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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They'd already done the ritual birch beatings David to show their penetence.
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So incredibly depressing. I guess it was coming but the speed they've moved is grim. The change in the cycling watching ecosystem in just a year is drastic and depressing.
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Yeah it's not very good news for that. I don't think people know the drop from FTA to pay wall.
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If you remove FTA 6Ns and replace it with more regular FTA club games you won't see more people watching. In fact, you'll see fewer immediately and then a further collapse in the next years.
It's a terrible idea!
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But, rugby is nowhere near that level. In 2023 the most watched 6N's game was 4.6m, the world cup was roughly double that.
But those figures are not 150% higher than the most watched FTA club matches. They're more like 1,500% greater.
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If you canned the World Cup from FTA, then immediately you'd see a drop in people watching per year. Not 10.8m as you'll have a rotating cast of watchers but the total won't exceed 19.4m.
Without that FTA World Cup it's likely the numbers would go down over the years as well.
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An FA Cup QF last year got 8.6m, mega numbers of course but 19.4m watched the 2022 QF between England and France. Almost 150% more.
That might not sound too bad. But, remember that if you had games on weekly you wouldn't get 8.6m new people each week.
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I'm new to the podcast so just picking off my favourites now. But it was genuinely lovely to hear such positive and insightful thoughts. And heartening as someone who also owns far too many programmes...
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Just so wonderful to hear something like that from someone outside of the game, though clearly a fan. Makes you wish we could bottle that sentiment and use it more often.
That episode, and the pod as a whole, are a must listen!
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Perpignan also in this quadrant who aren't doing very well in the Top14. Newcastle also relatively possession heavy but it's often aimless around halfway.
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Thanks BB! I'd say that because this judges how often they do something but not how well, they're probably doing a lot of purposeless attacking and being rewarded with pens not turnovers for jackals.
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That's one of the grimest things I've seen on a pitch
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So can we see the impact of a coach? It turns out we can and coaches can quite swiftly put their fingerprints on a new team as well!
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In those two years of Lancaster's reign, we see Racing92 leap into the position of being both possession heavy and defensively aggressive. That's hard to achieve because both require extremely high fitness levels. But you can see that generally the best teams live there.
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In the Lancaster era, Racing92's PO has jumped to 95.4 - a 35% increase but their DU has risen to 0.2 - an 82% jump. They have gone from the second least defensively urgent side in the Top14 to the second most.
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Note how the Top14 is different to the Prem - Leicester's 65.8 PO pre-Cheika would've put them in third lowest in the Top14 ahead of both Brive and Bayonne. Their current score of 100.8 would be 6th this season.
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What of Racing92? Their change has been significant. In the two pre-Lancaster years their PO was 70.8 and DU was 0.11 - PO was slightly below average and DU was the second lowest in the league.
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Each will have a small impact but combined they will lead to the type of changes we are seeing.
We can also summarise these changes. Leicester have moved from a low possession defensively cautious side to a mid possession defensively cautious side.
Not a massive change but a clear one.
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These changes don't just happen because a coach tells his players to carry more. Instead, they are a combination of various changing factors. Maybe they encourage ball in hand attacking from their own 50 rather than the opposition 40 or have more starter plays where you run rather than kick.
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In the pre-Cheika days they ranked last, and Gloucester aside, last by a very long way. Overall, the league has increased its possession obsession but that increase by Leicester has far outstripped the league changes. Whereas for defensive urgency they've not moved so much.
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But move on to the Cheika year(s) and that has changed significantly. Their possession score has leapt to 100.8 a 53% increase and their defensive urgency has risen to 0.19 - a 73% increase.
It's useful to look at their score relative to the league average.
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Let's start with Cheika. On the left is a graph showing how Leicester ranked in the three pre-Cheika years. They were the lowest possession obsessed team - just 65.8 and below average for defensive urgency - 0.11.
They were a successful team of course in that period.
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This doesn't give us everything, of course a team might kick 20 times a match but all long versus 20 times a match and all little attacking dinks. But it gives us a good starting point for measuring how teams both attack and defend.
So what can we see?
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Defensive Urgency: How many jackal turnovers + jackal penalties + ruck penalties conceded do a team make per defensive possession? How urgently do they want the ball back versus being happy to wait for it to be kicked to them.
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My preferred options are two self-created stats called Possession Obsession & Defensive Urgency
Possession Obsession: Total Carries - Kicks (imo better than total carries alone as it would downgrade teams who generate a lot of carries through kick returns and then kick it back.
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Stuart Lancaster and Michael Cheika are both new (newish) to the roles of head coach of Racing92 and Leicester Tigers respectively. But have they changed the way either of their teams play?
If so, how would we calculate that?
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Thank you! Yeah I was surprised but he does seem to keep delivering what's required.
Same, he was something else.
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Thank you!
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Ntamack is 134th in the list - he's underperformed by 2 tries in 2024. He scored twice in 2024 but should've scored four times by my reckoning!
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1st - Max Spring (Racing 92)
Spring has scored two tries but should have scored 8.4 tries. Across the last two seasons he's assisted 23 breaks in addition to scoring three of his own tries. Massively underrated and I expect he'll be appearing for France soon.
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2nd - Kylian Jaminet (Biarritz)
Jaminet has scored just a single try in 2024 but should have had 6.8. Back in 2023/24 he beat 71 defenders and made 13 clean breaks but scored just a single try. Also assisted four tries.
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3rd - Leo Barré (Stade Francis)
Barré has scored two tries this year but we'd expect 7.3 of them. Like many on this list, he's given his chances to others. He's assisted three tries and created ten breaks in 2024. This season he's only underperformed his total by 1.1 tries.
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4th - Semi Radradra (Lyon)
Radradra didn't score a try in 2024 but we reckon we should've scored 5.1 of them. He has underperformed his XTries total in Lyon by 4.9 but overperformed it by 0.3 when playing for Bristol Bears.
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5th - Wes Goosen (Edinburgh)
The Edinburgh player has scored two tries this year but we'd expect him to have scored 6.8. In 2023/24 he made 16 clean breaks and beat 57 defenders but scored only four tries. He's been less prolific this season and scored only once.
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6th - Freddy Duguivalu (Perpignan)
Duguivalu has scored a single try this year but we'd expect him to have scored 5.6. Incidentally, he has assisted two tries and four breaks this season in lieu of scoring tries himself. He's never been a prolific try scorer during his career at Perpignan.
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