Why the Dally M Award is flawed

Yeah, I doubt greatly a gun second rower will win the Dally M in my lifetime but it would be nice to see the playing field evened out. That the first non-spine player in this years awards (Tohu Harris) appeared on the list in 14th place and arguably the best forward in the game who's not a hooker (Josh Papalii) didn't make the top 20, doesn't sit well with me, especially when Harris was equal with Dufty, who had a so-so year at best.

Really interesting comments - especially about the stats There are stats on effective and ineffective offloads. The passes one you mention would be really good. Probably challenging to define but definitely doable Same with ineffective kicks. A kick caught on the full, is that ineffective, what if it’s gone 60 metres on the fly? But once you set those parameters Forced dropouts are recorded but I don’t think there’s a stat for kicks that go dead which are pretty important now they give up a 7 tackle set Great ideas about the stats - but I still don’t think those are the reasons why second rowers don’t win Dally Ms :stoked: I wonder how much todays stats have been driven by things like SuperCoach. In the early 2000s I’d been playing Fantasy EPL and tried to come up with a points system for rugby league The stats were nowhere near what they are today. The problem was that halves would have terrible scores and unless I did crazy things like making try assists worth three times tries or a kick in general play worth as much as a try, they’d be terrible and it would be way unbalanced A lot of the “new” stats we have since then are as you’ve pointed out around attacking stats that measure attacking plays (and subsequently boost SC scores)...

That's true, but in the context of acknowledging players through some kind of award, all these extra player numbers do is muddy the waters. It just makes it that much harder to separate the wheat from the chaff, for a player who bases their game around defence It's also far more difficult to measure the effectiveness of guys who build their games around defence, especially when we're not measuring it. If you look at NRL stat, there are more than a dozen measures of a players worth in attack, but exactly 2 for a players defence. When it comes to errors, there's a specific one for "ineffective tackles" and missed tackles ( what ever that means), but nothing about ineffective kicks, hospital passes, forward passes, etc. In other words, we don't measure how much a piece of defence changed a game, but we do measure defensive mistakes, just as we do measure a range of attacking options but don't measure their effectiveness. At the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter. As you've said in an earlier post, those who have won it in the past few decades, have deserved their awards. Short of going NFL style with a gazillion stats, there's probably no easy way to fix this.

Maybe Wighton would have been even better playing of the service of Hodgson and got even more votes

Dexter has summed it up pretty well It’s much easier to replace and find another 40 tackle a game back rower than it is a gun, game controlling halfback Even rubbish teams tend to have a couple of those gun back rowers. You don’t often find teams with killer spines at the bottom of the table

Yeah well you got me there, I'm hardly going to argue with a Brad Clyde performance. Seems like a bit of dirty pool though, you must know he is my soft spot (him or Gavin Miller.....) :laughing: :laughing:

One group a re flashy and the others are not. That to me is the big difference. I went to game in Canberra a lot of years ago and deliberately watched Brad Clyde, rather than following the ball. You'd know Aussie Rules guys talk about the 1 per centers, that make the difference between a good and truly great player? That day I saw him do maybe a half dozen one per centers, mostly covering other guys mistakes and was certainly one of the best players in a winning side, but never got a vote for that game!!

I like the first option personally. But maybe that's not for everyone. The after game analysis would bring the bloke who made 40 tackles into the picture, as that might have been missed on first take, and only picked up with a post game review of the stats. Not that we want to make it all about stats, but it can play a role surely.

I guess it depends on what we want to achieve. If we truly want to find the best player, I'd have thought an examination of numbers after the game would be useful, so we can take into account things that might have slipped our memory. If Cleary for example, won a game with a great cut out pass in the last minute of play, but missed 3 or 4 tackles that led to earlier tries, surely that should affect his rating. That's where some sort of concensus by maybe an ex-coach, an ex-ref and and an ex couple of players would be useful. If we simply want to have a system where the votes are in before the final whistle, as we seem to have now, which is based on gut feeling and little else, keep what we have.

5 players from the spine and 5 players from elsewhere on the paddock did the voting. Seems fair to me.

Paul, I've always thought a consensus vote would sort that out and give players from different positions a better chance. Do you feel having three experts confer and then give the votes would help or hinder the process??

Its an interesting discussion point Paul. I would think the difference between your Cement Gillespie (who I loved as a player) and the 12th best back rower churning through tackles and hit-ups, is a lot less then the difference between a Nathan Cleary and the 12th best half-back (say Brodie Croft??) I agree totally with the importance of those players, but can understand the inclination to favour the play-makers in handing the awards out. Its a tough argument, as most of my favourite players over the years fit the description you state: Brad Clyde, D Gillespie, Bruce McGuire, Siro, Brad Mackay, Corey Parker, Bob Lindner, D Fairleigh. But I'd take Sterlo/Wally/Joey/Locky etc over them any day, and thats why they get the awards I guess.

Not a bad idea actually possibly the best idea

Oh right I thought it was a mix, I stand corrected. I still think over the years we’ve generally awarded to the best player/s.

Is this whole argument actually supported by facts? Looking back on the history, the medal has almost always been won by a finalist, if not a premiership winner. Storm players have won 4 times over the last decade and they've never been known for having a singular standout player. Your judgement might be skewed by Wighton's upset, or by how many Johns and JT have won, but those 2 are greats of the game who would thrive in any team.

Jack Wighton won 2020. Well done Jack for an outstanding year. I feel sorry for the blokes that make the tackles and do the tough runs of their line, make few errors and show up every week. It is an award for the attacking boys club. Give me a Glen Lazarus, Petro, Matt Scott, Tahu Harris, black tie awards night any day. Unfortunately people would complain Cameron Smith was always winning to much also.

Congrats to Jack Wighton a deserved Dally M winner and I am sure not too many would disagree, however the system is totally flawed. For example, if Canberra’s star hooker Josh Hodgson did not go down in round 9, it is highly likely that at some stage in the next 11 rounds, Hodgo would have played a better game than Wighton, this would have meant that either 3-2-or 1 points would have been reallocated to accommodate Hodgson’s performance (at the expense of Wighton’s). Had this been the case, then Wighton would not have won the Dally M this year.

"The guy making 40 tackles is important but he doesn’t carry the same weight of responsibility for the result as others in the team." That's where I disagree, TB. Since I starting thinking about this issue, one name kept cropping up in my mind - David "Cement" Gillespie. He was such a wonderful defensive player, all and sundry took it for granted he'd make his 40 or 50 tackles every game and would make some really big tackles that could change the momentum of the opposition attack and more importantly, rarely miss a tackle. That's serious responsibility, certainly on par with a playmaker, but the problem is, you don't miss these sorts of guys till they're not there and someone else, or often 2 or 3 other players, have to pick up that workload. And because it's not flashy, they rarely rate a mention.

the 3-2-1 all contributes to the player of the year, which is what the Dally M is touted to be. You're right of course, the players who handle the ball more are far easier to remember when it comes time to vote, but that doesn't mean they should rate higher than a bloke who punches above his weight in defence.

But Paul, not every role in every sport is equal I played in the forwards back in the day and appreciate forward play but I’m pretty comfortable with spine players mostly getting the gong The guy making 40 tackles is important but he doesn’t carry the same weight of responsibility for the result as others in the team. Plenty of players make 40 tackles in losing teams. When the team wins it’s usually because the spine players have got them there