Jack Toft
Years ago
Crying Foul. Who needs to buy the Refs a Christmas present?
Ok, so I've done this before and let me explain the situation statistically. A team doesn't change its gameplay whether it plays at home or away, so with each game an independent event, the average fouls at home should roughly match the average fouls away. If there is a bias at home court, then the difference in fouls should be what they say in statistics as "significant" So, is anyone getting a blind eye of the refs this season? Despite what people think, I don't think any team is getting favoured by the refs anymore than the others.
Average game: OK so the average game so far this year sees 19.2 fouls to the home team and 20.5 fouls to the away team. The biggest gap to the advantage to the away team was 10 (R6 Brisbane v Sydney 30 to 20 fouls) and the biggest gap to the home team was 14 (R3 Sydney v New Zealand 9 to 23)
So here are the raw stats for fouls (vs their opposition):
Adelaide (H) 21.4 to 22.8 (A) 23.5 to 20.5
Brisbane (H) 21.8 to 18.8 (A) 20.4 to 19.0
Cairns (H) 19.3 to 18.8 (A) 20.5 to 17.2
Illawarra (H) 19.0 to 20.4 (A) 21.7 to 19
Melbourne (H) 20.0 to 22.2 (A) 23.2 to 20.2
New Zealand (H) 20.8 to 18.5 (A) 23.2 to 18.0
Perth (H) 14.7 to 21.2 (A) 15.2 to 19.2
SEM (H) 19.4 to 20.0 (A) 19.0 to 17.5
Sydney (H) 16.8 to 22.2 (A) 18.0 to 21.3
So, what does this all say? Perth are obviously doing something right. Although they are the lowest fouling team at home they are also the lowest fouling team on the road. Brisbane can't take a trick at home being the highest fouling team at home, but foul less on the road.
The Adelaide Refs are calling stuff with the average game in Adelaide having 44.2 fouls, but the average game in Perth having 35.8 fouls. Adelaide play in the highest fouling games, Perth the lowest.
Conclusions? The Perth style of play sees them the lowest fouling team this season and Adelaide's aggressive style sees them foul more. As far as "bias" is concerned, teams get called for more fouls on the road, but Brisbane average an "extra" 2.7 fouls at home more than they should. Perhaps they need to leave a glass of milk out for Santa's reindeers.