Watching games on TV and seeing the tackle stats, always make me shake my head. How can a team have 20 possessions and the opposing team rack up 220 tackles? 20x6 tackles = 120 tackles maximum. I know this happens because every player in a tackle gets acknowledged but really, one tackle (or one play the ball) = 1. I would be more interested in the tackle count reflecting times a team has been tackled which is made up of 1 man tackle, 2 man tackles, 3 man tackles and gang tackles.
NRL stats in general are pretty bland and basic. The level of published analytics is terrible - there are no what you would call "advanced stats". Something I've been interested in is stuff like offload metres gained and things like that. The NRL just counts "Offloads" as a positive stat but not all offloads are equal. A player that offloads into a situation where another player makes metres out of it is obviously better than when a tackled player gets an arm loose and just chucks and the team loses 10 metres (AKA The Watmough). Yet both just register a "1" on the offload and everyone moves on.
Good point. As you say, the Offload stat should really be total offloads, consisting of positive offloads ie >1metre gained and negative offloads ie < 1 metre gained or loss of possession.
Also kicks dead v kicks that gain point or a repeat set... So many things they could do. You'd imagine player managers would want to arm themselves with these stats when negotiating. You want to quantify your players worth.
@Loobs check out this thread. I think we think the same way. http://silvertails.net/threads/player-ranking-system.46092/
