Wednesday 29 March 2017 20:25, UK
'Marginal gains' is a term most closely associated with cycling but most people in professional sport have used it from time to time.
It is about finding the one per cent improvements to performance and hoping they give you the edge over your competitors.
The major problem with it is that by looking for the one per cent gain, you can ignore the other 99. What's going on in the core is more important than what takes place in the margins.
On Monday morning I sat down and watched all of the games played in the most recent round of the Super League. Binge-watching every game gives you an opportunity to compare and contrast the styles of play and the skills of all 12 clubs.
I wanted to try to work out the difference between the top teams and the bottom ones. What do they do differently?
All of the teams make a similar number of errors, gain roughly the same amount of metres when carrying the ball, concede between eight and 11 penalties a game (which isn't that wide a spread) and miss between 20 and 25 tackles a game.
There isn't an obvious difference that jumps out at you. Most of them even play in a similar manner and have patterns of movement that look almost identical.
Lots of people say that it's the speed of the play-the-ball that is the most important thing, but I don't agree with that. The Wolves have had the quickest play-the-ball in the competition and still haven't won a game. Ruck speed is overrated in my eyes.
So what is it that makes the most successful teams in Super League? I think there are two things: they pass the ball better than the rest and end their sets with better kicks.
I appreciate there has been a great deal of work put into the lines the players run and the timing at which they arrive in a position to take the pass, but Castleford are at present far better at passing than every other team in the competition, at least on matchdays when people pay to watch them.
Passing accuracy is rarely spoken about. We never see any stats on it and I have never heard a coach use it as an excuse when his team have lost a match but I think it is the most important element of the game right now.
The best teams pass the ball to where the team-mate needs it, not just to a position in which he can catch it. So many try-scoring opportunities are wasted because the pass doesn't allow the play to continue at full speed. The Tigers are by far the best in my opinion.
If you look at the breaks made by all the teams in the league you'll see they range from between about three to six per match. The Tigers average nine breaks a game and I'm convinced it's because of the quality of their passing.
They don't actually throw more passes than the other teams, it's just the effectiveness that stands out when you sit back and watch them. They scored seven times against Catalan and almost scored seven more because their attacking play is so good.
They don't have the fastest, strongest or best individual players; they let the ball do the work to undo their opponents' defence. You don't need a lot of space to create space if you can get the lines, timing and passing in sync.
The second thing that stands out when you watch all the games back-to-back is the importance of the kick at the end of a set.
If anything, it's become disproportionately important to the outcome of a game. It's the main reason why St Helens were so keen to see Matty Smith return.
At the Tigers, Luke Gale does most of this and is, more often than not, better than the rest.
I sometimes think it is sad when two evenly-matched teams play but only one have a player with accurate kicks that apply pressure or set up scoring chances. The match becomes one-sided simply because of the kicks, which are only a small part of the game.
In simple terms, the game is made up of four things. Your team needs to run, pass, tackle and kick. The running and tackling look quite similar for most teams, it's in the other two areas where champions are made.
Never mind about the 1 per cent, get the basics right first.
