Despite being a post-Origin round, if everyone sticks to the form guide for a change, it should be a somewhat easy round to tip. That said, I’ve had a shocking year so I don’t doubt that there will be some “upsets” as I would prefer to think of them but what everyone else calls “blindingly… Read More NRL (& Origin) Tips – Round 19, 2017
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
Background In the tumult of the instigation of the National Rugby League, one of Sydney’s oldest and most successful clubs was on the chopping block after years of below average performance on and off the field. Needing to rationalise the competition to fourteen teams in 2000, the NRL took the decisive step of excluding South… Read More Club Report – South Sydney Rabbitohs
We are nearly, finally at the end of the Origin series. I’m sick of every single game being interrupted by ten sold minutes of Origin analysis and promotion. Guys, its not that exciting that it should distract from another deadly boring edition of two Sydney teams somehow simultaneously losing to each other. Well, when I… Read More NRL Tips – Round 18, 2017
Background Penrith first joined the NSWRL in 1967, the same year that Cronulla was admitted to the competition. Success came much sooner for the Panthers, reaching their first grand final in 1990 and taking out the big prize in 1991. The Panthers had some leaner years, including a very mediocre 2002 season, before a surge… Read More Club Report – Penrith Panthers
The number of rounds remaining is now into single digits as we close in on the final third of the season and the run to the finals. Here’s how round 17 is shaping up. Draw Canterbury (6-9) @ Parramatta (8-7) At no point in their last game did Canterbury look like they actually wanted to win… Read More NRL Tips – Round 17, 2017
Round 15 was great with each game was more exciting than the last, except for the first one and the last one and there was only four games. Round 16 is ahead with some tricky fixtures: 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 5th, 11th vs 12th and the always celebrated 14th vs 16th. There’s also an… Read More NRL (& Origin) Tips – Round 16, 2017
Background We tend to think of the North Queensland Cowboys as an indisputable top team but in doing this, we forget just how crap they were when they first started out in 1995. The Cowboys joined the ARL as an expansion team at the same time as the Warriors, South Queensland Crushers and Western Reds.… Read More Club Report – North Queensland Cowboys
After an intriguing round 14, we dive into round 15. It’s one of those lovely short rounds that allows me to get on with my life outside of NRL hashtags. I have stuff to do, you know. Draw Gold Coast (4-9) @ South Sydney (4-9) The Gold Coast are a chance here. South Sydney have been playing… Read More NRL Tips – Round 15, 2017
I think if the NRL could arrange for most rounds to play out per the form guide as round 13 did, then my experimentation with Elo models and rugby league would be far less embarrassing. It’s less Nostradamus and more John Edwards. Yes, I’m a greasy, shifty fraud who bilks people out of their money… Read More NRL Tips – Round 14, 2017
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