The Parramatta Eels are odds on favourites for the NRL wooden spoon

[The Elephant In The room]

In the end you finish where you deserve to be. Every team gets dodgy decisions against them. In sport theres alot of `what ifs', but at the end of the game the scoreboard never lies.

Parra are exactly where they deserve to be at the moment, but Panthers will pip them for the spoon. It may come down to the final round, with a Hindy meat pie to save the day.

Pretty much, give or take a position or two.

As for Pou Pou's comment that F&A is the best guage of a teams quality through out a season, not anymore it isn't. Maybe in years gone by, but possession/momentum is such a big team these days that a relatively $hit team can easily rack up a 30-40 point win if they get on a roll and have a few decisions go their way in a game. Get a few of those under your belt, but still play like busted's for the rest of the year and you may come last/close to last but still have a relatively decent F&A. Conversly if team having a pretty consistent season gets towelled up in 2-3 games by big margins their F&A gets blown out.

When the team running 9th (Canberra) and a bit chance of making the finals has 13 games decided by more than 13 points (6 wins, 7 losses), with 7 of these games decided by 20 or more points, it says to me that F&A is a bit of a lottery at times.

 

[oldmancraigy]

Pretty much, give or take a position or two.

As for Pou Pou's comment that F&A is the best guage of a teams quality through out a season, not anymore it isn't. Maybe in years gone by, but possession/momentum is such a big team these days that a relatively $hit team can easily rack up a 30-40 point win if they get on a roll and have a few decisions go their way in a game. Get a few of those under your belt, but still play like busted's for the rest of the year and you may come last/close to last but still have a relatively decent F&A.

Can you give us an example of that being the case?

Over a 5-6 week period you might be right, but over the course of the season, F/A is a pretty good indicator of who is the best and who is the worst.

The one thing it can't account for is 'current form'. So on the balance of the season we're the worst team, but if you looked at the last 4 weeks, we're doing pretty well with 3 wins and a +15.
If we can carry that form over the next 3 weeks, you'd imagine we have a hope of avoiding the spoon AND the worst F/A record.

 

[Maroubra Eel]

Yeah I agree that points differential is a pretty good indicator.

 

[JessEel]

realistically i think we can finish with 2 wins and 1 loss out of our final matches.

Roosters could lose all their matches and i think Panthers will win next week against NZ but that'll be their only win.

that would put us at 14th if this comes true

x2

 

[Craig Johnston]

You are what your record saids you are....Mike Ditka

mike ditka's record

 

[The Elephant In The room]

Can you give us an example of that being the case?

Over a 5-6 week period you might be right, but over the course of the season, F/A is a pretty good indicator of who is the best and who is the worst.

The one thing it can't account for is 'current form'. So on the balance of the season we're the worst team, but if you looked at the last 4 weeks, we're doing pretty well with 3 wins and a +15.
If we can carry that form over the next 3 weeks, you'd imagine we have a hope of avoiding the spoon AND the worst F/A record.

Of recent times, the best example would be Brisbane from 09, and the Dogs from 2010. Brisbane finished 6th in '09, but had a negative F/A of 55. F&A indicates a bad year, but 3 thrashings of 56, 44 & 34 points blew that out and doesn't reflect a season where they won 14 and lost "only" 10 games.

Conversely the Bulldogs in 2010 finished 13th (14th if you include the relegate Storm) but only a had a -45 f/a. A crap season if you look at wins/losses, just under average if you look at f/a. Of course a 46 point thrashing of the Roosters helped, as did a couple other 20 point wins, but 9 wins and 15 losses is hardly close to just below average (which is what a small f/a would indicate if it were a true reflection of a teams results that year).

 

[oldmancraigy]

Of recent times, the best example would be Brisbane from 09, and the Dogs from 2010. Brisbane finished 6th in '09, but had a negative F/A of 55. F&A indicates a bad year, but 3 thrashings of 56, 44 & 34 points blew that out and doesn't reflect a season where they won 14 and lost "only" 10 games.

Conversely the Bulldogs in 2010 finished 13th (14th if you include the relegate Storm) but only a had a -45 f/a. A crap season if you look at wins/losses, just under average if you look at f/a. Of course a 46 point thrashing of the Roosters helped, as did a couple other 20 point wins, but 9 wins and 15 losses is hardly close to just below average (which is what a small f/a would indicate if it were a true reflection of a teams results that year).

But you're not talking about 'extreme edge' For Against records there are you?

Sure, the mid-range ones might be confusing. But massive negative or huge positive is a pretty good judge.

Feel free to prove me wrong on that count, but the worst F/A tends to be the worst team over the course of the season.

 

[oldmancraigy]

Just looking at the last few seasons, worst FA tends to indicate the worst team:

Here are the last placed teams and the worst FA team if they weren't last:

2011
Gold Coast (-266)

2010
Melbourne (+126)
14th was Cronulla (-255)

2009
Roosters (-299)

2008
Bulldogs (-349)

2007
Penrith (-68)
15 Newcastle (-290)
3rd Nth Qld (-71)
11th Cronulla (+60)
Ok - so there's a season that is an exception to the rule!

2006
Souths (-343)

2005
Newcastle (-200)
15 Souths (-218)

2004
Souths (-357)

2003
Souths (-301)
15 Manly (-321)
Manly won 4 games more than Souths in that year! (7-3)

2002
Bulldogs (+272)
15 Souths (-432!!!)

2001
Penrith (-326)
1. Parramatta (+433 world record)



So ok, there is the odd minor glitch where the worst F/A team doesn't finish last. But it tends to be the rule doesn't it?

I wouldn't say, based on the footy played over the course of the season, that we're anything BUT the worst team. Sure, 2 more good games and we might avoid the spoon, and I'd say we deserve to avoid it if we win 2 from 3.
But if we did, let's remember we would've needed to win 5 of our final 7 games just to dodge it!!!! The start of the season was horrendous.

 

[The Elephant In The room]

So if the team that finishes last on the table usually has the worst f/a, why are people saying that f/a is a better indication of a teams performance during the year? It would appear they are the exact same in dictator, particularly if we are talking about the team running last. Than said, ask anyone whether they'd prefer a better f/a or more competition points, I know which one they'd choose.

 

[oldmancraigy]

So if the team that finishes last on the table usually has the worst f/a, why are people saying that f/a is a better indication of a teams performance during the year? It would appear they are the exact same in dictator, particularly if we are talking about the team running last. Than said, ask anyone whether they'd prefer a better f/a or more competition points, I know which one they'd choose.

You seem to be missing the point somewhat? I expected more from you.

At seasons end, the team that finishes last tends to have the worst F/A.
We are not currently at seasons end, and the Eels were odds on favourites to collect the spoon.
Some say "but we're not the worst team, we don't deserve that"
Others say "we are the worst team, the FA indicator shows it"
I check the F/A indicator, and sure enough, worst F/A almost invariably comes last (save for cheats ruining it, and one odd occasion)

Isn't that the point?!?!

 

[Ratchy]

mike ditka's record

Won the division 6 out of 11 seasons and made the playoffs 7 out of 11 with the Chicago Bears :roll: Not to forget they were a basket case when he took them over

 

[The Elephant In The room]

Well we agree on one thing, that the Eels are last on the ladder and have worst f/a, there is no valid reason to argue that aren't the worst team. What I will argue is that if last on the table doesn't have the worst f/a I'll still always say that last was the worst team (excluding cheating Merkin teams).

 

[Poupou Escobar]

So if the team that finishes last on the table usually has the worst f/a, why are people saying that f/a is a better indication of a teams performance during the year? It would appear they are the exact same in dictator, particularly if we are talking about the team running last. Than said, ask anyone whether they'd prefer a better f/a or more competition points, I know which one they'd choose.

My point is, if a team finishes higher than their for-and-against would indicate, that probably points to a few gutsy/arsey wins against better opposition.

Likewise if a team finishes lower than their for-and-against, that points to some unlucky/pissweak losses against worse teams.

Basically, the reason for-and-against is a better indicator than competition points is a quality known as granularity.

 

[Suitman]

My point is, if a team finishes higher than their for-and-against would indicate, that probably points to a few gutsy/arsey wins against better opposition.

Likewise if a team finishes lower than their for-and-against, that points to some unlucky/pissweak losses against worse teams.

Basically, the reason for-and-against is a better indicator than competition points is a quality known as granularity.

Granularity is what I make my cous cous out of, pou pou.

Suity

 

[Poupou Escobar]

You seem to be missing the point somewhat? I expected more from you.

At seasons end, the team that finishes last tends to have the worst F/A.
We are not currently at seasons end, and the Eels were odds on favourites to collect the spoon.
Some say "but we're not the worst team, we don't deserve that"
Others say "we are the worst team, the FA indicator shows it"
I check the F/A indicator, and sure enough, worst F/A almost invariably comes last (save for cheats ruining it, and one odd occasion)

Isn't that the point?!?!

Exactly. But how about this hypothetical:

Round 26 last year. If we had lost to the Titans (which was very possible for a variety of reasons including simple bad luck with injuries, refereeing or whatever) we would have finished last.

That would have been a poor indication of our quality throughout the season, since over the course of the year we were more consistently better than both the Titans and the Raiders.

We could point to our unusually high number of last minute losses as the reason we finished lower than we should have. Our for-and-against would prove that.

As it is we rightly finished ahead of both Canberra and Gold Coast, but it could have been very different with just a bit more bad luck.

 

[hindy111]

For and against isnt a true indicator of a team.
Because some teams like the warriors have conceeded close to 100 points in two games yet almost beat manly the week before.
Also a team could be going awful at the start of the year and get piles of points on them than towards the end of the year change it around.

I would not use for and against as a factor but wins after rnd 13 if you finished on level points to determine which team finsihes higher on the ladder as they are the team more in form season end.
Teams like melbourne who have an established 1,7,9 are always going to chalk up lots of wins at the start of the season-Same as the Saints last year.Untill other teams get there combo's going : )

 

[Maroubra Eel]

We play some teams once and others twice. It's all a ballsup anyway.

 

[The Elephant In The room]

My point is, if a team finishes higher than their for-and-against would indicate, that probably points to a few gutsy/arsey wins against better opposition.

Likewise if a team finishes lower than their for-and-against, that points to some unlucky/pissweak losses against worse teams.

Basically, the reason for-and-against is a better indicator than competition points is a quality known as granularity.

Now you are just making assumptions to suit your argument Pou. Adding words like "probably points to" doesn't change the fact that the situations you have mentioned are just one of the likely causes of said situations.

Finishing higher than your f/a would indicate COULD indicate lucky wins, OR just you got thrashed by the top 2 sides over origin. Finishing lower than your f/a would indicate COULD indicate unlucky/pissweak losses, OR you got on a roll against a couple of teams or your opposition just gave up late in one game.

I know nothing about granularity, but the reason I find f/a a lessor indicator of overall performance is that despite them being linked, teams don't necessarily seek to maximize their f/a, but they will always seek to maximize their position on the table. Teams resting their big guns once they get a couple tries in front, "taking the two" to get 8/14 in front late in the game rather than trying to pile on the points, kicking the ball into touch to wind down the clock rather than going for the try. All examples of teams putting the win and 2 points in front of f/a, making the f/a measure, IMO anyway, the lessor of the two available.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

That's a fair argument.

 

[The Elephant In The room]

We play some teams once and others twice. It's all a ballsup anyway.

Exactly, and some get to play "strong" teams without their origin players, whilst others play them at full strength. But unless we reduce the season to 15 rounds, expand it to 30 rounds, or kick Souths out again :shock: (plus a couple other teams), nothing much will change there.