Here's an article from the Daily Telegraph that I remember reading on how Hasler helped Manly to the 2011 premiership. Nice read about how he works with player statistics...
Stat breakthrough that won Manly comp
AT the end of 2010, Des Hasler knew he needed to improve Manly, who had finished eighth-and-out in the first week of the finals.
This made Hasler no different from every other NRL coach. What made him different was the manner in which Hasler did it.
The
Sea Eagles went from 25-1 outsiders at the season's start to premiers ... and in doing so just might have changed the game forever.While Hasler was thinking and worrying, in the backrooms at Manly video analyst Will Badel was punching information into his computer, recording every statistic measurable, on every player, over the previous four seasons.
Working with NRL Stats' Andrew Moufarridge, he crunched the numbers, calculated them, weighted them and sprinkled a little magic dust on them. Out of that he came up with what he called the Contributor Value Rating (CVR).
This is how revolutions begin; with a small idea under a dim light.
The CVR ratings are rugby league's version of Moneyball - a philosophy changing the way some view not only baseball, but other sports around the world as its influence spreads. The CVR was the secret behind Manly's improvement.
Like Moneyball, Badel said the CVR "removes the reputation of players".
The Moneyball concept basically grew from this: when choosing their fantasy league teams, computer geeks discovered that the lightly regarded statistic On Base Percentage had far more sway on a team's success than Batting Averages, which were traditionally regarded as the recruitment standard by scouts.
Considering this, the Oakland A's ignored a century of baseball lore and scouting reputations to instead trust what the computer told them when drafting players, and a funny thing happened: they started winning.
The CVR similarly cuts through reputation and considered thinking to rate players' efforts per minute of every game, revealing exactly where shortfalls are happening and so where improvements can be made.
And it appears to be standing the test of time. NRL Stats has tracked every NRL game from 2007, as well as every Origin game played, every grand final back to 1966 and last season's Toyota Cup competition.
Through all those games, no player has rated higher than Johnny Raper's performance in the '66 grand final against Balmain, where he ran for 246m - 99m more than the next best player - among other highs.
When you compare it to the game's most recent five-star performance - Paul Gallen's 80-minute effort in Origin II this season - Raper's reputation as arguably the game's greatest is only reinforced.
Raper scored a CVR of 9.25, against Gallen's 7.75. And while some will argue that stats can be made to show anything, Hasler's conviction that the CVR was relevant, and his use of it to improve Manly from outsiders to premiers in a season, gives it legitimacy. So accurate are they that Moufarridge can almost guarantee finals and a top-four appearance if certain levels are met.
"If you want to make the top eight you have to have 13 players playing above the level of three," Moufarridge said.
"If you want to make the top four you have to have 13 players playing above the level of four. There is no more being able to carry a good winger, a good fullback, a strike player who will score you tries if he is not contributing to your team."
The three clubs that consistently had a dozen scoring four or above in recent seasons were, not surprisingly, Manly, Melbourne and St George Illawarra.
And while the information was available to almost three-quarters of the clubs last season, and will be to all 16 next year, not all believed in it.
Except Hasler and NSW coach Ricky Stuart, who was the first to employ Badel 10 years ago and used it to guide his Origin selections.
"Des was always extremely supportive, not only of taking the information I came up with but also being confident enough to use it. To use it with players, face to face," Badel said.
"Everybody knows that Des would leave no stone unturned, but this is where he had the confidence in me and the system to say we're going to start implementing this as KPI markers."
Hasler was able to break his players' games down to the smallest effort, or lack of effort, and then marry the science with the dark art of coaching instinct.
In essence, stats are measured in traditional areas such as tackles and tries scored, linebreaks and handling errors, but also in lesser considered statistics like slow play-the-balls, ineffective tackles and linebreak causes. There are 50 in all.
Once weighted, the figure is divided by the number of minutes played, giving a score that holds up under the greatest scrutiny.
Manly, quite simply, didn't have enough players scoring high enough.
So with Badel's guidance, Hasler broke down each player's game and compared them with their rivals to tell them specifically where they needed to improve.
It was all there in front of him.
For instance, after a poor season (by his standards) Badel pointed out Anthony Watmough had dropped from 6.34 in 2009 to 4.36 in 2010, his performances affected by ill-discipline revealed in poor play-the-balls, lazy tackle efforts and penalties conceded.Watmough concentrated on improving these specific areas of his game while continuing to do everything else he normally did, and his CVR lifted to 5.54.
It might have been missed that in the process, around winning that unlikely premiership, he regained his NSW and Australian spots.