The relative importance of ability, luck and motivation in team sports: a Bayesian model of performance in the English rugby premiership

DOI10.1007/S10260-022-00677-8MaRDI QIDQ6091267zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Federico Fioravanti, Fernando Delbianco, Fernando Tohmé

Publication date 24 November 2023

Published in Statistical Methods and Applications (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.00001

zbMATH Keywords

abilityBayesianeffortluckmotivationrugby

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistics (62-XX)

Abstract: Results in contact sports like Rugby are mainly interpreted in terms of the ability and/or luck of teams. But this neglects the important role of the {em motivation} of players, reflected in the effort exerted in the game. Here we present a Bayesian hierarchical model to infer the main features that explain score differences in rugby matches of the English Premiership Rugby 2020/2021 season. The main result is that, indeed, {em effort} (seen as a ratio between the number of tries and the scoring kick attempts) is highly relevant to explain outcomes in those matches.

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