man, this post is going to be harder to compose than I envisaged. First off, the 'wallabies player rankings' bar obscures quite a bit of the text when you quote a post. Is there a forum fix for that bug? Is it known about?
Not having multi quote makes it a bit tougher too, but hey enough complaining.
I'll start by quoting papabear
14.91 minutes of dead time in a half of league, I will assume your correct there and agree with you, that is why it needs to speed its ruck up so the play the balls are faster.
That said there would be just as much if not more dead time in union, the difficulty union has is with the northern hemispheres power they are going to struggle to modify the game in the direction the ARU wants to, to keep it competitive in an entertainment sense.
See, that is the whole reason I took the time to sit down and come back
with actual figures. Precisely to avoid the continual and never ending of 'he says she says', the constant bringing up of new adhoc points whenever a previous point is shown to be incorrect.
I show, by actual stats, how much time is wasted every game in league (given that 'league is faster without all the time wasting in rugby' is a constant refrain) and the comeback is 'well yes, you are right, but
That said there would be just as much if not more dead time in union ?
I mean, c'mon. All that shows is that you are only here to argue, and not contribute meaningfully.
So last night, I did some more digging, with the following quote of mine in mind
I asked rhetorically regarding the speed of the game 'in any case, how would you measure it?'. Thanks to watching the games and pondering I think I have improved how to measure it.
The realisation I have had is that it comes down to 'length of time the ball is in play', a subset of that of course being number of passes as that contributes to time in play.
So I collected the stats for two things last night. First an attempt to compare the average time for the completion of a tackle in league and the average time for the completion of a ruck in rugby. Earlier when multiplying the number of tackles in league by a guesstimation of the time of tackle, I used a guess of 'five seconds per tackle', that five seconds being from point of contact with the tackling player to when the dummy half gets his hand on the ball. A bit sloppy I suppose, but I cannot see any other way given how few real tackles are in league (ie player taken to ground by the tackle), and I can only presume the ref would use a similar starting point in order to be able to call 'HELD'.
After last night (and as i type I am yet to work it out) we at least should have a more accurate figure than a guess of 'five seconds'.
It is actually much easier to determine the exact starting point of the tackle in rugby. Except for the times when the player is held up in order to try and get the turnover it is very easy to see just when the 'tackle starts'. Then the time is until the halfback gets his hand on the ball.
An finally, I simply used the old, probably inaccurate method of 'one thousand, two thousand, three thousand'. It was hopefully consistent if not truly accurate, so we get a comparison rather than an actual figure.
One last thing, I only timed 'completed rucks or tackles', in other words if the ref in either game blew a penalty then that was not included.
Waikato vs Nth Harbour. First half, when I 'timed' the time taken for the ball in rucks.
127 seconds/39 rucks which gives us a figure of 3.25 seconds per ruck.
In comparison, for the first twenty minutes of Roosters vs Storm I did the same thing. (I quickly realised I would not be able to make it thru the whole game, and as the figures appeared to be consistent I decided to use the last twenty minutes of that half for the analysis to come)
318 seconds/62 tackles which gives us 5.129 seconds.
With such sloppy timekeeping that 'accuracy' to two decimal places is not needed!!, but again a relative indication of the time taken in the two codes. Looking at my notes, I stopped counting in the league game around the seventeen minute mark, so a back of the napkin calc gives us a number of tackles per half of around 130 give or take. Less than the other game a few pages ago.
So with the above figures, I can quote
the tackle in league and resetting of play takes just as long as your average ruck if not longer in the instance of quick ball and some nz rucks we saw on the weekend.
what would you rather see, an actual contest of physical strength and power (ruck) or some jackass writhing around on the ground for no apparent reason while two guys hold him there - the whole spectacle as far as i can tell is for no obvious reason.
Seems he was spot on.
I then, in the second half of the ITM cup game, and the second half of the first half of the league game (as explained above) I went on to examine this part of my 'thesis'
The realisation I have had is that it comes down to 'length of time the ball is in play'
This is when the limitations of 'one thousand, two thousand' really come into play as you might be able to imagine. For this I simply 'timed' from break in play to break in play. This of course can cover any and every thing imaginable in a game, dropped balls and the opp grabbing it, kicks from one team to another, put into scrums till stop in play, whatever.
The point is 'if the play has not yet stopped the clock keeps ticking'.
I suspected, per my theory above, that this is where the difference between the two games would begin to show.
League game
363 seconds/77 plays. This gives us an average of 4.7 seconds as time of ball in play. As a rough sidecheck the figure of 77 (tackles obviously) is in keeping with the figure of 62 tackles above, recall that they are the first and second quarters of the first half.
I had to remember that, as I timed the start of the tackle from initial contact, then the initial contact was also the end of the time in play, just one of those little things you don't necessarily realise before you do it.
As before, I also circled the figure when a kick was made. A quick glance at these shows a few interesting things
, I'll simply list these here
(length of time in play when a kick involved) 8,9,8,11,7,8,9,8,5,6,8,12.
(again, another crosscheck from the earlier game I analysed, 12 kicks in a quarter of football is in the same ballpark as 22 kicks in two quarters of football from the earlier game
. All these crosschecks are giving me confidence that I am at least being consistent)
It is to be expected that the longer sequences of 'time of ball in play' would be when a kick, on the last say, occurs. It goes to the fullback and he runs it to the opposition.
Take OUT those figures from kicks, and we have left
264 seconds/65 plays which gives us 4 seconds of time in play on average
when there is no kick, and 8.25 seconds for when a kick occurs.
Time of ball in play for the second half of ITM cup game.
673 seconds/27 plays, which gives us an average of 25 seconds per play.
Just as there were factors that skewed that figure in league (the longest plays tended to be the ones when a kick occurred) there are similar factors in rugby, as an example a crooked lineout throw, or contact in the air in a lineout. which obviously gave low 'time in play'. There were three of those in that half, each about two or three seconds.
In broad categories we have the following
0-10 seconds 7 instances (obviously includes things like lineout errors)
10-20 seconds 5 instances
20-30 seconds 7 instances
30-40 seconds 5 instances
60 plus seconds 3 instances (69, 75, 64)
Odd that the missing ranges had no instances.
The longest with no kick involved in league that I can see was one case of ten seconds.
So, long winded post, but it kinda became real interesting to dig into those raw stats I made to tease out tidbits.
Take it or leave it I guess, all I can do is assure you I did NOT willingly or knowingly attempt to skew things, I just took then as they came to the best of my ability and leave it to the analysis stage to try and draw conclusions. Let the chips fall where they do.
As to the essential point of this thread, I feel that it is a case of 'proved' that the league media have to resort to falsehoods and innuendo to make their 'case' that rugby is slower, contains more deadtime and has not enough play compared to league.
Even a superficial analysis such as mine quite clearly shows each of those accusations to be completely false.
As noted before, and shown by the articles from the league media that sully responded to years ago, to attempt to make their case these league guys resort to cherry picking the games in isolation, 'Oh that tryless bledisloe', and go only on one game (ignoring all others) and by meaningless trivial gross statistics like 'number of tires scores' as the SOLE metric for their arguments.
So not only is it cherry picking of which games to use (which includes ignoring games of their own code which fall into exactly that same category) but also cherry picking which aspect of the game they are concentrating on! Next week, if there are plenty of tries in rugby, the they will switch to 'poor defence'.
Statistically, the ball is run further and passed more and further in league. There are more live plays in league and more passes per actual play. In terms of speed of the play the ball being compared to a ruck, you are kidding.
On a fast non contested ruck would be a couple of seconds before the ball is fired out the back or dummy half run from another forward. Similar to a normal league ptb. However, loads of union rucks are both contested or used to setup the play where the ball just sits there drastically pulling up the average speed.
Also in reference to the speed of the game it should be noted that union spends a lot of time setting up line outs and scrums (and resetting scrums) where the ball isn't moving anywehere fast which again is affecting the speed of the game.
If you want to compare the games and you are looking for strengths for union look at the contest for possession, don't try and pretend it is stronger in areas it is not, if impacts your credibility.
Now I invite each of you to determine the credibility and truth of the usual attacks on our game from league guys, as evidenced above. We can each make our own minds up on it.
2 - You genuinely believe every aspect of union is better then every aspect of every other game including league. - you are deluded and expect to get trolled, who knows the trolling might bring you out the insane asylum.
No, not every aspect of union is perfect or better, but in the aspects of the game that I prefer, speed, variety and movement of the ball with time in play, union is demonstrably faster and quicker.
As I said many pages ago, in my estimation rugby was at least four times faster than league. At that time I wondered 'how would you even measure it?'
Well I have attempted to do just that. Turns out I was wrong.
I underestimated, by quite a large factor, when I used the figure of 'four'.
And I think you need to revisit your mental rules of thumb, and actually OBSERVE what is going on in the two games. You might then wish to revisit posts of yours like the following
The faster issue was bought up by a fellow saying union was just as fast as league.
In terms of passing I stand by my comments and my mental statistics. If you want just count how many times the ball is passed in the first and last ten minutes of each game and you would be astounded at the difference.
But just to generalise.
In a bat shit crap set of league you might have two dummy half runs and two runs off the ruck and pass to a half who will kick.
In a bat shit crap few plays of union you will get a couple of pick up ball runs to nowhere and then a kick from the 9 or 10. the ball has been passed in league 3 times to unions 1. Maybe give the union guys another pass but really if the scrum half gets his hands on the ball early hes probably gonna kick it when in a shitty phase.
In say an average league set where you get the seven tackles from a kick gone dead.
play 1 - dummy tap and run. play 2 hit up with maybe forward passing to forward 1.5 passes. play 3 potentially same as play 2 say another 1.5 passes. play 4 dummy half to ball player who decides which runner he wants to hit, if no break 2 passes. play 5 move the ball in either a simple wide shift or a wide block play using the fullback then pass to winger or centre or back inside depending on fullbacks skills and where the space is - 3 passes. play 6 - depends on where the ball is but u want to put the bomb up from the middle of the field - so lets say two passes with a ball player giving it off to a forward to setup a quick play the ball for the last - 2 passes. play 6 - pass to half who kicks - 1 pass.
League average set = 11
Union average/good set of 5-8 phases (though I would say they are doing well if they haven't kicked it by then).
You have atleast 2 or 3 ball hog pick runs with no passes. 2 simple plays with 1 pass to someone to hit it up, 2 - ball player settler plays where the 10 might try to do something with a runner inside or outside 2 passes each play. Lets say one spread with 3 passes and one pass for a kick.
union average / good set = 9 passes.
Now when league gets into an attacking position they have to do a lot more spread plays and less simple plays so you are going to see the ball go through the hands a lot more because u only got 6 shots at the cherry 15-30 passes depending on the position.
Union in a good position, rarely will spread unless an overlap is clearly on or run something to risky because they have unlimited possession and don't want to loss it by sending the ball away from team mates lets just say a few more passes then described above.10-14 or so.
Eitherway the ball gets passed more in league because it has to be if you want to win.
Every single one of your points has been shown to be completely wrong.
