Analysing Aupiki in 3 Key Stats

I've spent the last month with Les Elder digging into all the details of the squad announcements for this year's Aupiki. Throughout our discussions, there were three key stats that I think reveal the most about the health of a franchise. In turn perhaps foreshadowing what we can expect for them this season.

These key stats are a labour of love, coming from the ugliest spreadsheet you can imagine. If there is ever an example of the push and pull of my ADHD and autism, it is on full display in this document. It's also exactly the type of thing that the paid readers of this newsletter are funding. Because without you all, I wouldn't have been able to allocate as much of my time to tending these tabs.

So before I begin, let's make sure we all give thanks to the paid subscribers who subsidise this fixation.

STAT 1: Retention Rate

Loyal readers of mine will know this is a statistic I became obsessed with all the way back in 2023. That's because after season one we saw the first major talent bleed. A mass exodus from the Blues saw high profile players exit and land throughout the rest of the country.

It can be hard sometimes to communicate to folks outside of the obsessives that this type of churn isn't normal. Casual fans think - Oh yay! Renee Holmes! And not, that's odd that that player has left her home town.

The players themselves are unlikely to talk about the transfers while still playing. Our community is too small to be branded a trouble maker (Ha! When will I learn??). If they do, it'll only be in glowing terms about how excited they are to join their new team. That's okay, this stat tells part of that story for them.

It has become a quick litmus test then on the health of a franchise. Helping me determine where I need to start asking follow up questions. It has also become an indicator of how a team might perform. It just makes sense in these ridiculously short seasons that previous game time together helps you gel quicker.

Before you scroll down and look at this image, do a quick gut check. Who do you think is functioning well as a franchise right now? Who do you think is having trouble? Now be prepared to be entirely unsurprised at how this is reflected in this season's retention rates.

Don't get me wrong, the goal here isn't 100%. I think a healthy number is anything over 60%. If you fall under that figure, I think you've got an issue with either making your team a place players want to be OR you have a talent ID issue. Perhaps even both as has been the case I believe here in my home town with the Hurricanes Poua for the last few seasons.

If you extend these rates out over the duration of the competition, I can tell you the Blues learnt their lesson after that first season. From 2024, they have never dropped back below 60% and what do you know, they've been winning since then too!

Matatū are remarkable in that they have never dropped below 63%. But again, is that a shock? I am yet to look at a squad announcement from the Southern franchise and not think "yeah, that makes sense".

The Manawa have been on a roller coaster. The first two seasons they turned over just under half their squad. Last season they had their highest retention rate yet but then this season? Well, dropped off a cliff. Mirroring that mass departure that the Blues experienced to kick things off.

It's worth noting here that my podcast co-host signaled this trouble last season. When the 2025 Manawa squad was announced, Les said that the coaches choice to select a team relying heavily on experience over development could come back to bite them. Well, that's just another reason to listen to our podcast cause she was spot on.

The question then becomes, how do the Manawa restablise? Can they hold on to the talent they recruited this year? Do they want to? Unlike Matatū who have had a clear plan throughout for their talent development, the Manawa have been forced to scramble it seems to fill their roster. That's not to say the players themselves won't step up, more that they are be being asked to do it sooner than they should.

Do they want to hold onto the talent they've recruited is the question I believe the Hurricanes Poua have finally asked themselves. They've been steadily churning through players since the competition began. This season they've had a real change up but to be honest, it feels like it's a case of clearing the slate rather than tinkering at the edges.

My positive feeling about the Poua is backed up by my second statistic.

STAT 2: Net losses and gains from transfers

This is actually a new thing I have started measuring this season. I thought I needed something alongside retention rate to tell the story of franchise health. I landed on the outcome of the transfer of players as the most logical pairing. Because if everyone is leaving a club, where is seen as the most attractive option to jump ship?

It's a relatively simple metric. I take the number of players who have transferred to your club and minus the number of players who have transferred away. This is the result for this season.

Again, +1 or -1 isn't an alarm bell for me. It's probably a case of talent moving toward game time. So the Blues losing one more player than they recruited from the existing Aupiki player base is just another example of how stacked that team is. And is it any surprise that the most well organised franchise is letting players go as fast as they are bringing them in? I've long joked that Matatū appear to send their development players to the Poua only to call them home when they are about to crack the Black Ferns.

Outside of this +/-1 band though is interesting when you couple with the retention rate. Both the Poua and Manawa had high churn but out of that, Poua was seen as safe harbour for talent to land. Whereas Manawa appears to have struggled to get anyone from within the competition to sign on. INTERESTING.

Okay, these first two stats are all about the health of your franchise. This final one tells me how strong your team is.

STAT 3: Proportion of international caps

How many of your team have played for New Zealand or another country on the world stage? The higher the number, the higher the quality of experience and the further I expect you to go in this competition.

When you look at this, it's so obvious why Matatū and the Blues are the favourites to make the final again this year.

Am I sad to see the Poua so low? Yes. Am I used to it? Also yes. We never had a wealth of Black Ferns in our squad but this will be a new experience for Manawa fans. It'll be hard for these teams but of course, nothing is impossible.

One of the things that has happened this year which has gone under the radar is that these players are no longer assembling for half weeks. They are now on a full week roster which makes their hourly pay worse than it's ever been. But hey, at least that means the first time Aupiki players have a chance to experience the full time professionalism the Black Ferns have had access to since 2022.

Within this overall stat, there is the distribution of current Black Ferns. If I look at those that were named on the PAC4 series, the Blues have 11 of them, Matatū 8, Manawa 4 and Poua 3. If you're thinking Alice - that doesn't add up to 30! Well yeah, Tanya Kalounivale has headed over to the Queensland Reds and Georgina Ponsonby's back up in the PWR. I'm also only counting those that made it on the pitch. So Taufa Bason doesn't count... for now.

She probably should though cause being a contracted Black Ferns is actually the real thing that divides our players right now. If you are lucky enough to pick up one of these contracts, you are full time for real. Not for peanuts like your Aupiki teammates.

We used to get the contracted list but they stopped that in 2025 (boooo!). I think we should bring it back and then use it to operate an annual draft for Aupiki. So that these better resourced athletes are more evenly distributed across the competition.

Yes, that would give a ready made hype builder, improve the quality of the game being played but it would also mean we are giving more game time to the players that need it. We all saw what the Manawa front row traffic jam did to Black Ferns hopes leading into the World Cup last year.

Honestly, I believe this would also help fix the health of the franchises. If we are evenly distributing our best we are going to demand they are all being treated that way. Making these teams be more accountable to delivering the ascension for players that Aupiki always promised.

With you,
Alice