NRL

How did the Eye Test do at projecting NRL player salaries for 2023?

Before the start of the 2023 NRL season I tried a thought experiment where I used this site’s player attribution metric (ETPCR) and tried to project player salaries for the upcoming season. I wanted to see if I could use this metric to predict performance for players this season and judge how well it worked. You can go back and read the post now, but the methodology hasn’t changed. Here’s the quick version as a refresher but I’d highly recommend reading the original for my thoughts on the process before moving on. Using the data I have going back to...

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An end of season update to the Eye Test’s simulated Dally M voting system

Just over a month ago I posted a thought experiment around using statistics, and most notably this site’s player attribution metric, to simulate a Dally M voting system and see who would come out on top as player of the year. I tried a few methods, but most of them came out with similar results on top, and other than the distribution of forwards there weren’t any real glaring issues. You can catch up on it here, but I’m going to use one method from that post to check out the player and team of the year. With the NRL’s...

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The Eye Test’s advanced statistic leaders for NRL season 2023

The long 27 round slog that was the NRL 2023 season has finally concluded, which means we can take a look at which players topped the charts for the Eye Test’s suite of advanced statistics.  If you’re a recent visitor to the Eye Test, I would recommend checking out the explainers on of them to get an idea of what type of player behaviour I’m trying to measure with these metrics. These aren’t your typical counting statistics where everyone is trying to fill up a bucket and the more things you put in your bucket the better. For these statistics...

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Penrith are still dominating the NRL – August efficiency update

There’s just one round of the regular season remaining, and August is in the books, so it’s time for the final monthly NRL efficiency update for 2023. And this month we will be focusing mainly on the Panthers. Not that they have not been a large part of each of the previous updates, as it’s hard to exclude such a domineering team. But I’d been focusing on covering teams other than Penrith because they get enough coverage as it is, and there’s only so many times you can fawn over just how well they’ve been playing. It’s been three seasons...

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The Dolphins debut year is a tale of two seasons

As an expansion team there is usually little in the way of expectations, even for one coached by the legendary Wayne Bennett. Very few had the Dolphins anywhere near the top eight this season, and most predictions were for a bottom four finish. And it looks like that’s exactly where they’ll finish up. And it’s possible they’ll have a better for and against margin than the Canberra Raiders. They should have picked up another victory on the weekend with a win over the Titans, but Api Koroisau broke their hearts with a penalty goal in the 76th minute. Still they...

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The case for a smaller ball in the NRLW

On a recent episode of the Upfront Podcast (please like and subscribe), NRLW star and first ballot Eye Test Hall of Famer Millie Boyle was asked about the possibility of using a smaller ball and it prompted a very interesting discussion. Rather than recap her answer, the video of the question is below. It does raise a great point, if we want to improve the NRLW product, a smaller ball may help introduce some of the more spectacular tries we see in the NRLM. And what’s more exciting than seeing a big forward running down an edge with the ball...

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