Regular followers and readers will know I’m a bit of a stickler for consistency with set restarts. I’d pointed out recently that there had been a number of games over the past two months that had zero ruck infringements in the second half. The theory that referees were setting the standards early holds some merit, although I still refuse to believe fatigued players were that well behaved after misbehaving early on. The good news is that Round 18 was the first time since Round 13 that we didn’t have a second half where zero set restarts were called, and the...
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A statistical look at some of the NRL’s most improved players of 2020
The 2020 regular season is winding down and there has been some talk about the most improved player in the NRL. It’s a great talking point for these later rounds as most games are dead rubbers. Are you really interested to watch the Queensland Toilet Bowl this Thursday evening? The problem with examining players who have improved in the traditional way of looking at who scored more tries or who’s averaging more running metres this year is that it falls into the counting statistics trap. You have a number of statistical buckets. Every time you do something, a bucket fills...
Continue reading...NRL Round 19 advanced stats – Involvement Rate
Involvement Rate is an advanced statistic for rugby league that I created to identify players who have a high workload but don’t play a lot of minutes. If you’re new to the site and want to understand how it works, I would recommend reading this post on Involvement Rate. With that out of the way, here’s the all minutes leaders for Round 19 After leading the Tackle % chart, it’s no surprise to see North Queensland’s Emry Pere first for Involvement Rate as well, at 30.33% for the round. This indicates he made a run or completed a tackle on...
Continue reading...NRL Round 19 advanced stats – Tackle %
Let’s skip the intro – if you’re new to the site, I’d recommend reading this post on Tackle %, which explains how it works and why I think it’s an important statistic for identifying high motor middle and interchange forwards. Here’s how the Tackle % chart looked for Round 19 without a minute restriction No single digit minute shenanigans this week. The Cowboys Emry Pere takes top spot with a Tackle % of 46.58%, indicating he completed a tackle on nearly half of the possession his team defended whilst Pere was on the field. Second and third place goes to...
Continue reading...NRL Round 19 advanced stats – Run %
For those new to the site, I’d recommend reading this post on Run % which details how it is calculated and how to use it. Here’s the leading players in the NRL after Round 19 without a minute restriction Zane Musgrove led the way this round with a Tackle % of 25.81%, meaning he completed a run on over a quarter of all plays the Tigers had whilst he was on the field. The remainder of the top three comprised of Souths’ Mark Nicholls (21.64%) and season leader Cronulla’s Andrew Fifita (20.88%). Abbas Miski takes the spot for top back...
Continue reading...Does regular season performance dictate finals success? – NRL Round 18 2021 stats and trends
Last week Rugby League Analytics posted a fantastic visualisation of points for versus points against for every Super League team since 1996, which showed that the majority of teams that either topped the table or won the grand final sit in the bottom right quadrant. This quadrant contains high scoring teams with great defense, which makes perfect sense. Below is the tweet, please give them a follow if you’re into Super League or analytics for the sport. This led me to wonder if the same trend was evident in the NRL era (1998-2020). Did each Grand Final contain only the...
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