This article was originally posted as part of NRL Round 14 notes and trends, August 18, 2020. One of the things I’ve noticed over the past few rounds is that the average time of ball in play has dropped slightly to the pre Rugby League 2.0 levels. This comes after a decent increase earlier in the season once the rules were changed. Focusing just on time in possession, the last NRL three rounds haven’t had more than 57 minutes of ball in play, the three lowest rounds this season and both before V’Landysball was introduced in Round 3. This led...
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The Eye Test’s Most Adequate of 2020 – The statistical improvements that back Todd Payten’s Cowboys appointment
This article was originally posted as part of NRL Round 17 notes and trends, September 8, 2020. The North Queensland Cowboys announced interim Warriors coach Todd Payten as their coach for 2021 on Friday, and using the Eye Testtm it’s easy to see why. The Warriors have improved on the field under his watch and are showing a lot more enthusiasm and commitment, even after a coach they supported was removed. Their fightback against the Eels showed a desire that Warriors sides haven’t shown late in a game for quite some time. This led me to have a look at...
Continue reading...The Eye Test’s Most Adequate of 2020 – Set restarts: if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying
This article was originally posted as part of NRL Round 9 notes and trends, July 14, 2020. In last weeks trends and notes post, I showed there was a negative correlation between set restarts and margin, which had been positive from Round 3 to Round 7. With another week of matches completed, I thought I’d dig a bit deeper into this to see if I could find out what was leading to this. The reason I find this so interesting is that it doesn’t conform with traditional rugby league thinking. Possession is treasured, and statistics like run metres correlate with...
Continue reading...The Eye Test’s Most Adequate of 2020 – Why volume statistics aren’t always your friend
This article was originally posted as part of NRL Round 15 notes and trends, August 25, 2020. This week should have been a fantastic matchup of halves, with Shaun Johnson of the Sharks facing up against the Panthers and Nathan Cleary. Cleary has been one of the standouts this season, whilst Johnson is having a great season, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the way he’s often covered by the mainstream media. I’d pointed it out previously with a radar chart comparison in early August: Johnson ended up missing the game due to some minor injuries and the birth...
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NRL 2020 – how the rugby league changed statistically this season
The NRL 2020 regular season has drawn to a close and much like the Brisbane Broncos it is time to get to the bottom of it. Statistically that is. There were some significant rule changes this season that have impacted the way teams are playing. The biggest ones were the move to one referee and the introduction of six again calls for ruck infringements, which I’ve gone over extensively before. The other less talked about one was the change to provide attacking players the same protection under high kicks that defensive players have received. This change has certainly played a...
Continue reading...NRLW Advanced Stats – 2018 and 2019 seasons
If you’re a regular reader of the Eye Testtm, you’ll be (somewhat) familiar with the advanced statistics I use to analyse players throughout and across each NRL season. And now, they’re also available for previous NRLW seasons. What do these statistics show? The issue is that generally middle forwards don’t play big minutes or put up big numbers and go unnoticed besides the odd comment about how much of an impact they make. To do so I created three advanced statistics for rugby league – Tackle %, Run % and Involvement Rate. Tackle % estimates the percentage of opponent plays...
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