Worst Season in WT History
- Thread starter macman
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GNR4LIFE
Well-known member
@jirskyr said:
Yeah, the term was rubbish after those wins against Parra on Easter Monday and later in the yr against the Dogs.
jirskyr
Well-known member
[/QUOTE]@2041 said:
Your point is made but I think there is more to it.
Firstly, at no point last year did we concede exactly 456 points, so your figures are off somewhere. At Rd 20 last year we conceded we'd actually only conceded 424 @ 23.6\. The last rounds were blowouts and that leapt to 631 @ 26.3.
So yes arguably we are not doing better in defence than this time last year, fair point. We'll have to judge how we finish at year's end.
@ 26.3 is 13th out of 16 seasons said:
@jirskyr said:
Sorry for the bad stats - did them on a notepad at lunch…
I take your point that an apparently small improvement is actually more significant than it looks. But I also don't think this tells the whole story. Surely the biggest improvement a team gets from a new coach and new defensive structure should happen in the first season, either right from the start or at least as the season progresses?
Maybe I'm cherry picking here, but this is the first example I looked at: Souths under Maguire. In 2011, their last pre-Maguire season, they conceded 562 points at 23.4\. In 2012 they conceded 438 points at 18.3\. In 2013, 384 at 16.0.
I'm not capable of the level of regression analysis that might factor in things like Souths' ever-improving roster during that period versus our ever-worsening one. And I only have anecdotal evidence to back my belief that the Tigers' defence has got worse as this season has gone on. But conversely I don't see any evidence that there has been a sustained step forward in defensive resilience.
happy_tiger
Well-known member
@cqtiger said:
Lovett could also be a handy 13 under the new rules in 2016
He would get some help defensively in the middle
Its going to be hard though , I reckon the 11 ,12 and 13 will be the most important positions in your line up in 2016
They have to be able to keep going for 80 minutes and have massive engines and still be able to dint the line and run good lines
goldcoast_tiger
New member
@851 said:
Excuses are too easy to come by in this club., both on and off the field
happy_tiger
Well-known member
@goldcoast tiger said:
Yeah but Woods and Taylor are attacking the players and trying to make them accountable
Who would you bring in to improve the side
That is the problem , many of the players being touted by many Forum either aren't ready yet or will never be ready
Just remember we lost our two starting back rowers for 2015 before a ball was even kicked
Imagine how different this side would be with Fulton and Thompson with Sironen coming off the bench for impact ??
Many have short memories
goldcoast_tiger
New member
@jirskyr said:
As I pointed out in a different post, it's not as simple as averaging one , or any numbers of teams, or years, as there to many variables in each game or team
It just doesn't give anywhere near an accurate picture
I won't go into all of them as its already been done, but just one is , who played.
Last year near the end our backline consisted of mostly backrowers , our injuries last season were way higher than this year . So that means that it was a lot harder to have the team that the Coach wanted on the field,
This year ( and it is probably due to the staff that Taylor brought in,and some better luck ).we haven't had such a big problem with injuries
We've seen the result of backrowers being plonked into the backline this year with Lovett. you can see That was ONE ( just one) reason that our defence was so Disasterous last year
I don't see any difference in our defence, we are still ok in patches, but that's no different than we always were.
jirskyr
Well-known member
@2041 said:
I agree that the improvements in defence are more data-driven, rather than from viewing impression. When I first looked at the season-wide defensive numbers the other week, I expected it to be a lot worse than it actually was, based on some of the defensive performances I recalled.
On the other hand, I thought last week against the Roosters we defended ok, even though we still had 33 posted on us.
Our biggest struggles I think are still individual defensive lapses. I am not sure on the stats for metres gained or other momentum-type metrics, but I don't regularly recall Tigers getting rolled out of a game, perhaps only the first Roosters game.
What I do recall is many cases of individual defensive lapses, often repeated, such that teams just ran the same play over and over until they got enough points up. I think that is what JT is talking about the most, not just being a competent side, but being consistent and not having defensive weaknesses anywhere on the park.
Hard to do when your roster includes a lot of kids and the backups are of questionable standard.
The major problem this year, as you have pointed out, is that although the defence is better in many respects, the attack is not there to even out the inevitable defensive errors this team is going to make. So if JT is truly rebuilding the defence from ground-up, he is going to need to get a rocket under the attack soon, otherwise we will still struggle to get wins.
I wouldn't say that a team necessarily improves most in their first season under a new regime. People are stubborn, teams are not individual units and it takes time to change a big, competitive system around. Like any other business, you can't necessarily switch an approach and see early dividends, even within 12 months.
You are cherry-picking Maguire, which is cool, but he got his team from bottom to top in 3 seasons - I would argue this is an exceptional example rather than a typical one. Tim Sheens got Tigers to the premiership in the same period of time, for all the good that did in the following 7 seasons. During that early reign, Sheens modestly but consistently got the PA down - 2002 26.75, 2003 24.92, 2004 22.24, 2005 21.96\. He wasn't able to make any improvement in the attack until they suddenly clicked in 2005 and the spine of Prince / Benji / Hodgo / Farah suddenly emerged as first-class: 2002 20.75, 2003 19.58, 2004 21.21, 2005 28.93.
But other than that I agree with you, Taylor needs to make ongoing improvements, and I think he has two years to do it. One year to settle, implement, get your own roster going, one additional year with full reign. Potter got turfed precisely because he was getting worse results after 2 seasons.
jirskyr
Well-known member
@goldcoast tiger said:
In fact averaging one or any number of teams/years is EXACTLY how simple it is. Trust me, this is part of what I do for a living. You might be surprised how small a dataset you require before you can start making very strong comments about trends.
How else do you think bookmakers work? Do you think they work off opinions and impressions, or hard data?
Just to read your post back to you, you start off by telling me you can't get an accurate picture by averaging one or many seasons, then conclude by telling me your overall observation from many previous seasons. Either you can do it or you can't.
What I can assure you is if you discard the available data because it is not detailed enough, you will never reach any conclusions, because it is nearly impossible to generate a perfect or all-encompassing data set.
It is a totally genuine argument that over a sufficient number of games or seasons, individual metrics like # injuries, player name, weather, time of day, day of week, start to average out. This is already evident in many modern-day footy statistics, for example why so many coaches and teams have a winning % hovering around 50%.
@jirskyr said:
I think we're coming to similar conclusions - maybe I'm a little more on the half-empty side, but I wouldn't disagree that Taylor might get better results with some more time. Having said this, I wonder what the typical time frame for a turnaround is? How long did it take Bennett at the Dragons, say, or Robinson at the Roosters? I've got a sneaking feeling that you'd find that a lot of very successful teams make big defensive leaps forward in season one under a new coach. I haven't looked at any data, though, so I'm purely speculating.
Again, though, the unknown factor is squad quality. I saw your reply to the other post and agree that you can start to draw conclusions from relatively small data sets if you're not trying to eliminate all grounds for error. But to use the examples above, it's notable that when Bennett comes into a club he always makes sure there's cap room and support to immediately add a number of his own players to a squad. So how much is coaching, and how much is being a good judge of personnel?
So where does that leave Taylor? Well, I'd argue that he clearly has not coached the team to the kind of leap forward in defensive outcomes that has been achieved by the likes of Bennett, Robinson and Maguire. But the jury is still out on whether this is because he's not as good a coach or because he's got a squad which just isn't capable of that degree of improvement.
What concerns me is what you described as individual defensive lapses. Thinking back to the first Roosters game, the last Parra game, Penrith at Leichhardt - it's absolutely true that teams have been able to find the aspect of our defence which is just waiting to blow up spectacularly and then exploited it, over and over again. Surely a good defensive structure should be able to cover weaknesses, in a flexible manner? Look at Koroibete: he's still a horrible defender, but Melbourne are good enough defensively as a unit that it's much harder to take advantage of that than it was when he played for us. Ditto Tuqiri at Souths last year (at least the back half of it!)
sheer64
Well-known member
Yes worst season in Wests Tigers history. Don't need a spreadsheet to tell you that! If Taylor can avoid the spoon I will rethink this!
We're currently on target to concede 97 tries this season (we're currently a tick over 4 per game). Last year we conceded 110\. Remember last year the last 7 rounds were a truly pitiful effort from our lot as it was clear that Potter was on the way out, not to mention the likes of Akouala and Patterson playing on the wing.
That's a pretty minimal improvement IMO, even discounting for disparity in squad quality.
JT came out in mid-season and said we were improving the defence, and the back end of the year would show as much.
I'm a pretty cynical bastard at the best of times, but I'm not alone when I say I'm not seeing it.
The thing that concerns me is that I WAS seeing at the beginning of the year. I've only been impressed with our defence in one game (Souths) since April.
That's a pretty minimal improvement IMO, even discounting for disparity in squad quality.
JT came out in mid-season and said we were improving the defence, and the back end of the year would show as much.
I'm a pretty cynical bastard at the best of times, but I'm not alone when I say I'm not seeing it.
The thing that concerns me is that I WAS seeing at the beginning of the year. I've only been impressed with our defence in one game (Souths) since April.
goldcoast_tiger
New member
@jirskyr said:
mate I'm not having as shot at you , and maybe you know more about it than I do , but there was nothing conflicting in what I said. I said that you can't get an ACCURATE picture with so many variables. And I still believe that.
I only mentioned an example of last year and this year, which is not many.
I pointed out that an excessive number of points were scored against us in only a few games
Where our team was not only decimated by injuries but also the fact that the replacements were mainly out of their depth position wise.
You say it is nearly impossible to generate a perfect or all encompassing data set.
That's exactly what I've been saying, there are too many variables to get an Average that is accurate. It depends on what statistics that you choose to include , and what you chose to leave out
It doesn't take a pile of statistics to see that on most occasions , our defence still pongs, like it almost always has.
Whether we have a couple of tries more or less against us doesn't change the fact that we still cannot sustain a committed defence long periods of time.
jirskyr
Well-known member
@goldcoast tiger said:
I think we are just going to go around in circles here.
If you say there are too many variables to get an accurate picture, then what are you basing your opinions on? If you take the pile of statistics and chuck it out the window, your opinion that defence "still pongs" is based on…? Your memory? Your impressions? Those are inaccurate too. You can't say the stats aren't accurate enough but my personal observations are.
jirskyr
Well-known member
@2041 said:
It's interesting you raise that.
I took a look, sometimes the coach makes good in-roads, sometimes does not. Bennett got the Dragons up initially but not the Knights. \
Bearing in mind I cherry-picked a few well-rated coaches, to aspire towards. It might look totally different to look at McFadden or Rick Stone or Toovey.
goldcoast_tiger
New member
You're right we are going around in circles,statistics can be used to give the result that you want. It just depends what ones are used and what is not used to get to a conclusion.
I'm not quite old enough yet to need to just rely on statistics to tell me what I can plainly see.
In the second half last week, our paper thin defence let the Roosters forwards brush aside our forwards at will. If not for Tedesco , ( )who can tackle ) we would have had a lot more points against us in that game. I suppose I need a spreadsheet to tell me that our defence then was the same as in a lot of games this year, and over past years
I suppose also that the tries that the Titans put on us in the early minutes of our second game earlier this year ( two of the softest tries that anyone would want to see) are indicative of Our "improved defence" ( that's just two examples . )
As I said before , even when Sheens had the team. He could get the team up in defence at times ,
But we always regressed to our normal unaggressive , weak defence.
No I would not throw statistics out the window, they can help at times, but yes , I would put more value on what my impressions were from seeing a game . Statistics can be a help at times, but from my own experience in the game as a player then Coaching, relying on statistics , only tells you so much.
I meant what what I said about not having a shot at you personally, but still believe that if statistics are to be used to come to a conclusion, then the more variables that are present then the less accurate the conclusion is
Well just have to disagree on this one
I'm not quite old enough yet to need to just rely on statistics to tell me what I can plainly see.
In the second half last week, our paper thin defence let the Roosters forwards brush aside our forwards at will. If not for Tedesco , ( )who can tackle ) we would have had a lot more points against us in that game. I suppose I need a spreadsheet to tell me that our defence then was the same as in a lot of games this year, and over past years
I suppose also that the tries that the Titans put on us in the early minutes of our second game earlier this year ( two of the softest tries that anyone would want to see) are indicative of Our "improved defence" ( that's just two examples . )
As I said before , even when Sheens had the team. He could get the team up in defence at times ,
But we always regressed to our normal unaggressive , weak defence.
No I would not throw statistics out the window, they can help at times, but yes , I would put more value on what my impressions were from seeing a game . Statistics can be a help at times, but from my own experience in the game as a player then Coaching, relying on statistics , only tells you so much.
I meant what what I said about not having a shot at you personally, but still believe that if statistics are to be used to come to a conclusion, then the more variables that are present then the less accurate the conclusion is
Well just have to disagree on this one
The coach stuff isn't overly relevant other than the Cleary one.
Maguire, Bennett (Dragons) and Robinson all walked into top squads. Dunno what the issue was at Newcastle.
Cleary's Penrith had a similar dip to us this year, but started to build the next season as they moved some big names on, and brought in some quality players - culminating in a prelim last year. I figure there'd barely be any players left from the pre-Cleary era? They've had a huge turnover there, and are starting to bring through youth, whilst stockpiling more below them.
Maguire, Bennett (Dragons) and Robinson all walked into top squads. Dunno what the issue was at Newcastle.
Cleary's Penrith had a similar dip to us this year, but started to build the next season as they moved some big names on, and brought in some quality players - culminating in a prelim last year. I figure there'd barely be any players left from the pre-Cleary era? They've had a huge turnover there, and are starting to bring through youth, whilst stockpiling more below them.
