In these pages last week, Johnny Watterson criticised the selection criteria for handing out player of the match awards. With the Six Nations in a down week after two rounds of action, a deep dive into the data of the opening matches suggests the various number-crunchers across rugby’s analysis community would agree with his gripe.
After Ireland’s victory over France, stats company Oval Insights released their player ratings based on advanced analytics. Joe McCarthy, the official player of the match, scored a 6.8 out of 10.
Not only did McCarthy score lower than Tadhg Beirne (9.7), he ranked sixth out of the 12 starting locks on the opening weekend; not bad, but not player of the match in the tournament’s biggest game.
Oval didn’t show their workings, but they do have a model which measures every player’s individual action across a match and assesses its impact on the scoreline. Canadian analyst Simon Chi has a similar model, expected points added (EPA), and he does share his figures.
According to Chi, despite some memorable impact tackles, McCarthy was one of six players that weekend with a negative EPA in the tackle (-0.54 compared to Beirne’s 1.44). A powerful McCarthy hit on Gregory Alldritt stands out, but as a whole, McCarthy’s tackling had a negative impact on the scoreboard.
Rugby's culture war - Mike Ross on the state of Ireland's scrum
Similarly, McCarthy cost Ireland an expected 1.22 points in turnovers. Much of this came from a knock-on in the first half, Thomas Ramos kicking a penalty from the following scrum.
McCarthy’s notable impacts meant a romantic decision to give a Six Nations debutant the player of the match award was always a possibility. As one prominent analyst put it: “numbers don’t get caught up in the romance.”
Similarly in Ireland’s second game, James Lowe was awarded player of the match despite Oval naming Dan Sheehan as Ireland’s best player.
Again, using Chi’s calculations, Sheehan had an expected points added score of 9.3, compared to Lowe’s 7.43 – both high totals, but Sheehan’s was the highest of any player from any team in round two.
Lowe’s left boot and stellar finish in the corner were weapons for Ireland, but advanced analytics suggest that Sheehan’s carrying alone was worth 3.49 EPA – the next best hooker was at 1.48.
A case of getting lost in the numbers or the eye test deceiving us?
Sock it to them
Of all the ways of boosting crowd engagement, a guessing game featuring players’ socks is a novel new method.
At the RDS on Saturday, fans and journalists alike were trying to figure out which colours represented who as Leinster were one of a number of URC teams to wear socks celebrating where they first learned their rugby.
Given it’s Leinster, the majority of players wore school socks with a handful of club colours sprinkled in for good measure.
Not that the different colour schemes allowed for too much mixing and matching. Of the Leinster starting XV, nine former St Michael’s pupils wore the socks of their alma mater. South African Jason Jenkins was an honorary Michael’s man for the day, having been gifted a pair of navy and blues.
“Unfortunately I didn’t have any! So I went down to the school and picked a few up,” jokes Scott Penny, one of the Michael’s contingent and Leinster’s captain for the day.
“It’s great, it’s good for the school. Obviously there is a lot of us in the Leinster system now and obviously a lot pushing on to that Ireland team as well.”
Blackrock College were also well represented. Thomas Clarkson, Tommy O’Brien and Liam Turner were all in the starting XV wearing their white and blue socks.
Among the club contingent, Jamie Osborne sported the hard-to-miss bright green socks of Naas RFC while Max Deegan went for the odd approach, showing off one Michael’s sock and another from his club Wanderers.
Even the officials got in on the act, Scottish referee Hollie Davidson showing off the colourful hoops of Murrayfield Wanderers.
The Wolfhounds are one game away from winning the inaugural Celtic Challenge after preserving their unbeaten run with thrilling draw away to Edinburgh.
The Wolfhounds, the side made up largely of Leinster and Ulster players, scored twice in the last five minutes to claw their way back into the match and snatch a remarkable, 26-all stalemate having been 14 points down.
Linda Djougang and Katie Corrigan were the ones to cross late on, while Ellen Boylan and Christy Haney had opened the Wolfhounds account in the first half. If they beat fellow Irish side the Clovers next week in Belfast, the Wolfhounds will secure the title.
In the women’s AIL, it’s as you were in the standings after the latest weekend of action, UL Bohs remaining top thanks to a walkover win handed to them by Suttonians. Bohs secured an extra five league points as a result, while Suttonians were docked five of their own.
Of the games that did take place, results went the way one would expect given the table with second-place Railway, and Blackrock in third both earning victories. Railway had the biggest winning margin of the weekend, powering past Galwegians by a scoreline of 83-7.
In Stradbrook, the weekend’s closest match saw Blackrock notch a bonus point win over Wicklow, while down in Tanner Park, Ballincollig scored six tries in a 36-10 victory over Cooke.
By the Numbers: 4
The number of offloads thrown by RG Snyman in his first outing of the season for Munster. The highest number from any player in the URC this weekend, it was an on-brand return for the South African.
Word of Mouth
“We’ve had lots of good conversations, some excellent internal people, guys that are very connected to Leinster as well and some external people as well.”
Leo Cullen on Leinster’s search to find a new attack coach to replace Andrew Goodman, who will join the Ireland set-up next season.
