The law of unintended consequences
This weekend in the NRL we saw 14 yellow cards and 3 red cards brandished. This was part of a crackdown on foul play and growing concerns of the impact of head injuries on players and former players.
I have used this blog in the past to call for tougher punishments for head shots and criticised the sport's laissez-faire approach to brain injuries. The idea that playing on with concussion-like symptoms is brave and the lauding of players punching each other in the head are slowly being consigned to the history books. This is long overdue and welcome.
There is a myth in rugby league that a red card materially impacts on the outcome of a game. I debunked this in a recent blog post. Despite evidence to the contrary, there is still a belief that a red card determines a match may persist subconsciously in the minds of match officials and fans. In reality, the general trend of a match is usually unaffected.
When there is a change in rules or interpretation, it is folly to consider it in isolation. You must consider what unintended consequences may follow. For decades, there has been an unhealthy obsession in rugby league with speed and innovation. We change rules, abolish others and even change our scoring system with reckless abandon. We have different sets of rules in the UK, France, Australia and in the international game. At times, we all play different sports.
It is indicative of a sport which lacks confidence in its own skin. A sport desperate to be loved and accepted by more. A sport that simply cannot understand its relative lack of appeal. So we change to please others. To summarise in four words, our approach is 'nothing ventured, nothing gained'.
That brings us to one of the more substantive changes, introduced in 2020, the set restart or six again rule. As a result, the game got quicker, there were less stoppages and statistics showed that the players were running more, tackling more and being pushed even harder. It achieved its aim.
Now to those unintended consequences. As always, teams adjust to new laws and learn how to manipulate them. Sometimes giving away an early set restart can help a defending team to adjust. Players know they can steal an extra second or two later in the tackle count as referees are reluctant to award a restart then. If you're in the final minute of a half, you can spoil your way to the hooter even if it means giving a couple of restarts away.
These are unintended consequences which impact on how the game looks. There are also unintended consequences when it comes to safety. Put simply, more tackles will lead to more fatigue and worse tackling technique. That leads to more high tackles and more head injuries.
NRL supremo Peter V'Landys defended the crackdown on high tackles stating that "I'm going to protect the player and eventually they will stop hitting around the head". A nice soundbite. He says this on one hand, yet on the other introduces a rule that has caused the potential for dangerous tackles to increase in frequency and severity.
Our sport has always lacked joined up thinking. This is just the most recent example. We hit the accelerator before usually hitting reverse gear before too long. V'Landys recent comments suggest these lessons have not been learned.
The commentators would have you believe that the game is in crisis because of a growing disparity in the scores, caused by the radical changes to the rules. The six again calls apparently has made the game too fast and causing exhausted players to fall off tackles and allowed attacking teams to run riot. Or so they would have you believe. But do the facts back up the rhetoric, or is all just hyperbole parading as fact?
ReplyDeleteI selected a sample of rounds over the period 2016 through to 2021 to test the theory. I mean if the changes to the rules really had such a dramatic affect on the game, then it should stick out like the proverbial dog’s balls, right?
I selected rounds 1, 7 and 14 in each season. The data I looked at comes from the NRL’s official stats (NRL.com game stats) and reason I selected these rounds was because they were complete rounds (no byes). The reason I only selected three rounds per season to compare was more a time thing, there is a lot of data to compare.
So, what data to look at? First I looked at the amount of time in possession for each game. I’m not concerned with the percentages, but the actual time the ball was in play. The assumption here is that less stoppages because of the ‘six again’ calls, mean the ball must be play for longer.
Overall, there is an increase in the time in possession, going from an average time of 51 minutes and 23 seconds in 2016 (yes that means almost half an hour of game time where nothing is happening) to 54 minutes and 35 seconds in 2021. That is 3 minutes and 12 seconds of additional play. However, this increased playing time has been gradual over that period and the difference in average time in possession between 2019 and 2021 is less than a minute. I can’t help but wonder if these extra 46 seconds have created the amount of fatigue suggested.
As well as looking at the time in possession, I also looked at the number of play the balls and the number of tackles per game. With the quicker pace of the game, much of which is due to the increased fitness, size and speed of the players, it stands to reason there would be greater activity. Obviously, these stats will also vary depending on the weather conditions, but I didn’t find any discernible differences from one season to the next games played in wet and dry conditions. Both of these statistics show that there is again a gradual increase from the 2016 to 2021 seasons. Over this period the average number of play the balls per game has gone from 338 to 358 and average number of tackles per game has gone from 700 to 758. While significant in number it’s important to note that the increase from 2019 to 2021 is only 3 play the balls and 21 tackles. This still doesn’t appear to indicate an undue increase in player workload (approximately 1.25 tackles per player per game).
So, given that there appears to be a less than substantial increase in the amount of playing time, and a less than substantial increase in player workload required, can the changes to the rules really be responsible for such dramatic blowouts in the scores. I mean the average point differential per game is a whopping 16.25 in 2021 as opposed to 16.17 in 2016. Granted the point differential in 2019 and 2020 is lower, 12.96 and 12.42, but it’s still hardly dramatic. Maybe it all comes down to the number of sinbins and send offs. In the six years of games that I look at the number of players sinbinned or sent during the three rounds varied significantly. In 2016 it was just 1, 3 in 2019, 6 in 2017, 7 in 2020, 10 in 2021 and 11 in 2018. Yet 2018 had the smallest point differential of any year at 9.59.
Stats don’t lie, although they can be interpreted in different ways. I have tried to keep an open mind on whether there is a major problem with the game and that perhaps the rule changes have created an imbalance in the competition. What I found was that perhaps the story is in the mind of certain coaches and players desperate to make excuses for their own poor performances, and a few media personalities who like nothing more than a sensational beat up.