I think rugby league historians prefer the expression “dour” when they really mean “boring” game. The Panthers-Bulldogs match on Thursday night will not be making much of an impression in the record books and so I think we’re safe to use the expression “boring”. The teams went to the break at Pepper Stadium even but… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 21, 2017
The Broncos kicked off round 20 by throttling the Bulldogs. Brisbane were on from the gun and Canterbury were in the contest for the first twenty minutes before conceding late tries before half time. The Broncos returned after the break firing and after securing a series of repeat sets in the third quarter, ran the… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 20, 2017
Nathan Cleary confirmed his future superstar status by carrying the Penrith Panthers on his back, leading them to a win over the Warriors to open round 19. His elephantine performance had Penrith in control for the last sixty minutes of the game leading to only the Warriors’ second loss at Mt Smart Stadium this year. Canberra… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 19, 2017
Round 18 was a round of 3.5 upsets. It opened in Sydney with the “fiercest” local derby rugby league has to offer. Souths reverted to their mean performance of the year and Easts, minus a few Origin stars, managed to keep a lid on their opponent’s dysfunctional attack. I think under normal circumstances, the Roosters… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 18, 2017
Parramatta and Canterbury kicked off round 16 on Thursday night at ANZ. The Eels opened with a solid first half and collapsed into a terrible second half, letting the Bulldogs back in to a game they should have stitched up with twenty to go. The right team got up in the end on golden point… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 17, 2017
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 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
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
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
A good round for home teams with only the last fixture turning up a win for the visitors. I think the biggest surprise was the Panthers’ win over the Bulldogs. You might’ve tipped them but did you also pick the 38 point margin? I think not. I also missed the Roosters getting one over the… Read More NRL Projections Update – Round 13, 2017
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