According to Wiki he is from Warrington !

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Bentham

According to Wiki he is from Warrington !

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Bentham

I still don't think he hates Wigan, he is just a poor ref.

Smith was worse on friday..... oh no sorry that was "the best performance of the year by a ref".... I kid you not... according to baldy.

I still don't think he hates Wigan, he is just a poor ref.

Smith was worse on friday..... oh no sorry that was "the best performance of the year by a ref".... I kid you not... according to baldy.

This is even Better! An even bigger can of worms! (And before anyone says, it wasn't me that emailed Him!)


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Subject: RE: Bayes theorem _ applied to refereeing decisions

J***,

Thank you for your very interesting e mail applying Bayes theorem to refereeing outcomes.

I have to confess to not knowing too much about it but I have had your claims investigated by Dr Bill Gerrard, a Statistics expert from Leeds University. He heads a company, Strategic Sports Management that specialise in looking at statistics in sport and he has been doing some work on consistency in awarding penalties in the Super League and its effects on the competition. I also asked him if a random selection of referees each week (referees drawn weekly to referee the games) would benefit the competition.

His response is “pasted” below:



“I think the key finding is that overall the competition is not affected by the inevitable differences between individual referees because any such differences are balanced by your allocation of referees particularly ensuring that the three referees with the highest propensity to award penalties do not in total officiate at more than half the games of any team.



As regards the suggestion of allocating the referees randomly, personally I would argue against this unless you are successful in ensuring rough equality between individual referees in their propensity to award of penalties. Your ability to allocate referees allows you to offset differences between individual referees and as my report shows you've done this very effectively. Random allocation is just that, random, and will inevitably lead to some teams, for example, being refereed more frequently by the referees with a higher propensity to award penalties. The choice as I see it is between every team having the same likelihood of being allocated any referee (and, by implication, expecting to concede the same number of penalties over the season) i.e. random allocation which equalises likelihoods against the alternative of a managed allocation by you which seeks to equalise outcomes i.e. the actual numbers of penalties awarded against teams. It seems to me that fans are more interested in outcomes than pre-match likelihoods.



The last point leads on to the email that you forwarded regarding Wigan, Leeds and Phil Bentham . No need to be put off by J*** W***** invoking Bayes Theorem (which relates to the calculation of conditional probabilities) since the point she makes doesn't need to be dressed up with any sophisticated statistical jargon. [uThe probability that an individual referee would officiate at four games of a winning team and these would be their only defeats is highly unlikely on the basis of purely random variation. We are talking a probability of around 1 in a 1000 for teams with a win percentage over 75%. Highly unlikely but not impossible. My approach in such circumstances is to say that the balance of probabilities raise a "cause for concern" requiring further investigation. The [/uevidence I have available is the award of penalties and this indicates that at least in the Super League games Bentham has awarded slightly fewer penalties against Wigan (6.000 per game) than he has averaged against all teams (6.767) so absolutely no evidence of any inconsistency in this respect.



The converse point that Bentham has favoured Leeds is somewhat self-contradictory since just as it is highly unlikely that you will officiate at a sequence of defeats of a winning team then it is highly likely you will officiate at a sequence of wins for such teams. There is a probability of around 2 in 5 of officiating at a sequence of four wins and a probability of 4 in 5 of officiating at either three or four wins out of four games for teams with win percentages over 75%. Bentham has officiated at three Leeds home games in Super League 2010 with two wins and a draw - not unusual for one of the strongest teams in Super League in recent years. As with Wigan, Leeds have tended to be penalised slightly less frequently (5.667 per game) by Bentham than his overall average (6.767) but well within the expected range due to random variation. So again no evidence at all of any inconsistency.”



Investigation of referee performance takes place every week in the form of a thorough review and individual decisions are scrutinised. Where a statistical bias shows up we will then compare the data with the actual penalties awarded or not awarded. Very often player error is responsible for the awarding of the penalties. I would also question your inclusion of the pre season friendly between Leigh and Wigan as the Wigan team was a joint Under 20 and Academy team with only Liam Farrell and Shaun Ainscough having any first team experience.

I hope this answers some of your concerns but please feel free to get in touch again should you wish to.

Regards,

Stuart

Stuart Cummings

Match Officials Director

Match Officials Department

RFL

Room 113, First Floor, Cavendish Hall, Headingley Campus, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds. LS6 3QS

Phone - 0113 274 6505

stuart.cummings@rfl.uk.com

www.therfl.co.uk

RFL is a trading name of The Rugby Football League Limited. This message and any attachments are strictly confidential and may contain legally privileged information.The contents of the transmission are intended for the named addressee(s) only. If you are not the addressee please do not read, print, store or re-transmit it or any attachments to it.Instead, please email it back to the sender and then immediately permanently delete it from your system. The views or opinions presented here are solely of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Rugby Football League Limited.The Rugby Football League Limited is not bound by any contract or obligation created by this e-mail and excludes all liability to you or any third party in respect of its contents (to the maximum extent permitted by the law). The Rugby Football League Limited is a company registered in England with company number 3845473. The Registered Office is Red Hall, Red Hall Lane, Leeds LS17 8NB. VAT No. 168 8110 49.The Rugby Football League Limited also acts on behalf of Super League (Europe) Ltd, a company registered in England with company number 3238540. The Registered Office is Red Hall, Red Hall Lane, Leeds LS17 8NB. VAT No. 698 6526 64

#################################################################################################################

Again, just to confirm, Nowt to do with me!

This is even Better! An even bigger can of worms! (And before anyone says, it wasn't me that emailed Him!)


############################################################################################################
Subject: RE: Bayes theorem _ applied to refereeing decisions

J***,

Thank you for your very interesting e mail applying Bayes theorem to refereeing outcomes.

I have to confess to not knowing too much about it but I have had your claims investigated by Dr Bill Gerrard, a Statistics expert from Leeds University. He heads a company, Strategic Sports Management that specialise in looking at statistics in sport and he has been doing some work on consistency in awarding penalties in the Super League and its effects on the competition. I also asked him if a random selection of referees each week (referees drawn weekly to referee the games) would benefit the competition.

His response is “pasted” below:



“I think the key finding is that overall the competition is not affected by the inevitable differences between individual referees because any such differences are balanced by your allocation of referees particularly ensuring that the three referees with the highest propensity to award penalties do not in total officiate at more than half the games of any team.



As regards the suggestion of allocating the referees randomly, personally I would argue against this unless you are successful in ensuring rough equality between individual referees in their propensity to award of penalties. Your ability to allocate referees allows you to offset differences between individual referees and as my report shows you've done this very effectively. Random allocation is just that, random, and will inevitably lead to some teams, for example, being refereed more frequently by the referees with a higher propensity to award penalties. The choice as I see it is between every team having the same likelihood of being allocated any referee (and, by implication, expecting to concede the same number of penalties over the season) i.e. random allocation which equalises likelihoods against the alternative of a managed allocation by you which seeks to equalise outcomes i.e. the actual numbers of penalties awarded against teams. It seems to me that fans are more interested in outcomes than pre-match likelihoods.



The last point leads on to the email that you forwarded regarding Wigan, Leeds and Phil Bentham . No need to be put off by J*** W***** invoking Bayes Theorem (which relates to the calculation of conditional probabilities) since the point she makes doesn't need to be dressed up with any sophisticated statistical jargon. [uThe probability that an individual referee would officiate at four games of a winning team and these would be their only defeats is highly unlikely on the basis of purely random variation. We are talking a probability of around 1 in a 1000 for teams with a win percentage over 75%. Highly unlikely but not impossible. My approach in such circumstances is to say that the balance of probabilities raise a "cause for concern" requiring further investigation. The [/uevidence I have available is the award of penalties and this indicates that at least in the Super League games Bentham has awarded slightly fewer penalties against Wigan (6.000 per game) than he has averaged against all teams (6.767) so absolutely no evidence of any inconsistency in this respect.



The converse point that Bentham has favoured Leeds is somewhat self-contradictory since just as it is highly unlikely that you will officiate at a sequence of defeats of a winning team then it is highly likely you will officiate at a sequence of wins for such teams. There is a probability of around 2 in 5 of officiating at a sequence of four wins and a probability of 4 in 5 of officiating at either three or four wins out of four games for teams with win percentages over 75%. Bentham has officiated at three Leeds home games in Super League 2010 with two wins and a draw - not unusual for one of the strongest teams in Super League in recent years. As with Wigan, Leeds have tended to be penalised slightly less frequently (5.667 per game) by Bentham than his overall average (6.767) but well within the expected range due to random variation. So again no evidence at all of any inconsistency.”



Investigation of referee performance takes place every week in the form of a thorough review and individual decisions are scrutinised. Where a statistical bias shows up we will then compare the data with the actual penalties awarded or not awarded. Very often player error is responsible for the awarding of the penalties. I would also question your inclusion of the pre season friendly between Leigh and Wigan as the Wigan team was a joint Under 20 and Academy team with only Liam Farrell and Shaun Ainscough having any first team experience.

I hope this answers some of your concerns but please feel free to get in touch again should you wish to.

Regards,

Stuart

Stuart Cummings

Match Officials Director

Match Officials Department

RFL

Room 113, First Floor, Cavendish Hall, Headingley Campus, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds. LS6 3QS

Phone - 0113 274 6505

stuart.cummings@rfl.uk.com

www.therfl.co.uk

RFL is a trading name of The Rugby Football League Limited. This message and any attachments are strictly confidential and may contain legally privileged information.The contents of the transmission are intended for the named addressee(s) only. If you are not the addressee please do not read, print, store or re-transmit it or any attachments to it.Instead, please email it back to the sender and then immediately permanently delete it from your system. The views or opinions presented here are solely of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Rugby Football League Limited.The Rugby Football League Limited is not bound by any contract or obligation created by this e-mail and excludes all liability to you or any third party in respect of its contents (to the maximum extent permitted by the law). The Rugby Football League Limited is a company registered in England with company number 3845473. The Registered Office is Red Hall, Red Hall Lane, Leeds LS17 8NB. VAT No. 168 8110 49.The Rugby Football League Limited also acts on behalf of Super League (Europe) Ltd, a company registered in England with company number 3238540. The Registered Office is Red Hall, Red Hall Lane, Leeds LS17 8NB. VAT No. 698 6526 64

#################################################################################################################

Again, just to confirm, Nowt to do with me!

bentham from leigh.

my son played in the same rugby team at leigh r u as his brother

bentham from leigh.

my son played in the same rugby team at leigh r u as his brother