Your men’s St George Illawarra Dragons finished the 2022 NRL season in tenth place with an even 12-12 record and -100 points difference. Their offence scored the least points outside of the bottom five and their defence was tenth best in the league. With only 9.8 Pythagorean wins, the Dragons significantly outperformed their true performance… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2022 St George Illawarra Dragons
The St George Illawarra Dragons finished the 2021 NRL season in eleventh place, with a 8-16 record and a -142 points difference. Thus ends the facts. The Victory Lap From the pre-season deep dive: The league’s least interesting football team is back, whiter and blander than ever. Anthony Griffin returns from the wilderness, having previously… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2021 St George Illawarra Dragons
From earlier in the year: The squad itself isn’t magic but should be better than last place. New signing Isaac Luke has always been a productive player but he will presumably be second fiddle to Cameron McInnes when he returns from injury, reducing the potential volume of work Luke could be doing. Indeed, St George… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 St George Illawarra Dragons
By the time you read this, it should be April, which means the NRL is on the cusp of handing out the April Premiership, the third most important, and the least existent, trophy of the season. The term “April premiers” seems to have a few variations in meaning. Typically, it’s a team that starts particularly… Read More The April premiership
With the first Maori versus Indigenous All-stars game and another edition of the World Club Challenge in the history books, our attention turns to the NRL season ahead. As with last year, I’m going to do a SWOP – Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Prospect – analysis for each team. My general philosophy for judging a team’s… Read More A deep dive for each team’s 2019 NRL season
Last year’s Rugby League World Cup introduced the sport to a lot of new potential fans around the world. If anyone in rugby league administration could see past their nose, they’d be trying to win over these new converts to the game’s top competition: the National Rugby League. The 2018 season starts this week and… Read More One thing new NRL fans need to know about each team
The only thing more reliable than March bringing rugby league back is the slew of season previews that each and every media outlet feels the need to produce. I’m no different in this regard and here is what is likely to be the longest post I’ve ever compiled. This year’s season preview takes a look… Read More A deep dive for each NRL team’s 2018 season
Background Parramatta of the ’80s and Parramatta of the ’00s were powerhouses of top flight rugby league. The ’80s vintage managed to win their first, second, third and fourth premierships. The ’00s vintage, on the other hand, was less successful. In 2001, Parra won all but four games of the regular season, taking the minor… Read More Club Report – Parramatta Eels
Background The Gold Coast Titans have only been in the NRL since 2007. The Titans franchise are the most recent iteration of top-level rugby league’s attempts to crack the Gold Coast market, following in the footsteps of the Giants (1988-89), Seagulls (1990-95) and Chargers (1996-98). Gold Coast peaked in 2009 and 2010, managing top four… Read More Club Report – Gold Coast Titans
Background St George Illawarra were the first club to form from a merger of the 1980s expansion team Illawarra Steelers and the second most successful NSWRL premiership side of the St George Dragons. The team met early success in their first year, reaching the 1999 grand final and going down to the then newly minted… Read More Club Report – St George Illawarra Dragons
Pythago NRL 