Interesting Sam — just to understand the numbers a bit more, when you say:
“3.8% of possessions which start where Muir caught the box kick end in a try and 15.8% end in either a penalty won or a try.”
Is this looking at it from the perspective of Leicester starting a possession at that point on the pitch (i.e. by retaining the box kick)?
If that’s the case and they retain 35% of their box kicks — at the point Youngs kicks the ball, does it make the probability of that action producing a possession that ends in either a penalty or a try:
Yeah good question and point Ben. Correct, that was looking at it from the Leicester perspective. That is true and I should have either added the numbers or removed them entirely or made the point better. But...
5.5% that Tigers retain possession of the box kick & win a penalty or score a try. However, the value of that penalty increases in that field position than back where they kicked it from. Because if they won a penalty back where they were, they'd need to kick it to touch and then win another penalty and kick that to touch before they were in position to go for points or an increased likelihood of them scoring a try.
Plus, if they didn't retain the kick they still had a greater than evens chance they'd contest the kick and therefore a chance they could win the contested ruck that came after that. Which they got close to doing.
Interesting Sam — just to understand the numbers a bit more, when you say:
“3.8% of possessions which start where Muir caught the box kick end in a try and 15.8% end in either a penalty won or a try.”
Is this looking at it from the perspective of Leicester starting a possession at that point on the pitch (i.e. by retaining the box kick)?
If that’s the case and they retain 35% of their box kicks — at the point Youngs kicks the ball, does it make the probability of that action producing a possession that ends in either a penalty or a try:
35% x 15.8% = 5.5%
?
Yeah good question and point Ben. Correct, that was looking at it from the Leicester perspective. That is true and I should have either added the numbers or removed them entirely or made the point better. But...
5.5% that Tigers retain possession of the box kick & win a penalty or score a try. However, the value of that penalty increases in that field position than back where they kicked it from. Because if they won a penalty back where they were, they'd need to kick it to touch and then win another penalty and kick that to touch before they were in position to go for points or an increased likelihood of them scoring a try.
Plus, if they didn't retain the kick they still had a greater than evens chance they'd contest the kick and therefore a chance they could win the contested ruck that came after that. Which they got close to doing.
Yeah it’s a complicated one to unpick as it’s all so interrelated! But just wanted to check I’d understood the numbers right.
Appreciate the response — enjoying the newsletter format so far, and looking forward to reading more!