Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Tue Jul 24, 2012 12:27 pm  

I haven't watched the full Bulls game, but some of our 'defence' was really, really poor. If I were coaching against leeds I'd make the pass back inside a staple every set, because we have lazy inside defenders on virtually every play.

I won't bag JJB individually, as I'll happily admit I was one of those calling for him to be shipped out early in his career.

Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Tue Jul 24, 2012 12:57 pm  

Juan Cornetto wrote:

So does this mean all the other stats are wrong and if so please record which stats are wrong in your opinion.

Based on their ability (this week) to award more try assists than tries scored I'd personally find it difficult to place much credibility on any of the figures that I couldn't also personally verify.

Such errors should be completely unacceptable to statisticians - although in fairness the error could lay with the website (I've no idea) but as they produce the material to this end user the problem doesn't go away. The Opta stat threads on here have highlighted several other discrepancies in areas that should be above suspicion.

__________

It would be interesting to know what Opta consider a made or a missed tackle. Without that information even commenting on their counts seems a little irrelevant. For example in the home game V St Helens when Sinfield failed to lay a hand on his man as Shenton went around him with ease was that recorded as a missed tackle? I don't know and I suspect nobody else who posts on here does either.

Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Tue Jul 24, 2012 4:35 pm  

tvoc wrote:

Such errors should be completely unacceptable to statisticians - although in fairness the error could lay with the website (I've no idea) but as they produce the material to this end user the problem doesn't go away.

I've seen glaring mistakes in the Opta stats in League Express too so I'd put the blame with Opta rather than the website.

From what I've seen of Opta stats you can only really use them to form a general idea of what's gone on, rather than anything exact or definitive.

Don't know whether this is because of the ineptitude of Opta's statisticians or Opta's apathy towards rugby league but it's pretty poor either way.

Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Tue Jul 24, 2012 7:49 pm  

tvoc wrote:

Based on their ability (this week) to award more try assists than tries scored I'd personally find it difficult to place much credibility on any of the figures that I couldn't also personally verify.

Such errors should be completely unacceptable to statisticians - although in fairness the error could lay with the website (I've no idea) but as they produce the material to this end user the problem doesn't go away. The Opta stat threads on here have highlighted several other discrepancies in areas that should be above suspicion.

__________

It would be interesting to know what Opta consider a made or a missed tackle. Without that information even commenting on their counts seems a little irrelevant. For example in the home game V St Helens when Sinfield failed to lay a hand on his man as Shenton went around him with ease was that recorded as a missed tackle? I don't know and I suspect nobody else who posts on here does either.

Players, officials and statisticians are all human and so will make mistakes as will we fans in our opinions. These performance records can never be 100% accurate for many reasons and with no exact criteria as a basis cannot be regarded as a science. So given that there are errors in the exact stats (and I agree it would be better if they were accurrate) what they do still show over a period of time are trends in performance despite not being exact. It is this information that coaches find very useful and what we can all still use to show a players average performance or lack of.

I too would like to know Opta's, and your, definition of a missed tackle? Likewise the definition of metres made.....does this for example include a Web like crabbing sideways accross the field? Also do forward passes and bad passes count as errors or do they only count against the player that lost possession?

I have always believed that minutes played is an important stat and should be recorded because without this, exact comparisons between players is unfair.

Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Wed Jul 25, 2012 7:29 am  

They try to count metres made forwards. One of the bigger problems with that is kickoff returns - players should look to make 15-20M as a minimum from where they get the ball, and if as with most teams you have one 'go-to' prop on each side of the field, their stats will always look better than without them. The other bugbear I have is 3rd/4th man into tackles getting credited with a tackle - Nathan Hindmarsh used to be a machine but nowadays his tackle count is hugely inflated by late efforts 3rd/4th man in. Very hard for the stas guys to add those sorts of nuances though.

Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Wed Jul 25, 2012 7:48 am  

I've often thought that the meters made stat can be a little misrepresentative, as BrisbaneRhino said, in a high scoring game it depends which side of the sticks a particular prop stands at for the kick off.

A right footed kicker will often kick off to his left - if the same prop is stood at that side for each kick off then they will have a much higher 'meters made' stat than there counterpart stood at the other side of the sticks.

Game stats are never to be taken literally and should be used as a rough guide.

Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Wed Jul 25, 2012 8:39 am  

tvoc wrote:

Such errors should be completely unacceptable to statisticians - although in fairness the error could lay with the website (I've no idea) but as they produce the material to this end user the problem doesn't go away. The Opta stat threads on here have highlighted several other discrepancies in areas that should be above suspicion.

Assuming, I hope, that we can agree that counting things and adding the numbers up doesn't make you a statistician, how many statisticians do you think Opta employ? I have never seen anything from them that, even assuming (probably erroneously) the data was gathered correctly, would require a statistician to produce.

Even if the figures were accurate, they can only ever be part of the information you base a player's performance and worth on. They are only ever useful when set carefully in the right context. As an example, sometimes differences in stats may well simply be revealing differences in the roles two players are asked to play. They also take no account of the capacity to produce crucial interventions at crucial times. Yet those are the things that win matches. A tackle effected on your own goal line is of far more interest to me than a miss as the full back crabs across his own 10m line with plenty of other tacklers on hand.

Re: Jamie Jones-Buchanan : Wed Jul 25, 2012 12:42 pm  

I only use 'statistician' as a loose generic term when referring to the Opta counts.

I maintain that any numbers collected need to be accurate to lend credibility to the output. If it's possible for Opta to credit a forty-twenty off the diminuative boot of Rob Burrow to the giant frame of Ian Kirke (and it's still showing in the totals - I've just checked) then personally I need more than Opta as a source of accurate information. Unfortunately they're the only kids in town for certain aspects, which is why I record them but rarely comment on them.