How to win in Super League

Listeners to the show will know that we do what we can with the free stats available on the Super League website. One thing that I've been looking at in the off season so far is which of these stats seems to be most important to winning games in Super League.

In a simple breakdown, I've looked at every winning result over the time that the show has been running (so, from 2014-2017). I've counted up when the winning team had the most a particular stat count, when the count was equal between the sides, and when the winning team had less in a stat count than their opponents - then turned these into percentages of the games with a winning result (i.e. not a draw).

The below two charts show the results of the simple process.
The first chart is the basic stats: Tries (T), Tackles (TK), Marker Tackles (MT), Missed Tackles (MI), Tackle Busts (TB), Attacking Kicks (AT), Carries (C), Metres (M), Average Gain per carry (AG), Clean Breaks (CB), Runs From Dummy Half (DR), Errors (E), Goals (G), Missed Goals (MG), Offloads (OF) and Penalties Conceded (P).
The second chart has four stats adapted from those basic ones: Tackle Success Rate (TK%), Goal Success Rate (G%), Positive Impact Plays (TB+CB+OF) and Negative Impact Plays (MI+E+P).

Chart 1

Most of the headline results are fairly obvious - the team with the most tries and goals wins almost all the time. You'd also expect the team making the most metres, the most tackle busts (so also the fewer missed tackles) and most clean breaks to win much more often than lose.

• 86% of games are won by the team who scores the most tries - only 12 of the 684 games in the period were lost by the team who scored the most tries.
• 85% of games are won by the team who kicks the most goals (although 52% are also won by the team who misses the most goals!).
• 79% of games are won by the team who makes the most metres, and 71% by the team who makes those metres at the best average gain.
• 71% of games are won by the team who makes the most tackle busts (and, as a complementary number, 71% are won by the team with the fewer missed tackles).
• 70% of games are won by the team who makes the most clean breaks.

It's also clear that using your energy with the ball rather than without the ball is fairly important for success - the team with the most carries and making fewest tackles has a much better win rate than the other way round.

• The team with the most carries wins 69% of the time.
• The team with the fewest tackles wins 71% of the time, the 5th highest indicator of all these stats.

What is interesting is that errors, and in particular, offloads and penalties aren't as decisive as we might think.

• The team who makes fewer errors has won 61% of the time, so it's still an important factor in winning, but it's only the 11th most decisive stat of the 16 shown in Chart 1.
• The team who makes the most successful offloads only wins half the time.
• Similarly, when a team concedes fewer penalties they only win half the time.

 Chart 2

These results are a little more interesting still.

This shows having an overall better tackle success rate is very useful, but not as important as not having to make as many tackles in total.

It also shows that kicking at a better success rate than your opponent isn't that important, as long as you're taking more kicks at goal like Chart 1 shows.

Finally, it shows that whilst positive and negative plays are both important, it's more important that you don't make the bad plays, as making more of those has a greater impact on whether you win or not. Now, from Chart 1 we know that it's probably the missed tackles part of this that will hurt your chances most, so this shouldn't mean teams can't take risks in attack - it just means any mistakes in attack have to be backed up by a strong and secure defensive line.

Whilst this isn't the most sophisticated analysis you'll ever see, it is still somewhat informative. In games between evenly matched sides, take a look at who leads the way in the stats that count most when picking a winner.

Thanks for reading. Look out for our special podcast episodes during the off season. For iTunes users, head HERE. For the rest of you, you'll find us HERE.

Mark
SLP