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’m not sure I could have been more dismissive of the Titans at the start of the year: Perhaps the most significant thing to happen to the Titans last season was being surpassed by Newcastle, to be left at the bottom of the league in class Elo ratings. It might be recalled that the Knights… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Gold Coast Titans
It’s probably not worth considering what I thought of the Warriors pre-season (it was that they would be bad). The coronavirus pandemic threw everything into disarray and no club bore more of the brunt than the Warriors. Summary The change from a regular home and away season to a permanent road trip could have gone… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 New Zealand Warriors
I stopped picking where I thought teams would finish pre-season because a) it’s a ridiculous crap shoot and b) I kept picking the Tigers to finish in the bottom four and they kept finishing ninth. To finish eleventh in 2020 was poor, even by their own expectations, and mine: The Tigers were the biggest movers… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Wests Tigers
From earlier in the year: The squad itself isn’t magic but should be better than last place. New signing Isaac Luke has always been a productive player but he will presumably be second fiddle to Cameron McInnes when he returns from injury, reducing the potential volume of work Luke could be doing. Indeed, St George… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 St George Illawarra Dragons
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
It wasn’t a particularly pleasant year to be a Broncos fan. I think the only upside of the experience of the club winning its first ever wooden spoon, before the likes of Manly, Wests Tigers or St George Illawarra, is that we can put to bed the idea that Sydney rugby league rivalries matter in… Read More A Shallow Dive into the 2020 Brisbane Broncos
I wrote about Sydney as an obstacle to expansion yesterday. It started as an intro to this post but ended up being over 1000 words and I thought it should stand alone. It’s the result of thoughts that have been bubbling since I started paying proper attention to rugby league when I started doing this… Read More NRL Tips – Round 25, 2019
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