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
Last time, we went off-piste and moved from rigorous analysis to speculative analysis. Let’s go further off-piste and apply Cap in ways that it was never meant to be (that’s why we’ve switched from “Analysis” to “Opinion”, even I have my limits). Brisbane Because of the capacity constraints discussed a few weeks ago, it’s a… Read More Opinion – More Cap test cases for NRL expansion
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
The round kicked off on Friday with a scrappy game in Auckland between the Warriors and Bulldogs. Errors were the order of the day as the New Zealand side managed to eke out a win in a game neither side seemed to control or, for that matter, want to win. This was followed by a… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 16, 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
A surprisingly high quality round of games. I think we all expected the Sharks to monster the Tigers and the Rabbitohs-Titans and the Eels-Dragons games to be yawnfests. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. The Gold Coast and Wests stormed out to early leads in their respective games. The better team overwhelmed them… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 15, 2017
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
With the conclusion of round 14, it’s just over half time in the 2017 NRL season. It’s the ideal time to do what everyone else is doing and look back at the season so far. This week we’re looking at the back half of the NRL. Part I, from Brisbane to Newcastle, was last week. Benchmarks… Read More Analysis – Another bloody mid-season review (Part II)
I don’t know whether you’d agree with this statement: it was a pretty good round. We had close match-ups up and down the ladder with 1st v 2nd, 7th v 8th, 9th v 10th and 11th v 13th yielding some great games. No one saw the Panthers putting two tries past the Raiders in the… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 14, 2017
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