The last month of rugby league hasn’t done much to cement a clear favourite for the 2024 National Rugby League premiership. Nearly every team in the top eight has had serious issues with injuries, or issues with being serious.
It’s created some much needed uncertainty after the early 2020s domination of Penrith, who are starting look like four straight seasons with multiple finals games is catching up with them. Along with Melbourne, it’s difficult to see a grand finalist let alone another winner coming from the field.
The uncertainty of the past month culminated in the Roosters being unable to beat the Raiders on Sunday, who were missing their halfback and played with 12 men for one quarter of the game. The Roosters completed 22/25 sets and had 35 tackles inside 20 metres during the second half, compared to 12/13 sets completed and ZERO tackles inside 20 metres for Canberra. This produced one of the most bizarre expected points charts I’ve seen in seasons.
And to make things worse the tricolours are now missing three key players with serious injuries, two of whom won’t return until the 2025 season is well underway. These Raiders now have back to back wins over Penrith and the Roosters, a fortnight after losing to the perpetually unserious Cowboys 42-4. And somehow, they’re one match out of the finals, an indicator of the level of parity (or mid-ness) there is this season.
In addition to the above, in the last month alone we’ve had:
- The Sharks, leading 22-4 at half time were toppled by a piece of Shaun Johnson magic in his final NRL game
- With their season on the line, the Dragons didn’t turn up until the Eels gave up
- The Cowboys had an unconvincing win over Melbourne’s Q Cup side, allowing them to score 30 points and further cementing their unseriousness
- Melbourne themselves possibly killed their own momentum leading into September resting players and losing to the Cowboys in a match that saw Ryan Papenhuyzen injured again (thankfully not serious). They may have also cost Jahrome Hughes a Dally M award by resting him
- The Broncos had a chance to secure a top eight spot and decided to undermine their coach
- The Dolphins looked dominating in that match against Brisbane but had lost their prior two games by a combined margin of 78-16 against top five sides
- The last undefeated team at home fell, with the Bulldogs were dismantled by the Eagles, whose finals hopes were then dashed by Luke Brooks’ friendly fire dismantling their best player
- The Panthers, missing Nathan Cleary until the finals at the earliest, picked up a win over Souths after losing to Melbourne and nearly losing to a historically bad Parramatta team
Melbourne and Penrith are the clear favourites, but they’re not the certainties of seasons past. If someone outside those two wants to step up and stake a serious claim for the title this season, there’s very little time left. Melbourne and Penrith are the clear favourites, but they’re not the certainties of seasons past.
There’s a case to be made that the Bulldogs could have the easiest path to a grand final given that they’ve been relatively unaffected by serious injuries. However, they have their own issues which I’ll get into later.
All of this insanity makes it a perfect time to check the efficiency landscape for the final time this year. As usual, we’ll be comparing each teams’ expected point output with their on field performances. If you need a refresher on this site’s expected points metric, they’re derived from from the probability of scoring a try on each play the ball by location and tackle number. It’s a value of field position, not necessarily what a team should have scored. The easiest way to think of it is the score of an average team given the same field position and possession.
And as usual, we’ll start with the actual scores on field, as average for & against per game.
Defensively, we have 10 teams (top half of the chart) allowing more than league average points per game, and just seven conceding fewer than league average. And in attack, the numbers are the same – seven scoring more than league average, and 10 scoring less than league average.
Historically, unless you have a below league average defense, you’re not winning an NRL premiership. Which would seem to rule out North Queensland and the Dolphins (if they end up in 8th). There’s only seven points conceded between Penrith and Canterbury for the best defense in the competition, while the Tigers and Eels have both conceded 690 points this season. You really couldn’t ask for a closer Spoon Bowl.
Now we’ll check the average expected point numbers for each team.
I’ll start at the bottom of the chart here, where both the Eels and Warriors concede the fewest expected points per game this season. This indicates that they don’t give up high expected point field position, which is usually close to the line.
The conclusion here, which is painfully obvious if you watched any Parramatta games this season, it that this means both sides are conceding points from further out, in field position that has a lower probability of scoring. Which makes it no surprise that these two sides give up the longest and second longest average distance per try this season.
Tries scored again Parramatta come from 32.4 metres out on average, whilst the Warriors concede them from 27.7 metres out. No other team is above 24 metres. Brisbane 17.6
Penrith and Melbourne also concede low amounts of quality field position, with Manly not far behind them. As much as early shifts and long range attacking movements are becoming more common in the NRL, a solid defense still requires keeping the ball away from your line.
The other best defensive side in the NRL, Canterbury, sit midfield among a cluster of sides including the Roosters and Cowboys. It is interesting to see the Bulldogs give up field position worth 19.8 points per game, but only allow 16.9, whilst the Cowboys allow a similar value of field position (20.2 expected points per game) but concede 7.5 more points per contest.
At the top of this chart are three teams who give up more than 21 points of field position per game – Brisbane, St George Illawarra and Cronulla. The Sharks have somehow kept their top four spot this season despite giving up the best field position in the league, which is something that might work during the regular season but requires zero defensive mistakes in the finals.
Next, we’ll marry up the actual points per game scored with expected points per game gained to see what trends emerged. Each quadrant is named to represent the type of attacking or defensive play, which hopefully should be self explanatory by now.
There’s been some movement here since the last update. We now have three dominant attacking teams in Penrith, North Queensland and Cronulla. There’s four highly efficient sides with the ball as well – the Roosters, Dolphins, Melbourne, and Manly.
Brisbane were one of those efficient clubs for most of the season, but their play in August has seen them drop slightly into the incompetent quadrant, which is occupied by the Gold Coast, Newcastle and Wests Tigers. The Broncos didn’t need a lot of field position to score points last season, and it looks like they’ve expected that to continue in 2024. They’re right on league average for points scored but are dead last for expected points at just 15.1 per contest.
The Bulldogs are the only top eight side below league average in scoring, although if the Knights get up on Sunday that would change things.
Now we’ll look at the same chart defensively.
Defensively it’s an incompetent-athon. Seven teams dwell in the incompetent quadrant with the Titans 0.2 points per game away from it. Last year we had just three teams in the incompetent quadrant after 26 rounds – Manly, Canterbury and Canberra – but five in the inefficient one. This year it’s almost the reverse with Parramatta being the most inefficient team with the Titans and Warriors on the boundary.
This means last year we had more teams giving up points from low expected point volume field position, this year there are more teams giving up points and high value field position. Which would indicate that goal line defense has dropped off significantly in 2024, and for a team like Brisbane that is the case.
Brisbane sitting in the incompetent quadrant after their successful 2023 campaign is a head scratcher. Somehow they’ve conceded seven points per game more this year than last year, despite giving up extremely similar field position.
Contrast that with Manly, who have not only dropped their average points conceded per game by two whole points this year, they’ve also reduced the amount of play the balls their opponents have on their goal line, as shown below.
You can make a lot of excuses for the Broncos this season, with injuries and player departures impacting their depth. But with the playing list they currently possess there is no excuse for falling off a cliff defensively the way they have.
Back to the actual versus expected chart, in terms of top eight sides, the Cowboys sit in the incompetent quadrant, which they’ve been trying to combat with a dominant attack. Suffice to say this isn’t sustainable as the competition gets tougher. The Dolphins also sit here and would be the only other top eight side (depending on Sunday’s result) to have a below league average defense.
The rest of the top eight is split between efficient sides, meaning they defend high expected point value field position well, and dominant sides where they defend well and don’t allow teams to encroach on their try line as often. Usually, it’s the dominant sides that fare well in the finals, but with the chaos we’ve seen this season one of the efficient defensive sides could end up with a lucky run to a title.
To simplify things, the next chart will express the values from the prior two charts as percentages above or below expected. First up is points scored against expected, where higher is better.
The Roosters dominance with the ball this season has been incredible, and they’ve been scoring at more than 80% above what an average team would do in the same field position. Manly, Melbourne and Brisbane are also at 50%, but when you remember that the Broncos had the lowest expected point average per game that 50% number is less impressive.
At the other end of the scale, the Warriors were the only team below zero this season, scoring 8% points fewer than an average team would. When you consider that league average was +24%, their number is dire. As is the case for the other teams in single figures, which includes Penrith. They’ve been able to command similar levels of field position as prior season, but with injuries and departures like Stephen Crichton they’re no longer putting up the same points totals.
Here’s the same chart defensively, which is painful reading for Eels fans as it has been all season. Remember for this chart, lower is better.
99% more points have been allowed by the Eels compared with an average team given the same field position and possession. The Tigers and Warriors are also above 50%, with the Titans and Bunnies above 40%.
The stronger defensive teams this season have negative numbers compared to expected, with the Sharks leading the way at -19%. As noted above this might be sustainable for the regular season but will be incredibly difficult to maintain as the competition gets tougher.
Canterbury are still pushing along defensively at -12.7% despite the loss to Manly, with Penrith and the Roosters also below zero. Melbourne is at +8.4% but given the league average is +24% that number is still under indexing.
It’s pretty clear from these charts that Melbourne, Penrith and to a lesser extent Manly are the standouts. With the Roosters injury crisis and ability to be their own worst enemy, it’s hard to see anyone making the grand final outside of this group. Manly’s potential rests solely on the health of Tom Trbojevic and securing a home final.
The obvious cause could be made for Canterbury, as seen above whose defense has been largely impeccable this season, enabling them to offset a lack of firepower with the ball. Their defense is something I’ve been bullish on all season, since noting it in April.
And it’s exactly the reason I’m higher on their chances than I would be the Cowboys, as opponents will take away your best attacking options in finals football, which leaves the Cowboys with a substandard defense to lean back on.
The problem for Canterbury is that they might be the new Cronulla. Flat track bullies who feast on bottom nine sides but consistently came up short against top eight sides. This season the Bulldogs are a very healthy 11-3 against bottom nine sides, but only 3-6 against sides currently in the top eight, with one of those wins against the Dolphins in Round 24.
To demonstrate this, I’ve split Canterbury’s performances this season into two groups – one against the (current) top eight sides, and one against the bottom nine – and replicated the points over or under expected from the two prior slides.
The first one, points allowed against expected doesn’t look too bad for Canterbury.
They’re incredibly stingy against bottom 9 sides, giving up 22.5% fewer points than expected. And against top eight sides they’re still quite good, only allowing +1.2%, well below league average and better than a team like Melbourne’s whole season result.
Things get a bit bleaker with the attacking chart though.
Against bottom nine sides, Canterbury scores at +31%, a very solid number which is above league average. However, against top eight sides their attack falls significantly, scoring 12.2% points below expected.
Some of this stems from their field position, which is 20.2 expected points per game against bottom nine sides, but just 19.3 against top eight sides. This small gap creates an even bigger divide between points scored against those clubs.
The larger issue is that this is where their lack of go forward in the middle is hurting them. Their smaller and more mobile pack is a benefit defensively, and they can’t be exposed by lateral movement the way bigger packs like Souths or the Eels can be.
However it also hinders them with the ball, since they’re not able to generate metres downfield against the top sides, forcing their attacking plays to come further away from the try line. This results in a difference of nine points per game scored against top eight sides compared with bottom nine ones as the attacking shifts and kicks they use against bottom nine sides don’t convert as well against top eight teams.
It’s probably unfair to single them out but there’s a clear delineation between them playing current top eight sides and bottom 9 sides. And Cronulla have copped the same treatment in prior seasons. Until you’ve proven yourself, you’ll always be questioned.
This shouldn’t take away the incredible improvements they’ve made this season. They’ve been at worst the second best defensive side in the NRL all year and were only a handful of results away from a top four spot. Cameron Ciraldo will end up with a huge number of votes for coach of the year, which should be a two horse race between himself and Craig Bellamy.
1 Response
[…] League Eye Test: “The Roosters completed 22/25 sets and had 35 tackles inside 20 metres during the second […]