Saturday 9 March 2024

Saints Ahoy - Visualisations from game 3 and the season to date

Saints beat Leigh 12 - 4 in what I believe would be best described as an arm-wrestle (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/68438335 / https://www.saintsrlfc.com/matches/2024/first-team/saints-v-leigh-leopards-2024-03-01/). 

Matters were helped by not having Saints players subbed off injured like last time and John Asiata getting sin binned. 

Looking at game 3 in isolation:

This is how many point-scoring moments players were present for.Bar chart showing how many point-scoring moments Saints players were present for. Wingfield, Whitley, Welsby, Percival, Makinson, Lomax, Hurrell, Dodd, Delaney, Bennison and Bell were present for all 4, Mbye and Matautia for 3, Sironen and Clark were present for 2. 

It's nice to see Mbye getting some game time. 

The game 3 dendrogram shows the same pattern: The top cluster is Mbye and Matautia, followed by the largest cluster of Wingfield, Whitley, Welsby, Percival, Makinson, Lomax, Hurrell, Dodd, Delaney, Bennison and Bell and then the bottom cluster of Sironen and Clark. The matrix shows the same, but with top and bottom swapped:   The top, palest, cluster is Sironen and Clark, followed by the largest cluster of Wingfield, Whitley, Welsby, Percival, Makinson, Lomax, Hurrell, Dodd, Delaney, Bennison and Bell and then the bottom cluster of Mbye and Matautia. Mbye and Matautia and Sironen and Clark not sharing time makes sense, given its a forward and a hooker and another forward and a hooker. 

Now, the season to date:

This is how many point-scoring moments players were present for:
   <lj-cut text="Bar chart showing how many point-scoring moments Saints players were present for. Whitley, Welsby, Makinson and Dodd have been present for all 25. Then Sironen on 22, Clark and Blake for 21, Percival for 18, Bell for 17, Hurrell 16, Wingfield, Delaney and Bennison for 13, Lees for 12, Walmsley and Matautia 11, Knowles for 5, Davies for 4 and Mbye for 3"> Operation "Wrap Percival in Cotton Wool" is very apparent. Sironen is doing more minutes than I realised. 

Now looking at the actual scorers and when they scored:
  Coloured bar chart of who scored when. A pleasingly gaussian curve, with the centre at 51 and 52 minutes 
I just think it's pretty. 

Percival, despite everything, had the most point-scoring moments with 8, then Makinson with 4, Whitley and Welsby on 3, then Walmsley, Matautia, Lomax, Knowles, Dodd, Clark and Bennison on 1. 

The dendrogram is now a lot more complicated. The present for all points cluster of Lomax, Dodd, Makinson, Welsby and Whitley is together. All the others are separate. That complication is reflected in the matrix, where there's now a block of solid purple, the red, then the mixed part which is the players who sub on and off frequently, then the very top, palest rows, which are the players who haven't played often (yet). The purple section of players who most often play together is Whitley, Welsby, Makinson, Lomax and Dodd. The next most frequently together red group are Sironen, Blake and Clark. The mixed section as I called it are Percival, Hurrell, Bell, Lees, Delaney, Bennison, Wingfield, Matautia and Walmsley. The least played so far section at the top is Knowles, Mbye and Davies. The network graph for the season is 17, which is a nice number for a squad. The central section is Bell, Welsby, Lomax, Clark, Dodd, Whitley, Sironen, Blake, Percival. The outer ring are, clockwise, Hurrell, Lees, Bennison, Matautia, Wingfield, Delaney and Walmsley. The Saints defence conceded against Leigh. Having only conceded two point-scoring moments in three games (versus creating 25 point-scoring moments), it feels petty to name players present. One interesting pattern, on an N of 2 mind you, is that both points were conceded in minutes 40-50 (44 and 46 to be precise). That's just after half time so I'm wondering if it's Saints not being fully switched on when they first come back. 

Or I'm being hyper-critical and impossible. Which is very possible.
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