samlstandsup.bsky.social
Rugby analyst, journalist, coach, but mostly just a fan! Lover of flags and addicted to French rugby, specifically the ProD2. I write for Rugby Pass and Rugby World and dabble in presenting.
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Which laws? Gravity?
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I think that's right. It feels odd that the World Cup is the start of the season though
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I'll find the exact figures but I think the difference is marginal between the sizes of the two groups. And likely there's an element of rounding.
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Yeah so the average for all 5+ try scorers is 2. The non-playoff group is 2.2.
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Good point Chris. Forwards have a much higher DBCB than backs - you can see this in Tom Willis' results. But, it's consistent when looking at just the backs.
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Thanks Will! So 2 is the average Defenders Beaten per Clean Break of the players with 5 or more tries. So it allows us to average out what might otherwise be due to team quality.
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It appears so!
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Thank you Leslie :)
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Thank you guys!
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Also, a rallying cry for using the correct footed player for the correct kicks. For extreme right kicks (<10m to touch) the nine worst kickers are all right footers but four of the top five are lefties.
On the other side, just 1 of the top 14 kickers is a lefty. It matters!
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Across 50 kicks the expected tries is as follows assuming all kicks are made from halfway:
Player A: 6.9 Tries
Player B: 5 Tries
A difference roughly equivalent to 5% of their total try tally. Again this is between two players who already start.
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There is also a team in the URC who have two kicking options, this season they rank:
Player A: +32NYG
Player B: -247NYG
Player B has had 50 pen kicks and kicks even when A plays. The cost is 6.4m per kick - PER KICK!!
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That may sound like nothing, and it is much more of a marginal gain, but remember we're not talking about totally different selection decisions here, we're talking about simply switching which of the two starters kicks to touch.
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There's a 6N team who had two players who can kick for touch in their starting XV one with a +71.1NYG over the past three seasons and the other with -46.2NYG - they used the latter. That's a difference of 2.3m per kick or roughly 46m in the 6N or half a try.
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That's an enormous difference and far beyond the realm of a marginal difference. The cost of getting those tries from a new winger for example would be astronomical.
Not only is this a significant difference, but it's also one that isn't being exploited by teams.
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An average kicker, kicking from halfway, will put their team into a position where they'll score a try 13.5% of the time. Du Plessis puts them in a position where they'll score 16.8% of the time.
Over 203 kicks the average kicker leads to 27.4 tries
For Du Plessis it's 34.1
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We should put that into perspective; +786NYG means that Du Plessis has, on average, kicked 3.9m further than the average kicker on each kick.
To put that into more context...
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If we look at the last three seasons we can see that Du Plessis isn't just a flash in the pan. Since 2022 he has +786NYG compared to +473NYG for second placed Maxime Lafage.
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If we look at NYG per 50 kicks (as a way to normalise the different number of kicks people take) then Thomas Fortunel of Montauban takes top spot with +247.6 NYGp50. But Manie Libbok (6th) and Owen Williams (7th) also are included in the top 10.
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That would be Dutch fly-half playing for Mont-de-Marsan, Willie Du Plessis who has an NYG of +203m from his 66 penalty kicks.
The top nine are all French players with Gloucester's Santi Carreras in 10th with +77.
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In that example you would score 90m from an expected 120m and therefore you'd have a NYG of -30m.
Hopefully that's all clear?
Who has been the best this season?
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This is incredibly simple - the average kick is 30m, if you kick 10 times and gain 306m then your NYG is 6m - 306m achieved minus 300m expected = 6m Gained.
One quirk is that if you miss touch you lose 30m. So 4 kicks of 30m and one missed = 30 x 4 = 120m - 30m = 90m.
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For those paying attention, this isn't the first time I've talked about kicking to touch. It's a pet project of mine because it's such an easy thing to focus on and where marginal gains are possible. In this thread, I pull together a stat - Net Yards Gained (NYG).
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Let's start with some basics! This kick was 44m, the average kick to touch where distance is possible (i.e. not a 10m kick from your opp line) is (helpfully) 30m. If we know the average, we can measure the yards gained by various kickers across games/seasons/etc.
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I'm investigating this as we speak. I'll find the gendarmarie
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Sadly not! Absolutely soaked
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Sorry James! I'm here tonight and for Pau tomorrow then dashing into Spain for a week. Wasn't quite sure I would make this one
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Kalaveti Ravouvou has been the find of the season however - he has played just 514mins in the Prem which is 378mins less than Llewellyn but has made just one fewer carries.
There's a thread in how Bristol get Ravouvou in the game so much coming up....
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