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Ben is a retired former Wallaby front rower who has been asked about his neck injury more than a million times by his reckoning. Yes, it's fine, thanks for asking. Ben was lucky enough to be involved with, mainly as a hanger on, some wonderful sides at the Brumbies and Wallabies. He works in coaching, analysis and media and has started his own analysis company Gainline. Ben's company tracks teams recruitment of players and how it impacts on their results. Follow Ben on Twitter: @bendarwin and @GLAnalytics
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Coaching is far harder than I ever imagined it would be. Execution of a game plan is extraordinarily hard, and for head coaches there…
There is a huge movement in the United States based on the idea of predicting the results of the college top 64 down to…
A fundamental problem with modern sport is that many of the teams possess uncertain identities. This makes it difficult for supporters to form emotional…
Following my previous article on what players should beware before signing a contract, today's we look at what clubs should be cautious of when…
Through research, interviews with players and coaches and statistical analysis of more than 10,000 players spanning the last 20 years, I have examined how…
Over recent years, the Top 14 has earned a reputation as the world's premier club rugby competition. For the most part, this adoration stems…
Data analytics is a strange industry. As a data analyst, I often consider what I do as akin to attempting to pin down a…
Thanks Stray .
I have been working with a young guy who is an economics major who has added a lot of accuracy to our data. It is part of some wider work we are doing on relationships between players and its effect in the long and short term.
Read this before signing part 1: The players
Thanks Runit.
Thats right a lot of guys have been moved on by clubs that show no loyalty. That will be subject of the next article. About not letting guys go.
And i am certainly not saying to never change clubs. However guys often dont understand what they may lose in the process. I am also reporting the feedback we received. I try to keep my opinion out of it and fail. I certainly met a lot of guys regret changing clubs as they did for the wrong reasons.
When guys are moved on they simply have to make the best of it and Brock James is a tremendous example of it. But to choose to leave its really important understand the consequences.
Read this before signing part 1: The players
Thanks Johhno
I certainly agree with a lot of what you say here . I think i didn’t properly express properly what i was thinking at the time.
As a few guys have picked up here . Leaving teams to win titles has gone a little pear shaped for a few guys. So if that is your reason it may not turn out you hope.
When a guy does leave to win titles i think it does say “you guys do not mean as much to me as winning does”. “and i don’t think your you guys are capable of it”.
It dont think it is a case of certain guys careers defeating point. If i showed you lets 20 examples where it didnt work out vs 5 where it did. Is it still worth it?
The main reason someone should change clubs is to go to a program that is going to make them a better player. Most of us didnt play to win titles. Its to do what we love. Titles come as part of the process.
Read this before signing part 1: The players
Thanks Jimbo,
This is totally unrelated to the topic that i brought up, which is demographics.
All of the points about numbers that you brought up are extremely accurate. Rugby is not as well attended as Rugby league in Australia. But that does not make it inferior. Much as i am sure that you would argue that just because afl is better attended that it is not a superior game.
My comments are regarding crowd numbers to all sports.
Each code is great. Football , League, union, and i find the players have the same opinion , its the fans who get emotive on the issue of favourite codes.
I love the NRL and my current employer is an NRL club.
Kind Regards
Ben
Dear NRL, this is why the fans are walking away
Crowds were pretty poor for the AFL , also bad in the Super Rugby.
Where is this all headed?
Generally everyone i know is having babies and cant make it to any sport.
Generation x is the kids of the baby boomers and make a pretty big chunk of the population.
thats my 2 bob on the issue.
Dear NRL, this is why the fans are walking away
Thanks nick
there is no question we are taking in with the law of averages.
On average these clubs use more players they created themselves than others, The earlier a player get to your club the better they do.
Messi is not from Barca but arrived at age 13. There is no question that Stade Francais are winning as you can always buy your way out of any situation. my question is, is PSG now profitable?
Ben
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
thanks steve , i think we could safely dsay if we went down the model of top14 we would see a lot of money wasted. we can only look at how the rebels went financially with a heavily external group and the owner handing the licence back.
We need sustainable models , such as the reds and we hope the tahs and rebels are working towards.
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
thanks Crash ball !!!!! i hope i was well behaved
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
Thanks josh and nic.
Certianly the away notion is a strange and threw me off at first. We have gathered it over 3000 teams seasons and 7 different sports.
We know this part. Teams that on average have more academy members in the epl concede less goals as a % of overall scoring. Same exists in the nrl and the Super rugby , aviva and top 14.
There is no question that the french comp is coming from a base of lots of home wins we just want to know why its going up?
In terms of the Ratios for teams we use an internal squad ratio. It is a pretty simple ratio of total years internal as a % of total years all plyears in and out of the team.
Lets look at Stade Farancais, they have the 3rd highest internal ratio at 43.06% away from home they beat Biarritz (with a higher twi but not for the game in question), , Oyonnax 20.3% , Perpignan 39.92%
Grenoble are at 33.04% There 3 wins are against Toulon who are at 21% and Biarritz 26.50% and Racing Metro 25.68 so in this case the more internal team was able to win.
In terms of Biarritz 47.48% they beat Grenoble 33.04% Brive 30.60%
Now lets look at roi on internal vs external. i will cite 3 examples
– .Manchester city with only 2 academy members on their squad are currently losing 10o million dollars a season.
-The 4 most profitable clubs in european foortball are Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Manchester united and Barcelona, all internally recruited clubs. And the most european titles of late.
– The QLD reds are the only club in super rugby in australia to turn a profint in the last 3 years, last weekend they fielded a side made up entirely of reds academy players in their starting xv. we have never seen this before.
I have done my best to explain my theory . Great debate , please keep posting,
kind regards
ben
Thanks for the above post this helped alot.
In aother aspect no teams has ever won super rugby title under 60%. I think a terrificexample was the crusaders run in 2011. Where they played so many games out of christchurch . They have sat at 89% or higher since 1998.
In terms of Grenoble 33.44%
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
Thanks Josh great response.
The top 14 is flawed to me and me alone. Thats why its an opinion piece!!
In terms of average crowds
10-11 15,119
11-12 14,024
12-13 13,850
13-14 12,647
We did cover home crowds , refereeing.
There is no question the atmosphere is superb. However i am simply talking about the quality of the games.
thanks again,
please keep responding. 🙂
Ben
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
Thanks Simon great reponse .
There is no doubt there is a lot of talent in top 14 and this is drawing the crowds and fans. The same could also be said of the premier league in the uk, People want to see their favourite players. But do they enjoy watching Chelsea Man city. When there is not many players from either side remotely even from those towns. I think most people say yes. I dont however.
Ben
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
Thanks Sam, our evidence is that the away win rate is up 10 on last year.
thanks
ben
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
Thanks Lions Down Under
I certainly dont think this is the only reason , a certain French coach we spoke to thought it was the length of bus trips on game day which i can account for myslef makes it a tough game day.
The difficulty for me is that the with the increase in foreigners the the home winning record has gone up.
ben
French Top 14 is fundamentally flawed
Pomoz from a data perspective thats what it tells us. the why’s i would only be guessing but certainly we talk a lot about the player you buy is very rarely the player you get as they are a product of their relationships at the last club.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Arnold that is totally accurate , you could also say the same about the warriors. It requires the 3 aspects, talent coaching/environment and unification.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Pomoz you are totally on the money. there is the experience before guys arrive and then how long they are at their new club. In the panthers favour in the long term it looks like they want to go down the dev path.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
We have found ferret there have been times where a high twi teams are able to be successful despite total incompetence from the coach. I have certainly seen that myself first hand.
I think Mal Meninga is perfect example of knowing his strengths and weaknesses with the Maroons and letting that group run the team themselves.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Hi , Muzz
There is complexitiy to this that i am not at liberty to talk about as we work with certain clubs. But i can comment on this. The more unified a club is the better they can deal with the difficulties off the filed. See the crusaders in 2011. If a clubs twi is high but success is not forthcoming then we find there is other things at play.
We do find that clubs with low twi very very rarely win and if they do , drop back down very fast. The dogs last year were at 38% sharks were 38.25.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Johnno , By the time al helped destroy the england scrum in 2008/9 he had far surpassing anything i could have done. Sitting here with my son on my lap so i am very happy how it panned out.
Thanks though.
Ben
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Thanks Scott there is a very big difference between the output of a player and the output of a team with that player. Some players may get superb numbers but the team suffers for it. The spine in league is such a key asset as well.
sorry i would love to tell you how we measure the unity aspect.
The key for me is not whether teams win titles, it what happens next that is the true measure of success.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Thanks Steve , I have no issues with Marwan or Salford but having looked at so many teams over many sports we find that this kind of investment leaves clubs in a bigger hole at the end of the process.
We also find that using a methodology of internal recruitment is the only way in world sports that clubs are able to be profitable , compare Arsenal to Manchester city. This way is very boring and takes time which is not very sexy.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Thanks walter . good points.
We dont include coaching or talent. Coaches can kill teams despite hi ratings
We know this however by our rating out of 100, Panthers were at 33% , eels 57% , tigers 50%
Roosters 58%. The key being how long players were at other clubs before they arrive.
Think of it this way, is there any inherent value in playing experience with anyone else before the season starts.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Thanks ferret , great discussion , i can give you these numbers , we use a number called TWI , which is basically a measure of how well a team knows each other. The roosters in 2013 were 58% thats 1% behind manly and 4% more than the Storm.
We find the higher a teams number the easier it is for players to settle into the team environment.
This is not the only factor however amongst the hundreds of seasons and teams in different sports and it is the only common factor we have found amongst repeat winners.
Coaches certainly can be known to drive some well unified teams into the ground. Sir Alex Ferguson always said more than one player into the group every season upsets the mix.
Broncos, Red Devils will pay the price for short-term fixes
Agree Agree Agree
Read this before signing part 1: The players