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...
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The Warriors statistical improvements under Payten – NRL Round 17 2020 notes and trends
The statistical improvements that back Todd Payten’s Cowboys appointment 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 what changed under Payten and how the Warriors...
Continue reading...The Tigers struggles through the middle – NRL Round 16 2020 notes and trends
The Tigers soft middle exposed again Benji Marshall and Luke Brooks copped a lot of flak on the weekend as the Tigers capitulated 30-6 to the Panthers after starting the game so promisingly. Did they deserve it? Probably not, and for reasons that are well known among Tigers fans. Despite showing some early fire, their forwards were steamrolled by the Panthers pack and couldn’t return serve, with not a single Tigers forward picking up more than 100 metres. Not having Josh Aloiai available definitely hurt the Tigers (see below), but it’s not the first time the lack of metres from...
Continue reading...Which teams are driving the change in kicking tactics? – NRL Round 15 2020 stats and trends
In last weeks’ post, I proposed a theory that NRL teams this season were changing their tactics from using weighted kicks to look for repeat sets to more attacking kicks aimed outside the try line. The first reason was to take advantage of the new rules protecting attacking players in the air. The second was to reduce the number of seven tackle sets from kicks going dead in goal. This week, I wanted to see if there were any teams driving this change. Turns out there are, and it’s mostly who you would expect but not necessarily how you’d expect...
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The rule change affecting time in play that’s rarely talked about – NRL Round 14 2020 stats and trends
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 me to investigating why, and I put together the below chart plotting time in possession (sourced from...
Continue reading...Does a high volume of possession in opponents halves result in more points? – NRL Round 14 2020 stats and trends
On Saturday, the Storm defeated the Bulldogs 41-10 at Sunshine Coast Stadium. Perusing the stats, I noticed that the Bulldogs actually had more possession in their opponents 20 metre area than the Storm, with 38 play the balls inside 20 compared to Melbourne’s 28. Yet they were outscored by 30 points. This made me wonder if how strong the connection was with the amount of possessions inside an opponents half with the number of points scored. To do this we will look at where teams are playing the ball and if that correlates to points being scored. As usual, I’m...
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