Netball: Making numbers add up for Silver Ferns

Bobby Willcox, the New Zealand Silver Ferns stats guru, looks over some numbers. Photo / Greg Bowker

Maths geeks and sport. Until recently the two have generally been considered - to use a statistical term - mutually exclusive.

But in the past few years there has been a push towards using specialised statistical analysis as a way of contributing to sporting success.

While it may be considered the unsexy side of sport, performance analysis is an emerging area, providing coaches with a deeper level of insight to improve athlete results.

Silver Ferns performance analyst Bobby Willcox is one such stats guru who is leading this new breed of sporting professionals.

But when Willcox first started her degree in maths and statistics, never did she imagine it would lead her to a career in sports.

"Basically I'm a bit of a maths geek and I had no idea that you could do this sort of stuff in sport. I'm quite passionate about netball and sport, but I had no idea that you could take maths and use it in something like this, so it's pretty cool to be involved with it all."

Willcox is the only person in the country doing work of this kind in netball, but through the NZ Academy of Sport performance analysis unit she has regular interaction with professionals from other sports such as cricket, rowing and cycling.

She said they regularly shared ideas and tracked what others were doing, but there was still plenty of scope for expansion.

"Performance analysis as a whole discipline is sort of exploding at the moment so there are a whole lot of people in all sorts of sports and they're doing all kinds of crazy things out there and we've only really just started out," she said.

"All American sports are really interesting because there is so much information out there. For the last 100 years they've been collecting data, and that's where we're only just starting."

Willcox first became involved in the Silver Ferns in 2004 as part of a final project while studying for her master's degree. That work lead to further involvement with the Ferns programme, and as professionalism in netball has taken hold over that time, so too has the emphasis placed on data and performance analysis, leading to a fulltime role for Willcox.

You need only to glance at the New Zealand bench during a test match to gauge just how important she is in the team set-up. Once involved firmly behind the scenes, Willcox can now be spied during games perched beside coaches Ruth Aitken and Waimarama Taumaunu wielding her laptop.

But just what exactly is displayed on that laptop screen is a closely guarded secret.

Willcox, who has tweaked existing software to create her own programme, will not disclose what statistical categories are examined, or the range of data being collected.

"Basically the stats are just a way to keep an accurate catalogue of what is happening in the game, so when we go back and look at it later we identify any points of interest or any areas of concern that we might need to look at.

"It's just a tool for Ruth and Wai to use during the game if they need to. It's certainly not taking over from their coaching instincts or anything like that."

Just as the coaching staff place a lot of value on the statistical analysis, Willcox said the players too enjoyed getting the in-depth feedback after the games.

"They get quite excited to see the numbers come out. Obviously with elite athletes there's always the competitiveness there. They're really good, they take it on board really well. We use video footage as well to back up the stats, so they can see the stats don't lie."

Willcox's work with the Silver Ferns is all part of a larger project as part of her PhD studies which will eventually see her set up a database of player statistics.

Supported by a Sparc Prime Minister's Scholarship, the player statistics data is being used to identify and compare different types of players both within and across playing positions.

Once player types have been identified, the last step is to investigate which combination works best in a team structure and against particular opposition combinations. So far, all national squads have received meaningful data on individual players.