More education for Mike - Pollard's tackle stats against Aus

So, just how unusual was Damien de Allende having to tackle 10 different players in one match while making 21 attempts? Not all that unusual, as it turns out.
Handre Pollard, in only 67 minutes on the field in the same match (thus missing 13 minutes after which his tackle attempts could easily have matched or exceeded De Allende's), attempted 17 tackles, missing 3 for a total tackle count of 14 on 8 different players (Giteau, Skelton, Kuridrani, Ashley-Cooper, Horne, Hooper, Phipps, Fardy). 

2:03 Giteau7:34 Skelton31:33 Kuridrani (miss)
31:43 Ashley-Cooper32:54 Ashley-Cooper (miss)41:02 Kuridrani43:14 Horne46:46 Giteau46:54 Hooper50:46 Kuridrani51:52 Giteau52:03 Phipps (forced pass)52:07 Fardy56:30 Giteau56:42 Hooper57:20 Giteau61:46 Giteau (miss)
This kind of stuff is not unusual, especially not when you have a team like Australia playing the phases quick and wide. 

 Interesting Pakie. More interesting to me is the fact that the Loosies and Locks made lots of tackles too.

1. Eben 15
2. Lood 18
3. Louw 18
4. Burger 20
5. Coetzee 15
6. Straus 4
7. Bismarck 4

The 2 hookers made way less than even the props (all the props used made in the region of 7 or 8 tackles)Even Lambie made 5 tackles in the short time he had on the pitch. Victor made only 3, but SA did not make that many tackles during the period he played.
It is clear that the action was all close to the set pieces and breakdowns, yet Pienaar and Reinach managed only 1 tackle between the two of them for the WHOLE MATCH! With Pienaar the only player not to make a tackle during the whole match. All 67 minutes he played!!!!!

 Pakie
I do not doubt your sincerity in regard to what you wrote about he tackle issue.  In essence there are a variety of stats systems used in World rugby - some are very expensive and detailed systems - but the less detailed one free of charge is ESPN - the system used extensively by most interested parties and very reliable from a statistical perspective.  The system is linked to the video of the game - but there is a difference as well - since they also use alternative video material from different angles - something ordinary which ordinary users rarely see.  The data is then audited by their statisticians and experts and although the original assessment is immediately available changes are sometimes made based on their auditing of the info.  In essence is from the numerical occurrences  point of view accurate - but not as detailed as the other very expensive data systems used by international and high level rugby organisations uses.
You will notice that during matches stats are on TV given iro individual players and those are based on the ESPN system.
Insofar as the ESPN system is concerned and the official match stats given after matches the data iro De Allende and Pollard are as follows:-
de Allende0/000/1/949231015/60/000/0
Pollard0/11011/12/833010311/40/000/0
From your observations you claimed the following data:-
De Allende - Tackles made 12 - tackles Missed  7Pollard      - Tackles made 14 - tackles missed  3
I do not doubt your sincerity in the case - and is sorry about my nasty comments yesterday - but to be honest cannot accept your version of the situation - especially since it differs comprehensively from the official data used normally used for the purpose.
I do know that the are not necessarily confined to direct opponents - but the majority are in fact made on such opponents and to make it a constant that drifting cause a completely general rule is not really realistic as well.
B e it as it may - I am not going to take this matter any further other than to state that I would rather use the more professionally determined match figures than my own observations for evaluation of the situation and try and get the differences between my findings and the ESPN system findings clarified  before taking a stand on the issue.          


               

 PS, Fourie du Preez made 6 tackles against Samoa and the Boks made way less tackles as a team than against Aus. Pienaar made 2 against Japan.

Yes Draad, there was a lot of tackles being made as Australia played a fast game and did very little kicking. The Boks in turn kicked more, with both Pienaar and Willie giving free possession to Aus with poor kicks numerous times. I tried to keep an eye on Schalk and Eben's tackles as well while doing Pollard's and only got 9 each for them up until the point Pollard was taken off, but my focus was on Pollard so I definitely could have missed any number. But all the guys you listed there were constantly involved in tackles.
Mike, I'm willing to accept my counts are wrong when I get less tackles than ESPN, because then I may have missed some. When I get more than them though, and I can verify and reference every one, I'll defend mine as being more accurate. 
In my ana-lysis of Pollard's tackles I found two more of De Allende's that I missed. Both are channel tackles again.

1:39 Ashley-Cooper35:17 Kuridrani
So now my total tackle attempt count is 21, like ESPN. I just have one miss more and thus one tackle less, and as you have seen I can account for all 7 that I consider misses. Close enough? 
Tackles are one of the more difficult stats to keep as it can get a bit subjective. I'm happy that, even if my stats doesn't match ESPN, I have done my homework and provided as objective a look as possible. I'm also open to being challenged on specific events, as Draad did yesterday. I have no agenda here. The facts are much more interesting to me than playing favorites.

 Mike, I think Pakie tried to put the stats in context. It is time consuming to do it properly, so he obviously made some small mistakes here and there, as I'm sure some of the professionals also make. Point being, he made a proper counter argument. I would also like to review the Jap and Ozz games's defence and compare it with the Samoan and NZ matches.

So now Pollard is in doubt? Having to try and shift the focus away from the real problem? Well here is what will blow the Damian fangirl parade away: 

 No Card. We compared Danian and Pollard because they defend almost the same channel.

I think there should be a separate part of the forum for those who want to talk fantasy rugby and numbers, and those that can talk real rugby. These puerile number debates always end with the clueless in a tizz because they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Michael has eaten so much crow and egg over it, yet still continues. I watched that game at least seven times, Pollard was at no point a liability. Damian was the entry point for nearly every Aussie attack. He cost us the test plain and simple. The raw data called stats? They have been exposed many times, especially where tackles are concerned. Like I have said before, raw data tells you nothing. And that is what Michael loves about it: free reign for lying. When pressed for details? He comes up with nothing, as do al l these number junkies.

 It's absolutely depressing watching Fox's video....seeing how weak and ineffective a defender Allende was in that test....missing tackles, being offloaded against....and crucially even when that wasn't the case, being bamboozled and missing his assignment. The Ozzie try towards the end of the first half for example, he is totally befuddled and goes after the wrong man.

And when he tackles they are the most hesitant, cream puff tackles....for a big guy he seems very weak in the upper body.
Then on the run, often he dead ends when space and support is available on the outside. He has his tractoring capacity, the ability to keep motoring in close contact, but what else do we see in this tape that's positive.
It's amazing that the S African rugby press raise none of these issues, which of course means bloggers miss them completely. The blind leading the stupid.

In contrast, Pollard had two excellent tests against Oz & NZ - the heart of the success of our attacking game. Then he gets conspired against by the TV directors and chanted off the field by the spectators in the Argentina test. The majority of the rugby public is clueless, so stuck in their favoritism and influenced by media that they can't see anything beyond it.

Pollard was nobbled by the Lambie crowd, and to his discredit HM went along with the  pack think that Lambie is a test flyhalf. He was rewarded with horrible performances against the Poms, Italy where Pollard changed the game, Wales and Japan. Lambie's performance against Japan was one of the most uncertain we have ever seen from a Bok 10.
HM needed to stick with Pollard as  his starter.

 Mozart
It is absolutely depressing to see how the scarecrows operate on this site,  Without even going into detail they try and present evidence, which substantially is very selective and very unreal.  I dealt with the issue of stats above - yet Pakie insists that he is correct and ESPN is wrong.  To make Pollard stats more impressive - he increased his tackle attempts by 2 and reduce his missed tackles by 1.  At the same time he insisted that De Allende missed 7 tackles against the factual situation of 6 missed tackles and because he was caught out - he discovered two extra tackles that was made.
So the crowd picks the team according to you - that is amazing, but I do not expect anything else from you.  If the crowd picked the team players like Matfield would not be anywhere near the team.  I do not think that Lambie is a better flyhalf than Pollard - but he still is an international level flyhalf.  Remember that 55 meter penalty conversion in the AB test last year that you swear was not a "pressure kick" - if Morne made that kick we would read about it a decade from now in your postings - but because Lambie made it - you went quiet.    
However, one cannot debate anything with people who are so obsessed with prejudice and so besotted with players from 2007.
Has your tractor brain run out of diesel again?  Is so tegic that you know so little about rugby.  What an idiot you are.         

Tegic? Slavic?
Anyway, you find yourself in familiar territory Michael. Nobody believes your fanciful tall tales, but instead of at least attempting to debate and possibly provide evidence, you play the man instead. Typical.

 D F
You have no clue about rugby and your interpretation of incidents in games is always aimed at discrediting some players and in that you do not care how far you veer from the truth.
I am fully prepared to be educated, but then I do not want  to be educated by some-one starting off with a statistically faulty match report.   Fact is the moment that means a 25% variation then I do not accept such education as authentic. I was very careful in what I wrote in response to the thread started by Pakie - but he chose to respond when I mildly suggested that we regard our disagreement to be settled. 
So where did I play the man instead?  I provided the evidence of the format in info statistically accepted by most in the rugby world as correct - yet Pakie insists he knows better.   He is entitled to his belief - but that does really not mean much.  We have too many members on this site who claim superiority over every expert in world rugby - they suffer from a serious case of superiority complex thinking.
I believe the case of "fanciful tales" are your territory on this site - I would never dream to come up with what you write on this site,   It is so weird that I think that your postings entails "needling".   If not - I would really pity you for being a totally besotted idiot.    
   

 Mike just be thankful we have agood team playing on Saturday.ht is amazing is that they take no account of the newness of this backline.Then to argue the immensely strong Allende is weak in the upper body has to be dismissed as apoor attempt at trolling! 
And when he tackles they are the most hesitant, cream puff tackles....for a big guy he seems very weak in the upper body.

Dr Mozzzzz off to the optician with you.

 Johannesburg – With only two matches together as a combination, New Zealand coach Steven Hansen believes the Springboks' inexperienced but exciting midfield axis of flyhalf Handre Pollard, Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel could become a formidable one in future.

“They haven’t had a lot of Test matches but they are certainly three good athletes, the boy that has moved in from fullback (Kriel), he really looked good last week, he’s got some gas,” Hansen said.

“His partner (De Allende) is a big, strong boy and Pollard looks like he can be something special as time goes on.

But what does Hansen know when compared to the three oaks fast becoming EGG magnets!

For Pete's sake wake up!

 Cape Town - World XV Robbie Deans coach Robbie Deans was impressed by the performance of Springbok inside centre Damian de Allende after his side lost to South Africa at Newlands on Saturday.

De Allende scored a brace as the Boks ran out 46-10 victors.

Deans believes De Allende and De Villiers should form a midfield partnership for the Boks at the Rugby World Cup later this year.

De Villiers replaced Jesse Kriel in the last 20 minutes of Saturday’s clash after completing a miraculous recovery following knee reconstruction.

“Damian has been playing remarkable rugby the whole year and he keeps doing the right things. He can add a new dimension to the Boks,” Deans told Netwerk24.

“It was also nice to see Jean on the field again. From a leadership point of view, he’ll be an important player at the World Cup. He and Damian look very dangerous together.”

What what does Deans know as compered to the three blind mice! Bwahahahahahahahaha

 Beeno
In DF's mind he is the only real expert in rugby.   Hansen knows nothing, he is only the All Black coach.   Hansen spoke after the AB test - DF said that De Allende did little in the test?  So one must assume that  Hansen's comments should be ignored and those of DF and Mozart accepted?     

 THE dearth of centres at the peak of their powers in the national ranks has been addressed in the boldest possible way with the inclusion of Jesse Kriel in the Springbok team for Saturday’s match against the World XV at Newlands.

Boks coach Heyneke Meyer on Wednesday could not stop singing the praises of the Bulls fullback, who will be pressed into action in an inexperienced midfield axis that also contains Handré Pollard and Damian de Allende.

"Jesse is an unbelievably exciting player. I’ve always rated him," said Meyer excitedly. "When he was still an under-20, we invited him to our camps and he slotted in at centre. I was very impressed. I first worked with him as an under-19 and I thought his best position would be outside centre.

"He’s got unbelievable acceleration. I also like outside centres who can take the outside gap. It is something few players can do.

"I think he can become one of the greats and is probably one of the most talented players I’ve ever coached. I have a good feeling about Jesse."

But what does Meyer know when compared to the hapless three blind mice!!

It is quite clear that Allende and Kriel are about as good ayoung center pair as can be found anywhere in the world.

OBVIOUSLY GETTING THE NEW BOK BACKLINE FUNDTIONING OPTIMALLY WILL STILL TAKE TIME TO THEY GET TO KNOW EXCLY HOW TO PERFOAM AS A TEAM. RUGBY 101 STUFF.

However the comment that Moz makes about Allende not being strong is absurd. I cannot believe the stuff they write is meant to be taken seriously. 

 Beeno
This campaign against De Allende is getting absurd.  It has not hit home that their hero Fransie Steyn is a goner from Springbok rugby and it hurts them badly.   So they keep on about De Allende as a kind of consolation to cover up their hurt ego's.  They are the type who never admits that they may be wrong in anything - so the only way out is to go for De Allende as a "failure"  

 Card wrote the same stuff about Jean for years.

 The same stuff? Niet! What I said about Jean was that he cab defend the ball solidly and carry the ball strongly into traffic. But for a long time he had no distribution skills to speak of and ran muddled lines. He was the best option after Barry fell away in 2005, but was not better than Frans. He did however improve his distribution skills in 2013 but his ability to create space and elevate his game to a higher level was never great. But you could form a solid team with him in the ranks. And he ended his test career with a flawless showing at outside centre of all places. My assessment of Jean was nothing like that of Damian. Two drastically different players with a vastly differing skill set.
@Beeno: You can point to whoever you want. I point to the video. And not many people take Deans opinion very seriously. In Australia, even among their coaches across the country, Deans is seen as the Peter Dom Failures of a very dark period of Aussie rugby. Were I to scour the net I could find ex-coaches/players that agree as well as those who disagree with me. It's up to you to stand on your own two feet and find the truth yourself. Interestingly Mallett agreed with my assessment of the Stormers attack and that Damian does mot straighten the attack. Jones agrees with my assessment of Lambie and Pienaar. Are they two idiots now? Deans is also a guy who respects Spies as one of our best players. Do you agree with that? Many wouldn't. 

 DF
You are talking crap again - Fransie - Fransie - Fransie.   Fransie showed promise initially - but that promise deteriorated to an absurd level of incompetence.  You and Mozart never looked at what he produced during the 2012 tests and over the last three years for the Sharks.
Your videos are also absurd - you select some instances where you believe a player is deficient and then write an interpretation.   When reviewing the whole match a person must be very careful to believe what you write.  You try and discredit a player by saying he failed because he did what is opposite to what you believe he should have done.
I said that your ego has been hurt because your campaign in favour of Steyn did not being accepted and Meyer has not selected him in the squad.  Meyer would have preferred him in the squad - but in fairness he was piss poor in performance for years now.  I laughed when you wrote how good he was in the match between the Sharks and Stormers - when in the absence of any constructive being done by Steyn you mentioned repeatedly how good he was by taking up his his position in the backline.   When he twice was shrugged off when he attempted to tackle De Allende you soft-soaped what happened trying to give credit to his effort.       
It is that kind of thing that makes it impossible to believe what you write.  What also irks me a lot is that some members of this site knows better than anybody else.   You refer to the Stormers attack - where Mallett agrees with you - but that is also absurd.  Mallett has agreed about the Stormers attack - but never for the reason you gave.  He never blamed De Allende in any way for that deficiency,  He blamed the inadequacy of Catrakilis and the tendency of theirs to try and get the ball to De Allende and to him alone in the hope that he would perform miracles - while the rest of the backline was absolutely toothless.    On the whole he never ever criticized De Allende for what you say he did.  In fact his comments on De Allende has consistently been in direct opposition what you claim De Allende is.   
Look - I asked elsewhere for you to make a prediction of what you think would happen in the match on Saturday as it appears that the selection of De Allende would result in a loss of the test by the Springboks - I ask you than to make a forecast       of the result - h ave you done it?      

Pervert......best you dont push the prediction angle.  

 Best you make a prediction in this case - coward.  When I make  prediction - I stand by it and admit it whether I am right or wrong - you rarely if ever make a prediction.  So what is your prediction in the test on Saturday?

Did I? It amazes me how far your imagination takes you. Do you literally make up whatever comes into your tight enclosed nut casing? Either that, or you are a long time LSD user. Your pregame jump start? 
As for a prediction? I haven't really given it much consideration, I've got my eye on the NFL much more than rugby. However, I cannot see past a Bok win. I always expect the best from our opponents and that would mean Scotland beat up our scrum, contest strongly at the breakdown and perhaps get enough quality ball to seriously put pressure on Damian and Kriel. But when all is said and done I go for a win.

DF
"This is where our campaign dies sadly."
Those are your words under another thread.  Another example of your duplicity.
Your evaluation of Fransie's performance in the game I referred to was a laugh every ten sentences.  The other nine contained one statement - Fransie took up his position in the backline as his main contribution - repeated constantly because the only thing he did was to try and put the small Kolbe out of the game by all kinds of illegal actions.  A yellow card in the game going for Kolbe for the third time was long overdue by the time it was given.  Fat Fransie tried to prove his superiority over the small guy after trying to do something about De Allende and came off second best on both occa sions.    
He was pathetic in that game - really pathetic - he did nothing of consequence at all and his defense was putrid - unless you call the two times he ended up on his backside on the grass as examples of strong tackles.            

"I dealt with the issue of stats above - yet Pakie insists that he is correct and ESPN is wrong.  To make Pollard stats more impressive - he increased his tackle attempts by 2 and reduce his missed tackles by 1."
So now you're saying I'm a liar who manipulates stats? Nice.
I did not "increase" the tackle attempts. I counted them. Go count them. Stop accusing people of being dishonest with nothing but an unverified stat sheet in front of you. I provided 17 time stamps that you can view for yourself on the video. Go check them, and then come back to me and tell me which of the 14 of those instances I counted as tackles should not be counted as tackles. Stop blustering and SHOW the people where Pakie manipulated the stats.
THEN, and only then, can you accuse me of manipulating figures. But you are too scared and lazy to do that. It is much easier to accuse people of dishonesty on the basis of third party calculations that you have not verified yourself. That way you don't have to risk making a fool out of yourself when you can't fault my tackle count re Pollard, while still maintaining a fake semblance of authority on the back of ESPN's stats. 
In other words, you are a coward.
As for De Allende's tackle count, I have maintained all along that I may not have them correct (apart from the 7 misses, where I can reference every one). Here's what I said in this very thread:
"Mike, I'm willing to accept my counts are wrong when I get less tackles than ESPN, because then I may have missed some."

I did not increase the tackle attempts in this thread because I was "caught out". How can I be "caught out" when I maintained from the start that I skimmed through the game and may have missed some tackles? I adjusted them because I noticed two more tackles while ana-lyzing Pollard. That is called honesty. You are a vindictive, miserable old coward. You don't have the balls to back up your claims or apologize for your errors, so instead you try to smear those who expose your bullsh!t.
I don't care about the numbers. That whole exercise was simply to show that you made up bogus claims about the nature of those missed tackles. I am still waiting for one time stamped reference from you proving your assertions correct - 
1) that De Allende's misses was because he tried to make tackles that no one else would have made, and 2) because he tried to make secondary tackles after getting up from other tackles. 
You've had more than a month now since this issue first came up. Yet nothing. Stop blustering and bring some substance. Forget about ESPN's stat count, that is of no consequence to the issue. SHOW ME one missed tackle from De Allende that matches your claimed criteria in 1) and 2) above. That's all this has ever been about.
Stop accusing people of dishonesty when you can't back it up. Stop putting words in people's mouths to further your agendas. It's pathetic.

 All in vain, Pakie. Despite giving an accurate description of Ou Tokkie's standard MO, he will never change his ways. He will keep on doing excatly what he accuses everybody - who he disagrees with, or who  disagrees with him - of.

 I did not accuse you of lying at all.  I pointed out the way ESPN deals with stats and that they have better facilities to determine the stats they use and that those stats are regularly used by all TV broadcasters - even during matches when they give the stats on TV.  They have angles of TV shots only used on general TV when the TV monitor is used.  The also have checks and balances which you have not got at all.  
There can also be differences in interpretations as to what they regard as successful or missed tackles and what you regard as such.
However, this kind of things where you are saying you are correct and ESPN is not reflects a kind of complex  is really crap - you consider yourself as the supreme  authority and if anybody queries you they are stupid and dishonest.  That is commonly known as superiority complex - a bad characteristic.  I never attacked you in any way - personally or otherwise when I responded to you initial message on this thread and suggested we leave the matter there.
What came afterwards from you let my my further response on the issue.  My best advice is to leave the matter where it is and I am not going to respond any further on this kind of thing in future.     

Mike says: "I did not accuse you of lying at all."...after Mike said: "To make Pollard stats more impressive - he increased his tackle attempts by 2 and reduce his missed tackles by 1."
If that's not accusing someone of lying/being dishonest, I don't know what is. That whole post of yours reeked of trying to discredit me.
"you consider yourself as the supreme  authority and if anybody queries you they are stupid and dishonest"

No, I don't consider myself as the supreme authority - that is a claim you invented for me. I simply provide data and references to back up my claims. You are free to refute them, time stamped event by time stamped event and prove to everyone I'm the charlatan you're trying to make me out to be. But you don't, because you know you'll end up with a red face.
Back to the point, which is this:
I am still waiting for one time stamped reference from you proving your assertions correct - 
1) that De Allende's misses was because he tried to make tackles that no one else would have made, and 2) because he tried to make secondary tackles after getting up from other tackles. 
Until you do that, you can stat this and ESPN that until the cows come home. It will make no difference to the fact that you've been exposed making up nonsense, Mr "I-only-deal-in-facts" Clevermike.

Frans' tackles on Kolbe were legal. The first, Frans was airborne and Kolbe merely ran into him and the typically ignorant Saffer commentators fed off it with their idiocy. Can an airborne player change trajectory contesting for the ball? If so, please tell me how. The next was tackling Kolbe into touch, which was perfectly legal. Aside from these, Frans several times shutdown Stormers attacks on his own. 

@Pakie: I see you have just come to know the dark side of KlevarMika... I advise you invest in a benzodiazepines of your choosing, preferably all of them.

 DF
Legal tackles - 2 penalties and a yellow card on one guy makes it very legal tackles, What a farce - and land on his ass twice while trying to tackle De Allende was very, very real.  The egg is totally on your face - you stupid dunce.  Ten cases of match descriptions describing Steyn taking up his position in the backline as a praiseworthy achievement - what a farce.  
   

Egg on my face? You boldly stated Damian dominated Frans on attack and defence. How many successful tackles were made on Frans? And on attack, Frans had the momentum going forward in the tackle which gave him an edge. I could recount the embarrassing tackle where Damian looked like he was pole-dancing on Frans, and spun around to the deck and on his backside. You always pick the games that contradict your opinions most!