Thanks to the Broncos handing over their final spot in the NRL Finals to the Raiders, the top eight is prety much set for 2022 barring a major catastrophe. With those positions likely secured I thought it’d take a look how how these top eight teams sit compared to previous seasons and if that can give us an indication of who might appear in the Grand Final. Is this the most even top eight in the NRL era? And how likely are we to see a team outside the top four make the decider? Firstly we’re going to look at...
Continue reading...August 2022
Should the Round 23 blowouts have been expected?
There’s nothing like a round of blowout results to fire up the rugby leauge hot take and crisis merchants. Everything needs to be fixed, it’s an embarrassment, code in crisis etc. This line of thinking would have to complete ignore the start of the NRLW season including a fantastic game between the Knights and Broncos on Sunday evening. Yes, NRL Round 23 ended up with the highest average winning margin after 80 minutes since 2014 when I started tracking this sort of thing. That average winning margin of 32.3 points per game was nearly 6 points per game than the...
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Applying Eye Test Player Contribution Rating (ETPCR) to the NRLW
Earlier this season I introduced the Eye Test Player Contribution Rating (ETPCR) for NRL players and the feedback and results so far have been encouraging. It’s not perfect – measuring a hooker’s performance is nigh on impossible with traditional statistics – but the basics are there of something useful and it’s been a popular addition to the site. With the 2022 NRLW season starting on the weekend, this week’s post will focus on applying it to the women’s game and the results obtained. We’ll highlight the top and bottom NRLW players since 2018 by ETPCR, the differences in the distribution...
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Just a bunch of random NRL stats
After a string of team related posts, there’s no overarching theme for this week, so lets just get straight into a bunch of random stats with no common thread other than they’re things I’ve been looking at. The Eels poor defense is masked by possession Friend of the site Mike Meehall Wood posted a fantastic piece on the Eels last week (including some Eye Test stats) so I’d suggest reading that first. Both myself and Mike noticed the huge numbers of metres per set being given up by both teams in the Parramatta v Manly clash on Friday night As...
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Are the Wests Tigers doing anything differently under Brett Kimmorley?
I don’t think I’ve ever had an article requested as much as this post. After the Michael Potter/Trent Barrett comparison was posted a few weeks back, I lost track of the number of requests by Twitter and email to look into the Tigers performances under Brett Kimmorley as opposed to Michael Maguire. And in true Eye Test fashion I’ve not let my readers down (I hope). I’m not going to get into any substantial background on this one. Brett Kimmorley is in charge now and the Tigers scored what could their biggest win of the season against Brisbane on Saturday....
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