Regular Season Analysis. : Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:02 pm
Forgive me for being a little bit of a statto and having a little time on my hands today, but I thought I'd have a look at our regular season this year and do some rough comparison work against the last two seasons. The old saying that stats can say what you want them to say can be true, so I'll put up a disclaimer now and say that if there's a discrepancy that could affect a statistical result then I will make mention of it for fairness.TRIES.
This season we have managed to score 79 tries in the regular season. The second worst total behind Wakefield (74). In 2013, with a team of rejects, we also managed to score 79 (With an extra +4 fixtures) which was the worst in the competition for that season. With a considerably better team on paper in 2014 we managed 111 Tries. Tenth of fourteen teams.
Top try scorers for us in 2013: Broughton 12 tries. Gaskell 8 tries.Williams 8 tries 2014: Sau 12 tries. Meli 11 tries. Johnson 10 tries. 2015: BJB 12 tries. Evalds 12 tries. Paterson 7 tries.
This season it seems we have fallen short of roughly twenty tries to get into the top 8 which is a significant number. Even if you take into account a considerably more effective defense is also required, we'd probably need around another ten to twelve tries on top of an improved defensive effort to have pipped the eighth spot. If you take into account Leeds as the highest number of tries scored (134) a difference of 55 tries with ourselves it shows the gulf between where we want to be heading and where we currently are.
MISSED TACKLES.
This season we've missed a total of 719 tackles, the second worst in the competition just in front of HKR (With a whopping 825) Interestingly, we were 5th worst in 2013 (745) and bang in the middle for 2014 (8th with 706) This stat can misleading in that you would think that it indicates poor defensive teams, but teams finishing high in the league table this year also place quite highly in the missed tackle bracket. Looking at this stat over three seasons there is little deviation that can be attributed to anything significant with the exception possibly of defensive coaching technique. In our case, hasn't improved anything over three seasons.
TACKLE BUSTS.
551 total for this season. 543 for 2013, and 780 for 2014. A big spike in our ability to break the line happened last season, and we've been unable to replicate it this season. The main reason? Rangi Chase. Significant time away from the pitch this season has adversely effected this stat. Chase racked-up 90 busts in 2013 with Sau second on 75. Compare it to this season. Chase 56 Sau 20. Johnson with 47 is second this year behind Chase. It doesn't take a genius to see that without Chase in the squad our ability to actually win again drops considerably. We need to hope that he stays fit for the back end of this season or it could be bad news for us.
METRES.
A total of 27075m this season. 30854m for 2013. 33650m for 2014. Doesn't look like much can be gained by looking too closely at this stat until you look at other teams totals. If we'd have managed the same total this season as we did in 2014 we'd have been second highest just behind Leeds. I think it shows that most teams have struggled this season in comparison to previous seasons, indicating better defensive efforts by most teams. Or poorer attacking play.
Most Metres made by player:
2013 - Broughton 2666m then A.Dixon 2110m.
2014 - Morley 2380m then Sau 2343m.
2015 - Taylor 2242m then Evalds with 1854m.
CLEAN BREAKS.
This season 105 (Second worst). 2013 - 130 (Worst) 2014 - 178 (Fourth highest) We seem to have reverted back to our 2013 levels of penetration after having a very good season last year. Once again, we a reliant on the same names to make those breaks. 2014 - Chase 22, Fages 17, Sau 15. 2015 - Evalds 14, BJB 13, J.Griffin 8. This highlights once again our reliance on Chase who has missed more games this season and Sau dropping down the list.
ERRORS.
2015 - 252. 2013 - 317. 2014 - 339. While on the face of it, less errors would be the better statistic, but if you look at the other teams, it's the teams finishing in the top half of the table that make the most errors. Indicating that more expansive play will lead to more tries and victories, but will also lead to a higher error rate. Our lack of errors in comparison to previous seasons screams unexciting play rather than overplaying.
PENALTIES.
This season 194 (Highest in the comp) 2013 - 190 (Second lowest) 2014 - 195 (Second highest) While we remain consistent with the numbers other teams have cut down considerably and remains the area that has held us back the most over the last two seasons. Does it indicate a defensive technique that needs changing? players attitudes? Fitness? Or maybe a bit of all three? One thing is for certain, if we want to climb and remain in the top half of SL next season (Presuming we're there) this stat needs to come down significantly. Looking at the figures, we'd realistically have to cut about 40 from our penalty total over the year. A drop of 15% and equates to round about 2 a game. Surely doable? Except we've not managed it over this season.
I'm not sure what's to be gained by going through the stats with a fine-toothed comb, but the areas we need to improve on can be seen fairly clearly, and we need to be careful of sinking into the same boat that Cas did with Chase. Becoming over-reliant on his obvious skills to the detriment of everyone else. I think this year has been dominated with large patches of mediocre attacking RL that aired on the side of safety more than was required, coupled with too many penalties. Inconsistency in defense and the unhelpful fact that our personnel have been disrupted through various reasons also hasn't helped.
