Before the charts this week, I wanted to clear up the “Opponent Plays” column based on some feedback from Twitter. The “Opponent Plays” column is the plays for an opponent, and not the minute adjusted number of opponent plays a player was on the field for. The adjustment for minutes played is made in the Tackle % calculation.
I’ve left the “Opponent Plays” unadjusted get an idea of how many opportunities to complete a tackle. Generally, NRL games have around 300 play the balls and about 150 per team. If you’re seeing a team with fewer than that number of plays, then they’re either on the end of a big loss or unable to maintain possession.
If you’re new to the site and want to learn more about Tackle %, you can check out this post in the articles section that explains it in more detail.
Here’s the NRL Round 10 all minutes chart for Tackle %
There’s a dominance of low minute interchange players this week. Kai O’Donnell was the only starting player in the top 10, and he only played 26 minutes. Lachlan Lam led the way with a 48% Tackle %, making a tackle on one in every two opponent plays whilst he was on the field. Siliva Havili was the only big minute player to crack the top 20, and even then, he only played 48 minutes.
Moving on to those players who spent at least half a game on the field, and Havili leads the way with a Tackle % of 36.1% in his 48 minutes.
Reed Mahoney and Andrew McCullough put in near identical performances in their 80 minutes on field in Round 10, with both sporting a Tackle % of 32%. You can see the extra tackle and two extra plays faced by Mahoney pushed up 0.2% ahead of McCullough.
Finally, for the season chart, Jarrod Wallace continues to lead the way but his Tackle % is dropping each week and is little chance to break Daniel Alvaro’s record of 38% in 2017. It is quite possible that Nat Butcher will overtake him in the coming weeks.
Jaimin Joliffe continues to lurk around the top three spots with a season Tackle % of 33.7%, whilst another rookie who had been neck and neck with him, Toby Rudolf, has dropped below 30% for the season with a change in role. Mitch Rein and James Graham will drop out next week due to not meeting the minimum minutes played requirements.
