also, if anyone wants to play a game:

ive decided that wingers can be boiled down to their abilities via 3 main stats (tries, clean breaks & metres per carry) given that their job is to score tries and sometimes help a team out of their 20

Player A: a try every 14.55 carries; a clean break every 11.19 carries; 9.01 metres per carry
Player B: a try every 16.18 carries; a clean break every 12.95 carries; 9.08 metres per carry
Player C: a try every 26.43 carries; a clean break every 23.5 carries; 7.54 metres per carry

anyone want to guess which one is easily England's first choice winger, is in the Super League Dream Team, and was included in the World XIII (even though i can see from his stats he's a fat sack of crap)?

I wouldn't call Tommy Makinson fat or crap

I was just looking at wingers myself. Going by tries per carry then Richard Owen, Gene Ormsby, Francis Meli and Omari Caro are all superior wingers compared to Ryan Hall. Omari Caro almost 3 times the finisher that Ryan Hall is

i think that you have fully illustrated just how important stats are in regards to which players are better than others with this post

imo stats can be very useful but they clearly don't always reveal the whole truth and i'm pretty sure that team coaches (and in any sport)that are worth their salt, wouldn't pick their teams based on them alone

i'd much rather watch the game and then judge who i think is the better player rather that rely on stats

Ok here is another game

Team A: score a try every 34.57 carries, and a try assist every 42.79 carries, make a clean break every 27.05 carries with a m/c average of 7.04
Team B: score a try every 45.02 carries, and a try assist every 53.25 carries, make a clean break every 33.16 carries with a m/c average of 6.86
Team C: score a try every 56.41 carries, and a try assist every 69.69 carries, make a clean break every 38.75 carries with a m/c average of 6.39

Anyone want to guess which team finished 1st, which team finished last and for a bonus point in what place did team B finish.?

And the relevance to your flawed Hardaker stats is???

Zzzzzzzzzz

I'll play!

its a trick question...
Team A is Wigan
Team C is London
Team B is Leeds

but...

wait for it...

Saint Helens finished first, and also won Super League

Looks a good game that but you forgot to name those 3-4 full backs who're better than ZH

this. still waiting...

Sorry no bonus point for you as you failed to answer the third question correctly. The correct answer was 7th place. Because this was the SL team try scorers list. As we were talking about attacking ability it was appropriate to demonstrate to you how a more forensic use of stats accurately reflect the performance of the top, bottom and middling attacking sides.

Team B was indeed Leeds but you should have read the question before answering. Funny how the 'stats per carry' just keep on correlating with performance facts!



Applying the 'per carry' stats for the SL table produces similar results and it clearly shows how better and more effective use of the ball (in the carry) brings better results both for the team and the player individually.