CHRIS HEWETT

GUEST COLUMNIST
Some years ago, a small group of Twickenham modernisers introduced a trendy statistical software package designed to identify the chief “influencers” in England games.
Invariably, this oval-ball algorithm ended up highlighting the wrong blokes. Which is what we’ve come to expect from algorithms.
Sports statisticians often make themselves out to be new Messiahs, but all too often they are Messiahs without a message. Or, even worse, Messiahs with a misleading message.
Far from being cutting-edge, it is an age-old story going all the way back to...