- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Much has been made of the closeness of the Shute Shield in 2016, culminating in an historic win to Northern Suburbs at North Sydney Oval a few weeks ago.
Up until the penultimate week of competition, eight teams were still capable of playing finals footy. At the end of the regular season only eight points separated minor premiers Sydney University from sixth placed Eastwood – the smallest gap for quite some time.
While there are definitely reasons to see season 2016 in a positive light, there is also cause for concern. If we move away from the top of the Shute Shield ladder, a number of perennial under achievers are there, with Penrith not winning a game this season.
When researchers examining sporting leagues want to understand how even the league is, they’ll look at what is called competitive balance. There are different time frames to consider competitive over, including the short term (i.e. individual match), the medium term (i.e. an individual season), and the long term (i.e. a number of seasons).
In the 106 matches where there was a losing team in first grade, 43 (41%) of these teams earned a bonus point for losing by seven points or less, which is up on previous years.
At an individual season level, yes, it was certainly closer at the top end of the competition, but there was also a sizeable gap between eighth-placed Eastern Suburbs on 54 points and ninth-placed West Harbour on 33 points. From there it fell sharply to 12th-placed Penrith on four points.
A cross-season competitive balance can be measured a number of different ways, but one which is commonly used is the actual to idealised standard deviation (ASD/ISD). Without boring you with the calculations behind it, in essence the more even the competition is in terms of wins (or competition points) the lower the actual standard deviation will be and thus lower the ASD/ISD (the ISD component is in there to compensate for the number of rounds played).
A perfectly even competition with every team winning 50 per cent of their matches will have an ASD/ISD of 0.
The ASD/ISD for the 2016 Shute Shield is 2.227, which while lower than 2015, is actually slightly above the eight year average of 2.195, so there is certainly no statistical indication that 2016 was a more even year in the Shute Shield overall. 2012 is the most even year in recent times, with only three teams enjoying a winning percentage greater than 60 per cent, and the lowest ranked team winning three of their 16 matches.
But I’m not even sure that focusing purely on the Shute Shield is what we should be doing. When you expand the review out to encompass all grades and colts, 2016 doesn’t look much different to previous years.
Sydney University won the club championship, contested six grand finals, won four premierships and had the highest winning percentage (81.0%) of any club. Over the last eight years, Sydney University has won eight club championships, contested 48 grand finals, won 36 premierships, and had the highest winning percentage (83.9%) of any club.
For the record, the gap is closing between Sydney University and the next tier of aspirants, however a major concern for the game is that the same teams, Penrith and Parramatta regularly feature at the bottom.
In 2016, while Parramatta’s winning percentage of 25.8 per cent was slightly up on their long term average, Penrith’s 5.6 per cent was slightly down.
This is not an article knocking the success Sydney University has had. Some 15 to 20 years ago, they were definitely not in the shape they are now, and credit where credit is due.
This is also not an article knocking the efforts of the staff and volunteers of Penrith, Parramatta, or any other club in the competition.
Without the tireless efforts of those involved, club rugby would certainly cease to exist.
Rather, this is an attempt to draw attention to the realities of the situation. Because without a vibrant, and competitive club competition across Sydney, the game itself is at real risk of long term damage.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.