In their infinite wisdom, the NRL introduced rule changes over the second off-season. The two major changes were to reduce from two referees to one and the six again set reset introduced for ruck infringements. In the froth over the six again, going back to one referee has almost been an afterthought but has likely… Read More The gimmicks will continue until flow improves
This is my third season preview and I have got some things laughably wrong in the previous attempts (see 2018 and 2019). This year’s will be a slightly different format to previous years but undertaken in the same spirit of considering each team’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, as well as assessing the changes made since… Read More A deep dive in to the 2020 NRL premiership
For the third season in a row, I’m changing the player rating system. We mourn the passing of Statscore (not really) and PPG (again, not really) as we slowly converge on to a system that I can take for granted and don’t have to refine any further. The core of the system hasn’t changed. The… Read More Primer – TPR
Despite being an avowed radical when it comes to rugby league culture – best encapsulated as “burn it all down and guillotine those that disagree” – I can see why the Challenge Cup has appeal. Running a format similar to that of the much more famous FA Cup, there’s something between the destructive chaos wrought… Read More The Challenge Cup in 2020
After a dominating win over Great Britain, followed by a tough and exciting win over Australia, some extremely exuberant pundits decided that Tonga were the best nation in the world and worthy of Tier 1 status. Putting aside the fact that a poor island nation of 100,000 is not capable of generating enough native talent… Read More Tonga are still a long shot for the 2021 World Cup
Fortunately for almost all of my readers, I have reached the limit of the French taught to me in one semester of university in just the title. I’m still not sure if I should have used the definite article, so this post will be in English but it will be about French rugby league. This… Read More Qui va gagner Elite 1?
Over the last month, we’ve been looking at rating players using a metric called Production Per Game, or PPG. We’ve used it to find players at the higher end, justifying million dollar salaries, and at the lower end, identifying fringe first graders. The tricky thing about rating players is determining what information from the past… Read More The Art of Projection
Last week we looked at valuing players, specifically Tom Trbojevic, Daly Cherry-Evans and Addin Fonua-Blake, by their contributions to Manly’s winning ways. There were two problems though: How do we deal with someone like Marty Taupau? He’s played all of the games this year so we can’t find an understudy to compare him to. What if… Read More Rugby league’s replacement player
To not put too fine a point on it, the Broncos have been shockingly bad in 2019. Riding the hype train in this year, they were touted as premiership contenders (disclosure: including by me). The Broncos have won just two games. One was against a Cowboys side that is facing similar struggles and another against… Read More The young forwards are not to blame for the Broncos’ demise
On their return to the competition in 2002, South Sydney sucked. A lot. The 2003 and 2006 Rabbitohs were among the worst all-time NRL sides, winning just three games a piece. In 2007, the tide turned with a moderately successful recruitment drive, lifting Souths to a .500 win percentage. Souths would be just on the cusp… Read More The Renaissance of South Sydney
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