I jumped the gun not long after the World Cup draw in early 2020 and ran some Monte Carlo simulations of how the tournament might unfold (it was exactly as you’d expect at the time). Then a pandemic happened and a rain of shit followed. The parochial cowards that make up the NRL clubs forced… Read More A Deep Dive into the 2021* Men’s Rugby League World Cup
We only witnessed the grand final of the last season four months ago, but we’re back again with a new season of women’s football to look forward to. This season is the first official Deep Dive™ into the women’s game, so let’s get into it. Note: in line with the convention of the NRL, I’ll… Read More A Deep Dive into the 2022 NRLW Premiership
The Newcastle Knights finished the 2021 season in seventh place with a perfectly respectable and completely uninteresting 12-12 record and a slightly more bizarre -143 points difference. Gone are the days we can heap scorn on this franchise. That’s two consecutive seventh places, after two consecutive eleventh places after three consecutive spoons. They’ve entered the… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2021 Newcastle Knights
The move to do away with the ‘unlimited’ tackle rule that had been played in Australia for 59 seasons was the brainchild of the urbane secretary of the Rugby Football League in England, Bill Fallowfield. The move was designed to counter what Jack McNamara in the Manchester Evening News described as the ‘evils of the… Read More It’s not just the six again
We’re about a third of the way through the Super League season (maybe? Depending on covid and weather, I suppose) and it’s time to review how each team and player are performing. We’ll be looking at this using the following analytical tools: Form – Elo ratings that reflect short term performance. Production – The accumulation… Read More 2021 Super League WIP Report
We’re over half way into the Intrust Super Cup / Queensland Cup and it’s time to review how each team and player are performing. We’ll be looking at this using the following analytical tools: Form – Elo ratings that reflect short term performance. Production – The accumulation of valuable work on field, as measured by… Read More 2021 Queensland Cup WIP Report
We’re just a bit over half way into the 2021 NRL season and it’s time to review how each team and player are performing. We’ll be looking at this using the following analytical tools: Form – Elo ratings that reflect short term performance. Production – The accumulation of valuable work on field, as measured by… Read More 2021 NRL WIP Report
People familiar with my philosophy will know that I put less stock in wins than most people. The binary nature – you either take everything or get nothing – means that a simple win-loss record is not a particularly nuanced and, unless you have a very long timeframe to work with, doesn’t necessarily reflect teams’… Read More Primer – SCWP
A big thank you to Lorna Brown (@_Lorna_Brown) who provided me with the dataset and whose ongoing updates to the same mean that we should be able to do some form of Super League player analysis. She has – presumably through some sort of black magic and/or competence with programming – managed to scrape a… Read More Primer – Rismans
Wait, haven’t we done this before? Absolutely, in a post that hasn’t aged super-well, I replaced the Dally Ms with the old player rating system to assess the best player in each season. That system has been improved upon with TPR and WARG, so the conclusions drawn there can be safely discarded. Today, I specifically… Read More The Dally Ms are a wank, let’s use…something else
Pythago NRL 