Mergers...

[tim2]

Danish football club FC Midtjylland are currently holding Liverpool 0-0 at Anfield in the Champions League.

They are a merged entity from two fierce rivals in towns of 50,000 and 15,000 respectively who use the "Moneyball" system to select players.

See, mergers can work....

Edit: And, just as I post this, they go 1-0 down. Point stands - neither of the defunct clubs were even in the top flight of Danish football before.

[GUBRATS]

3 minutes ago, tim2 said:

Danish football club FC Midtjylland are currently holding Liverpool 0-0 at Anfield in the Champions League.

They are a merged entity from two fierce rivals in towns of 50,000 and 15,000 respectively who use the "Moneyball" system to select players.

See, mergers can work....

Edit: And, just as I post this, they go 1-0 down. Point stands - neither of the defunct clubs were even in the top flight of Danish football before.

So who do you want to merge ?

[tim2]

2 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

So who do you want to merge ?

Nobody, just suggesting that it can work, even for the fiercest rivals.

I suppose Catalans Dragons can be regarded as a success too.

 

 

 

 

 

[GUBRATS]

2 minutes ago, tim2 said:

Nobody, just suggesting that it can work, even for the fiercest rivals.

I suppose Catalans Dragons can be regarded as a success too.

 

 

 

 

 

So a clubs can merge , and be succssessful , but you can't think of 2 similar RL teams who could merge ? 

What a pointless thread , just out of interest , where do they play ?

No , don't bother , I've already checked , it's where the bigger partner is located , do all the old fans of the smaller club still attend the new one ? 

[tim2]

13 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

So a clubs can merge , and be succssessful , but you can't think of 2 similar RL teams who could merge ? 

Apart from the one I quoted?

I can think of some, but it seems to provoke a reaction of volcanic proportions 

[tim2]

On one of the other points, has any RL club used the Moneyball system? Or is RL such a small world that everyone knows every player anyway?

Are there coaches/scouts who are particularly good at picking up players and making teams better than the apparent sum of their parts?

[GUBRATS]

9 minutes ago, tim2 said:

Apart from the one I quoted?

I can think of some, but it seems to provoke a reaction of volcanic proportions 

Which is why this is now on any othe Sports

 

Just now, tim2 said:

On one of the other points, has any RL club used the Moneyball system? Or is RL such a small world that everyone knows every player anyway?

Are there coaches/scouts who are particularly good at picking up players and making teams better than the apparent sum of their parts?

 

[GUBRATS]

1 minute ago, tim2 said:

On one of the other points, has any RL club used the Moneyball system? Or is RL such a small world that everyone knows every player anyway?

Are there coaches/scouts who are particularly good at picking up players and making teams better than the apparent sum of their parts?

AJ Murphy 

[gingerjon]

9 hours ago, tim2 said:

Danish football club FC Midtjylland are currently holding Liverpool 0-0 at Anfield in the Champions League.

They are a merged entity from two fierce rivals in towns of 50,000 and 15,000 respectively who use the "Moneyball" system to select players.

See, mergers can work....

Edit: And, just as I post this, they go 1-0 down. Point stands - neither of the defunct clubs were even in the top flight of Danish football before.

Look at the Belgian League (I mean, this may test your threshold for boredom) but pretty much every team in it seems to be a merged entity of some kind. And all linked to matriculation numbers too, because Belgium ...

[gingerjon]

8 hours ago, tim2 said:

On one of the other points, has any RL club used the Moneyball system? Or is RL such a small world that everyone knows every player anyway?

Are there coaches/scouts who are particularly good at picking up players and making teams better than the apparent sum of their parts?

Tony Rea always seemed to be good at this.

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

On 27/10/2020 at 21:55, tim2 said:

Are there coaches/scouts who are particularly good at picking up players and making teams better than the apparent sum of their parts?

I think that's what Ian Watson does at Salford, year in year out?

[tim2]

18 hours ago, Saint 1 said:

I would take this as more a reflection of their analytical approach than the merger. 

I think there is no such thing as a Moneyball system, though there are varying degrees of analytics with varying degrees of success. 

Most (if not all) pro teams I would expect are using data in the realm of physical preparation to look at things like total metres covered, high speed running, collision load and so on, using that to tailor training involvement and team selection. My impression is that less teams are using it from a technical/tactical/recruitment point-of-view, especially in Super League. I believe this is due to lack of money/understanding rather than lack of benefit - arguably the smaller the market, the greater the competitive advantage from better information. Even if clubs know every player, this doesn't give you enough information to make a good decision. Are they a bad player having a lucky run? Are they a good player in an under-performing team? Are they doing lots of stuff that doesn't get picked up in the generic stats? 

I know some of the better organised NRL clubs are involved in this space though. Melbourne Storm have a ridiculously large database of players (I want to say ~8000 from memory). I also know Penrith Panthers have an analytics guy (or have had one anyway), as I tried to contact him about a paper he wrote. 

Moneyball also looks at what metrics are true reflections of player value and here Expected Points is key - I don't know how much clubs are looking at this (or how frequently) but to me this is a big possibility for improving coaching and decision-making. For example, you could work out the Expected Points of different last tackle options i.e. run, high kick, grubber into touch. You could also use this to inform player recruitment/retention, i.e. "Our Expected Points for this set of 6 increases by 0.1 after a carry by player X over a reserve grader. At 20 carries per game, this gets us an extra 2 points a game, winning us two additional games over the course of a year. Assuming a $10 mil salary cap, the best teams might win 20 games, therefore have a $500,000 salary cap spend per win. If player X wants a salary of < $1,000,000, he should be recruited." Expected Points could also be used on a team by team basis, i.e. Saints Expected Points is lower starting from a scrum on the 20 then a kick return inside their 10, so you should grubber the ball against out against them, while Wigan might be the opposite, so you should kick the ball high to them.  

If you are particularly interested, there's some presentations here from sports analytics people if you search for 'rugby'/'NRL' https://ieondemand.com/presentations - you can get a week's free trial providing you remember to cancel it afterwards! 

Yes, I know that the Moneyball system as originally devised is heavily about baseball, which is a game obsessed with stats.

The key is - which stats matter? Once you take out the obvious top players because you can't afford them, how do you use the stats alone to pick out players who would play better in an organised system of similar players than they initially appear to. 

When we watch our clubs we know who these players are. They are often forwards or centres. I know a guy who did all the match analysis for Sheffield and he told me that the stats were pointing at certain players as being invaluable - and if you watched the team closely you would know why. However it's a lot of work to get all those stats from all the other teams, or watch all their videos and collect them. Experienced scouts can probably do it, but they have to watch a lot of games ina  lot of places.

Moneyball used the fact that every single stat was available to everybody.

The guy who owns Brentford bought a majority stake in Midtjylland and has used it there too, I think. They have definitely overachieved recently.

 

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

Bristol City Rovers could either be a merged football team in that west country place, or a pair of men's gloves marketed towards lustful devotees of rhyming slang!

[Bleep1673]

2 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

I think that's what Ian Watson does at Salford, year in year out?

That's why he doesn't want to go to HFC, he is quite happy picking up broken jigsaw puzzles and making a half decent picture.

[Bleep1673]

Football mergers, Dundee, & Dundee Utd, Inter Milan & AC Milan, it's not as if they would have to go far for a merged Stadium. Liverpool & Everton for the same reason, build it on Stanley Park & turn Anfield & Goodison into open community spaces.

[Bleep1673]

Juventus & Torino.