Finally, an interesting team to pull apart: I have a quiet confidence in Souths’ premiership aspirations but questions remain unanswered. Souths’ spine is projected to be a full five Taylors per game better than Melbourne’s, which is next best, so it is little surprise that the Rabbitohs are the mostly heavily biased to their playmakers.… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 South Sydney Rabbitohs
Earlier in the year: I’m quite comfortable assuming that the Roosters won’t go three in a row. They’re still good though, probably even still good enough for a minor premiership. A projected 15+ wins and the second best squad on paper is not going to have trouble reaching a preliminary final. The Storm are the… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Sydney Roosters
From my season preview: I think this is it for the Eels. They are due for their once-a-decade (give or take) tilt at the premiership. The Taylors are not too crash hot on the Eels. There are holes in key TPR ratings: Reed Mahoney at hooker, Dylan Brown nominally at five-eighth and, to a lesser… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Parramatta Eels
The seventh placed Knights had a respectable 11-8-1 record but were unable to capitalise, exiting week one of the finals. From pre-season: …The good news is that the Knights might legitimately make the finals this year. The Knights massively outperformed in 2018, which then led to many talking heads predicting serious success in 2019. Success… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Newcastle Knights
We have finally dispatched with the bottom eight and can begin our reviews of the (allegedly) best eight teams. From pre-season: The Sharks’ 12-12 record and seventh place belied how well they played last season. Let down significantly by their goal kicking, the Sharks lost a record five games despite scoring more tries. While that’s… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Cronulla Sharks
I think the best way to start these reviews is to set the tone by recapping what I thought would happen back in February. The key paragraph for Manly in this year’s season preview was: Backing up without the element of surprise and the reversion to mean will be challenging. Reversion to mean is a… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Manly Sea Eagles
I didn’t offer anything particularly insightful about the North Queensland Cowboys in my season preview. For me, it seemed like all the pieces were there for them to be successful but they refused to win enough games to get out of the cellar. The team was shackled by playing former greats instead of the talented… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 North Queensland Cowboys
At the start of the year, before the coronavirus pandemic and indeed time itself, I wrote The Bulldogs are behind, way behind… the Bulldogs either need significant development out of their relatively young squad or to land some signatures. Neither seem likely, especially as the club is likely to still be paying freight on players… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Canterbury Bulldogs
Why a three-quarter season review? We could ask Penrith the very same question but for me, it’s because I was too busy with life around round 12 and I will be on holidays and away from the computer by round 25, so this is the only real opportunity I get to pull together a post… Read More PythagoNRL’s 3/4 NRL Season Review
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