This year was the birth of the new era. The dawn of the eights. So I thought the most fitting way for me to wrap up 2015 would be to have a stats run-down of the Super 8s.
The two things I'll be looking at in detail are the match stats compared between the Super League 8s (SL8s) and Qualifiers 8s (Q8s), and the results of games across the whole of the season.
What you actually see are remarkably similar numbers when looking at the averages from the 28 weekly round games in these competitions. So what observations, if any, can we make?
- small differences in points per game and the metres numbers that maybe hint at what you would expect - a little more space for open play in Q8s than SL8s.
- small difference in offloads that hint at a little higher skill level in SL8s than Q8s
- small difference in errors and penalties do hint at lower fitness and skill levels in Q8s than SL8s
The most surprising numbers for me come when you look at missed tackles and tackle success. This is where I'd expect to see the intensity and fitness of the SL8s to show through, but there is no difference in these numbers.
It's when you look at the end results of the games though that you can pull out some more interesting observations.
- Across the board, the 8s stage of the season sees more points per game - roughly an extra try per game - than the regular season does. A likely explanation for this is the games are played in the summer months, with drier weather and faster fields to run on. Whatever the stage of the season though, points scored each game is broadly similar across the top two levels of the game in the UK.
- Top level games are generally closer on the final scoreboard than at the level down, whether this is the SL regular season or the SL8s. The biggest average gap in scores between the sides on the field was seen in Q8s.
- As you move down the hierarchy, the amount of close games falls and the number of blow-out score lines increase. This does suggest that SL, with higher and more equal funding that assists a full cap spend, sees a more even spread of talent. Further down the hierarchy you see a more significant 'haves and have-nots' factor. You get full-time teams playing part-time teams. You see teams with active academies play those with no talent producing structure. You see those with full central funding play those who barely get a quarter million pounds funding.
- The big stand-out figure is undoubtedly the 61% of Q8s games that ended with a 18 point or more margin. It's a number that's significantly more than any of the others in this category. Tie that in with the average winning margin and you start to see a different picture than the match stats paint of the competitiveness and intensity of games in that middle 8. Making closer games in this Q8s phase is likely to be a factor that has motivated the change in salary cap at the Championship level - that, and only 2 wins by Championship clubs over SL clubs in the 16 opportunities for that to happen in the Q8s, and one of those was a game with nothing riding on it.
- The breakdown of winning margins is where there is the most support for saying that Super League is the most intense, most competitive and most exciting level of the game in our country, especially at the SL8s stage when the best play the best each week. A high mark in the percentage of games with close finishes and the lowest figure for blow-out scores is complemented by the highest percentage of games in the balance at half time (14% drawn at half-time).
- In the Championship, where we see some suggestion of disparity between the top and bottom sides, you see much less significance of home field advantage. This is probably an outcome of that disparity - the best teams will win whether they are home or away. Whilst the changes in the cap might help the top Championship clubs in the Q8s, it's not going to help the bottom Championship clubs beat them home or away in the regular season, so you'd expect this position to continue.
- A lot has been made of earning that extra home game for the 8s from your regular season final placing. In actual fact, at the top level, home advantage dips a little in the SL8s compared to the SL regular season. In general though, where sides are more evenly matched (SL and the three 8s), home advantage is a significant factor in helping teams win a game.
- Another sign that the funding gap in the Championship doesn't make for a competitive regular season is when you look at how many games are effectively over at half-time - 77%, the high figure across the competitions. You wouldn't expect the salary cap changes to help remedy this, and all of a sudden John Kear's shortened Championship season idea is looking better. In fairness, a similar picture is seen across the board, with at least 71% of games going to the half-time leader in all the different competitions. That indicates first half performance and the way you start games is very important in rugby league.
- An interesting twist on from the half-time/full-time results is that Q8s is tied for the highest percentage of second half turnarounds. Given that the most one-sided games happen in the Q8s, this seems a contradiction. Without going into a game-by-game analysis, one possible explanation is that part-time or Championship sides can stick with the full-time or Super League sides for at least half a game, before the better fitness and conditioning of the better trained sides takes over after half-time.
What we know is the 8s have brought some excitement. What we also know is they will keep being tweaked because more than being about 'Every Minute Matters', it seems to be about trying to please everyone.
The cap changes announced already for the Championship should benefit the Q8s at the detriment of the Championship regular season. It might also put a bit more pressure on those SL clubs that are in the mix at the end of the regular season for falling into those Q8s spots.
Whether these are good or bad things its hard to say at this stage, but I'm sure we'll all enjoy finding out in 2016 and beyond. And I hope you've enjoyed this post as well as the rest of the SLP output in 2015. I'm off to see how the NRL and League 1 fit into all this...see you next year! (and at Christmas...and on Twitter...and on Facebook!)
Mark
SLP
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