Let's see how the two local front runners for the Bok 12 spot is doing in SR 2019.

Damian on the left, Andre on the right:

Minutes played:     636 / 584

Passes:                59 / 77

Carries:                84 / 95

Meters run:           226 / 367

Clean breaks:        7 / 9

Defenders beaten: 19 / 24

Offloads:              5 / 9

Tries:                   2 / 1

Try Assists:           0 / 1

Turnovers conceded: 10 / 10

Tackles made:      56 / 45

Tackles missed:    8 / 8

RELATIVE NUMBERS

Tackle attempts per 80min: 8.1 / 7.3

Meters per run:       2.7 / 3.9

Dominates every:  3.2 runs / 2.9 runs
(Runs per CB or DB)

And Esterhozen has probably gained 10 times the metres with his useful lefty boot. Two very similar players.....powerful, but slow and not often imposing.

I wish we had other choices, but Odendaal is in the same vein. Good, but not really test quality. Nor is Serfontein anything special....he was dominated by Rohan a few seasons back.

The biggest difference is Allende has had 6 seasons to grow into the role with the Boks and we have nothing to show for it. One of our most expensive experiments. We know Allende will be a negative, time to try something new.

Which match did Rohan outplay Serfontein in, in your opinion?

What about tries scored and try assists.    Missing as per normal.   Obvious defense count for nothing as well.   Missed tackle ratio is absent as expected. 

Mozart and Pakie at their worst  as per normal.   Nobody can help the two - they are crazy as per normal.      

Neither should be considered.

Simply useless.

Shezza I reposted my impressions of the game in question last year:

....................

Mar 05, 2018, 17:13

Or this on Rohan vs Stepfontein.....note the date Big Fat Mouth:

May 28, 2016, 21:14

Centre A, carried the ball 11 times for 108 metres, 3 clean breaks 2 defenders beaten, two tries and an assist.

2 11 2 3 2 - 1 1 10

Centre B carried the ball 3 times for 4 metres and nothing else worth reporting.

- 4 3 - - 1 - 1 - -

To add to the picture Centre A beat Centre B with ease to set up his try assist. Guess who trots out for the Boks in 2 weeks time.

What about tries scored and try assists.

Open your eyes.

Missed tackle ratio is absent as expected.

Damian 87.5% success, Andre 85% success. Very easy to calculate since all the data is there. I'm sure not everyone needs to be spoon fed like you, Mike.

I'll see if I can run Kerevi's stats as a comparison, he has possibly been the most influential 12 in the games I've watched (I haven't seen many of the NZ teams in action though).

Hahahahahaha hilarious stuff from the oaks. 

One huge point the oaks must consider who of Damian and Andre play in the more coherent backline. 

It's very clear the Stormers backline is dysfunctional and yet dispite this Allende continues to shine. 

The absurdity of the stats is very obvious. How can the number of tackles be of any use. How many tackling opportunities came my way. 

This sort of thing makes many of the stats useless. 

Beeno's very sure eye tells me Damian is better than Andre. 

Wee cc says both are useless but fails to say who is better. 

It's tackle percentage that counts statistically Hasbeen .....we cant get a good measure of tackle ferocity. But I have seen Esterhozen put in a few bone jarring hits......has anybody ever seen Duh do anything other than a clinging vine tackle?

BeanDip ... dose it really matter?

They are similar ... both are carthorses ... neither has the ability to run a backline defense ... neither are creators of anything special ... both are crashballers ... they simply don't offer anything special to any backline they play in.

Why would you want either of these two chumps in the Bok mix?

We have better.

We have better. Fine then name them. 

I see DdA has better tackle stats than AE . ... tackling is Damien's worst sin, so if André is worse, then WTH???

Kerevi added for comparison.

Damian / Andre/ Kerevi

Minutes played:     636 / 584 / 716

Passes:                59 / 77 / 70

Carries:                84 / 95 / 131

Meters run:           226 / 367 / 535

Clean breaks:        7 / 9 / 15

Defenders beaten: 19 / 24 / 43

Offloads:              5 / 9 / 14

Tries:                   2 / 1 / 5

Try Assists:           0 / 1 / 4

Turnovers conceded: 10 / 10 / 11

Tackles made:      56 / 45 / 62

Tackles missed:    8 / 8 / 21

RELATIVE NUMBERS

Tackle attempts per 80min: 8.1 / 7.3 / 9.3

Tackle success %: 87.5 / 85 / 75

Meters per run:       2.7 / 3.9 / 4.1

Draad, anything above 80% tackle success is pretty solid. 85% - 90% is where most of the better defenders hover. See Kerevi for example a good 10% lower than Esterhuizen, despite being a more potent attacker.

Both of them could benefit from a de Wet Barry lesson on how to take the man behind the advantage line. Stats are only so useful....Duh wasn't given a missed tackle when he shepherded the AB for25 metres inside our 22 at the WC....but the WC Semi winning try was scored nonetheless.

Totally his fault.

Yep, tackle stats tell us little about alignment issues or other poor decisions which can be just as costly as missing a tackle. Basically they tell us if a guy can tackle somewhat or not. Likewise tries/try assists. As far as I know only the final passer gets a try assist, so you can make a 50m break beating 5 defenders and then 2 passes later some guy trots over unopposed and the stats won't even know about you.

For me the most important stats here are breaks and defenders beaten as they point to a player's ability to dominate his opponents. I knew Kerevi's would be high before even logging the numbers. Then for midfielders I like meters as well as they seldom make lots of meters if they can't beat tackles or break the line. The other subtleties you have to evaluate on the field.

Take the stats for what they are - interesting data points. Not the be all and end all.

Cheers Moz

Two similar players, it just depends on which one is in the worst form. I think it is fair to say that Esterhuizen has been better in SuperRugby over the last few years. 

Two similar players, it just depends on which one is in the worst form. I think it is fair to say that Esterhuizen has been better in SuperRugby over the last few years. 

No worries Shezza....I have not seen Rohan play for a while. He looked good a few years back, but his tackling has always been a bit vulnerable.

Now lets get this straight.   Both Mozart and Pakie has developed a new norm for defense - recognized by them and noby anybody else, namely the average tackle attempts per 80 minutes played.   This has been developed for two of their favoured players - Mostert and Esterhuizen.   I must admit their cheek in developing rubbish is amazing.

The norm generally recognized world wide  is ignored - namely the MISSED TACKLE RATIO.   That showed the average number of successful tackles per game played compared to the number of tackle attempts.    But that generally  show up their favourites as weak compared to their pet hate players.   

This type of thing is ignored by them because it shows up their favouries as problematic iro defense,    And their other habit is they ignore scoring of tries in matches as a norm too.   Fact is Mozart hide that away as it is not applicable.   

When it comes to players involved in this case  I have serious  reservations about both De Allende and Esterhuizen.   Both show deficiencies and the question is who is the worst of the two.   That I believe is the normal consideration of  Erasmus on the issue as well and that is why he prefers De Allende to  Esterhuizen.   

One aspect which affect both  in defense and attack is pace,   Esterhuizen looks good as a crashballer - but when  carrying the ball over distances shows him up badly.   There were two instances where that problem was shown as seriously problematic in matches this season.   Take the cases of what happened in the games of the Sharks and the stormers and the Sharks and the Reds - as well as two of the tests in which Eterhuizen played in last year.   In the Super Rugby games two very similar instances happened,   The ball was carried over distances twice by two players and in the S tormers case the attack ended when Du Toit tackled him in the red zone and there was a turnover in possession at the end nullifying the whole value of the attack.   In the case of the Reds when tackled Esterhuizen spilled the ball and that ended the attack.   If it only happened in those two matches it was fine - but it happened twice in the famous Washington test and the territory gained was lost because of turnover of possession.   

The second issue - which is typical was in the English test in November.   It relates to the last attack of the Springboks  when Esterhuizen inexplicably ran a line nobody expected to happen and after he was tackled by Farrell - legally or not - ended up leaving himself isolated and a ball turnover was inevitable where the match ended.    Lack of thinking rugby at times shows deficiencies in both players - but is  much more evident in Esterhuizen compared to De Allende. 

Both Mozart and Pakie identified De Allende as a target for attack on site as early as 2014 and has been attacking him ever since.   They had a string of favourites supposedly better than De Allende ever since.   Initially they based their attacks on the famous Missed Tackle Ratio and  at that stage fully justified,   However - since that issue largely disappeared last year they used all kinds of things to try and elevate Esterhuizen as their candidate for selection.    

Basically I wish another better 12 emerges and I have referred to in the past to some players to look at.   Until then there remains two main choices - namely De Allende and Esterhuizen.   I do not have a prejudice against either - but  based on actual performances  De Allende is factually the better of the two.   That is why I believe Erasmus prefer De Allende to Esterhuizen.                                        

Pakie, I might seem like a DdA fan, but it is purely by default.  I like Esterhuizen too, but he is not there yet. DdA is not a thinking/smart player, but he does get over the advantage line. He used to have a great offload,  but got coached out of it or something. What nobody seems to mention is that he clears rucks like an extra loosie and he had 3rd most turnovers at the 2015 RWC...that's a huge plus that everyone seems to be ignoring...like with everything else, we seem hell bent on focusing on the bad and ignoring the good. It's mostly doom and gloom. We beat the Alblacks for the first time in years (at home nogal), we dominated them at Loftus, but lost focus and the match in the las quarter only.

We dominated the Poms, but manage to lose somehow...we were competitive in basically all of our tests in the last 2 years, but we focus on the 50% loss ratio. 

Ons kla met die witbrood onder die arm....It could have been much worse.

PS, Maaik, kan jy ook nie slaap nie?

I do have a problem coming with age.   Sleep during the day and  keep away at night.   It happened that I fall asleep during the day and then cannot sleep at night.   

It is nothing new in older people.   A famous case was Prince Kutuzov - commander of the Russian Army appointed after the invasion of Russia by Napoleon.   It is recorded that he fell asleep during meetings of the general staff where he was chairing the meetings.  Tolstoy claimed that the reason falling asleep was that he got bored by the nonsense spoken by participants - but also refer to the fact that he was lying awake in bed - when the new at night was brought to him about Napoleon's departure from Moocow.

Be is as it may - he was elderly and it probably shown the problem elderly people have.   They are likely to lie awake at night unable to sleep  and then falling asleep during the day.             

I do have a problem coming with age.   Sleep during the day and  keep away at night.   It happened that I fall asleep during the day and then cannot sleep at night.   

It is nothing new in older people.   A famous case was Prince Kutuzov - commander of the Russian Army appointed after the invasion of Russia by Napoleon.   It is recorded that he fell asleep during meetings of the general staff where he was chairing the meetings.  Tolstoy claimed that the reason falling asleep was that he got bored by the nonsense spoken by participants - but also refer to the fact that he was lying awake in bed - when the new at night was brought to him about Napoleon's departure from Moocow.

Be is as it may - he was elderly and it probably shown the problem elderly people have.   They are likely to lie awake at night unable to sleep  and then falling asleep during the day.             

I wonder how man threads we've had discussing these two 2nd rate players?

Ther e must be at least a dozen.

2nd rate rubbish ... discussed with a hopeful gleam in the eye of some ... confirming how useless they are by the use of stats ...

LMAO!!!

How, given Pakie's stats.....do you conclude Duh Allende is 'factually' better than Esterhozen?

Just shows how misleading stats can be. 

Stick with moz, I'll explain them to you HasBeen.

Because he wrote BS about defense  and write a norm developed by him and ty scoring is not accepted in any norm.   

There are other reasons too not reflected in stats and that is pace deficiency and non=thinking rugby - plus a serious deficiency in ball handling and how does he do in ball recovery at breakdown situation where De Allende is much better,

You see things in .Esterhuizen that is really absent and have in the past punted failed players  who failed badly in the end.   That was based on prejudice and you have never learnt that it is not a basis for successful selection of players.   

Because he wrote BS about defense  and write a norm developed by him and ty scoring is not accepted in any norm.   

There are other reasons too not reflected in stats and that is pace deficiency and non=thinking rugby - plus a serious deficiency in ball handling and how does he do in ball recovery at breakdown situation where De Allende is much better,

You see things in .Esterhuizen that is really absent and have in the past punted failed players  who failed badly in the end.   That was based on prejudice and you have never learnt that it is not a basis for successful selection of players.   

Those are not 'facts' Tokkie. They are opinions. The facts are:

1. Esterhozen beats Allende in passes and offloads per possession.

2 Esterhozen dominates Allende 3.9 to 2.7 in metres per carry.

3 Esterhozen leads Allende in clean breaks per carry....and equals him in defenders beaten per carry. He is marginally better than Allende in turnovers conceded per carry.

4 Allende is marginally betterin tackle frequency and tackle success rate.

.......

Those are the objective facts, which are quite similar....but the areas where Esterhozen leads are more numerous and more decisive.

Objective assessment goes to Esterhozen.

Because he wrote BS about defense  and write a norm developed by him and ty scoring is not accepted in any norm.  

What BS did I write about defense? And have you still not noticed that the try scoring numbers are up there?

The "norm" I developed I assume refers to the tackles per 80 minutes? It's not a "norm", it's a simple data point. Providing an average tackle count per 80 minutes is 100% fair to all players as they are only credited for time they are actually on the field. To me it's an almost insignificant stat that I'd happily do away with, but if it wasn't there you know you'd be bitching about it because you attach some kind of deep significance to tackle counts. 

Fuck, it's like having a sulking teenager in the house. Finds fault with everything

Not opinions Mozart - but what was clearly visible in game in which Esterhuizen played - but obviously you did not want to see what happened.

And De Allende scored tries - a rare if not non-existent  occurrence in the case of Esterhuizen.   

Sorry - I do not like either of the two players - burt in my book Esterhuizen failed badly in all the tests he played in - and even though De Allende was not much better he is by some distance the better available choice.  

So one guy has the opportunity to tackle 10 opponents and makes them all. 

Another  has the opportunity to make 20 tackles and makes 11.

So by your criteria the one making 11 tackles is better. 

HAHAHAHA you are a tonic Pakster. Raw stats don't necessarily tell the story. 

No idea what you're on about or how you draw that conclusion, Beeno.

I used the same stat....tackles per minute played, or minutes between tackles to compare Stephanie and Mostert. It's a useful stat....showing how active different defenders are. Combined with the other available stat, percentage tackling success....it gives one a good assessment.

Missing are stats for dominating tackles and difficulty of tackle. Routine, or process tackles in phase play should count no more than half a tackle in my view.

Conversely try saving tackles .....like are a special category.....like the tackle of Speight on Nel.

-In past years you you always used the missed tackle ratio and now \because of your support for  dear Andre you and Pakie came up with a new formula.   Even though in terms of you new self-made formula it showed that Andre is in defense not as bad as  shown by the MTR, but it also shows that dear Andre is still weaker than De Allende.

I am surprised at you trying such a difficult calculation when you could  have tried your "process tackle" myth instead?    ,   

Nov 27, 2018, 22:19

'My guess is 95% of fans would say Stephanie.....I mean Houwing positively anointed him, nobody else got a tackling mention. But there's a Mostert in the ointment.

Stephanie played 1023 minutes......Mostert played 863 minutes having been subbed for 17 minutes in his 11 games. Stephanie played 12 games and 63 minutes off the bench for a total of 1023 minutes.

Now Stephanie made 172 tackles in 1023 minutes, or a tackle every 5.95 minutes.....Mostert 140 tackles in 863 minutes , a tackle every 6.16 minutes. Very similar, and of course Mostert at lock wasn't in as good a position to tackle after scrums. Roughly a draw.

But while Stephanie missed 31 tackles for an 84.7 success rate......Mostert missed only 21 tackles for an 87% success ratio. Advantage Mostert.

My point is not that Stephanie wasn't good defensively.....he clearly was strong in that area, even if his running and lineout work left something to be desired. And Mostert was flaccid ball in hand as well. But why is the equally good or better defensive work by Mostert totally disrespected....not even mentioned by Houwing?'

>....>.............................................>........>.....................>.....>

....as you can readily see I have used the tackles per minute metric before. How the blue blazes can you always be wrong Mike. Just by the law of averages one would think occasionally the blind squirrel would find the acorn.

Where are the stats for rucks/cleared and turnovers made...importand stars for a center in tbe modern game.

You gues know that the coaching team has alll sorts of sfats available to them...things you don't see in official stats and on TV. The TV obviously jyst follow the ball. Thinking players read the game and doesn't always play towards the ball...I know he seems stupid, but there is a reason why he is being picked ahead of the other pretenders.

Where are the stats for rucks/cleared and turnovers made

It would be great to have those Draad, but to my knowledge the data centers we currently have access to don't provide them. I don't really understand why they provide turnovers conceded but not turnovers won.

but it also shows that dear Andre is still weaker than De Allende.

Haha, so in order to make De Allende look bad, we "came up" with a data point (or "formula", sounds more sinister hey?) that actually demonstrates a win for him over his rival. Genius!

I think you should spend more time in the garden or something Mike. Anything beats this bitching just for the sake of bitching that you're engaged in now.

No Pakie 

Not necessary - I do not make up a formula for stats which is not recognized anywhere else -  I look at stats accepted worldwide as a norm like missed tackle ratio.

I also do not look at stats only as a player evaluation method.   I also look at what actually happened during games and base my comments on that,

What is clear  is that the much criticized Erasmus knows more about rugby then you and Mozart knw about the game and that he sees the difference between Esterhuizen and De Allende,   He selected De Allende to start in tests ahead of Esterhuizen in all tests when the former is available.

I do not start the argument about the center situation ever - I merely stated  that I see the situation differently at all times looking at both on-field performance and stats of both players.   I do not try and manipulate  stats to get a result to justify anything.    In other words I also see deficiencies of both players involved and stated clearly that neither is without deficiencies and that when it comes to selection neither is perfect.     I have repeatedly written that lookin at other players should also be considered.    

Until the latter option is found and we remain  with De Allende and  Esterhuizen no amount of skyscraping makes the latter the preferred option.             

Actually Super Rugby does have a pilfer stat......led by Am with 3pilfers.......ooops.

But always honest, I have to report that Duh Allende has 2. Perhaps we should try him at open side...haha!

Moz, he is obviously no 6, but he has played at blindside in a test at some stage...think vs Wales in the USA...

The point I'm trying to make is that the coaching staff has access to much more data than we do...and like I said before, you pick combinations and you pick different teams for different opposition. The camera tend to follow play. The telemetry data of the players will show the whole picture. The TV doesn't show how Eben/ Matfield pops up on the sideline to make a try saving tackle on a wing. Stats can never weigh the importance of one particular tackle and what made the player anticipate where to position himself...

Not talking about DdA here, we all know he can do stupid things...just saying Rassie might be like a bigger picture that we are unaware of.

De Allende is like an extra flank in the backline like Kolisi is like an extra center amongst the forwards. Mabe there is balance the somewhere? I'm missing it too though.