Rolling the rugby league dice: the value of the short kick off
At one end of the scale, we have every NRL team. At the top level, we only see the short kick off when the clock is winding down and the team kicking off desperately needs points to remain in contention for the win. At the other end of the scale, we have the Ipswich Jets, coached by Shane and Ben Walker, who will indiscriminately use short kick-offs, short drop-outs and taking the two when it makes no sense to do so because that’s Walkerology. Are the Walker Brothers on to something that everyone else is missing?
In 2018, I recorded a few outcomes for 1,000 sets of six. This sounds like a lot but it’s actually the equivalent of about twelve games of football. I looked at where the set started, what the end result of the set was (e.g. error, score, fifth tackle kick) and a few other details.
