 @ 4:35pm | Report comment
Just one more point on the off-load, a player under pressure from the defence could also be counted as a off-load, mainly half-backs running across feild and then delivering to a forward or fullback. He is under emmence pressure but still gets the ball away. When you here the commentator yelling out, he’s been shot out of a gun. That is another off-load, but the half back has not been touched by a opposition player., yet he still has delivered a beautiful off-load.
August 20th 2009 @ 4:38pm
mushi said | August 20th 2009 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
Pip and Mick C
The only way to really get to the bottom is get truck loads of data, throw out your preconceived ideas and then analyse it from different angles.
It would be interesting to sit down and so this analysis for different sports.
Mick G
Your memories of Big Arty is kind of where the problem stems from we see something which is a devastating weapon and think every time anyone does that it must be great, we forget about the ones that bounce on the ground three times before the attacker falls on it losing four metres and getting a slow play of the ball.
At the end of the day it is simply a pass, how effective that pass is depends on the same things as any other pass, position of the ball, quality of the ball, position of the defence, and the person receiving the pass.
And whilst it may be a good positioned pass, in that you’ve taken out at least one defender, this must obviously be offset by the accuracy i.e. it is easier to pass accurately with two hands free and not carrying one or two 100kg balls of muscle trying to stop you passing the ball.
My generation
Tackles are another bugbear for me not so much from the recording point of view but from how useful it is. Tackle % is relatively worthless stat, not as worthless as the offload but pretty close. And yet whenever an expert talks about what a poor defender someone is they throw up the missed and ineffective tackle stats.
That’s why my original title was “beware of commentators bearing stats”
August 20th 2009 @ 7:36pm
MyGeneration said | August 20th 2009 @ 7:36pm | Report comment
Unassisted tackles should be its own stat for starters.
August 20th 2009 @ 4:45pm
Pippinu said | August 20th 2009 @ 4:45pm | Report comment
Nice title!
Actually, my memory is clearly playing tricks, rather than being held up by 3 defenders, he was actually mowing them over!!
Anyway, I still think this qualifies as a classic offload (given the circumstances of the game).
For those who have forgotten (and DOW won’t want to be reminded), this is the GF where the ball was famously dropped from the kick off.
Start from around 2:40 – dropped ball and first try aren’t too far away (some other good tries in this game as well):
August 20th 2009 @ 5:14pm
Dogs Of War said | August 20th 2009 @ 5:14pm | Report comment
That was a painful day. Though winning the comp the next year (especially considering my personal situation at the time), made up for it ten-fold.