Berro

Quote: Big Dave T "Metres per carry in simplistic terms would be the metres divided by carries. Metres would be measured by seeing where the ptb ball is and how many metres are made over the advantage like before been tackles. A carry would be each time a player takes it in and is tackles. I'd hope that a professional statistical research company capturing this data would have an agreed approach set down with guidelines as to what constitutes each metric. I'd also hope this has been derived in conjuction with the clubs to ensure it measures what they want measuring in the way that they want it measuring. '"

Right, let's assume that a carry is as you've said then (a terrible definition as far as I'm concerned, not through your fault, but through the fault of whoever it is that's decided to try and measure something as variable as what a carry is). The terrible, average, coasting Berrigan, this season, has an average of just over 6m per carry. The NRL-bound Houghton has an average of just under 7.5m per carry. What does that tell us? 1.5m is the difference between success and failure? Or Berrigan makes so many more carries that he doesn't have the energy to make the extra 1.5m that would elevate him to greatness? Or something else?

Quote: Big Dave T "Sometimes simplicity is the best approach and ignoring variables and classing them as a working assumption that they are a constant is the best way of approaching these complex situations.'"

Sometimes, but not in this case. Again, Fitzgibbon/Tickle/tackling. That simple hypothetical remains unchallenged yet is still the massive stumbling block that these statistics haven't even got close to overcoming.