Modelling touch football (touch rugby): can successful execution of line attack and defence be probabilistically modelled as independent events

In order to investigate the possibilities of modelling sports via attacking and defending options selected by different teams, an example sport of touch football was investigated. Touch football is widely played, however the greatest density of recorded participants is found in Australasia. Despite the large numbers involved, limited published research to date is available on modelling this sport. By logically considering independence between probabilities in line attack for opposing teams, a model of scoring probabilities for different teams was developed and successfully tested for a range of input parameter values. Providing a successful framework for modelling one isolated phase in the sport of touch football is a foundation step for developing a practical mathematical model for representing this sport. There are also implications for potential expansion of such a model to further similar sports.