STUART FARMER

In the 1980s, in the offices of Rolls-Royce, and using a desktop computer the size of an actual desktop, the first steps were taken in building rugby’s first major statistical database. 127,500 players, 160,000 matches and two million scoring transactions later, Stuart Farmer’s masterpiece remains a work in progress.

Illustration by Michael Meier

126 RUGBY WORDS & PICTURES therugbyjournal.com @JournalRugby 127 STUART FARMER

Daisuke Ohata Dan Carter

Japan New Zealand

69 TRIES IN 58 CAPS 1,598 POINTS The all-time top The top international points scorer try-scorer of all-time

There are 101 try-scorers in French club rugby statistical side of the sport, however, coincided with the 100% the highest back to its perch as a jewel of British industry On a condition of discretion, his boss granted who have been lost to history. advent of professionalism in 1995 and he has been flying following receivership in 1971. At the start of the new him approval and Stuart built his first sporting Their tries were recorded, yet their personal off the back of rugby’s growing thirst for data ever since. success percentage decade, its engines were powering multiple models of database tracking batting averages from scoring touches were not. The journalists and match In the intervening 25 years, he has built and in international the jumbo jet of the age, the Boeing 747, and it was the past 20 years. officials of the day – unable to confirm which player maintained a database that has become the principal embracing technology in all corners of its operations. His affinity with the Superbrain would pay off for had scored – expediently bracketed their efforts as resource for historical data about rugby worldwide. rugby: Gibraltar. Which led to a career-shaping moment for Stuart, Rolls-Royce too as he went on to build a programme being a collectif essai, literally a ‘collective try’ or If you see a statistic on TV, read one in a newspaper, Four wins from four then a recent graduate of the company’s business for processing time sheets for engineers on the ‘group effort’. or look one up online, eight times out of ten it will apprenticeship scheme. workshop floor. Since 1925, the collectif has been accruing tries in have come from Stuart’s database, accessed from his Tests “Part of my training at Rolls-Royce had been But a seed had been sown about the power the French leagues. Their opportunities coming office in the market town of , Leicestershire. in the computing department – a white-coated of computing and what it could do with when a mass of forwards twist and snarl their way The database – part of which is accessible via environment with technicians loading huge banks sporting statistics. towards the line, indecipherable as individuals. In ESPN.co.uk/rugby (formerly known as scrum.com) 4th. The All Blacks of tapes into these massive machines. Big mainframe Stuart would have to wait until the second half such a scenario, the collectif is rewarded. – includes the complete archive of every Test match position in all-time stuff. The only way you could communicate with of the 1980s and the arrival of the IBM PC and Awarding tries to an unspecified and undefinable that has been played since 1871 by every nation that the computers was by writing punchcards so you Alan Sugar’s Amstrad PC, to have a proper run at number of players feels outdated yet the collectif is has ever achieved qualification to a Rugby World Cup. success percentage, would run the payroll, for example, through a logging large quantities of data. still, occasionally, at large. Its most recent try coming Furthermore, it covers every player’s international punchcard. But it must have been a huge overhead Once the technology had landed, however, in February 2015 for Dax against Beziers in the Pro D2. Test data from every one of those nations as well as behind Gibraltar, for the company. he set about archiving sporting statistics to an ever Whilst in the Top 14, a collectif last appeared on a the data for every player who has ever played a game Qatar and Macau “One day, this much smaller computer called an more detailed degree. scoresheet in 2005. of professional rugby (since 1995 onwards). Intertec Superbrain landed in my department. Not “Each time a Grand Prix was run I would go into It’s easy to romanticise the existence, and In numbers, that equates to data for 127,500 many had been delivered, but we had one. It was a each driver’s career and add as much information as persistence, of such a concept, especially in French players, 160,000 matches, and two million scoring 89.09% the highest desktop computer, and it filled the whole desktop – possible, so it would be ‘the British Grand Prix, rugby. On the one hand there’s fairness, fraternity, transactions. but it had a keyboard and didn’t require punchcards. finished 7th, 56 laps, in a Brabham BT 44, Ford and a prioritising of the collective effort over the And these numbers are increasing, not just as win rate for any “My boss said to me, ‘we’ve got this thing called a Cosworth engine, chassis No12, Bridgestone tyres’. individual - rugby values that every club and player matches take place but whenever Stuart and his team Test captain, by Superbrain and we need someone to put “I had no way of monetising it, it was just to hold dear. get the chance to throw open the history books and departmental budgets on them. I’ve nominated you. I answer my own queries about sport, that’s how And on the other? Gallic aloofness or disinterest, archive another corner of rugby’s statistical world. Richie McCaw (NZ) want you to lock yourself away for three months, with I approached it.” perhaps. April 2020 has been one such opportunity. At the the books, and see how you get on’. For statistician Stuart Farmer – who drives global time of our interview, Stuart has been databasing “I thought, ‘what a great opportunity to be my At the start of the 1990s Stuart did write to Sky usage of historical data in rugby – the idea that a results of the South Western Districts Eagles – a 19.14% the lowest own boss’ so I started dabbling and got on really well Sports about helping compile and maintain their cricket try-scoring player has been lost to the history books Currie Cup second division team from South Africa win rate for any with it. And in actual fact, the departmental budgets statistics but a polite decline was as close as he got. is a difficult one to square. – between 1910 and the present day. were a doddle and within a few weeks I had a fledgling Not long afterwards an opportunity came to “When I first came across it, I remember thinking Whilst the vast majority of Stuart’s database is Test captain, by version of a budget but I didn’t want to admit that to him, in rugby. A Leicester lad through-and-through, ‘what the hell is a collectif?’,” he tells the Rugby monetised, this part certainly isn’t. my boss, so I thought I’d string it out a bit!” Stuart started going to games with his father after Journal. “But I think it’s part of the French psyche. “And I don’t ever see there being a commercial Sergio Parisse Already an avid recorder of statistics in cricket and his own playing career ended having been diagnosed They’ve never been that bothered about statistics in angle to South Western Districts. Ever,” he clarifies. (It: W18/L76) Formula 1, Stuart requested use of the computer to as a haemophiliac. France. They are more concerned about what “Who the hell wants to database South Western database statistics on the premise that “if I can get the “I couldn’t work out why I bruised so easily and happens in the game.” Districts anyway? But I want it [the database] to be as computer to sing and dance with bowling and batting after my uncle was diagnosed they traced it up to my As a rugby fan first, Stuart is also extremely comprehensive as it can be.” averages, which is really difficult, a departmental grandmother and then down to me. My mother was interested in what happens in a game. His interest in the By the 1980s, Rolls-Royce was steadily climbing budget is going to be dead easy”. only a carrier of the disease but the hit rate is 50 per

128 RUGBY WORDS & PICTURES therugbyjournal.com @JournalRugby 129 STUART FARMER

Richie McCaw Jonny May

New Zealand England

148 CAPS 16 FIRST-HALF TRIES The most In the last five capped years, the most international of any player

cent so of us four brothers, two of us have it, hailed by the Museum of Rugby Curator, Jed Smith, 25 tries scored not always accurate sources of data. “If I ever asked player. Yet Stuart’s own data goes even further. and two of us don’t. as the best club history he had ever seen. Martin , he would say it was him that had To illustrate this, Rugby Journal looked at the top “It’s only a mild form but I have to be careful.” Johnson and attended the book launch as by Jacobus Otto of scored! Martin Johnson often wouldn’t know, try scorers in Test rugby over the past five years (1 May At that time, supporting Leicester meant the club gave the book it’s official blessing. Germany in the last so fair play he’d tell you that. But the most honest 2015 to 1 May 2020) using the ESPN.co.uk database. following the best team in the country, with the The book’s success was built on the match data and reliable man was Graham Rowntree. I would The list is headed by New Zealand’s Beauden Tigers winning the first Courage League National provided by Farmer which had been sourced from five years, the search out ‘Wig’ and as he was often the one Barrett on 30 tries in 55 Tests; second is England’s Division One in 1987. Stuart was enraptured by leather-bound volumes of match reports (one volume third highest in pushing them over the line he really took an interest. Jonny May on 26 tries in 43 Tests; and third is youngsters like playing alongside for each season) for the past 100 years provided by He was the oracle.” Germany’s dynamic flanker Jaco Otto on 25 tries in 29 ageing masters Dusty Hare and Les Cusworth. first team secretary Tudor Thomas. It had been the the world behind Navigating honest human error, however, Tests – meaning the TSV Handschuhsheim player has “That was an incredible team and the Tigers job of the honorary secretaries down the years to cut Beauden Barrett presents a greater set of challenges than navigating the best strike rate of any player in world rugby that continued to be an incredible team for a long time – out and keep match reports from the Leicester Leicester’s first team. has over 15 tries in the past five years. right up until the last eighteen months actually! I Mercury, the Leicester Mail and any national and Jonny May “It’s pointless doing statistics if they’re not right. It should be noted that South Africa’s Makazole always bought a match programme every week and newspapers covering the Tigers, correct mistakes in If you make a mistake your credibility goes out of the Mapimpi has fourteen tries in fourteen Tests. had loads of questions about the history of the club the copy, and keep them in an orderly fashion. window because there are so many people looking We then asked Stuart to apply another layer of which I couldn’t find any answers to. So I wrote to the Volume by volume, Stuart keyed in the data and it 10 red cards for at this stuff now.” data (unavailable via ESPN.co.uk) and give us the top club secretary, John Allen, to ask if he knew of any was soon clear what an immense resource he had As a result, the team of statisticians who work try scorers in the first half of Test matches over the history books about the club.” struck upon. So he approached Hands about 10 international for Stuart Farmer Media Services – the trading name same time period. By that measure Jonny May tops That set Stuart on a path to – eighteen months later updating his previous history of the club to debutants of Stuart’s business – has always been very small, the charts with sixteen tries, followed by the USA’s Joe – becoming the co-author of The Tigers Tale. The Official accompany the statistics. consisting of tried-and-tested colleagues in the major Taufete’e and Canada’s DTH van der Merwe, both on History of Leicester Football Club 1880 - 1993. Knowing the Tigers’ history as he did, Stuart then rugby markets and a few extra hands in the UK, thirteen tries. Barrett and Otto drop out of the top five Stuart’s co-author was The Times rugby became the club’s part-time press officer, juggling the 63 the most including his wife Janet. altogether by this metric. These are the extra insights correspondent David Hands and the pair’s work was role with running his computer training business. which TV companies and journalists treasure and yet But when the game went professional in 1995, the successive Once the millennium rolled around, Stuart’s this only scratches the surface of what’s possible. media demands increased. A previously appearances by statistical business was given lift-off thanks to the Stuart’s astuteness to keep a little bit of data in reserve understanding press pack had never bothered him in dot-com boom. New platforms were challenging the – as well as retaining control over his domestic rugby any international “It’s pointless the week, knowing he was at work. But that was established sports media and Planet Rugby were one statistics – has been a smart business decision, beginning to change. player – jointly of the boldest, licensing Stuart’s Test rugby database allowing him to strike deals with the likes of Sky doing statistics At Leicester, Stuart honed his instincts for to attract eyeballs to their website. It proved a hit, so Sports, the Six Nations (for the men’s, women’s and statistical accuracy. One of those being that whilst held by Sean much so that when the dot-com bubble burst, and U20s tournaments), Premiership Rugby, the Pro 14 if they’re not statistics don’t lie, some players will. The pulverising Fitzpatrick (NZ) Planet Rugby couldn’t afford the license fee anymore, and the British and Irish Lions. right. If you make nature of the Leicester forward pack in the mid-to- he received hundreds of emails within hours of the When compiling statistics for the Lions, he had to late 1990s earned the Tigers plenty of pushover tries, and Joe Roff (Aus) database going down from people saying, ‘where is overcome a unique set of challenges due to the a mistake your but the same doubts about who was on the end of the database? We can’t do our job anymore’. touring nature of the team meaning many of the credibility goes out them existed at Welford Road as much as they did in So a deal was struck with scrum.com to host the contemporary media reports were published in South the Massif Central. database, and it has resided with them ever since Africa, New Zealand and Australia – and to a lesser of the window. So Stuart would seek to find answers immediately after (although scrum.com has changed ownership itself extent Argentina. the final whistle, but soon learned what French match and come under ESPN.co.uk’s umbrella). “The British Newspaper Archive online is superb many people look at officials in Clermont-Ferrand encountered in 1925 – the The publicly available database includes every Test but in the early days we had to travel down to this stuff now.” year of the first recorded collectif essai – that players are match ever played, plus the individual records for every Colindale to pay for photocopies of match reports

130 RUGBY WORDS & PICTURES therugbyjournal.com @JournalRugby 131 STUART FARMER

Sean Cronin Diego Ormaechea

Ireland Uruguay

62 SUBSTITUTE APPEARANCES 40 YEARS OLD AGAINST SPAIN IN 1999 The most Age of the oldest try scorer in in world international rugby rugby

in old newspapers,” explains Stuart. “It would be me, with, let’s say, London Scottish, I’m not trying to take 5 England players “We’re optimistic that by the start of next season will give us the data to know what the percentage call my wife and often two friends of ours, Brian and your job off you I’m trying to give you more we’ll have a few systems ready to use. But we’re very is at any point in a match – the smartest players will be Gillian Bates. Brian and I met whilst working for a information about your opponents. make up the top five much at the start of the whole process.” operating ahead of that anyway.” plumbing manufacturing company in Birmingham “Eventually we get over that resilience, but there’s most-capped women’s Stuart’s new venture is aiming to bring about and we really hit it off. He was a cricket and rugby been three or four over the years who have not liked significant changes to the way the game is viewed and Stuart’s convictions are shaped by how data has lover and he said ‘this sounds great, can we come me very much because of my approach. But, in internationals, led played. And Ellipse Data are not the only ones changed American sports. In his twenties, he down and help you?’. They had a massive impact on general, once we’ve talked about it and we’ve spoken by Rocky Clark looking to shake up the way rugby is viewed, travelled several times to Toronto to visit his brother. making the database as solid and as accurate as it is. I it’s not a problem.” consumed and ultimately coached. But with no rugby or cricket to follow, he followed the owe them a lot.” on 137 Sportable (who appeared in issue one of Rugby fortunes of the city’s team, the Blue Jays. Gillian has been particularly important in Opta are a sports data and statistics company Journal) and Gilbert have developed a ‘smart’ rugby ball “For years and years in baseball, everything has compiling the archive and Stuart still has countless which started recording statistics in football in 1996. capable of measuring every move the ball makes, right been tracked: every ball thrown, every batter books in his library annotated with pencil ticks next They moved into rugby in 2001 and specialise in 59 tries for Sue Day down to the exact number of revolutions in a spin pass. measured against certain pitchers, and these to every game she has logged. providing ‘in-play’ data: passes, tackles, turnovers, (Eng), the top Its developers hope to accurately determine if a numbers influence the way the game is coached. In John Griffiths, author of many pioneering books, line-outs, line-breaks et al., as well as points and tries. forward pass has occurred, and whether a try has the UK, we’re about fifteen years behind the States is a statistician who Stuart sees as “one of his heroes”. With a similar client list in rugby to Stuart Farmer scorer in women’s been scored or not. Had the technology been around with our approach to statistics.” But relationships between statisticians where data Media Services, the two companies are often in 1930, it would certainly have been used by referee Seeing how advanced statistics were in American has been re-used or shared aren’t always so smooth. assumed to be rivals. “Actually we complement each international rugby David Helliwell to determine whether Howie Jones or sports reinforced his belief in the early days that his “I have encountered a little bit of resilience over time other,” explains Stuart. “They do the performance team-mate Harry Peacock had scored for Wales passion for databasing statistics would pay-off in the from people who have said ‘you’re putting me out of side of things and I do the historical. against Ireland in Swansea. Helliwell was in two long-run. work’,” he admits. “That’s not the intention at all. “We worked so well that we got into an 557 points for minds about who got the first touch on the ball that “I never really had a doubt,” he says. “That might There’s a huge vehicle here and we can sing and dance arrangement where if I could kick the door open with Emily Scarratt, the he awarded the try to both players! It remains the only sound cocky almost, but because of my experience in together. If you’re the fountain of all knowledge to do a client, who then wanted the performance side of jointly awarded Test try in history, a tantalising outlier the States, I always thought that there would be a market things, I would introduce Opta, and vice versa.” international top in Stuart’s database. in the UK. But I couldn’t work out how to deliver it. I The relationship was strong enough for Opta’s points scorer, 25 “Sportable is a game changer as far as I am couldn’t see how to make it into a business. founder Aidan Cooney to invite Stuart to come on concerned,” he says. “But I’m also interested in what “The game turning professional at the time it did, ahead of her team- “If you’re the board with a new venture that aims to provide fresh players are doing off the ball because at any one point was perfect for me. There I was on the ground doing insights into rugby by merging historical data mate Katy Daley- in open play, rugby only involves six or seven people, computerised historical statistics when the game was fountain of all (provided by Stuart) with live ‘in-play’ data. so I want to know what the other 23 people are doing. starting to ask for it. That was fortuitous to say the least. After two years of negotiations the deal has been Mclean Technology is going to open our eyes to that side of “And what’s happened since has been successful knowledge to do done, bringing Stuart Farmer Media Services under the sport as well. beyond my wildest dreams. If I broke it down by with, let’s say, Cooney’s Ellipse Data umbrella. “We’ll run exactly “Of course you can go too far with all this and I am the hour, it might only come to pennies per hour but the same way,” explains Stuart. “But we’ll be hoping 275 points scored still a big believer in the natural ability of players. But I I’ve been lucky enough to turn a hobby into my London Scottish, I’m to provide totally new statistics for fans. It will be stuff think everyone is going to have these tools, whether profession. My wife has been incredibly by Ellie Green of not trying to take like ‘should they go for touch or for goal based on how you like it or not. First it will be the coaches then it understanding. It was a decision we made to drive good this kicker is, from this exact point, when the Harlequins, the will be the broadcasters. It means fans will be talking that forward. We don’t have kids, and if we had, your job off you I’m pressure is really on’. a lot more about probability in the sport, especially I don’t think I could have done this. It’s always been “Or ‘how many times did this loosehead prop go TP15s record around decision-making. my interest and I’m still doing research even now - trying to give you backwards against this specific tighthead the last “Some might say that all this technology will I just love it.” more information” time the two players met on a pitch’. Images Getty negate the qualities of a good captain but I just feel it Story by Jack Zorab

132 RUGBY WORDS & PICTURES therugbyjournal.com @JournalRugby 133