Wednesday 25 March 2015 15:34, UK
Phil Clarke says that the foundations that Super League teams lay now will hold them in good stead for the future.
I never take much interest in the league table at the start of the season, it’s too early to read anything into it and you can’t get excited or depressed when only a few games have been played.
But we’ve just completed Round 6 and it’s starting to fall into place. With a reduced initial campaign of 23 rounds, there’s less time and room for error.
It’s interesting to see that the two best performing teams at the start of this season were also at the top of the table after six rounds last year. St Helens won their opening eight in 2014 before being embarrassed by Wigan on Good Friday. They’ve started this season looking even better despite the fact that they haven’t had Luke Walsh.
Leeds lost only once in their first six games in 2014, exactly the same as they have right now. It’s just the last six games of the season that they need to worry about.
Well what about the teams that are in the bottom four places right now? Don’t panic. Catalan were 12th at this point last year and ended up finishing seventh. The Dragons are probably the most erratic performers in Super League and have wild fluctuations in their performances and results.
We’ve had a quarter of the games and it’s still early but time moves along fast in this competition and the Easter period is a four point landmark which plays a significant role on the season.
One of the reasons for Leeds’ improvement has been the arrival of Adam Cuthbertson. He’s looked great in a Rhino’s kit and coach Brian McDermott is giving him plenty of time out on the field.
Everyone has their opinion about whether their team has improved or regressed since last year, well I’ve dipped into some OPTA stats to take a look at what their objective data tells us. There’s no real opinion on their numbers, just a statistically calculated game score where they measure all of the things that happen in a game of rugby league.
They compared the average game score from 2014 to that of 2015. I know that not every team has played every opponent, but it makes a comparison possible. By their records the biggest improvers have been Wakefield even though they sit at the bottom of the table and have won only two games. Leeds have also made big progress and rank top of OPTA’s stats at present. Wigan, Castleford and Salford are the teams to drop significantly and currently rank in the bottom four places.
One of the reasons for Leeds’ improvement has been the arrival of Adam Cuthbertson. He’s looked great in a Rhinos kit and coach Brian McDermott is giving him plenty of time out on the field.
I’ve often questioned the logic of using four props, each getting 40 minutes on the field. It seemed to come into Super League about 20 years ago when the Bulls were the dominant team. Others copied it even if it didn’t suit their squad of players or style of play and couldn’t seem to work out which players deserved to be on the field the longest.
The other seven props to play last Friday at Leeds had an average of just 37 minutes on the field. This ranged from Andrew Yates with 24 minutes of action to Tony Clubb with 53. It’s a challenge for all the coaches to work out the best for their team.
It seems to me that you’d have your best players on the field for as long as you can. Some people say that they’re tired and miss tackles but they do that when they first come on and are fresh so I’m not convinced that this is a result of fatigue.
Improvements
In addition to the ‘Bearded Prop’, Leeds' season have also started strongly because they have one of the biggest individual improvers from last year. As well as doing a collective game score for the team, OPTA give each individual player a score for his efforts. Stevie Ward is one of the players to have the biggest improvement in his game score from last season and is joined in the top 10 biggest improvers by team mates Paul Aiton and Tom Briscoe. The same can be said for Alex Walmsley and Atelea Vea a key factor in why St Helens are top of the table.
At the bottom of the list after six games are players who haven’t performed as well on the OPTA scoring system as they did last year. Vincent Duport, Josh Charnley and Sean O’Loughlin will all be looking to play better when they get on the field as they clearly haven’t been anywhere near to their full potential so far.
It is still early in the season, but by the time that we get to the April 7 the teams will have played three more rounds and competed for six more points.
The foundations will well and truly have been laid for the season by then.
