2018 NRL.com Fantasy Thread Part 7

rhinoceroo wrote:Fanhub favourites change year to year.

Also - without getting too conspiracy theory about it - it could potentially happen than some high-ownership base price cows get scored charitably, possibly to generate more money in the game and encourage more site engagement and revisits for more casual players. I think this may have happened with Ponga last year - the scoring was *so very noticably* different to other players. He's not a base price cow this year.

It's not just that though. I'm also not convinced that either he or the Knights are actually that good at RL. Could easily be wrong.

Gunna try and knock this 'Fanhub favorites' stuff on the head early this year, though it fell on deaf ears last year - Fanhub has nothing to do with what scores players get, beyond assigning the point values for the game to the stats that are recorded by a completely separate company that is also contracted by the NRL. Those stats are used extensively by clubs to gather data about their players and opponents players, so i'd imagine a company with a multi-million dollar deal wouldn't record intentionally fudged stats and risk that deal over a trip to the grand final.

surmo13 wrote:

Gunna try and knock this 'Fanhub favorites' stuff on the head early this year, though it fell on deaf ears last year - Fanhub has nothing to do with what scores players get, beyond assigning the point values for the game to the stats that are recorded by a completely separate company that is also contracted by the NRL. Those stats are used extensively by clubs to gather data about their players and opponents players, so i'd imagine a company with a multi-million dollar deal wouldn't record intentionally fudged stats and risk that deal over a trip to the grand final.

Cmon man, you know what he means by "fanhub favourite", he means favourite of the guys recording the stats, he's wrong in the name sure (which is important to some, but not in the meaning of his point). Also, whilst I agree its unlikely to be an intentional bias towards one player or another, these are humans, its a little naive to assume they remove all bias (if they had any... which given its Surdip from Gujarat... they probably don't)vfrom their stats recording.
Lastly, whilst a company might not risk a contract, it really doesn't take that to influence this. I don't know why someone would want to, but if they did they'd only need to get in the ear of one or two blokes who actually record the stats. Anyway, i kinda agree with you both, its not likely to be a deliberate thing but there may have been some unconscious bias in Ponga's favor last year that could go away this year, so I'm not really sure what my point is in the end.
Wasn't there some emoji for sitting on a fence...

Archer wrote:
Lastly, whilst a company might not risk a contract, it really doesn't take that to influence this. I don't know why someone would want to, but if they did they'd only need to get in the ear of one or two blokes who actually record the stats. Anyway, i kinda agree with you both, its not likely to be a deliberate thing but there may have been some unconscious bias in Ponga's favor last year that could go away this year, so I'm not really sure what my point is in the end.
Wasn't there some emoji for sitting on a fence...

not only do i refuse to believe a professional stats keeping company would use a system in which the stats only pass through one set of eyes before they become official, i would be very surprised if whoever was the overseer of the NRL arm of the company wasn't the one confirming the stats of every game provided by his underlings before they become 'final'.

surmo13 wrote:

not only do i refuse to believe a professional stats keeping company would use a system in which the stats only pass through one set of eyes before they become official, i would be very surprised if whoever was the overseer of the NRL arm of the company wasn't the one confirming the stats of every game provided by his underlings before they become 'final'.

You've got far more faith than i do. I've worked for plenty of large companies who were more than happy to let the menial work be done by some grunt (I mean the stats collection job is the equivalent of some call center position, or on the street survey guy as far as i can see). I'm yet to work for one that has something like your suggesting. I mean the only way this "overseer of the NRL arm" could confirm the stats in any meaningful way would be to sit down and rewatch each game. Every week. Not only that, but you'd need to be aware of a possible discrepancy between scoring, otherwise all you're likely to do in a review is asses whether player x could have that many TB's or LB's etc. If your out by a bit with a colleague you'd probably put it down to difference in interpretation. You're not going to sit down each week and say were we consistent across every player every week. But eh, as i said in the first place I don't think there is anything intentional, so i guess the only reason i'm continuing the discussion is because I've had a few beers and its almost time to knock off early (yay snow!)

Yeah, I didn't mean a conspiracy by Fanhub to fix the competition or anything. It's just that last year's recording of some of Ponga's scores were so different to other players that there may have been some bias - conscious or unconscious - that there's no reason to think will carry over to this year.

rhinoceroo wrote:Yeah, I didn't mean a conspiracy by Fanhub to fix the competition or anything. It's just that last year's recording of some of Ponga's scores were so different to other players that there may have been some bias - conscious or unconscious - that there's no reason to think will carry over to this year.

Tackle breaks have always been a very polarizing and easy-to-gripe-with part of the stats though, i'm still not entirely convinced the Ponga controversy wasn't just confirmation bias from the section of the community that passed over him and tried to put Babbey in the corner instead (and i'm not coming from a place of smugness there, i was one of those fools)

Archer wrote:
You've got far more faith than i do. I've worked for plenty of large companies who were more than happy to let the menial work be done by some grunt (I mean the stats collection job is the equivalent of some call center position, or on the street survey guy as far as i can see). I'm yet to work for one that has something like your suggesting. I mean the only way this "overseer of the NRL arm" could confirm the stats in any meaningful way would be to sit down and rewatch each game. Every week. Not only that, but you'd need to be aware of a possible discrepancy between scoring, otherwise all you're likely to do in a review is asses whether player x could have that many TB's or LB's etc. If your out by a bit with a colleague you'd probably put it down to difference in interpretation. You're not going to sit down each week and say were we consistent across every player every week. But eh, as i said in the first place I don't think there is anything intentional, so i guess the only reason i'm continuing the discussion is because I've had a few beers and its almost time to knock off early (yay snow!)

yeh look, on reflection, saying the bloke in charge would be giving the final go-over might have been a stretch, but i stand by it not being the sole responsibility of one person, there would have to be quality control on what the minions hand in, or else how would they know if he's doing his job properly?

Latest draft:

Lichaa
Taupau, Lodge
Brown, Merrin, RFM
Croft, Cartwright
Mitchell, Taka
Teddy, CWalker, Ponga

Cook
Rochow

Havili
Nicholls
Croker
Thompson
Katoa
Kennar

surmo13 wrote:

Tackle breaks have always been a very polarizing and easy-to-gripe-with part of the stats though, i'm still not entirely convinced the Ponga controversy wasn't just confirmation bias from the section of the community that passed over him and tried to put Babbey in the corner instead (and i'm not coming from a place of smugness there, i was one of those fools)

Hey guys a couple quick points and opinions.

1) agree with the above, I think in general with this stuff, confirmation bias is often the case

2) I forget all the company names, but the company that runs the stats used to be run out of my home town in NZ before they got bought out by a bigger (US?) company. What I can tell you is that it was absolutely the case that the stats are done by grunts and seldom cross checked by any senior people - its a shitty job I can tell you (I work in the industry and know a couple guys in the past that used to do that job). When the company got bought out I can guarantee the quality of the stats in terms of the cross checking/confirming between individual workers would have gotten weaker. So I would imagine that 99% of the time variation in scoring can be put down to different interpretation across different individuals and measurement error.

Overall, I don't buy into the fanhub favourite thing. I think its more the case that there is going to be variation in the stats recorded and we as players of fantasy tend to focus on the variation that we don't like as its way more obvious to us.

Give me some feedback gents, on Gosiewski of the Eagles. Not worth a ressie spot this year in fantasy ?

Milchcow wrote:

They just get a feed from STATS (the official stats provider of the NRL) and turn them into fantasy points.   Players get 'overscored' not because of some conspiracy, but because the fantasy game overvalues tackle busts, so a couple extra TBS here and there can make someone's score blow out of proportion.

I would think that they aren't even consider the primary customer of the stats, which would be the clubs who use them for whatever sports science mumbo jumbo they think they can use to get an advantage.

This ^^

Thats right, It's STATS that do this stuff.

I actually think STATS used to be owned by Fox Sports but was later sold to a private equity firm. In any case, look these guys up, they are a pretty big company that have major contracts with companies like ESPN, and sports leagues including the NFL, MLB, the NBA, not to mention all the stats they will be providing to individual teams. The contract they have for fantasy NRL will be pocket money to them.... hence why I suspect they aren't too concerned if their stats aren't that great!!

I know its only the 1st March, but at this point in time im starting the season with 497k. Madness or ok if im content with the team ?

Ponga definitely got kissed on the dick last year, but I wasn't complaining.

Revraiser wrote:I know its only the 1st March, but at this point in time im starting the season with 497k. Madness or ok if im content with the team ?

Madness - should only be about 60K max I reckon

does anyone have stats on Croft from the Cowboys game?

Croft vs Moses Vs Townsend?

Also C Walker + Nicholls + playing two other $228K on bench vs Whitehead + 1 of Kennar/Thompson/Katoa in 17 and Nicholls on bench with 1 other $228K on bench.

In other words, C Walker vs Whitehead?

Howie88 wrote:does anyone have stats on Croft from the Cowboys game?

I would ignore that game. Shit conditions.

Howie88 wrote:does anyone have stats on Croft from the Cowboys game?

Just pretend the game didn't even happen.