Sunday, 26 January 2025

Saints Ahoy! - Game 19 and the season to date

Saints fans ask for very little. We just want to beat Wigan. Therefore losing to them 16-12 makes us sad.

I mean, I think we did very well given the number of children in our starting line up. Saints-vs-Wigan-120724 
Look at Harry Robertson, literally the poster boy for that line up. (https://www.saintsrlfc.com/teams/first-team/harry-robertson/) He's 19, making his debut and they throw him in against them!!! 

Of that starting 17, there are 4 players who made their debut this season!!! 

And you know what really doesn't help when you have a team that's almost a quarter infants (and a couple of players not much post that stage)? When one of your senior players gets himself yellow carded in the first minute. 

Matty Lees, give yourself a shake! 

It being such a low-scoring game means there's no figures for the game. (Don't worry, I am adding some extra analysis at the end to make up for it.) 

For the season to date, there may be starting to be a pattern of Saints scoring in minute 50-55. Bar chart of when Saints score. Only minutes 50 and 52 have 5 point-scoring moments, while minutes 51 and 53 have 3 point-scoring moments. 

19 players have now scored for Saints at any point this season. 

Percival, the kicker, still leads the way. Bar chart of point-scorers for Saints. The top line for Percival, the kicker, is the longest as expected. It is about 4 times longer than the line of the next nearest player, Jonny Lomax. Welsby is still ever-present when Saints score, present for all 153 point-scoring moments. Bar chart of who is present when Saints score. Welsby is present for all 153. The next two most present are Blake and Hurrell. The last 3 are Royle, Paasi and Robertson, who have been injured, injured and only made his debut in game 19, respectively. What does the matrix graph look like now? The righter-most and bottom half is the darkest, and contains 14 players. Moving up or left is the next darkest chunk of 3 players (Batchelor, Whitley, Bennison). Moving up and left again is the next palest chunk of 5 players (Stephens, Davies, Knowles, Walmsley, Wingfield), then the top most and lefter most palest chunk is Robertson, Ritson, Paasi and Royle. There is very little difference in the colour of the two most pale chunks, but the darkest chunk is clearly the darkest. 

The network graph looks weird. Network graph of which Saints players are present together when Saints score. There is a central blob and two players sticking up and out right (Wingfield up and Walmsley out right). That is not the weird bit. Davies and Stephens sticking out left (Davies) and down left (Stephens) also not weird. Royle, Ritson and Paasi sticking out but almost making their own community between themselves, Stephens and Davies, that is the wierd bit. 

I can't quite explain why Royle, Ritson and Paasi look like they're making a sub-community with Davies and Stephens. I know why Royle, Ritson and Paasi, because the few games they have played have been together, but I didn't think that they'd shared that many with Davies (Stephens yes, Davies, not so much). This is one of the advantages of visualising the data. 

The pattern of when Saints concede has reduced. Bar chart showing when Saints concede. The highest point is 5 point-conceding moments at minute 11, but there is no real pattern. 

An ever-present when Saints score, Welsby has been ever-present when Saints concede. Bar chart showing players present when Saints concede. Welsby is present for all 73. The next two are Blake and Dodd. The bottom 3 are Paasi, Vaughan and Burns. 

The who-is-present-together when Saints concede matrix looks odd. Normally they go, darkest, paler, even paler, palest (from one side to the other). This one goes darkest, paler, palest, paler than paler not as pale as palest. It appears to be an effect of the same sort of sub-community formation seen in the "present together when Saints score" network graph. Matrix diagram of players who play together when Saints concede. The darkest area of the most often present together is in the bottom right hand corner. There is a darker orange chunk containing Lees, Mbye, Batchelor and Knowles, then another paler orange sliver of Davies and Ritson. Oddly the absolutely palest section of 5 players is next (Paasi, Burns, Vaughan, Stephens and Robertson - or 4 debutants and the injured), then last comes a darker yellow section of Wingfield, Walmsley and Royle. 

The equivalent network diagram actually looks more reasonably than the point-scoring equivalent. Network graph. There is a central blob containing most of the players. Sticking out are (clockwise from top left) Wingfield, Davies (top right), then arrayed along the bottom Ritson, Knowles, Batchelor and Walmsley. 

The last time I compared "rank in the list of present when Saints score" vs "rank in the list of when Saints concede" was game 13, when Saints had hit 100 point-scoring moments and point-conceding moments were about half that (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2024/10/31/saints-ahoy-visualisations-from-game-13-and-the-season-to-date/). 

In this game, Saints hit 150 point-scoring moments (now 153) and point-conceding moments is still ~ half that (73) so I thought this would be a good time to look at that again. 

As expected, the numbers have evened themselves out. 

The player present for the least point-conceding moments relative to point-scoring moments is Percival at -6, followed by Mbye and Stephens at -4. Percival is a mixture of being taken off at minute 50 early in the season and a couple of cards and Mbye tends not to be the starting hooker in the big games (the ones Saints are more likely to concede more in). Stephens is the one who intrigues me because he's a forward who has been given his debut this season, so those are happy numbers. (L will tell you I was excessively fond of Stephens even before this stat.) 

Looking at it the other way (players present relatively more often when Saints concede than when they score) [and ignoring Robertson who has only one game], the only one with numbers >2 (which I am calling insignificant) are Delaney and Ritson and neither of those are explicable. 

I'll keep an eye out on this stat going forward.
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