Neil_Ormston

I found this thread whilst doing some work for the Record Keepers' Club on the international games this season. I thought this would be of interest: https://www.intrl.sport/news/why-sims-not-tests/ Well worth reading the full piece, as it's not too long, but in short, IRL's official term for a match played for world rankings points is "Recognised Senior International Match". At the RKC we use the shorthand "Full International" for this, as it's more commonly used and has historical relevance. The RKC worked with IRL in provided the summary linked above, and was part of IRL's History & Heritage Group who compiled the historic list of Full Internationals, which are used as IRL's official records; the RKC has also aligned to this list for all the international stats on our website. HTH.

For the avoidance of any doubt, the Huddersfield-Swinton Park score was 119-2. This is now corrected on the RKC website - apologies for the error here, and thanks to those that raised it on here. Whilst every league score on the website has been validated, there could be the odd typo on cup matches, which are a little bit harder to validate en masse. https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/matchdetails.php?tselect=106617 Huddersfield scored 27 three-point tries & 19 two-point goals.

I’ve run some scenarios and by my reckoning Hull will be a grade B club in the final gradings unless they can either improve their on-field performances (they need to finish above Leigh and Cas at least), or secure c0.1 points elsewhere (I’ve not seen their detailed split, so don’t know how likely that is). So it might be that we only have 6 A grade clubs next year.

I used the methodology provided in response to a query in August about how ties are treated. Salford’s disclosure suggests either 1) I misinterpreted, 2) the info was wrong, 3) something has changed. I’m seeking confirmation, but it seems likely that it is as you suggest. Either method is valid, though I’d argue splitting the points for 2nd and 3rd is better (otherwise you’re increasing the total number of points awarded, and there’s an easy solution to avoid that). But I’m not really that bothered, other than it being my clear what the right method is. I’ll revert as and when (if) I get confirmation btw, I haven’t seen Wigan, Catalans or Wire publicly share anything; if anyone has, could you ping a link please, as this will help corroborate what Salford have shared? TIA

I have queried this, as my calcs were done based on the official explanation I was given. Salford and Wire are actually level on placings, and as I covered above, my understanding was this meant they would share the points for 6th and 7th; Salford seem to have been awarded the points for 6th, whilst Wire haven’t declared there’s publicly yet. Regardless, it’s not immediately obvious why this is the case, but as soon as I find out, I’ll share

Yes, I’ve just seen. Thanks @Spidey.

As per my response: posted by @RL_RKC, RT by me (search Neil Ormston, you should find it easily!) edit: someone posted on the previous page. Sorry, I’m playing catch up

Your edit is right re how it works. 3 season average position calculated; teams ranked in order. 1st get 4, 2nd gets 3.89, down to 35th getting 0.11. Of two teams are tied they share the points. So for example, Wigan and Catalans both average 3.33 over the past 3 seasons, they both therefore get 3.83, being the average of what 2nd and 3rd should get. Simples

I’m having some tech issues, but do have a bad photo of the list (league derived only, awaiting final ratification that I’ve done it right (!), and with a technical query of no consequence on Cornwall). Hopefully it’ll be attached here. If not, it’s posted on Twitter by RL_RKC, and I’ve retweeted it in my own name edit: it’s too big to attach here, so check Twitter out!

That’s not how it works. You take an average of positions for the 3 seasons: Bradford have been 17th, 21st and 16th, giving an average of 18. Ranked against all other teams this is the 17th best, which based on 35 teams gives them 2.1714 points (but looks like they’re working to 2 decimal places, so 2.17 )

I’ve just got around to updating my spreadsheet on this (that’s how I roll!). All scores I’ve seen quoted (Bradford, Cas and Hunslet) tally to what I have, so rest assured, these look Ok. Happy to check others for people. The RL Record Keepers’ will be running a live performance table next year so fans can easily see where their club is. More details to follow (once I’ve designed it ).

I organise the work of the RL Record Keepers' Club (https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/), so it's fair to say, I'm a fan of stats! One of our members sent me this link, so I thought I'd chip in with my twopen'orth To answer the question in the OP: the root cause, as with most things, is money (or more specifically, lack of it). This results in detailed match stats not being widely available, or adequately analysed by media / broadcasters. To give a more complete overview of the landscape: there's a few companies out there who gather data for rugby - the best known is Opta, although ironically they don't actually run under that name anymore (they are now Stats Perform ("SP")); they are the market leader, and forerunner in this area. Rob Lowe, their founder, has since sold the company & I believe has set up a new organisation, and we may see more of them soon; equally IMG have their own data arm, so they may be a potential source in future. But in the UK SP have had pretty much a monopoly position, and barriers to entry are fairly high. SP provide data to the RFL/SL, but this is not a 'real time' deal which is more expensive, so info isn't available immediate. Those with a keen eye will have seen that RLWC2021 had a different agreement with SP and this info was available live across all 3 competitions. As a result, broadcasters don't have access to this info, so have to employ their own people if they want any of this sort of data - this is why you only get very limited in-game data for TV games (again, you need a team of a fair few people to record this properly live, and the money isn't there). Likewise, SL clubs employ their own analysts, and usually have 1 or 2 guys doing this, as it's a much cheaper option to do in-house - obviously this isn't publicly available. The SP data is good, and covers most, if not all, the info that people would want to see. However, there are then problems with public availability: the RFL / SL websites are poor, info doesn't appear in a timely fashion, there are problems with completeness, links don't work, etc - this is an issue with the websites I believe, rather than the underlying data itself; however, it essentially makes the data inaccessible. One other point to note: each club analyst, broadcaster & SP will use different methodologies to record their stats, so you can't compare between them! This can also mean you get different stats for the same game if covered by more than 1 source (e.g. you might see a player with a different number of tackles on Sky than in his SP data - if you can track it down!). FWIW, on behalf of the RKC I've offered to the RFL (or strictly speaking RL Commerical) that we could host the SP data for free on our website: we could easily present this alongside our existing data, and do some fairly basic rankings and analysis, and it would at least make it available for further interpretation. This would at least allow journalists to do more in-depth analysis, but this is a specialised area, and they may not have the expertise to do a huge amount more; as a voluntary organisation (focused on sharing a history of the sport back to 1895) the RKC wouldn't have the resource to do much more than be a conduit for the information. I live in hope that we might be able to play a role helping to share this data though; maybe if enough people contact RL Commercial requesting it, they might be more willing to discuss my offer further, as I am awaiting a response from them here. Regardless, I would hope that with IMG's involvement, and desire to drive fan engagement (especially with younger audiences, who have higher expectations here) we will see more development in this area soon.

The summer era stats are now freely available on the RKC website. Direct link here: https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/

Toulouse are doing a 16 page programme (journal du match) given out for free at or around the ground. Leeds also do a digital programme for free-I don’t think they advertise the link, but it gets sent to season ticket holders, and anyone with the link can access the web page that hosts it (it’s the same platform that Wire are using).

At 13:00 on 2 April 2022 the Rugby League Record Keepers’ Club (RKC) will release a comprehensive record of the British game covering the entire summer era. In addition, full match and player details for the national teams of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and France will also be freely available to the public on their website www.rugbyleaguerecords.com. More details of the specific information included in the release will be made available prior to the launch, with further updates provided at www.rugbyleaguerecords.com, on the club’s Facebook page (search Rugby League Record Keepers’ Club) and Twitter account (@RL_RKC), or for any other queries contact neil.ormston@gmail.com.