Player Evaluations Quins v Sarries 30 Nov 02
By DOK
December 6 2002
After England have played an International, the broadsheets always have a table next day marking the whole team (usually out of 10). This is one of my favourite bits of the match reviews. I decided to try the same approach for the entire team only I would also throw it open to the fans to score
Initial response has been favourable I’m glad to say.
The basic mechanism is that the fans mark each player from 1 (Bad day) to 5 (Excellent). Scores are totalled up and an average score calculated for each player. Remember the nearer the player is to the magic score of 5 the more we think of him! The average rating should be a three.
The last thing to say is that we got 57 votes! Thank you all for the time spent in filling this out. We had three votes on Thursday, a single vote on Wednesday, fifteen votes on Tuesday, thirty on Monday and eight on Sunday.
OK – so on to the results. I wondered about doing this in beauty contestant style last to first order, but I quite like shirt number as a good method, so without further ado:
Jason Leonard – Overall Rating 4.02
No votes for off day, none for bad day, 40 people had our Jase down as a good performer. Pretty accurate given forwards are unlikely to show the highs and lows of the backs.
Tani Fuga – Overall Rating 4.3
No votes for off day, none for bad, the difference was 22 people thought he had an excellent game. Was he really better than Sir Jase or just more visible because of the lineouts? The lineouts were excellent so he probably deserves a bit extra for that part of his game.
Laurent Gomez – Overall Rating 3.56
4 votes for bad or off day, 21 votes just for OK. He was a bit less visible than some others, but remember anything above 3 is still a good score.
Bill Davison – Overall Rating 3.4
Much the same pattern as for LG above. The difference was 21 thought LG OK and 27 thought him good, for BD it’s the other way round, 27 thought him OK and 21 good.
Alex Codling – Overall Rating 4.0
Alex gets the benefit of being more visible in the line out. This earned him a significant vote in the excellent category, a total of 16. Alex has been a huge influence in the line out this season, and this score reflects that.
Ace Tiatia – Overall Rating 3.82
A bit less visible this match than he has been in the past. However, he may not be being given sufficient credit for remaining on the park for the whole 80+ minutes!
A good performance is the inference I’d draw from the votes.
Andre Vos – Overall Rating 4.28
1 person thought he’d had an off day, 32 a good performance and 21 an excellent game. Our captain is certainly proving to be well capable of filling David Wilson’s boots – his part in the Nathan Williams try was a joy to watch.
Tony Diprose – Overall Rating 4.54!
Mr Consistent all season, now starting to have his contribution recognised by the fans.
32 people thought he had an excellent game, 24 thought it was a good game leaving a single person who thought his performance was OK. Deservedly in the lead after the first week, Mr Diprose has a lot to live up to.
Scott Bemand – Overall Rating 2.88
Not as disappointing as it might seem just from the score. 38 people rated him OK and 8 people good. This says he’s basically rated as doing an OK job, which I’d say is fair comment.
Paul Burke – Overall Rating 3.6
2 people had him down as a bad day, not sure I can see why. Most people voted for him in the OK and good categories. Does this mean we all think there’s a lot more to be got from him?
Ben Gollings – Overall Rating 1.6
Unfortunately an excellent player (IMHO) is paying the price for a couple of first class mistakes. When 29 people say you’ve had a bad day and 24 an off day, it doesn’t really matter how many voted in the higher categories.
Never mind, Ben, you’re much better than this and we all know it. Move on!
Viliame Satala – Overall Rating 3.12
A few more thought him good than off, but basically he’s in the OK bracket as far as the fans are concerned. Those weren’t his conditions out there, but he did put in a few crucial tackles (as well as seeming to back out some others).
Will Greenwood – Overall Rating 3.6
24 thought him OK, 25 thought him good. We expect a lot from WG, but 3.6 is a respectable figure. Let’s just see a 4 against the French shall we?
Matt Moore – Overall Rating 3.8
A bit more visibility than Greenwood enables Matt to score a little more than him. 33 people said he had a good game. Compare and contrast against Gollings on the other wing J
Nathan Williams – Overall Rating 3.84
Also benefiting from the visibility of scoring the best try of the season. 34 people said it was a good game for him, 9 people said it was excellent. If the kicking game had been tighter, I reckon he could easily make a 4 score. I’m sure we haven’t seen the best of him yet and I look forward to seeing it!
Conclusion
Overall team rating for the match = 3.63, a thumbs up for the team who were halfway between OK and good. That’s not so inaccurate is it?
In order of current score (not very meaningful after one match) we have
|
Diprose |
4.54 |
|
Fuga |
4.30 |
|
Vos |
4.28 |
|
Leonard |
4.02 |
|
Codling |
4.00 |
|
Williams |
3.84 |
|
Titatia |
3.82 |
|
Moore |
3.81 |
|
Greenwood |
3.61 |
|
Burke |
3.60 |
|
Gomez |
3.56 |
|
Davison |
3.40 |
|
Satala |
3.12 |
|
Bemand |
2.88 |
|
Gollings |
1.60 |
Ignoring the Gollings situation, it’s a bit surprising to see Greenwood and Burke in the bottom half. I’d expect to see both of them nearer the four mark.
So, I’ll try and get a new poll up pretty sharpish after the game on Saturday.
If you watch the match then please give us your feedback. The more people who vote the more accurate the overall picture is likely to be!