Saturday, 4 October 2025

Saints Ahoy - Game 29 and the 2024 Season to Date

Yes, I am writing this post to try and distract myself from their match against Hull KR in the 2025 play-offs. (No, I have no idea how we got past Leeds.) 

This game, the last of the 2024 regular season, was a narrow loss to Leigh (https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2024/09/20/saints-suffer-narrow-defeat-to-leigh/), 18-12. Now we had a try chalked off, but Leigh were the better team for the whole game and all of Saints actual points were scored in the 10 minutes that Leigh were down to 12 men because of yellow card to Leutele for attempted Welsby murder. 

Because it was all in that 10 minutes, the "who played together when Saints scored" matrix chart is ... uninformative. Matrix chart showing which Saints players were together when Saints scored. Because it all happened in 10 minutes, all players in the graph are the same shade of purple. It gives no information. 

So, instead, let's look at the season up to the end of game 29. 

When do Saints score? Bar chart of when Saints score. The point-scoring moments are oddly in almost a normal curve. The most point-scores are 7 in minute 50, the next most point scores are 5, which happened in minute 44, 46, 51, 52, 60, 62, 65 and 79. 

Who scores for Saints? Bar chart of who scores for Saints. Percival has the most point-scoring moments, with 60. I think this is because he is the kicker. The next highest is Makinson, with 21 (I think), and Bennison on 20. Bennison is the reserve kicker. 

Who is present when Saints score? Bar chart of who is present when Saints score. The top 3 are Blake, Welsby and Dodd. They are a long way ahead of another chunk of players present for between 120 and 140 scoring moments. Then there is a steady decrease in point-moments present for until the bottom 3, Royle, Vaughan and Whitby. 
Saints reached the 200 point scoring moments in this game (vs 160 point-conceding moments), so it's a good time to see if there's any players present for more point-scoring moments than point-conceding moments (or vice versa). Percival is one of the players with the greatest differences, he is present for a lot fewer point-conceding moments, but that is because he got substituted at around minute 50. Hurrell and Dodd are also present for relatively fewer point-conceding moments. 

Delaney is the player present for relatively more point-conceding moments, as does Whitley. That I can't explain. Matrix chart of players who play together when Saints score. The bottom quadrant is a mid-orange. Then there are three players in a paler orange section (Whitley, Bennison and Batchelor), then the darkest section, a purple-orange two of Welsby and Blake. Above them is much paler indicating that those players are not together as often when Saints score. There's two clear teams, the most often together (a full match day 17 - Welsby, Blake, Whitley, Bennison, Batchelor, Dodd, Percival, Bell, Hurrell, Mata'utia, Sironen, Lomax, Mbye, Clark, Makinson, Delaney and Lees) and the less often together (12 - Royle, Whitby, Vaughan, Wingfield, Walmsley, Robertson, Burns, Paasi, Knowles, Davies, Stephens and Ritson). 

Oddly, only 10 players are not in the central blob, when you look at the network graph. Network graph of which players are together when Saints score. There is a central blob, then Paasi sticking out top left, Walmsley a little further right, then Wingfield left. Royle sticks out on middle right. Under the blob bottom right are Stephens and Davies. Middle bottom, interestingly almost on top of each other are Ritson and Robertson, then Vaughan and Burns bottom left. Looking the point-conceding moments 

This was the third time Saints and Leigh played this season. Leigh 3 are about mid-way up the chart. Bar chart of the number of point-scoring moments different teams had against Saints. Leigh 2 still lead the way. Leigh 3 are on there with 6. 
When do the point-conceding moments occur? Bar chart showing when Saints concede. The most point-conceding moments come in minute 76, with 7. The next highest number of points is 5, which happened in minutes 11, 32, 39, and 80. 
That these aren't in a normal curve makes me happier that the point-scoring moments truly are normally distributed rather than it being some artefact. 

Who is present when Saints concede? Bar chart showing who is present when Saints concede. Blake and Lomax are the players present for the most point-conceding moments. There is then a steep drop to Welsby, who is the next player down. Then there is a slow decrease down to Whitby, Royle and Wingfield, the players present for the least point-conceding moments. 

The who is present together when Saints concede matrix now looks like this: Matrix chart of Saints players who are present together when Saints concede. There is a bit of a pattern which makes it really hard to describe. There is a section at the bottom right which is the players most often together (Lomax, Blake, Mbye, Ritson, Makinson, Welsby, Whitley, Clark, Matautia, Dodd, Lees, Bell, Sironen, Percival and Delaney), then a less often together section (Robertson, Davies, Vaughan, Paasi, Batchelor, Hurrell, Knowles and Bennison), then a pale section of players who are not often together when Saints concede (Stephens, Walmsley, Wingfield, Royle, Whitby and Burns). 

The equivalent network graph looks like this Network graph of players who play together when Saints concede. There is the central blob then Walmsley out of the blob middle top, Burns top right, Whitby lower and righter, Stephens, Paasi and Davies being merged into the blob Again, the matrix and the network graph don't quite match.
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