[HellishHeat]

Originally Posted by phog

Is this data/analysis only of use to the specific teams/players that it was collected from or to teams that will be playing against them?

We hope not. We have data on all teams in all the aforementioned competitions. We want to use this data to say general things about Rugby Union.

[profitius]

Originally Posted by HellishHeat

I am the aforementioned colleague. Just to be clear: We are not interested in collecting match data (That sounds horrendous). We have obtained data from a third party and want to do something with the data that will be useful for a coach/analyst/bookmaker etc..

We have some ideas and we have processed and (we feel) enriched the data, but we wanted to gauge what "rugby people" felt were important attributes or trends of rugby players and teams.

To answer an earlier question, we do not have data pertaining to weather conditions, unfortunately.

We do have event data for 3 years of Heinekin cup, Magners and Amlin; about 1500 events per match.

Any chance the data could be available for the public, even at a small fee? I've started a thread recently looking for a website with good rugby stats but theres none really. Theres an area that could be exploited!

[HellishHeat]

Originally Posted by profitius

Any chance the data could be available for the public, even at a small fee? I've started a thread recently looking for a website with good rugby stats but theres none really. Theres an area that could be exploited!

Sorry, as stated earlier, we have signed an agreement with the third party who provided the data.

I'm sure we can share our conclusions with the boards at the end of August.

[emmet02]

Originally Posted by profitius

Any chance the data could be available for the public, even at a small fee? I've started a thread recently looking for a website with good rugby stats but theres none really. Theres an area that could be exploited!

If the data is comprehensive, it is worth thousands of euros. There's no hope of getting it free unless it's for academia I'd imagine.

[prospect]

I would attempt to categorise player types, based on common stats, for example, number of passes, short or long passes, box kicks, runs, tackles, types of tackle, ball carrying, grubber kicks (sp?).

You could have a comprehensive list of categories that the system places each type of your players in (on a given day) and compare them to their opposite number.

This way, when you look at the types of players on the opposition you can see what type of play has the most success in beating them man to man.

[irishbucsfan]

From a player/coach perspective,

The best use I can see for this is a team-by-team breakdown of patterns in play. For gameplanning purposes. So for example, it would be absolutely fantastic if I could use a system like this to analyse precisely what a team is likely to do in a certain situation.

So my input could be: Edinburgh Lineout, 30 meters out, 3rd quarter of the game, 5 point lead.

And the output would be what they are likely to do with the lineout itself and also what they are likely to do in the next few phases if they are succesful with the lineout.


Similarly a breakdown of player habits and patterns would be very very useful for a player. So a guy playing 13 for the Scarlets against Connacht could say "What is Eoin Griffin likely to do when he receives the ball on first phase from a set piece in the opposition half?" Or how is the opposition out half likely to use possession in his half when the team is down by 10 points or more in the second half, kick it away or keep possession?

I'm not sure how possible any of this is for you, but that would be fantastic to see.

[.ak]

Originally Posted by irishbucsfan

From a player/coach perspective,

The best use I can see for this is a team-by-team breakdown of patterns in play. For gameplanning purposes. So for example, it would be absolutely fantastic if I could use a system like this to analyse precisely what a team is likely to do in a certain situation.

So my input could be: Edinburgh Lineout, 30 meters out, 3rd quarter of the game, 5 point lead.

And the output would be what they are likely to do with the lineout itself and also what they are likely to do in the next few phases if they are succesful with the lineout.


Similarly a breakdown of player habits and patterns would be very very useful for a player. So a guy playing 13 for the Scarlets against Connacht could say "What is Eoin Griffin likely to do when he receives the ball on first phase from a set piece in the opposition half?" Or how is the opposition out half likely to use possession in his half when the team is down by 10 points or more in the second half, kick it away or keep possession?

I'm not sure how possible any of this is for you, but that would be fantastic to see.

+1, but it should look like this and have a distinct British accent when answering your queries....

[attic]

Originally Posted by Shakakan

Hi all

I thought I'd run something by your awesomely knowledgeable rugby brains

As part of a masters thesis, a colleague and I are analyzing data from rugby games. We have data from a couple of seasons of Rabo/Magners League, Amlin and HEC.

The data contains events from every game - so every pass, tackle, error, set-piece is captured along with who did it, where it was on the park and what the outcome was.

If you were a coach, or a player and you had a computer system that could tell you anything, what would you ask it?? Who is more likely to win was one question were looking at, but we're hoping for some more ideas that can give insight into player or team performance.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Thanks
A

If you correlate something with who wins matches - I think you could have something world class.

[padser]

Something that's often not caught is the quality of a pass and it's outcomes.

So (taking Leinster as an example) it's easy to see that Madigan makes more running yards than Sexton when he gets the ball.

It's easy to see that Sexton make more passes than Madigan when he gets the ball.

What I would love to know is "Where is the ball likely to be 10 seconds after Madigan gets it in position x rather than Sexton". e.g. it could be 60% likely to be in Leinster possession and an average of 10 yards further up the pitch with Sexton and 55% likely to be in Leinster possession and an average of 12 yards up the pitch with Madigan (telling me that Madigan is higher risk, higher reward and a great option to bring on for the last 10 minutes when we are 8 points down).

A very crude way to start getting to this would be to look at measure the yards gained by Player B when Player A makes a pass to him and attribute those yards back to Player A's pass.

[prospect]

This kinda reminds me of the expression:

"Paralysis by analysis"

[profitius]

Originally Posted by HellishHeat

Sorry, as stated earlier, we have signed an agreement with the third party who provided the data.

I'm sure we can share our conclusions with the boards at the end of August.

Any updates?