Quantium data analysis: Rd 17, vital numbers to beat the best

The second bye is here – in fact it is almost over.  Unfortunately I was in India this week, so I didn’t have a chance to update the stats until now.  Better late than never though.

Round 17 has loomed as a seriously challenging bye round for a while and late injuries and COVID withdrawals to players like Nicho Hynes, Campbell Graham and Alex Johnston – and the Origin call up for Siosifa Talakai has just made it harder.  In this article we will take a look at how teams are placed.  The short answer, is not well!

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Fullback

The table below sets out the proportion of teams in the top 100, top 1,000, top 5,000, top 10,000, top 20,000 and top 100,000 that own each fullback. 

I’ve only shown fullbacks who are playing Round 17.  Note that Ryan Papenhuyzen and Latrell Mitchell are the most purchased players this week so their ownership will be substantially higher than that below.

14% of the top 100 were impacted by Alex Johnston’s late withdrawal.

CTW

Campbell Graham’s injury was a huge blow to owners who had planned for Round 17.  49% of the top 100 and 41% of the top 5,000 teams owned Graham.

Similarly, a low score from Grant Anderson and moderate scores from each of Ronaldo Mulitalo and Isaiah Tass have made for a challenging week at CTW.  Only 1 team in the top 100 owned Jesse Ramien prior to trades this week (team 97).

Five-eighth

Five eighth is one position where there a few options in Round 17.  Those who held onto Lachlan Ilias will be gutted with his score after he went off injured early against the Knights.  Teams with Cody Walker were finally rewarded after a challenging year!  And yes, I’m one of them – it’s been rough!

Halfback

The 13% of teams in the top 100 who held onto Blake Taaffe would be very disappointed he couldn’t make a severely depleted Rabbitohs side.  As a Mitchell Moses owner who captained him I’m stoked to see how low his ownership was pre trades.

2RF

19 of the top 100 teams – and roughly 25% of the top 10,000 were impacted by Ryan Matterson’s withdrawal.  Brutal.

It is genuinely slim pickings at 2RF this week.  The most traded in players are guys like Brandon Smith, Joe Ofahengaue and Nelson Asofa-Solomona – none of whom loom as genuine keepers.  Isaiah Papali’i is the only genuine keeper playing round 17 and many teams likely have him at FRF.

FRF

FRF is as tough as 2RF – between them they are a nightmare this week.

David Klemmer’s owners would have been thrilled with his try but gutted to see him get sent off after the siren – especially for something that only drew a fine from the match review committee.

HOK

Hooker continues the trend of a very challenging week to find a viable starting forward. 

Results – Players available Round 17

The table below sets out the distribution of numbers of players available for selection in Round 17 by rank – prior to any trades this week.  Given we know Lachlan Ilias scored zero I have not included him as playing.  Note that no team in the top 1,000 has more than 12 players available!  In fact, only one team in the top 100 (coming 13^th) has 11 players pre trades.  Only 13 of the top 100 have more than 8 playing (pre trades).

10 teams in the top 100 (including the team coming 15^th) have just 4 players!  The leading team has just 6 players…including Grant Anderson.

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In my case, I’m roughly 10,000^th (yes, rough season) and have 7 players pre trades.  So looking at the table below, 29% of teams ranked ahead of me have more players than me – and 49% have less than me.  Given one of my players is Cody and I captained Moses I should be on track to improve my ranking significantly. 

The final row in the table shows the average number of players available for selection by ranking zone.  So, on average, the top 100 teams have 6.8 players available and the top 10,000 teams have 6.4.

In a sign of how few round 17 keepers there are, the variation between the top 100 (who are very incentivised to prepare for the bye) and the top 20,000 is minimal compared to a typical bye round.

The chart below sets out the average number of players available for the top 1,000 teams, the next 1,000 teams, the next 1,000 teams again and so on.  As you can see, teams near the lead are only slightly more prepared for the bye on average.

Good luck everyone!