NRL

Just when you thought things had bottomed out for the Dragons, they seem to find a way to dig even deeper. And I’m not just talking about the drama surrounding Ben Hunt. How dire have the Dragons been this season? They’re below the Bulldogs, and I’d give the Dogs an incomplete grade given their injury issues and how young their average squad is. The Dragons don’t get the benefit of either excuse. They’re last on the ladder and have almost conceded the most points per game this season. Their match on Friday against the Warriors was another example of their...

It’s been a quiet weekend in the NRL. No Origin build up, no star halfbacks asking for their release, no long standing try droughts broken. Just five games in a shortened round due to representative games. Nothing to see here. That makes it a perfect time for a quick dive into penalty and set restart counts for the 2023 season up to Round 16. If you feel that your team is unfairly targeted, or that your teams’ hated rival gets all the 50/50 calls, you might find enough evidence here to support whatever point of view you have. Keep in...

The last month has shown there’s some serious problems with the Sydney Roosters this season. Sandwiched between a two losses to Penrith with combined scores of 78-10 were a two point loss to the Dragons and a one point win over the Bulldogs. The club’s issues scoring have been well noted this season. Trent Robinson mentioned in his post-game press conference after Saturday’s embarrassing loss to Penrith that he’s aware of it and it’s something he needs to work on. “We are not scoring enough tries and we are not even pressuring teams enough at the end of sets. We...

Another month, another chance to update on how efficient each NRL team has been in attack and defense for the 2023 season. Previously I had been framing how teams perform compared to their expected points as over or performing, but I’ve had a thought based on some feedback from the April update and it’s better explained as an attacking and defensive efficiency metric than on overall performance alone. In a way I had been doing that by comparing teams expected points with actual scoring and putting teams into inefficient and efficient buckets, but this would just be extending it further....

Origin fever is hitting peak levels this week (although apparently not in Adelaide). Which means it’s the midpoint of the 2023 NRL season and as we did last year and the year before , is time for the regular roundup of the Eye Test’s advanced statistical leaders over the first half of the competition. For new readers to the site, in this post we’ll take each of the advanced metrics for rugby league that I’ve created and adjusted over the past few seasons and see which players are performing well, and for some of them, not so well. The challenge...

Another NRL round has concluded, and yet again the Gold Coast Titans have surrendered a lead that they should have held on to. After leading 14-0 at the major break, they capitulated and threw away a lead that was defend-able, succumbing to Canterbury 20-18. The last 12 minutes of this game were particularly diabolical for them, with the following string of penalties occurring whilst holding on to an 18-14 lead (that they would eventually surrender): 76th minute – dangerous tackle (Aaron Schoupp) 73rd minute – ball strip (David Fifita) 69th minute – dangerous tackle (Tino Fa’asuamaleaui) 68th minute – dangerous...