This Sporting Blog: April 2025

Friday, 11 April 2025

Saints Ahoy - Game 23 and the 2024 season to date

Saints's game 23 was an unnecessarily close match that Moses Mbye won for Saints with a drop goal in golden point extra time (https://www.saintsrlfc.com/2024/08/08/saints-down-the-red-devils-in-golden-point/).

The matrix of players playing together when Saints concede for the game isn't particularly informative, other than showing the people interchanging in and out, but it does look pretty.

Matrix chart showing which players play together when Saints conceded in game 23. The dark red chunk, together most often, contains Whitley, Sironen, Robertson, Ritson, Percival, Mbye, Makinson, Lees and Dodd. Above and to the left is an orange stripe for Bell, then an amber yellow stripe for Walmsley, orange again for Clark then a paler amber stripe for Burns, followed by a pale yellow stripe for Knowles.

Over the season, there are now 178 point scoring moments for Saints, compared to 104 point-scoring moments conceded. The chart of when Saints score continues to look like a skyline full of skyscrapers.

Percival still has the most point-scoring moment, because he is the kicker. He is now up to 60 point-scoring moments.

Waqa Blake is the Saints player present for the most point-scoring moments.

The matrix diagram of which players are together when Saints score is a lot more diffuse than it used to be.

Matrix diagram of which players play together when Saints score. While there is still a clearly darker area (the players who play together most frequently when Saints score) in the bottom right hand side of the diagram, it is now speckled with lighter colours and not one solid colour. That section of 11 players is not much darker than the next most often together section of 6 players. The diagram becomes paler for the next 7 players then there is the palest section of the last 4 players.

The network diagram still has a clear central blob.

Network graph of players who play together when Saints score. There is a central blob. Wingfield sticks out at the bottom right of the blob and Walmsley bottom centre(ish). Sticking out at the top, from left to right, are Burns, Robertson, Ritson, Davies (whose mostly in the centre blob), Stephens, Paasi and Royle.

This Salford team had the third most point-scoring moments against Saints.

There is no pattern to when Saints concede

Waqa Blake is present for the most point-concessions.

The matrix chart of players present together when Saints concede has two areas of darker red standing representing combinations often together when Saints concede. The first patch, Blake, Welsby, Clark, Sironen, Dodd, Lomax, Bell, Hurrell, Makinson, Percival, Mbye, Lees, Whitley and Delaney. The second is where those players cross over with Mata'utia. I believe this is because, before his injury, Mata'utia was in the main cluster.

Matrix diagram showing players who play together when Saints concede. The darkest group takes up the bottom right hand of the square (and contains Blake, Welsby, Clark, Sironen, Dodd, Lomax, Bell, Hurrell, Makinson, Percival, Mbye, Lees, Whitley and Delaney). The next paler section contains Walmsley, Wingfield, Burns, Royle, Paasi, Stephens, Vaughan, Robertson, Davies and Ritson, then the top, slightly darker patch, are Matautia, Bennison and Batchelor.

The network graph for point-concessions is less blobby than the point-scoring one.

Network graph of who is present together when Saints concede. The central blob is less blobby for this one that the network graph of who is together when Saints score. 4 players stick out at the top right (Robertson, Paasi, Vaughan and Stephens), Royle sticks out on his own at the bottom right, Batchelor sticks out at bottom middle, Walmsley bottom left, and Wingfield top left.

Sunday, 6 April 2025

Formula 1 2025 - Chinese Grand Prix

And the weekend started so well with Hamilton's sprint victory (https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/hamilton-storms-to-sprint-victory-and-first-ferrari-win-in-china-ahead-of.2VzfSIOQeFC6y2Kskxkpz9)

Just a note, Ferrari victories still don't make sprint races a good idea.

But I didn't get my hopes up because I have been *here* before. And I was wise not to because ...

Ferrari somehow managed to get both their cars disqualified, which is a special kind of ridiculousness (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/cn0j7gvnk89o).

I can, to an extent, forgive the Leclerc disqualification, because there is a chance it was related to how the car drove after losing it's front wing end-plate. Which was knocked off in a collision with his teammate ... and whose loss improved performance.

Meanwhile, the undamaged car got pinged for having undersized skid blocks!

How do you miss something like that?!!!

I hate being a Ferrari fan sometimes.

(I have learnt my lesson from the BBC taking the Chinese Grand Prix off the Sounds app after less than two weeks and will be listening to the Japanese Grand Prix replay tomorrow.)