Analysis

If play the ball speed means something but mostly nothing, what is a better metric?

Play the ball speed and “tunnel ball” has been in the NRL news cycle over the past week, on the back of a story by Adam Pengilly in THIS MASTHEAD the Sydney Morning Herald. In this article, Pengilly noted that as the Panthers ran down Parramatta during the final minutes of their game in Round 23, they only played the ball correctly once in 11 tackles. Every other time the Panthers did not make a genuine attempt to strike the ball with their foot. The reasoning is obvious, and Pengilly does a great job of explaining why. The desire for...

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NRL Sockwatch 2024 – how low can they go? Plus bonus Bootwatch updates

After the minor distraction that was the 2024 Paris Olympics, it’s time to get back to more significant matters. The Eye Test is back with another of my favourite posts of the season – NRL Sockwatch 2024. And because bootwatching is a way of life and not something you can switch on or off, there’s some bonus boot related content at the end of this post. For new readers, the process is similar to the Bootwatch methodology. I watch every game from a round of NRL and tag whether a player wears their socks up or down at the moment...

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The Dragons have improved under Flanagan, but there’s still plenty of work to do

Saturday’s 18-16 win was the first time St George Illawarra have won a game in Melbourne this century, and the Dragons now have a win over the top two sides in the competition. That’s something the Roosters haven’t done in five seasons. Friend of the site JonnyForeigner has his usual tremendous match review up at Storm Machine, which is well worth subscribing to, even if the result didn’t go the way he would have liked. Of course, when they played a stronger Panthers side outside of the Origin period, the Dragons were thrashed 46-10, and they’ve been very up and...

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What happened to the Broncos defense this season? July NRL efficiency update

The 2024 Paris Olympics may have started and I might be incredibly sleep deprived already, but that won’t stop me bringing you the Eye Test’s July NRL team efficiency update. Just over one year ago I wrote about how the Broncos defense was just as elite as Penrith’s in 2023, albeit in different ways. They were able to sustain significantly more goal line attack than any other team in the league without conceding points, and was one of the hallmarks of their run to the grand final. However, over the past two months it’s an area of their game that...

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The best NRL teams at defending kick returns

A few weeks ago friend of the site Jason Oliver wrote a tremendous piece for Rugby League Writers on the trend of teams not contesting bombs. It’s a fantastic insight into a part of the game that has become somewhat boring of late, but we all know how risk adverse football coaches are these days. Rather than do a poor job of rehashing Jason’s article, I’ll just use this quote which sums everything up nicely. “While they disrupted the contest and forced a mistake, the Titans don’t present a line on the kick chase. Those close to the sideline have...

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The uncomfortable and unbiased truth about set restarts in 2024

Nearly three years ago I wrote “Six again? More like 2.3 again” which exposed a lot the truths about the set restart rule, and how it wasn’t working as intended. It showed that teams had worked out they could game the system and use it to cynically control their opponents. Before that in 2020, and just weeks into the introduction of the rule I covered how the top teams had negative set restart differentials, aptly titled “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying“. That’s still applicable today. The good defensive teams quickly worked out that defending for an extra 2-3...

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