Friday night’s game against Brisbane was always going to be a test for the Parramatta Eels. Facing the competition leaders in Darwin on a short turnaround was always going to be tough, but the Eels made it tougher on themselves with simple errors and were obviously exhausted early. If you want to read a full recap of the game, friend of the site Liam of The Maroon Observer has a tremendous write up that I’d suggest reading. I’d also highly suggest subscribing to his substack as he’s putting out at least 4 pieces of content per week, and if you...
Continue reading...April 2023
What Webster’s Wahs have improved on this season
As passionate as the Warriors faithful are, I don’t think many of them in their wildest dreams could have envisioned a start to the season like this. With all due respect to THE Dolphins (and somewhat the Raiders), the Warriors have always been the people’s team. If you don’t enjoy watching Shaun Johnson play, then I wonder if you have the ability to feel anything at all. Up the Wahs. The media weren’t particularly high on them either in the pre-season, with quite a number of outlets picking them to finish up either 16th or with the wooden spoon. Even...
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How far down field are NRL teams playing the ball?
When I launched the Eye Test’s expected points model (ETxP) for the National Rugby League over a year ago I had some new types of analysis planned for the season. Sadly after losing access to some of the data I had to shelve most of those plans. However they were only shelved temporarily and not binned completely. Thankfully with the return of data needed to calculate ETxP I can start these up again. With Round 6 of the 2023 season now complete, it’s time to start using them for more than just expected points. Thank you for reading The Rugby...
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The NRL’s over and under achievers of the first month of 2023 by expected points
The first month the 2023 NRL season is complete, and we’re starting to get a picture of where teams are sitting performance wise. Some teams have had easier runs with the draw, and others harder. Other teams have had terrible luck with injury and others have had some balls bounce their way. And some teams are the Wests Tigers and will be forever doomed to ineptitude until changes are made. Given this, how do we more accurately assess performance from all seventeen National Rugby League teams over the first month of the season? The way we’re going to do this...
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