By far the worst thing to happen to the glorious craft of sports journalism in my lifetime is the reliance on statistics to describe a player’s effectiveness.
Partly, it’s the terminology and analytical mindset of fantasy games and sports betting creeping into the way we talk, think and write about sport.
And partly it’s just laziness, or perhaps inexperience among young journos in stripped-bare newsrooms.
Whatever the case, statistics make sports journalism both a chore and a bore to read. Just this week, I read that Tom Trbojevic won his Dally M award on the back of 32 line breaks, 131 tackle busts, 31 try assists and 28 tries in just 18 games including finals.
Yeah? Does that describe the way he bobbed up everywhere like an eastern suburbs socialite? The way he’d scythe through defence like the slipperiest centre, then carry three larger men over the line like the strongest second rower?
The way he took the NRL fullback manual that was written by Billy Slater and edited by James Tedesco, and updated it by about five versions in a single season? It was like the guys who make the FIFA video game franchise going, “Screw it, we’ll release FIFA 27 today!”
So too was Benji Marshall’s career pathetically reduced to numbers in an article I read recently. Apparently it was all about his 286 career try-assists or whatever the number was. Is that a lot or a little? I don’t care and neither should you.
Because the career of Benjamin Quentin Marshall, which came to an end in last Sunday’s NRL grand final between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Penrith Panthers, was only ever about one thing.
Wow!
That’s it. One word. The wow factor. Wow. Wowsers. How the hell did he just do that?
(Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Sport always comes down to emotion. Many of today’s writers have forgotten that. Sport is about the way you feel when you’re watching it. Your expectation before a season or game. Your frustration and excitement (and usually plenty of both) during games. Your elation or disappointment afterwards.
If one emotion fuels all the others, it’s hope. Hope is irrational and often horribly misplaced. Like the cold pies and warm beer on the Leichhardt Oval hill, it is sustaining yet also wipes years off your life. But hope can never be killed. And when Benji took the field, there was always hope. Always.
When the great sixes and sevens of the first two decades of this century are filed away in the sporting archives, they’ll probably talk about the likes of Darren Lockyer, Andrew Johns, Brad Fittler, Johnathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk before they mention Benji. When they speak of the era’s greatest in any position, it’ll likely be Cameron Smith.
You know what Cameron Smith did well? Everything. Every game, in basically every minute on the field, everything he did was solid, effective, the keystone in propelling his team to victory. Smith’s relentless veryverygoodness was undoubtedly a form of greatness. Imagine going to your job every single day and never putting a foot wrong. Imagine helping those around you be better at everything.
Benji was different. He was brilliant but he sometimes got things wrong, especially early in his career.
(Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)
For every flick pass that resulted in a Pat Richards grand final try, there was a ball retrieved by a ball boy. Sometimes the errors were of execution. And sometimes they came down to extra sensory perception, or a lack of it. No winger alive had the ability to read Benji every time. How could they? Even he didn’t know what he’d do next.
But that’s what made the first half of Benji Marshall’s NRL career so exciting. Everything was new and unscripted and enthralling. The former touch footy player from Whakatane played like no one before him.
How often can you say that in any sport? Remember when you saw your first reverse sweep in cricket? Now everyone has mainstreamed it. The rugby league flick pass, too. The audacious has become the everyday. It took Benji to get us there.
Then there were pieces of play that defy description. Remember the game at Shark Park as Benji and the Tigers started roaring in their run towards the 2005 premiership?
He steps like he’s playing hopscotch for his mother’s life. Steps again. Accelerates through a gap, which has opened due to the confusion caused by his stepping. Then he does this thing where he actually changes direction mid-stride.
Previously, physicists believed that only winged creatures could wilfully change their trajectory in mid-air. Textbooks have surely now been updated to include Benji Marshall.
My absolute favourite Benji moment from that early era was the try assist – yes, one of the 286 try assists – against Parramatta in Round 24, 2009. This was one of the greatest regular-season matches you’ll ever see.
Both teams had started the season poorly, both were six on the trot coming into the clash. Both had momentum, and you just knew that the winner could make a serious title run from the wrong half of the eight. And so it proved.
2009 would be the year that Parra stormed through to the grand final from eighth, pun intended, only to be beaten by Melbourne (who would later be stripped of that and the 2007 title due to salary cap breaches).
So there we were at the SFS before 35,000 people. A real finals atmosphere three weeks before the finals. And up stepped Benji. He slipped around Eels centre Joel Reddy, then pulled this dummy that looked like no dummy ever sold in rugby league. It was actually a double-dummy, which is not to be confused with the more subtle double-pump.
Twice, he seriously looked like he was going to dish off to his centre buddy Chris Lawrence – first on the outside, then inside as Lawrence changed angles – yet he held the ball as everyone, Lawrence included, seemed to go, ‘WTF?’
Benji was away! Only 15 metres between him and the line. Defenders converged. And then Benji flicked it, not in a gentle dish-off, but a full behind-the-back flick bullet pass to Blake Ayshford, who scored in the corner. Who does that? Who ever did anything like that?
The thing most people remember from that match is the Jarryd Hayne chip-and-regather try, which was indeed a beauty, and sealed the win for the Eels.
But I remember the opening try, the Benji-Ayshford moment, because it was a combo of WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED and HOW DID HE DO THAT! As mentioned at the top, that’s how Benji Marshall made you feel.
(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Later in his career, after the failed switch to rugby union and at-best moderately successful stints with the Broncos and St George Illawarra, Benji evolved back at the Tigers. He has always been a smart person – he’s razor-sharp when you meet him – and having lost a yard of speed, he was smart enough to add a mile of nous.
Gone were most of the steps and some of the flicks, replaced by wicked tactical kicks that dipped and swirled late, their arc more like a question mark than a rainbow. Those kicks asked questions of fullbacks, all right, and now everyone’s doing them.
He also became adept at the cut-out pass to wingers, a skill he didn’t invent but which he perfected. Even when it seemed the obvious play, he had a way of pulling it off a tenth of a second quicker than defences could read. So it has been at Souths this year too.
Have they made the grand final because of him? No. Did he fill crucial gaps midyear when players were injured? Absolutely. Has he played a crucial support role throughout the season when a spare pair of hands was needed to add just enough spice to back-line moves to take them from predictable to dangerous? You betcha.
So take your stats and shove ’em. I have no idea how to quantify the NRL career of Benji Marshall except to say that I’ve absolutely loved watching him play. He’s an outstanding citizen off the field too, which helps in any assessment of his contribution to the game.
The best I’ve seen? Put it this way: he’s given me more joy than any other player, and really, that’s all that matters.
Jeremy Hicks
Guest
Stats are useful & help tell a story. But stats don't make you smile like I smiled watching that double dummie, round the back pass.
Angelina
Guest
Most honest and accurate article I’ve read in a long time ???????????????????????? couldn’t agree more!
The Fat
Guest
Matty Bowen more betta
Full Credit to the Boys
Roar Rookie
“If one emotion fuels all the others, it’s hope. Hope is irrational and often horribly misplaced. Like the cold pies and warm beer on the Leichhardt Oval hill, it is sustaining yet also wipes years off your life. But hope can never be killed. And when Benji took the field, there was always hope. Always.” This is one of the most descriptive articles on sport I have ever read. An absolute joy to read and a perfect encapsulation of a remarkable footballer.
no one in particular
Roar Guru
In regards to attacking kicking (say in opp. 20) we can use a very basic method. You may need a pen and paper to draw these on a field First, break down the width of the field into 5 segments - left, left-centre, centre, right-centre, right. Lets name them A, B, C, D & E. You can break them down anyway you like, say the left is the area from the sideline to the 10m line. Breakdown the length into 5 segments also - in goal, 5m out, 5-10m out, 10-15m out and 15-20m out. Lets name them 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5. A kick taken by opposition winger in the in goal next to the right sideline will be 1E (1 for ingoal, E for right side). You would do the same for where the kick happened. So you collect all the data from every kick from inside the opposition 20 - both where it was kicked from and where it was caught/hit the ground. Once you have enough data you can put a value of every kick. For example, lets say a kick from 4C to 1B results in a try on 42% of all occasions, or 1.68 points (42% of 4 points, we'll ignore the kick for this exercise). A kick from 4C to 1D may be worth 2.31 points. So the latter kick is a better option. You could go one step further and include if the kick was a bomb or grubber. So you may add the kick from 4CA (from segment 4C in the air) and caught in 2CA. By doing this you can calculate the decisions of each play. Using Thurston, the decision by him may have been a low expected points play. He could do a 4CA to 1CA in Origin because Inglis was on the end of it. It wouldn't work at the Cowboys because Dane Nielson was at the end of it. If you look at the average teams they mostly on 5th tackle kick to 1AA or 1EA. If you look at Cleary he does a lot of kicks to 1BG, 1CG and 1DG, from across field. So a lot of teams would do grubbers from B into 1A or 1B, he does it from 2B to 1C or 1D, a place where defenders are set up to defend the pass or the high ball, not turn and chase a ball on the ground. So he is playing a higher expected points play. Over time teams will see these numbers and adjust their defence, forcing Cleary to find a new high expected points. Reynolds is good at this also Other teams have success bombing to 1B or 1D. The opposition defenders and their tall wingers a set to defend in A and E, so the attacking team users a skillful forward in B and D. So the general stat is kicks per game, or attacking kicks. We have just learnt a new stat called Expected Points per Kick (EPK). We can measure this by saying Team A EPK was 10.9 points, but they only scored 8 points, so their EPK was -2.9, and the oppositions defensive EPK was +2.9. So we can say Team B's goal line defence was good, and we have backed it up quantitively. This is a zero sum game, so at the end of the season we can see who had the best attacking game, and who had the worst. Teams learn where the points are, what is the better chance of a try, where the opposition likes to aim a kick in each situation, where a teams defensive weakness is. The basic attacking kick stat did not tell us anything.
Rob
Guest
What actually makes a good stat? I’m a stats nuffy when it comes to having a theory. Many stats are only as good as the context they are used. I find kicking stats interesting given the success of Cronk, Reynolds, Cleary and DCE. Comparing the Cowboys when Clifford left and Knights when he arrived. Why did primary kicker 5th tackle option Thurston struggle to finish top 3 through out his career ? He featured high in try assist and repeat set with the boot? Why was he more successful when Coote was consistently kicking? How did the Cowboys reach the 2017 GF without Thurston? Why was Thurston so much more successful at Rep level? The Cowboys ended 2018 in 13th with Coote and Morgan missing games through injury. Thurston finished 19th in kick metres but leader in try assists. A faultless long kicking game helps the entire teams success.
Dimitri Tricolas
Roar Rookie
If Cameron Smith is a tradesman, Benji Marshall is a poet. The true goat.
PeterCtheThird
Guest
Josh, thank you! One of my fondest Aussie Rule memories is of Jared Brennan in his first game for the Lions, against Collingwood, belting down the outer wing, ball in one hand, literally trampling whichever Wobbles superstar it was into the turf without breaking stride. With not quite his first touch, but very very close. The Gabba loved it.
matth
Roar Guru
Benno was a one of a kind excitement machine, no doubt. I also really enjoyed late career Benji at Brisbane. Couldn’t really tackle but in attack the game slowed around him the way it used to for Jason Smith and Cliff Lyons. Others like Benji in my life: early Steve Mortimer, Dale Shearer, Matty Bowen
matth
Roar Guru
Super, super article
Big Mig
Roar Rookie
Thanks for sharing this good story, gives me goose bumps just thinking of that.
Ben Pobjie
Expert
I love this. You’re so right: how our favourite players make us feel is the most underrated element of any sport. And reading this about Benji conjured up for me visions of so many other players from days gone by: Phil Blake, Brett Kenny, Benny Elias, Greg Alexander…even Campese from the other code. The electric players, the ones who always wanted to TRY something…they’re the romantic heroes of football.
mushi
Roar Guru
sorry that read poorly not "you" as such but the presumptive person taking the approach
peterj
Roar Rookie
Yep I was correct! I used to love reading that! I’m a school teacher and if there was anything that used to fire up the crowd it was an article about us! I even remember the day that you had to call it quits due to News.
Ant Sharwood
Expert
Yeah that was me. News basically detonated the site from the internet so you can't look up the old stories which is a shame because I'd like to. I remember one story where I compared the Twitter feed of Michael Clarke and the Dalai Lama and basically proved they were the same bloke! Those were the days...
no one in particular
Roar Guru
A simple list of stats doesn't say much. What happened is as important as when and how
no one in particular
Roar Guru
the "mainstream" NRL stats are useless. The important stuff, the stats that are actually relevant, are all proprietary. They are available, and they aren't cheap. Or people can create their own. But the closest league comes to Voros McCracken is Jarrod Teams don't put much weight into things like "post contact metres" or "effective tackles", it just gives nuffys something to say to make themselves sound smart
Rob
Guest
True. Benji is probably best known for those very high ceiling moments. At his best he had an incredible impact on the teams attacking ability. The 2005 GF and WC victory was Benji at his best. I probably saw him as a player that could rise to the occasion winning 60% of finals football. The Tigers were never a great side but Benji made them very dangerous. It seemed every time he played the Cowboys he would torment Thurston and I’m sure it was personal to beat him. Benji could go up a gear against good opponents and he could also drop down a few especially against lesser opposition? Injuries and consistency worked against legacy over the years. Not sure he wasn’t the victim of being part of some average teams during his playing days. Not this year thou.
no one in particular
Roar Guru
He was an exciting player, far from the best though.
peterj
Roar Rookie
Wonderful article! Thanks for sharing. That sharks run from Benji is the one I remember. I was at uni and we were watching it on the tv and just couldn’t believe what we had just seen. A hell of a player and someone that is worth paying to see, even if he isn’t playing for your team! I’m lucky as he now is and will hopefully play a part in us doing well on Sunday! I have also had the pleasure of meeting him a few times and he’s a simply lovely bloke where nothing was too much trouble. As an aside, Ant, did you used to write for “The Punch” back in the day? I feel like you did but I’m starting to think it might have been someone else!