I know I’m against the majority here, and that’s mainly because people want to be optimistic and hopeful which is fair and understandable, but I stick by my views. Credit to you, you’ve done some great analysis but you have cherry picked some stats to suit the argument without giving full context and there’s some big flaws that you probably should acknowledge.
Comparing backrowers like Fainu and Papali’i who generally play 80mins against a player who averaged 45mins and played out on the edge and middle is misleading. Really need to look at stats based on minutes not per game and consider where those minutes were played. Once you factor in average minutes and acknowledge reps (runs) the error averages are all fairly even. I don’t think errors are a big part of his game so I don’t even know why we are talking about them anyway. His issues are defense and discipline. I think most fans would agree these are his weak points.
We’ve acknowledge that he is the worst disciplined currently in the squad even by your own metrics. Talyn is just behind but he’s also 19 and only had one full year in first grade. Seyfarth has been around long enough.
I hate the tackle efficiency stat, it’s the most misleading stat in the entire game and fans seem to love it. Tackle efficiency doesn’t take into account tackles that you miss completely or bad reads that create overlaps.
Seyfarth is a poor edge defender due to his decision making and poor lateral movement. Specifically he rushes out of the line and often gets beaten completely by halves which then results in a 4 on 3 overlap. Often the winger scores and people blame the winger but it’s actually the men inside making poor decisions which create the overlap. He also does this on the line, rushing out and the forward or dummy half will go in in touched. These don’t count as “misses tackles” because a tackle wasn’t attempted. Even in your earlier post you mention a couple of his penalties were high shots because he had a stray arm, that’s because he’s rushing up and getting caught on the inside or outside by quicker players.
... Note: Post continues but I (Charred) deleted to fit 10000 character limit.
Can you please elaborate what stats I have cherry-picked, as I used every useful metric I could find on the website Legz and the NRL site. I’m assuming it probably has something to do with using per game rather than per minute or whatever. The reason I did that was because the stat was already provided for me but the "[insert stat] per minute" was a really low number (as in 0.01) and needs to be more like "minute per [insert stat]", and I couldn't be bothered doing that at the time, but I'll do it now to be transparent.
However, before I begin I will address your second point. Seyfarth played most of the second half of the year in the second row with injuries to Papali'i and Bateman's loan deal. Upon return Papali'i proceeded to play the rest of the year at Lock or in the middle, so realistically the comparison between Papali'i and Seyfarth should be pretty fair overall given they both played right 2nd row and in the middle throughout the year. Personally, I think Seyfarth is probably best used off the bench due to his versatility to play middle and edge, however, there is no suitable replacement at 2nd row as the squad currently stands.
So here were the per game stats altered to minutes.
Minutes Played: Fainu 1626, Seyfarth 1102, Papali'i 1009, Bateman 858
Minutes per try: Papali'i 201.8, Seyfarth 275.5, Fainu 352.2, Bateman (infinity as he never scored)
Minutes per line break: Papali'i 252.25, Fainu 271, Seyfarth 275.5, Bateman 858
Minutes per tackle break: Papali'i 30.6, Bateman 45.16, Fainu 46.46, Seyfarth 52.48
Minutes per offload: Bateman 37.3, Seyfarth 68.88, Papali'i 84.08, Fainu 147.82
Minutes per error: Bateman 78, Papali'i 112.1, Fainu 135.5, Seyfarth 183.67.
You said you wanted minutes per whatever stats because they are more reliable, however, this literally just makes Seyfarth look better as he averaged less minutes per game than the others.
I talked about errors as I decided to include as many data points as I thought worthwhile. Errors are similar to a penalty in giving the opposition more possession, except a penalty allows the opposition to gain 10-30m on top of what they've already gained (depending on field position). An error early in the set would pretty much give the opponent a similar field position to what they might have got in the first couple tackles + a penalty . Obviously a much greater analysis of the metres lost per error or penalty would be a better metric to use but I've only got this, so will go off that. And to clarify, yes a penalty is more detrimental than an error in almost all cases. The point of bringing in errors is while he gets a bad wrap for his penalties, he makes it up to some extent with a low error count. I agree discipline is his weak point, but I can't say for certainty I agree with the defence part (I'll elaborate later).
Yeah, 100% agree he is our worse disciplined player in the current roster. However, my main argument is that his poor discipline is comparable to many other teams worst disciplined player so I don't think we are significantly disadvantaged by it, particularly as he didn't get suspended last year and as Tucker said the two years prior to that. Every team will have a worst disciplined player.
Also in relation to your age/experience comment. JWH was old and had played 300 NRL games and he was the worst player in the comp for discipline by far, but that's the way he plays the game trying to hit hard and be an enforcer, obviously that comes with a lot of risk. Seyfarth being the workhorse and big-hearted player he is was very visibly frustrated at the performance of the team last year which contributed to his overall penalty count, same goes for Api. The penalties he conceded against our Dragons drubbing are clear examples of getting too emotional during the game, but I believe given his personality it's something he will probably try to work on over the season and something that should hopefully wane slightly with better team performances.
P.S this does not excuse some of the other downright stupid penalties he's given away but it's an explanation for why his numbers along with Api's are quite high as this would have contributed to some of the penalties.
Yeah fair enough take on the tackle efficiency stats. Typically, I don't like to solely rely on statistical analysis for NRL as it is very much a team game with so many variables. Numerous times last year I was looking at the stats (couldn't watch the game as I'm free to air only) and it showed someone playing really well, but everyone on the forum was saying how bad they were playing. However, I'm not about to review up to 2000 minutes of footage and the stats are can provide a decent generalized view of how a player performed. I'll be honest I haven't been taking notes on exactly what Seyfarth has done in every game, but I watched pretty much every highlights replay and can't remember many times seeing Seyfarth as the cause of the try for the specific reason you mentioned (admittedly, I don't remember that much), but I do remember seeing Jayden Sullivan and Adam Doueihi repeatedly rush wayyyy out of the line throughout the season. You bring up a good point with the stray arm but each time this was on his inside (you said in and out). I am very open to you providing specific examples of where we may have conceded a try as a result of this rushing, because I would like to see and I'm sure it probably has happened.
As for your NRL playing friend. I can't verify this story myself and you have made other claims without evidence (i.e top 3 for poor discipline, asked for link twice but never given), so I won't just take it at face value and accept it. However, if it is true then I would implore you to contact the club in some way so we can gain an advantage in knowing what they know and potential strategies they may have (and also so we can target this other player he talked of).
Agree with your point on assessing skill from stats. I think what you can find is their work-rate with tackles per minute and how effective they are at tackling when they actually lay a hand on the player at the very least. When you mention eye test, is this the rugby league eye test stats page? I'm sure they probably would have some good defensive analysis so I might check them out.
Agree re; decision making and lateral movement. He doesn't seem particularly fast to me, but most forwards aren't.
One final point which I find important is I think we can both agree that his effort is probably his strongest quality. However, I believe it's typically undervalued. This drive to perform and help your team out should transfer into the training paddock, which is why I believe we have seen an almost linear progression in Seyfarth's overall game year after year. This hopefully means that during the off-season and pre-season he would be working hard to improve again and take his game even further. This will only be aided by the club's faith to play him 23 games and extend him, and also his selection in Governor General's XIII (I know it's not too prestigious but you still have to be quality to get a go). His passion for the game and the club makes him a leader (evidenced by being given captaincy duties for the trial), which will give the younger players a positive role model and drive others to train at similar standards. Obviously, this is all assumption based on circumstantial evidence, but I genuinely believe he has the drive to keep improving his game for as long as he can and would have a substantial positive influence on the playing squad.
