Saints Ahoy! - Game 18 and the season to date

No diagrams for the game itself because it finished 6-8 to Castleford so the diagrams contain very little information. A match report can be found here - https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2024/07/05/saints-suffer-narrow-loss-to-the-tigers/  It appears to have been a bit of an arm wrestle. 

L will tell you that I tend towards the melodramatic when Saints lose to Castleford. I blow it out of all proportion. This is not because Castleford are not a good team. It's more that losing to them is almost always a sign of a Saints season that will not end well. (Seriously tempted to do a stats test on that to prove it's not just fan-madness) 

Good things to take from this match: Two new players got blooded in. The new players (and semi-new players) do give me hope for the future. Sam Royle, first ever try for Saints - yay! 

Things I am going to use to try to feel better: It was all going so well until minute 50. It can go better again. 

On to the season so far: 

There is still no pattern to when Saints score.  

The pattern that was forming for when Saints conceded seems to have broken.  

Who scores for Saints?  

Who scores against Saints? Saints have had 149 point-scoring moments and conceded 67, so the update on who is unexpectedly high on either "present when scoring" or "present when conceding" charts will have to wait until the next game. 

Jack Welsby is still the only ever present on both charts. First, who is present when Saints score?  

Who is present when Saints concede?  

What has game 18 done to the matrix and network graphs? 

Interesting things. 

The 'who are present together when Saints score' matrix now looks like this: 

The darkest 14 aren't really what interests me. It's the fact that the paler half is now split into three thirds, with the Whitley, Batchelor and Bennison cluster, then the Davies, Walmsley, Knowles and Wingfield cluster (or the 'oh, how many of our props have been injured?!!!' cluster), then the palest section of Royle, Paasi, Ritson and Stephens. 

The network graph looks spectacularly odd:  

It's the cross points between the arms that are sticking out of the central blob that I don't understand. I presume it means that while Paasi, Royle, Davies, Walmsley, Knowles and Wingfield aren't often with the others when Saints score, when they are present, they are often with each other, with Wingfield and Knowles being closer to the central blob indicating that they are present for more of Saints's scoring moments. 

The "who is present when Saints concede" matrix is also interesting, divided as it is almost in four along each edge.  

The equivalent network graph looks more like you would expect.  

I can at least explain why Walmsley, Wingfield and Davies are sticking out, they have been injured. But Ritson is inexplicable. Or rather, I know it's because he's not been playing, it's the why of that that I don't understand.

Formula 1 2024 - Austrian Grand Prix

 I remember assuming this would go the way of all Red Bull Ring races (and yes, the clue is in the name), but then the start of the Verstappen vs Norris crash-a-rama of 2024 began.

To an extent, Verstappen is the monster F1 created for themselves. They've never penalised him for his over the aggressive/dangerous line manoeuvres*, so why is he going to stop. It was always going to take one of the other drivers doing the same back to make him stop, but no one really has since Hamilton, and Hamilton hasn't had the car to take the literal fight to him since 2021.

I admit I hadn't expected it to be Norris that took the fight to Verstappen, I'd assumed that he might have been cowed from previous experience in junior formula. I was wrong **.

Ferrari-wise, it was another race where one car did well, and one car did not. 11th, not good enough.

~~~~


* said with acknowledgement of the various attempted vehicular manslaughters one of my favourites was allowed to get away with

** I was expecting it to be Piastri.

Saints Ahoy! - Game 17 and the season to date

Game 17 was another loss to Salford. Let us never speak of it again. 

More sensibly, both times Salford played Saints this season are high up on the "who scores against Saints?" chart. Mostly concerned about Sam Royle going off concussed. 

Looking at the year to date: Percival's try and the conversions help extend his lead at the top of the "Who scores for Saints?" chart: There is still no real pattern to when Saints score. Welsby is still ever present. Unlike the matrix for when Saints concede, the "who is together when Saints score" matrix looks like the way I'd expect, with one corner (the bottom right) darker than the others, then the square getting paler as you move up or left.  

 The equivalent network diagram just looks weird. When do Saints concede? There are two lumps one from minute 9-11, and the other, less high but longer, from minute 71-80. Saints have conceded 65 point-scoring moments up to the end of game 17, and 9 of them (almost 14%) have come in minutes 9-11. 16 (almost 25%) have come in minutes 71-80. 

Who is present when Saints concede?  

The "which players are together most often when Saints concede" image is intriguing, and looks different to the scoring one.  Rather than there being a darker area, then pale, it goes dark, paler, darkest, palest. Lees, Mbye, Batchelor and Knowles being an intermediate colour makes sense because they're props and other forwards who are rotated on and off (not to mention the various cards). 

I think the mixing of the patches rather than the clear separation seen in the "present when point-scoring" matrix is because Percival is no longer hauled off at minute 50. 

On the other hand, the "present when Saints concede" network graph looks more reasonable than the scoring one.

Formula 1 2024 - Spanish Grand Prix

Not saying it tells you how *thrilling* the Spanish Grand Prix was that even the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Spanish_Grand_Prix) doesn't give a summary of the race, but it was very much "Verstappen gets past Norris and then steams off into the distance".

The most important thing was probably that this was the last of Verstappen's wins for a long time. Which we are all grateful for. Except the Red Bull fans, who are excused, because we have all suffered from loving a sports team.

At the time, people were very much "oh well, there's someone else that can occasionally outqualify Verstappen but just gets breezed past in the race" as happened with Leclerc the year before.

Little did we know ...

Copa America 2024

Doing my usual network graphs for the Copa America. It being the same year as the Euros acts as a nice compare and contrast (for the Euro 2024 group stage diagram, please see here - https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/06/15/euro-2024-network-diagram-only-a-day-late/).

Group Stage: The Copa America network graph at the group stage is less tightly packed and inter-connected than the equivalent Euros graph Argentina are not as central as I would have expected, and the US is more central than I would have expected. Toluca are the club team closest to the centre. 

Venezuela are probably the national team closest to the centre, but that's very "ish". 

The club team with the most representatives are Bolivar with 9. They are followed by America and Saprissa with 7, then Universitario, Flamengo, Fulham, Porto, Always Ready, Libertad and Herediano with 5. 

Jamaica are the odd team out because they only have a squad of 25, compared to everyone else's squad of 26. 

All national teams have at least one player playing in their home league. 

If the outlying teams predict the teams that are going out, I would expect Bolivia, Panama, Costa Rica, Peru and Jamaica to be among the teams that went out after the group stages, with the others being USA, Argentina and Chile. And I don't think Argentina will be out. 

Quarterfinals: The teams that went out were Chile, Peru, Mexico, Jamaica, United States, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Paraguay. The graph predicted 6/8 teams that went out. It included 2/3 of the hosts of the next World Cup which does not bode well. 

Canada were not the one of the three that I was expecting to survive (are Canada better than we think?). 

Because most of the outliers have gone, the remaining 8 teams are more evenly spread.  

The club teams with the most players left in are: 

4 = Liverpool, Flamengo, Porto, Universidad Catolica, Real Madrid 

3 = Atletico Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, Minnesota United FC, CF Montreal, Independiente del Valle, Internacional, Sao Paulo, Girona, Paris Saint-Germain and Krasnodar 

Brazil are the national team closest the centre and Sao Paulo are the club team closest. Guessing from which team are the furthest from the centre, Panama are likely to go out. With the others it's less easy to tell, but I would expect Uruguay and Brazil to get through. 

Semifinals: I know Uruguay are good, so I don't think Brazil losing to them is time to declare the end of the world but ... Brazilian football in crisis? 

Canada getting through to the semifinals was also unexpected. 

What do the semifinal diagrams look like? Colombia are the team closest to the centre, with River Plate the club closest to the centre. The diagram is not positive for Canada's chances in the semifinals. 

Finals: After a semifinal that nearly ended in a riot - https://www.infobae.com/colombia/deportes/2024/07/11/con-pelea-en-la-tribuna-y-lagrimas-de-james-y-luis-diaz-asi-termino-la-semifinal-entre-colombia-y-uruguay/ (I am not sure how it is Suarez's fault but ...), the final had Argentina winning. 

I won't say it looked like yet another tournament when it felt like the organisers were bending over backwards to help Argentina to win but ... (I will never forgive FIFA for making me agree with the Croatian football federation). 

It also featured poor organisation and celebrations that people had to apologise for - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Copa_Am%C3%A9rica#Argentine_celebrations 

Hopefully neither of these will be repeated at World Cup 2026. The diagram before the final looked like this.  

While the Copa America group stages were less interconnected than the Euros, the finals are not much less interconnected. The Euro 2024 final had 4 club teams with players on both national teams (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/07/12/euro-2024-final-network-diagram/), the Copa America final had 3. 

The three are River Plate, Liverpool and Aston Villa, which I think says a lot about Aston Villa's return to prominence. (There is a small local bias. Only half my colleagues hate everything about this, the other half are enjoying a season where they have beaten Bayern Munich.) 

What have we discovered: 

1) The "closest to the centre" theory work for European Men's Football, Men's rugby union and men's rugby league. It works less well for European Women's Football and CONCAF/COMEBOL competitions. 

2) Argentina and Brazil see my attempts at prediction and mock them.

Top 10 Films of 2024 - Now with Explanations

My "not first released in 2024" option is Galaxy Quest, which I saw at the Electric, about two weeks before it closed. Which was a real shock! The owner was perpetually threatening to close it but hadn't ever (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clm7nnyx2d5o). It means I really need to get myself more organised to actually get back to going to the Mockingbird (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) when I get the chance. 

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria: 

a – did the film do what it set out to do? 

b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score. 

c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are? 

d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria! 

I saw 13 films this year, 12 in the cinema and one on a plane, because the cinema-to-plane turnaround time is ridiculous nowadays. The bottom 3, which didn't make the top 10, can all be missed quite happily. Of the 10 here, I can find something to recommend in everything down to 9, while I'd say the top 4 are actively good and Kalki 2898 AD is intriguing but that might be my lack of knowledge. 

1 - Monkey Man - If we could give Dev Patel all the money he wants to make any film he wants, I would be so grateful. This was marvellous. Fills my need for arthouse violence exactly. 

2 - Kneecap - I am going to caveat this one. How do you feel about about swearing, drink and drugs? If any of the above are not your thing, please skip. The politics is also ... intriguing (let's be honest, they go with 'Band banned by the UK gov' for a reason). (The politics is a whole section of the full review, a long section.) 

On the other hand, other than 'oh heck, Fassbender is old enough to be playing parents', this was good. Openly, 'our story as told by a drunk', in the best sense, and DJ Provai can act (the other two, not so much but not worse than many pro-actors). 

3 - The Beekeeper - Kurt Wimmer is a member of the Garth Marenghi school of writing, where subtext is for cowards. His style really works for me. The Beekeeper is a very straightforward story of good guys, bad guys, necessary bad guys and a lot of violence. They fill this out by casting a bunch of British actors in random roles (and have Josh Hutcherson being the sleaziest sleaze ever). 

Catnip for me. 

4 - The Count of Monte Cristo - It needed to be a mini-series. But I enjoyed what there was. Pierre Niney was excellent, I did not expect to fall for Andrea Calcavetti quite that hard and loved how they did Dantes acting as the Count. 

5 - Kalki 2898 AD - The full story of how I ended up watching this will wait until the write up. Safe to say it was longer than expected, and could have done with some judicious cutting. On the other hand it felt very fresh, although how much of that is me not knowing the Mahabharata, I do not know. (It is a gap I am planning on fixing eventually) 

I do find it interesting that 4 out of my top 5 are not English as their main language. Monkey Man and Kneecap (and the Count, to an extent) are also good at the way people who use more than language use their languages and flow between them. 

6 - Furiosa - It wasn't as good as Fury Road (but that's a very high bar), and it did make Furiosa far too nice and cut-out how she was supporting Immortan Joe. But the images were still awesome and it does interesting things with revenge. 

7 - Dune 2 - I am the problem with this. I acknowledge this. But there are three scenes I demand in any adaptation of this part of the book, and it whiffs all of them. I grant there's reasons for one of them - can I recommend SelenaK's review here - https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1573791.html? - but I still want those scenes. 

8 - Argylle - It has problems. For spoilery reasons, Bryce Dallas Howard is mildly miscast, but she's not miscast for the more important part. I would have re-edited several of the scenes that ran too long. But it's pleasingly silly, and does some fun things. 

9 - The Fall Guy - This is probably better than Argylle, I just do not vibe with Ryan Gosling. The parts that are David Leitch's love letter to stunt guys, and any part that features Winston Duke, are absolute love, mind you. 

10 - Venom 3 

Everything above 10 has some redeeming feature. Films 10-13 have almost none of these. Venom 3 comes the top of them because while it is a pointless sequel (like film 11), I enjoyed it more than 11. Unlike film 12, I didn't consider that it might have been written by AI, because AI would be more evenly-toned. Unlike film 13, it didn't make me drunkenly rant at L, because it's just so wrong. 

Also, it did have Venom Horse and Mrs Chen. 

And Venom Penguin!

Saints Ahoy! - Game 16 and the season to date (and an example of visualisation helps spot errors)

Saints beat London Broncos 52 - 6, with Percival converting 8/9 tries - https://www.saintsrlfc.com/matches/2024/first-team/london-broncos-v-saints-2024-06-16/ 

On the other hand, Makinson limped off within the first 10 minutes with a leg injury. As a team, we're not so good without him and he's part of the spine of our team.

Who scored for Saints in game 16?    Percival scored a try as well as the 8 conversions, hence his domination. 

It was the "who scored" chart that made me notice that 1) I'd missed Percival's conversion of his own try and then the "present when conceded in game 16" that made me notice I'd accidentally duplicated Bell after he'd gone off for Sam Royle and then come back on to replace Davies when he went off for his HIA (head injury assessment). 

I also learnt that Daryl Clark has earned his own song, which the Saints sing to "Dancing in the Dark". Given he is replacing one of the players generally regarded as one of our greatest ever (https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/james-roby-stays-with-st-helens-as-retired-legend-details-his-new-wide-ranging-role), I think he's doing well. 

London Broncos did better the second time they played Saints in 2024 (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/02/21/saints-ahoy-rugby-league-data-visualisation-2024/), actually scoring this time, but in the last 2 minutes. There is still no pattern to when Saints score up to the end of game 16. There is a pattern to when they concede, although this time they avoided conceding in minutes 9-11.  

So we concede either just after the first 10 or in the last 10 minutes. 

Who is present when Saints score? Welsby is the only ever present, there for all 142 point scoring moments. Makinson missing this game, or all but the first 5 minutes, has dropped him into the middle of the pack. 

The "Who is present when Saints score" matrix looks like this.  

I like that the darker area does cover 17 players who would make a decent match day squad. They are Welsby, Hurrell, Blake, Whitley, Batchelor, Bennison, Dodd, Percival, Lomax, Bell, Clark, Sironen, Mbye, Mata'utia, Lees and Delaney. 

The network diagram looks like this:  

It pleases me that the 17 players are also those in the centre of the network diagram. Not sure why only 4 of the less frequently present players are in the diagram (Stephens, Davies, Wingfield and Walmsley) but they are the most frequently present of the infrequents so I presume it's that. 

How about players present when Saints concede? Welsby is top of this one too, because he really is ever present. The players that follow him are in a different order. I suspect that either concede or scored will hit another big number shortly so the orders can be compared. 

The steeper drop off in the "concession moments present for" diagram is also reflected in the matrix diagram. There are only 16 players in the darkest area. They are Welsby, Dodd, Mata'utia, Blake, Hurrell, Lomax, Delaney, Makinson, Clark, Bell, Bennison, Sironen, Whitley, Percival, Batchelor and Knowles. I think Lees misses out because he was off the pitch because of yellow cards for several point-concessions. 

The network graph is less tightly packed.  

It's those 16 again, because they are closely related, and this time it's Ritson, Wingfield and Walmsley that are present from the pale group.

Formula 1 - Canadian Grand Prix 2024

I think this is the one where it became really apparent that the big fight was going to be Norris vs Verstappen*.  As an F1 fan, it's good when there is actual racing, as a Ferrari fan, I'd like it to have been Ferrari but c'est la vie.  Things that do prevent Ferrari success include a double DNF.

I don't hold the team responsible for racing incidents and driver errors, which collided in much the same way Albon and Sainz did, but maybe avoid power unit issues!!!

*I mean I knew Russell would fight back if pushed by Verstappen but at the time the Mercedes wasn't near enough for that to matter.

Top 10 Films of 2024

 My usual end of the year list of the top 10 films. Explanations coming in a week.

1 - Monkey Man
2 - Kneecap
3 - The Beekeeper
4 - The Count of Monte Cristo
5 - Kalki 2898 AD
6 - Furiosa
7 - Dune 2
8 - Argylle
9 - The Fall Guy
10 - Venom 3

Saints Ahoy! - Game 15 and the season to date

In game 15, Saints beat Catalan Dragons, and there was the expected yellow card. https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2024/05/31/saints-down-the-dragons-at-the-totally-wicked-stadium/ Because there always is at least one card. 

I'm not sure why Saints vs Dragons always ends up violent (I have theories, they're all rude and start with calling them Wigan Sud) but they always do. This time it was one of theirs that got the yellow card, although Saints were already leading by then. 

The other big news was that this was the return of Agnatius Paasi to the team. And we like having him, for he is large and good. Saints were very careful with him, only giving him 20 minutes. 

After game 15, there is still no pattern to when Saints score:  

Percival still leads the point-scorers, as he should as the kicker (also 4/4 tries converted in game 15)  

Welsby is still ever-present when Saints score.  

The thing that intrigues me about this chart is that you have a clear group at the top who are very frequently present (Welsby, Blake, Hurrell, Lomax), then a drop to the group that are often together who have very similar numbers (between 70 and 90), then another few where it tails off before 'boof' big drop to the injured non-presents. 

This is borne out by the matrix graph of players who play together when Saints score. For the darker section (play together more often when Saints score), we've not got a solid 17 players:  

The 17 are, in figure not necessarily positional order, Welsby, Blake, Hurrell, Lomax, Dodd, Percival, Makinson, Batchelor, Bennison, Mbye, Clark, Sironen, Bell, Whitley, Mata'utia, Lees and Delaney. I will return to their being 17 players in the "frequently together" section when we get to the "matrix diagram for when Saints concede". 

The network graph is unclear.  

It looks like Knowles is creeping out of the main section as his injury break gets longer. 

Although there have been 15 games, there are only 13 teams on the "Who has scored against Saints?" bar chart because 2 teams were nil-ed. 

If we look at when Saints concede, the pattern previously identified (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/11/16/saints-ahoy-game-14-and-the-season-to-date/), of Saints conceding in minute 9-11 gets even stronger.  

Of the 57 times Saints have conceded, 9 have come in minute 9-11, almost 16 percent, in those 3 minutes. It also looks like there might be a weakness in the last 10 minutes too, but that's probably exhaustion and everyone conceding more then. 

L has asked me to come up with a "why then?" theory. Best I have is it tiredness when it's the opponent's third set and that might mean more likely to concede 6-agains which might lead to scores. But I have no data to back this up. (NRL.com style data, my kingdom for NRL.com style data) 

Welsby is also ever present when Saints concede.  

Next we have the matrix graph of players who play together more often when Saints concede. This time, the darker group of players who play together more often is only 16 players. I think this is because often, when Saints concede, it is because someone has been carded and is either in the sin bin or off entirely. 

The 16 are (again in figure not position order), Welsby, Lomax, Hurrell, Dodd, Mata'utia, Blake, Makinson, Delaney, Clark, Bell, Bennison, Sironen, Whitley, Percival, Batchelor, Knowles. I think Lees not being in here is because of that. 

The network graph is also less clustered for the point-concessions, possibly because there are fewer of them.