Club football is done for the year, and just as we did for the NRLM we’re going to look at the NRLW advanced statistic leaders for 2023. Unlike the NRLM version, I will be including the three finals games in these advanced statistics. The first reason is that nine games isn’t really a sufficient sample size to work with so extending that out where possible could be useful, although it won’t change anything for the bottom six teams. For NRLM, there’s no reason to include finals games as we already have a sample size of 24 games, and I don’t...
Continue reading...NRLW
Final NRLW efficiency update – the inevitability of a Roosters/Knights grand final
The NRLW regular season has wrapped up and with finals starting this weekend we can look back at the season as a whole and see if there’s any takeaways from the Eye Test’s efficiency analysis for the whole 2023 season. If you’re new to the site, to examine team efficiency in attack and defense we look at how each club has performed under the site’s expected point model (ETxP), and compare those expected outcomes to their actual on field performances. Teams that score more points than their field position would typically yield are deemed more efficient, and those that give...
Continue reading...
NRLW 2023 Bootwatch – I hope you like Asics
As I noted after NRLW Round 1 I’ve been planning to introduce as much parity as possible between my NRLM and NRLW content this season. Sadly real life got in the way last week and I had to skip a week of NRLW content, and I’d like to apologise for that. But I’m back this week with one of the most requested NRLW analysis yet to appear on the site. That’s right, the immensely important and popular Bootwatch is now looking at the women’s game. For some reason Sockwatch was more requested but I don’t have as much of an...
Continue reading...
Can anyone keep up with the Roosters and Knights? NRLW August efficiency update
This week’s NRLW post will be an efficiency update, similar to the monthly posts I’ve been marking for NRLM. For those new to the site or only following the NRLW content, we look at actual scoring compared with each teams expected points to gauge how effectively they’re using possession, and how capably they are defending against good field position. If you want an explainer on the site’s expected points model, a lengthy one is available here. Quickly, the short version is that every start of possession is worth a certain number of points based on the probability of scoring from...
Continue reading...
NRLW Round 5 in expected points and advanced stats
We’re now halfway through the NRLW regular season, and I thought I’d take a look at some charts to determine who have been the best players running the ball thus far. The first chart we’re going to look at is average runs per game plotted against average tackle busts per match, to get and idea of who the most damaging runners of the ball are. This one is usually dominated in NRLM by Brian To’o, although Greg Marzhew has been leading it this season. The results for the first five rounds of NRLW 2023 are below. A lot has been...
Continue reading...
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...
Continue reading...