Rugby Union World Cup 2023 - Round up after the first set of games and a detailed look at England

Because of everything, these posts will be out of order, so no network visualisations yet. 

What are my takeaways from the first round of matches? 

1 - I love the idea behind having a choir sing the anthems. It might be good if the choir, the stadium and the players were all going at the same time though. 

2 - I love both Gordon D'Arcy and whoever the Scottish commentator was for South Africa vs Scotland. I particularly loved when the Scottish commentator after this South African try. Because it was too beautiful to complain about it being scored against your team. 

3 - It was too hot for rugby (and Warren Gatland is a sociopath if he's against water breaks) 

4 - With point 3 as a caveat, France can't defend their left flank, New Zealand have no go forward, the Irish lineout is appallingly bad, Chile are not going to go home wondering "what if", and Argentina are inexplicable. 

5 - So are England. That was the oddest match of rugby I ever saw. I am looking forward to the next wave of games. 

~~~~ 

As a treat for L, I wanted to do something like I did for the England Rugby League team at their World Cup (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2022/11/22/rugby-league-world-cup-2021-semifinal-experience-and-wrap-up-of-the-england-team-data-viz-project/) for the England Rugby Union team. 

 Following the very odd England vs Argentina match, when did England score their points?

Whenever George Ford wanted to    

No really, it was one of the completest examples of "player enforcing his will on the opposition" I ever did see. 

Which is also evident by the "who scored for England and when?" chart. Several other players who were not George Ford were also present for all of England's point-scoring moments. Arise Maro Itoje, Jonny May, Joe Marchant, Freddie Stewart, Elliot Daly and Ben Earl. 

This makes the "England players together when they scored" charts look like this:  (Sorry the X axis names cut off, I can't spend enough time sitting in front of the computer at one go to fix them) Given the circumstances, I feel it cruel to show the "who was on the pitch when England conceded" diagrams because it's players who'd been on the pitch for 77 minutes while being a player down. 

What are my not-entirely-statistical take home notes: 

1 - I don't see how you can bring Owen Farrell into this team, given how good George Ford was. 

2 - That is a nice core of a team England have. 

3 - I am so happy to see Manu Tuilagi having a good game (sorry, I am a Saints fan of Freddie Tuilagi vintage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Tuilagi)) 

4 - <3 Courtney Lawes

Rugby World Cup 2023 - First Post

Today is the first day of the Rugby World Cup 2023, which will hopefully start with a cracker of a France vs New Zealand match.

I had intended to have three sets of posts for this World Cup.

The first was the usual network visualisation using Gephi.

The second was a different, and much speedier way, of visualising the same thing, as described by James Ashford (@jrashf@mastodonapp.uk / https://jrashford.com/) in this post - https://jrashford.com/2023/08/25/using-graph-theory-model-teams-and-players-relations-in-the-world-cup/ 

I've been looking for ages for something that explains how to get data for this sort of thing off Wikipedia easily, and his description is really easy to follow.  The other advantage of that is that it gives me more control of colours and labelling that Gephi has at present (and should solve the chopping off of team names problem).

The third is a present for L, so I'll be a bit mysterious about it till it's ready.

You'll notice "intended" not "have", my plans were already slightly behind due to a holiday, and then I broke my leg.  Don't worry, I'm fine, just very grateful for North of Tyne (https://www.notmrt.org.uk/) and Northumberland National Park (https://nnpmrt.org/) mountain rescue teams for getting me off the hill in question.

It's slightly cramped my computer style so I've fallen behind.  There will still be the three sets of posts, but they will be delayed.

Formula 1 - Belgian Grand Prix 2023

I am aware that the Belgian Grand Prix was some time ago.  I have been busy (it's a very long story).

In keeping with the previous races, I didn't get to see or hear the race, this time because of a Saturday and Sunday museum double header, where I said hello to large dinosaurs (https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/titanosaur.html) and large steam engines (https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/home).

I don't think I missed much with the race, which, you know makes me sad because it's the Belgian Grand Prix.

I did manage to catch the sprint race though, and be thoroughly melodramatic at the inevitable Ferrari oops.

The interesting thing, because Ferrari screwing up again is not interesting, was L's reaction to the sprint race.  L is not a die-hard, he is, at best, a long-suffering dragged-along-by-a-friend.  He's precisely the sort of person the changes to F1 are supposed to be trying to attract, and he ... found it to be pointless.  Completely bored.  Worse than dislike in many ways.

Me not liking the sprints as a cranky old fan is sort of expected, but that's it's completely not registering with the target audience is a sign they need to go back to the drawing board.

Women's World Cup 2023 - Final Network Diagram

As you can all imagine, full working decorum was maintained at all time between the Australian and English offices for the entirety of Wednesday morning (UK time) and the company messaging system was full of GIFs flying in all directions. 

(We also have the rugby union and cricket World Cups where similar battlelines might be drawn.) 

The network diagrams now look like this: The club team closest to the centre are Manchester United. 

Because so many of Spain's players play in Real Madrid and Barcelona, but England have two players playing for Barcelona, England are slightly closer to the centre. 

Barcelona are the team with the most representatives in the final, with 10 players. Next are Real Madrid with 8 and Manchester City with 6. 

Manchester United and Barcelona link the two national teams, with Ona Batlle of Spain, and Mary Earps, Ella Toone, Katie Zelem and Alessia Russo of England playing for Manchester United and Irene Paredes, Aitana Bonmati, Mariona Caldenty, Alexia Putellas, Laia Codina, Maria Perez, Salma Paralluelo and Cata Coll of Spain and Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh of England playing for Barcelona.

Once a tournament is down to two teams, the community view doesn't give a lot of information, but I'm including them here because it's quite pretty this time.  

I will be spending Sunday morning hiding from the match so I don't jinx England. I have been informed by colleagues that this is ridiculous. They will thank me if England win.

Women's World Cup 2023 - Semifinals Network Diagrams

In the predictions made in the last post, the diagram got 2/3 correct where there was a proper prediction.

Following the eliminations after the quarterfinals, the network diagrams now look like this:  

It's now sort of squished diamond shape, with most of the weight in the Australia, England and Sweden cluster at the bottom of the diamond. Spain are the team sticking out at the top. Sticking out is normally a bad sign for the next match, but Spain are Spain and are somehow doing well despite a whole lot of problems. 

England are the national team closest to the centre, with Chelsea (just about) being the club team closest to the centre. 

The club teams with the most representatives are Barcelona with 11 players left representing them, followed by Manchester City with 10 and then Chelsea and Real Madrid with 8. France going out wiped out the Paris Saint Germain and Lyon players (not totally, but not far short since it reduced them to 1 player left each). 

The community view is interesting, given there's 4 teams left and 5 communities. Arsenal are the mysterious 5th community, I think because they link 3 of the teams (Australia, Sweden and England). 

As for the diagram's predictions for the semifinals, they are as follows: 

Sweden vs Spain - diagram probably says Sweden, football knowledge says Spain. The diagram has been mysteriously right about Sweden so far but I don't think it can continue. 

England vs Australia - knowledge (esp. since Australia are at home) says "dunno", diagram says England just.

Women's World Cup 2023 - Quarterfinal Network Visualisations

I start with an admission: of the predictions I made in my last post except for the USA vs Sweden match, where the diagram disagreed with footballing knowledge, the diagram was wrong. 

But I'm still going to carry on making the network diagrams because I enjoy it and because they look pretty. 

The community views look particularly pretty this time, but let's start with the usual network diagrams that look at the links between teams.   

The club team closest to the centre is Manchester United, while France and England are the national teams closest to the centre. 

Denmark and Norway being eliminated has broken up the Nordic+Australia pack at the bottom. There's now a cluster of 5 teams (Netherlands, France, England, Sweden and Australia) with Spain and Colombia sticking up and Japan sticking out at the bottom. 

The club teams with the most representatives are Manchester City (with 12 players representing them), then Real Madrid and Barcelona (with 11) and Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain (with 9). 

As I mentioned, the community views are very pretty.  

There are 8 teams left, who are now each their own community. 

For the quarterfinals, the diagram's predictions are as follows: 

Spain vs Netherland - Knowledge and diagram says "ooooooh" because that should be a good match. 

Japan vs Sweden - Diagram says Sweden, knowledge says Japan, Japan's players tending not to play overseas, is a thing, and that will affect the diagram. 

Australia vs France - Diagram says France, Knowledge says France are mis-firing but have depths of talent and are mercurial France! vs home town Australia so, who knows. 

England vs Colombia - Diagram and knowledge say England, although they've been making tough work of it so far.

Women's World Cup 2023 - Last 16 Network Diagrams

The first set of diagrams (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/womens-world-cup-2023-group-stage-network-diagrams/) was remarkably good at predicting the outcome of the group stages. 

The 3/16 that I didn't predict were Canada, although I did say group A would be tight, Italy, because they confounded me (again) and Germany, but I don't think anyone guessed that Germany would collapse like that. Definitely not German colleague who started a meeting with "please no jokes". 

To an extent, I think both Italy and Germany's closeness to the tight group at the bottom of the previous diagram was what meant I thought they'd go through when reading the diagram. 

With half the teams eliminated, the network diagram now looks like this. Much like Eurovision, there's a European and Australian cluster, which means the "central weight" of the diagram is not in the middle. 

That means that saying that either Leicester or the Chicago Red Stars are the club team closest to the centre, and either England or Nigeria are the national team closest to the centre doesn't give as much information as usual. 

The club teams with the most representatives left are Barcelona (with 15), Manchester City (with 13) and Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid (with 12 each). Manchester City and Real have crept up by not losing players, while other teams did. 

The community view looks like this: One day I'll figure out how to stop Gephi from cutting off the edges of the labels when the exceed the edges of the diagram. 

There are still three multi-team clusters, they are: 

England and Australia 

Denmark and Norway 

France and Netherlands 

These were also clusters in the first set of diagrams, with the change being that Sweden has moved out of the England and Australia cluster. 

While some of the eliminations were relatively straightforward to predict, the last 16 provides a number of games where "football knowledge" suggests one winner, and the diagram another. They are: Switzerland vs Spain - football knowledge says Spain, the diagram is unclear 

Netherlands vs South Africa - knowledge and diagram say Netherlands 

Japan vs Norway - knowledge says Japan, diagram says Norway 

Sweden vs United States - knowledge says United States, diagram says Sweden (US have been an outlying team, even when they win [https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2019/07/01/womens-world-cup-semifinals/] so I think this might be one of the times when their is a weakness of the diagram based on circumstance. 

Australia vs Denmark - Ooooh, that's down as either way whichever method you look at it. 

France vs Morocco - knowledge and diagram say France, goalie hopefully says no (although I am happy with either team winning because I <3 renard="" wendi="">England vs Nigeria - knowledge and diagram says England Colombia vs Jamaica - knowledge says Colombia, diagram says Jamaica 

So this should be a good test of the underlying theory. 

(Even if it's wrong, I'll still keep making the diagrams because they're so pretty)

Women's World Cup 2023 - Group Stage Network Diagrams

Slightly late, but really, who starts a World Cup on a Thursday!!! 

Making these charts revealed some interesting things: 

1 - All teams have at least 1 player playing in their home league except Canada. I'm not sure if that's because the US league is both so strong and right next door. 

2 - All teams have at least one player playing abroad. 

3 - Adding more teams has made the diagram much messier. 

4 - A remarkable number of Zambia's players (4/23) play in the Kazakh league. Also, I found out there was a Kazakh league. This shouldn't have surprised me. 

5 - There are Saudi Arabian women's teams. That really did surprise me. 

What does the diagram look like?  

The club teams with the most representatives are Barcelona, with 17, Chelsea, with 16 and Paris Saint-Germain with 14. 

Looking at the community view, there are 32 teams but 24 communities. The communities are as follows: 

1 - Vietnam 

2 - Zambia 

3 - Philippines 

4 - Argentina and Brazil 

5 - Panama and Costa Rica 

6 - China 

7 - Colombia 

8 - Portugal and Nigeria 

9 - New Zealand 

10 - South Africa 

11 - Haiti 

12 - Jamaica and Canada 

13 - United States 

14 - South Korea 

15 - Spain 

16 - Ireland 

17 - Morocco 

18 - Switzerland 

19 - France and Netherlands 

20 - Australia, Sweden and England 

21 - Japan 

22 - Denmark and Norway 

23 - Italy 

24 - Germany 

It's actually really hard to tell where the centre of the diagram. Obviously, there's the physical centre, which would be Brazil or New Zealand in terms of national teams and Pachuca for the club teams, but the weight of the teams is concentrated in the bottom, where Sweden, Norway and Denmark make a really heavy cluster. That also makes it hard to make predictions (as L requires). 

The following are my predictions from this diagram, with the caveat that it was really hard to distinguish the centre of the diagram. 

Group A - Philippines and New Zealand out, but closer than expected (I said this before the NZ vs Norway game and have witnesses to me saying it. Multiple witnesses. I should also apologise to Norway for drawing them in my work sweepstakes.) 

Group B - Nigeria and Ireland out 

Group C - Zambia and Costa Rica out 

Group D - China and Haiti out 

Group E - Portual and Vietnam out 

 Group F - Brazil and Panama out, but that sounds weird to my ears 

Group G - South Africa and Argentina are out, but see previous statement 

Group H - Morocco and Colombia out

Formula 1 - British Grand Prix 2023

The good: Ignoring first place, there was racing all the way up and down the grid.

The bad: That Ferrari.  Last year we had a car that went, and a strategy team that didn't.  This year, the strategy team have reached the dizzying heights of not-actively-harming-the-team, but the car has no go.  Given the other two Ferrari teams make up two of the bottom three I suspect it's the engine.

The embarrassing:  Channel 4's coverage in general (seriously, it look me 5 minutes which included an ad break before I had to hit the mute button).

The coverage pretending that Norris getting ahead and staying ahead for a lap and a half was a sign of someone challenging Red Bull's domination, rather than it taking that long for Verstappen to figure out which was was forward following the jostling at the start, and then the Red Bull overtaking the McLaren in a lap.

The racing was closer while there was no DRS activated, and I think it highlights that the go-faster button's time is through.  DRS was invented to create more overtaking opportunities, now all it does is mean that no one else has a chance of keep the stronger cars behind them, no matter how good the individual driver is.

2023 Tour de France Withdrawals - Week 2

Every edition of the Tour has that one stage where there's a sudden disaster and lots of people drop out. I've seen it be hard mountain stages, where too many people are over the time limit, but not enough for the broom wagon to be cancelled, I've seen it be hard stages where there's been a bug going through the peloton, I've seen it been rain and crash. 

This year's "that one dratted stage" seems to have been stage 14, where a combo of slippy road, a turn and ill-fortune took down a swath of riders (https://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/tour-de-france/2023/tour-de-france-neutralised-after-extraordinarily-nasty-moment-on-stage-14-involving-almost-all-teams_vid1951457/video.shtml) 

[I'm not sure who that Intermarche-Circus-Wanty rider is, probably Adrien Petit, but that's possibly the actual face of "damn it all" made flesh.] 

Stage 14 really stands out in the pie chart of withdrawals by stage.  And you can see the inflection it causes in the Kaplan Meier diagram  The Kaplan-Meier split out by teams makes it clear that life continues to happen to Astana and EF Education-Easy Post  

All of last week's withdrawals were either did not start the day following previous crashes (or general wear and tear) or mid-stage abandons due to aforementioned crashes. Interestingly, that means there still hasn't been an over-the-time limit withdrawal. 

In the yellow jersey standings at the start of the third week there was so little in it that people started to talk about 1989. I know people enjoy talking about that edition. 

I've mostly just been enjoying Kwiatkowski and Izagirre winning stages, and desperately trying not to jinx a certain rider who is still in. (If I avoid jinxing him, I will explain who it is) 

The final post in this series will be delayed by a week for reasons, but I hope to add an extra special diagram to make up for the delay.