2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 54/88 (61%) (Last week: 2/8)

2018 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (58%) Line Betting: (46%)

2017 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 66% Line Betting: 55% (NOTE: If this is your first visit to the site, be sure to click here for an explanation of what we’re all about.)

• Panthers
• Eels
• Bulldogs
• Titans

Notes

• Consider the following:

1. Tom Trbojevic
2. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak
3. Dean Whare
4. Waqa Blake
5. Brad Parker
6. Daly Cherry-Evans
7. Nathan Cleary
8. Toafoafoa Sipley
9. Wayde Egan
10. Jake Trbojevic
11. Jed Cartwright
12. Moses Suli
13. Tyrone May

The above is a complete starting 13 comprised of Panthers and Sea Eagles players who are unavailable this week due to injury and Origin – and frankly, that team would likely trounce either of the sorry lots that fans will be subjected to on Thursday evening. Given the sheer depth of absences, selecting a winner here is near impossible. We’d sworn off picking Penrith without their starting centres weeks ago, and even allowing for the absence of Manly’s key playmakers, we expect they should find plenty of holes on the Panthers’ edges. However, is Manly’s D any better? The Sea Eagles enter this match having conceded 4 or more line breaks in their past 3 straight matches, and last week allowed the Titans to post season-highs for tries scored (7), line breaks (6) and run metres (1637). If Manly are to win, they’ll need to beat Penrith in the outside backs, whereas the Panthers will be looking to steamroll the under-strength Manly pack straight through the middle. And in a game that may struggle for rhythm, the Panthers’ gameplan should be easier to execute.

• The Eels were absolutely woeful in losing to the Panthers last week, making 16 errors in an insipid effort at home. Unsurprisingly, Brad Arthur has wielded the axe as a result, though somehow talentless five-eighth Will Smith has survived, despite his two starts coinciding with embarrassing losses to stragglers the Cowboys and Panthers. We understand that Parramatta are struggling without boom five-eighth Dylan Brown, but surely there’s someone out there who can contribute more than Smith’s 0 line breaks, 0 line break assists, 0 tries, 1 try assist and 1 tackle break in 3 appearances. Surely.
• That being said, we still feel obliged to tip Parramatta here, purely because of the depth of unavailables for the Rabbitohs. You need only look at Parramatta’s struggles with Smith to see how hard it can be to find quality depth options for your spine, and Souths have to find replacements for not only star five-eighth Cody Walker, but also hooker Damien Cook. It says a lot about how the Eels are traveling that we still give the Bunnies a huge chance despite never having even seen debutantes Connor Tracey and Billy Brittain play, but ultimately, it seems the safer bet is to roll with Parramatta.
• The exact same logic can be applied to the following game too, with the hapless Bulldogs running into the worst Raiders team we’ve seen in years (at least on paper). No matter how little you may think of the Bulldogs (and we’re not as down on them as many), you can generally count on them to turn in a serviceable level of defense, with the side having conceded 3 tries or less in 6 of their 11 matches this year. Their offense is almost non-existent, but oddly, the Raiders’ hasn’t been much better this season (11th v 12th), and Canberra now are forced to play without all their best attacking options. Josh Hodgson? Out. Jack Wighton? Out. Joey Leilua, Jordan Rapana and Nick Cotric? Out, out, out. The Raiders’ offense was a shadow of its former self even when their studs were available. Now with Origin adding to their injury woes, we just can’t see that improving against a typically sound defensive unit.
• Finally, we get to the Titans, who are returning home after a confidence-building away win over Manly. We’re not going to get carried away with that victory – Manly were particularly awful – however, we fancy the Titans are better than the Cowboys anyway. The issue with the Titans is more consistency than talent, with the side having scored 4 or more tries in 4 different games this year, yet they’ve also been held to 2 or less just as often (the bog average Cowboys, meanwhile, have scored 4 or more just once since Round 1). The Cowboys were bailed out the last time they met by a couple of refereeing howlers in their favour, and now they have to try and do it on a back-to-back away trip, without Michael Morgan and Josh McGuire? Nah, we just don’t see it.

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2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 52/80 (65%) (Last week: 5/8)

2018 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (58%) Line Betting: (46%)

2017 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 66% Line Betting: 55% (NOTE: If this is your first visit to the site, be sure to click here for an explanation of what we’re all about.)

• Eels
• Sea Eagles
• Roosters
• Raiders
• Warriors
• Rabbitohs
• Storm
• Dragons

Notes

• The Eels are sputtering, and when the season nears midnight, they’re looking increasingly likely to turn back into a pumpkin. Their defense was never especially good to begin with, and now their offense has produced back-to-back bludgers behind a hopelessly ineffective forward pack, as they’ve been outgained by over 1100m in the past 2 weeks. Fortunately, there’s good news coming for Parramatta on two fronts. The first is that they return to Bankwest Stadium this week, where in their 2 previous outings they’ve racked up an astounding 14 tries and 18 line breaks, on their way to a combined score of 83-24. The other is that they get to face the Panthers.
• You have to feel sorry for Ivan Cleary (actually, if you’re a Tigers fan, you really don’t). Compared to the other hopeless teams in the competition (namely the Cowboys, Bulldogs, Tigers and Titans) the Panthers stand out as the the most obviously talented of the bunch – and as the team resting on the bottom of the ladder. The Panthers are theoretically not far away from winning football games – though they’ve lost 8 games so far, just 2 were by more than 2 tries. In general, they get close, but consistently find ways to lose. And to make matters worse, whenever Cleary makes adjustments to fix up an area of weakness, two more appear like the heads of the Hydra. Last week, he shored up his edge defense with the return of Waqa Blake, only to watch his side concede 3 tries directly through the middle of the ruck. He added speed by dropping Caleb Aekins and Josh Mansour, only to watch his side produce their lowest LBVOA since Round 4. In hindsight, perhaps some of this was to be expected – in dropping Reagan Campbell-Gillard, they lost an Origin-caliber middle forward with a tackle efficiency of 91% (2nd among Penrith’s middles). Plus, it’s hard to generate offense when you’re not winning at the advantage line – and RCG’s 8.6 metres per carry puts him 4th among Penrith’s under-performing middle forwards, while Mansour and Aekins are 3rd and 4th respectively in the entire team. They’ll surely win a game eventually, and – who knows – maybe it’ll be this week. But when it eventually does arrive, unlike the other teams mentioned who’d be heaped with praise, the Panthers will only be greeted with an exhale through the nose and a mumbling of “it’s about f#*king time”.
• Injuries or not, we expect the Sea Eagles to keep the good times rolling against the Titans. We’re not really buying into Manly (they’re in many ways the polar opposite of Penrith – where the Panthers manage to lose even when they play well, the Sea Eagles somehow win even when they play poorly), but the Titans shouldn’t pose much of a threat. When the Sea Eagles have struggled this year has been when their offense has failed – 3 of their 4 losses have come when they’ve been held to 2 or less tries. Conveniently, the Titans’ defense can’t stop anyone – they’ve yet to hold any opponent to 2 or less tries all year. For the Titans to win games they need to score a lot of points – and they haven’t been doing much of that lately, either.
• There may be a low-key Boilover Alert on Friday night. Though we just can’t bring ourselves to pull the trigger and back the Knights in head-to-head here, we rate them a huge chance of pulling off an upset, and at $2.90 (at time of writing), they’re unbelievably well priced for the punters out there. Though they struggled during the season’s opening month due to the failed Ponga-to-five-eighth experiment, they’ve been absolutely electric for the past 6 weeks, winning 4 matches and producing an incredible LBVOA of 39.26% over that period (in contrast, the Roosters – widely regarded as the best attacking team in the league – have produced a LBVOA of 13.57% over the same six weeks). Most promising for the Knights though, is their improved defense. Though their past two victims have been the pedestrian offense of the Bulldogs and a struggling Dragons outfit, the fact they’ve allowed just 4 line breaks in their past 160 minutes of football is nonetheless impressive, and a huge improvement over Knights teams of the past half-decade. Though they probably need to severely limit the Roosters’ possession in order to get a similar result here, they are capable of it – they’ve managed to make 5 errors or less in two of their past 3 games. It’s a huge ask to continue to replicate those sorts of numbers against one the best teams in the comp, but in the very least, we’re saying there’s a chance.
• Hats off to the Cowboys, who managed to parlay a 9-5 penalty count and just 8 errors into a whopping 58% possession advantage and an eventual win over one of 2019’s better attacking units. The Cowboys are so shockingly one-dimensional and devoid of attacking talent that hoarding possession and starving their opponents of opportunities is literally the only way they can beat anyone. Of their 4 wins in 2019, all of them have come with possession shares of 53% or greater, and even then, they’ve still managed to lose 4 games in which they won the possession battle (were it not for Blake Ferguson’s serving of rocks, this could easily have been #5). Are the Raiders likely to gift them that sort of possession share here? Probably not. The Canberra faithful should help the Raiders get a fairer rub of the green than the Cowboys’ opponents typically do, and the Raiders have given up 53% or more of the possession to their opponents just once all year (their narrow loss to Manly). We’re not going to say it’s impossible, but on the balance of probability, it’s unlikely.
• Though the mainstream media has been quick to declare that the Broncos are back (likely at least in part out of desperation for a Queensland team to be relevant in 2019), we’re going to go in the other direction and declare: no, they’re not. They’re still bad. Sure, they’ve now won back-to-back games for the first time this year, but hidden in those victories is the fact that they needed a 55% possession share to do it, and still managed to concede 5 and 4 line breaks in those outings, while allowing just 2 and 1 tries. We’ve said it before but we’ll say it again – it’s unsustainable for teams to concede just 3 tries while allowing through 9 line breaks. They need to either get their line breaks conceded down, or their tries conceded is going to go up. And against the Warriors – who’ve now made 5 or more line breaks in 8 of their 10 matches this year – we don’t expect it’s going to be the former.
• We’re not tipping the Bulldogs this week (nobody in their right mind would), but we do want to mention that the Bulldogs gave the Storm a good fright the last time they met, going down 18-16 at AAMI Park in Round 4. This game was interesting not only because of the surprisingly close result, but because both sides produced performances totally out of character. That performance remains the Bulldogs’ best in LBVOA all year, while it was also the Storm’s 2nd worst (behind their weak effort against the Warriors). We don’t expect the Bulldogs to win, but we’re certainly curious to see whether that game was just an anomaly, or if Dean Pay has built a recipe for containing Melbourne (that day, the Bulldogs set season-highs for run metres and offloads – it’ll be interesting to see if that factors heavily into the gameplan again).
• FINALLY. Only Paul McGregor would think it’s a good idea to drop his best defensive centre to the bench from a winning team, and take three consecutive losses to figure out that it was a mistake. Zac Lomax has been shifted to fullback (where he should have been in the first place) to accommodate the return of Euan Aitken, and Mikaele Ravalawa has been dropped (along with Matt Dufty). The re-shuffle moves 18 combined line breaks conceded out of the Dragons’ defensive line, bringing in Aitken (who’s conceded just 2), and Jonus Pearson (who’s making his club debut, but can’t possibly be any worse). Both the Dragons and Sharks were woeful last week, with the Cronulla offense in particular struggling for ideas against Manly. This should be a tight contest, but at home and with their backline finally configured correctly, we’re leaning towards the Dragons to get a rare win in the month of May.

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2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 47/72 (65%) (Last week: 6/8)

2018 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (58%) Line Betting: (46%)

2017 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 66% Line Betting: 55% (NOTE: If this is your first visit to the site, be sure to click here for an explanation of what we’re all about.)

• Storm
• Warriors
• Roosters
• Bulldogs
• Eels
• Rabbitohs
• Knights
• Sharks

Notes

• The Storm are back. With the quality of their defense, their offense doesn’t even need to be that good for Melbourne to be the best team in the NRL, and when it is that good, 64-10 happens. The Storm’s Week 9 LBVOA of 148.24% was not only a season-high for Melbourne, but also for the entire league. Along the way, they also made a remarkable 45 tackle busts and outgained the Eels by a staggering 873 metres (the entire Eels team made just 992). The Storm won’t repeat those sorts of numbers again here, but if they’re even half as good, they’ll be comfortably better than the Tigers.
• What on earth was Ivan Cleary thinking? After having watched a certain win over the Sharks slip away due to Isiaah Yeo being forced to defend out-of-position in the centres, Cleary last week opted to slot the grossly ill-equipped Tyrell Fuimaono into the centres voluntarily – and, unsurprisingly, the Panthers‘ right edge got totally abused for 15 minutes, before Cleary shifted Dean Whare over to stop the rot (by which time, the Panthers were already losing 20-0). The good news here for Penrith fans is that after a bizarre opening two months of decision-making, Cleary appears to finally be making some logical decisions. Penrith’s losses have stemmed almost entirely from two major sources: conceding too many line breaks on their edges, and an inability to convert their own line breaks into tries. On the first point, the return of Waqa Blake should immediately boost the Panthers’ edge defense. While Yeo and Fuimaono conceded 6 line breaks between them in under 100 minutes of football, Blake has allowed just 4 all season. As you’d expect, the difference to the Panthers’ defensive fortunes are staggering: in the opening five games (when the Panthers’ preferred centre pairing completed their matches) the Panthers produced a LBCVOA of -25.64% (2nd in the league, only behind the Storm); in the subsequent four games (where at least one centre spot was filled by either Yeo, Fuimaono or Dallin Watene-Zelezniak), the Panthers’ LBCVOA plummeted to 48.29% (the worst in the NRL). With the root of their defensive issues addressed, Cleary has also moved to spark their offense. While The Obstruction Rule has been at a loss to explain the Panthers’ inability to convert opportunities, Cleary seems to have identified a possible cause: a lack of pace. As a result, the effective but slow Caleb Aekins and Josh Mansour have been dropped, with the noticeably quicker Dylan Edwards and rookie Brian To’o starting in their places. Though the changes may very well come at a cost (Aekins, for example, has made 0 errors in his 3 starts this year, compared to Edwards’ 13 in 5 starts), it’s hard to argue with the rationale – Aekins and Mansour have combined for 8 line breaks, yet somehow have just a single try involvement between them. If the Panthers’ halves can generate the same opportunities for Edwards and To’o, you’d have to fancy they’re a better chance of finishing those opportunities (after all, they couldn’t be any worse).
• The clash between the Titans and Bulldogs presents one of the more intriguing match-ups of the round. Unsurprisingly, both sides were last-start losers in Round 9, but both sides would fancy themselves a huge chance here. The Titans were actually traveling along alright until their Week 7 loss to the Tigers – a disappointing flop that started a 3-game skid. So, what changed? The only notable difference in their squad was the loss of Ryan James, and given the forward depth at the Titans, you’d have thought that they could handle the loss of their forward leader better than most. In practice though, that hasn’t been the case – the Titans have been held to 1300m or less in every game since James went down. This makes it an awkward time to be facing Canterbury, who’ve made 1360m or more in every game over the same period.
• The Bulldogs though, come with question marks of their own. Last week saw the return of Keiran Foran to the team, but oddly, it came at the expense of Lachlan Lewis rather than the horribly out-of-form Jack Cogger. Though The Obstruction Rule is admittedly no fan of Lewis, he’s easily been the Dogs’ most critical attacking player, and it isn’t even close. In dropping Lewis, they dropped their team leader in try assists and line break assists (he has 5 and 10 respectively, compared to Cogger’s 2 and 2), in addition to the team’s best kicker (by comparison, Cogger looks like he’s kicking a medicine ball). As a result, last week saw the Bulldogs register their lowest LBVOA in four weeks (-51.35%), as they scored just 10 points – the lowest score against the Knights since Round 1. To be clear, we’re not critical of the decision to bring Foran in – he’s far and away the best half at the club. However, we have to wonder what it is exactly that Dean Pay thinks Cogger is bringing to the team at this point, and where their points and going to come from if Foran takes a while to get going. Presumably, Pay is pinning his hopes on his second-rowers, with powerful line-runners Corey Harawira-Naera and Rhyse Martin returning to the team. With an expected weight of field position (and against the 2nd worst defense in the league) we’ll back them to score the 18 or so points they’ll need to win. If they can’t score that many against the Titans, they’re in real trouble.
• As rugby league writers across the nation were finalising their stories about the abysmal Panthers performance last weekend, the Eels said “hold my beer”, and proceeded to turn in the most disastrously inept effort of the entire season so far. That being said, these sorts of things are to be expected from Parramatta – they’re not yet a bona fide contender, and against a heavyweight like Melbourne, it’s somewhat understandable that they’d quit. Fortunately for the Eels, the Cowboys are not the Storm. Though the Eels allowed 12 line breaks to the rampaging Storm, the Cowboys have produced just 10 line breaks in their past 5 matches combined. And on the other side of the ball, the Cowboys are even worse. While the Eels’ thrashing marked the 3rd week in a row that Parramatta have conceded 5 or more line breaks, the Cowboys have now done the same in every game since Week 2. In short, the Eels may be trending downwards and regressing towards a more realistic level for their ability, the Cowboys are still worse, and at home or not, we just can’t tip them against anybody. Refereeing ineptitude bailed them out two weeks ago against the Titans; we don’t expect the same to happen here.
• We love the Raiders as much as the next person, but Canberra’s defensive standards have slipped considerably over the past month, and that makes it impossible for us to back them against the Rabbitohs this week. The Raiders have now conceded 5 or more line breaks and 1400 or more metres in 4 matches in a row – a period in which they’ve been somewhat fortunate to win 2 games. After conceding just 8 tries in their first 5 games, they’ve allowed 15 in their past 4 – and now face the red-hot Rabbitohs, who’ve scored 4 or more tries in all but 2 games this season. As good as the Raiders are, we don’t believe they have the points in them to keep up if the Rabbitohs get going.
• We wrote four weeks ago that we believed the Knights’ offense was about to click into gear, and they haven’t disappointed, scoring 22 or more points in their past 3 games straight. Here, they face a Dragons team who performed surprisingly well last week without Corey Norman, but nonetheless got shredded to the tune of 9 line breaks by the Warriors. It looked like the Warriors were deliberately targeting Norman’s replacement, Jai Field, as they put 3 of their 5 tries down that edge, with Field conceding 2 line breaks and producing a tackle efficency of just 54%. We hope for his sake that the Knights weren’t watching, or Kalyn Ponga and Hymel Hunt may be about to have a Field day (sorry, I’ll see myself out).

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2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 41/64 (64%) (Last week: 3/8)

2018 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (58%) Line Betting: (46%)

2017 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 66% Line Betting: 55% (NOTE: If this is your first visit to the site, be sure to click here for an explanation of what we’re all about.)

• Sharks
• Panthers
• Sea Eagles
• Knights
• Warriors
• Storm
• Roosters
• Rabbitohs

Notes

• Though the under-strength Sharks pulled the surprise of the year by upsetting Melbourne last week, we warn not to get too carried away by the result. Predictions of a drop in offensive output without their star playmakers still proved to be true – their 2 line breaks against the Storm was their season-low, and came despite earning a season-high possession share (56%). No, this win was a reward for amazingly improved discipline, as the Sharks – who rank 4th last for handling errors – turned in an exemplary display, producing just 7 errors in the match. We don’t expect to see the Sharks repeat that sort of effort this week, which may make their clash with the Titans tighter than first thought. The Sharks’ D is certainly better than that of the Gold Coast, but not as significantly as you may expect (last week was the first time since Round 3 that the Sharks have conceded less than 20 points), and the Titans’ offense is an improving work-in-progress. We’ll stop short of tipping a boilover, but we’re not expecting a cakewalk, either.
• The following is the complete list of teams who’ve produced 7 line breaks in a match this year, while still managing to lose the match: the Knights, the Eels, the Warriors (twice), and now, the Panthers. At a glance, that’s obviously not a list on which you want to find yourself (the Eels’ current Top 8 status notwithstanding). That being said, there is a glimmer of light for the Panthers filtering through from that boulevard of butchered opportunities. When we look back at what those teams did after blowing a bevy of line breaks, a trend starts to emerge. For the Knights, they had just one more high-line break/low try scoring week, before turning in back-to-back high-scoring efforts of 28 and 36 points, seemingly out of nowhere. In the case of the Eels, their flop came against the Knights, before turning in a 32-point outing last week against the Dragons. And in the case of the Warriors, they racked up 26 points the week after their first disappointment, but just 10 points (from 5 line breaks) after their second (but hey – they are the Warriors). The point here is clear – though not all line breaks produce tries, a good many do – and teams who can consistently produce them will (eventually) produce points. James Maloney and Nathan Cleary have been getting caned in the Sydney press because of the Panthers’ poor start to the year, while it apparently goes unnoticed that they rank 7th and 10th in the league respectively for line break assists (ahead of media darlings like Cameron Munster, Cooper Cronk and Daly Cherry-Evans). Yes, we’d like to see the Blues’ incumbent halves winning more matches, but it’s hardly their fault if their teammates don’t support each other on line breaks, or effectively contest attacking kicks. Regardless, after a slow start to the year in which they produced just 9 breaks in their first 4 matches, they’ve now produced 20 in the past 4. The wins mightn’t be coming yet, but we have to believe that they’re not far away.
• The other interesting point from the above list is that the Sea Eagles were the victorious opponents twice. While this is obviously fortunate for Manly, it also gives an indication that perhaps the Sea Eagles’ water-tight defense isn’t quite as tight as it first appears. If it’s true that teams who produce a lot of line breaks will eventually produce a lot of tries (over a large enough sample size), the same is necessarily true in reverse – teams who concede a lot of line breaks will eventually leak a lot of points. Indeed, the stats reflect this, with the Sea Eagles, Roosters and Raiders the only teams to have conceded 32 or more line breaks on the season, while conceding less than 150 points (the Sea Eagles have conceded just 130 – 5th in the league). The point here isn’t to bag Manly, but rather to point out that their defense (and that of the Roosters and Raiders) has a long way to go. We’re backing them here, not because we’re sold on their defense, but because the Broncos‘ has so far been measurably worse (the Broncos rank 3rd last in LBVOA). For the record, we actually believe that the Broncos have the offensive talent to beat up on the Sea Eagles if they play to their ability, but they’ve been so bad of late that we’re not going to bank on that.
• As mentioned earlier, the Knights offense has suddenly kicked into gear over the past fortnight, something we tipped in this very column three weeks ago. The uptick in production has coincided with a sudden surge in run metres, with the Knights running for over 1500m in both their last two outings (and as it happens they’ve now won the yardage battle 3 times this year – their only 3 wins). If yardage is vital to the Knights’ fortunes, what chance do they have here? Well, they’d be a HUGE chance, if the Bulldogs Round 8 effort is anything to go by. Canterbury had absolutely nothing against the Sea Eagles between the 20s, getting outgained by 222 metres, as their forwards were paced by the God of Plod himself, Josh Jackson (HOT TIP: when your leading metre-eater is Josh “17th on his own team in metres per carry” Jackson, something has gone catastrophically wrong). The Dogs have won the yardage battle just twice this year themselves, and never by more than 80 metres. If they allow David Klemmer (who surely has a point to prove) and the rest of the Knights’ pack to roll over the top of them in the same way Manly did, it could be a long afternoon for the Bulldogs.
• If you’re wondering what sort of masochists would pick the Warriors two weeks in a row – particularly the week after their dismal showing against the Knights – please, allow us to explain. For the most part, this has less to do with anything the Warriors have or haven’t done (in general, looking too far into the Warriors’ “form” only serves to aggravate us, anyway), and more to do with the loss of Corey Norman for the Dragons. We can’t stress enough just how good Norman is, and how good he’s been for St George-Illawarra. In losing Norman, they not only lose their five-eighth; they lose their team leader in try assists and line break assists, as well as his excellent long and short kicking game. Last week, the Dragons didn’t score another point in the 26 minutes after he left the field, as the Dragons’ hopes of winning imploded along with Norman’s face. Without him, Ben Hunt is the only player remaining in the Dragons’ squad with more than 2 assists this year. That seems like a lot of pressure on Hunt, who… um… let’s just say, isn’t exactly known for his composure.
• Back onto the Warriors, and you’ll notice that Kodi Nikorima makes his debut for New Zealand this week, at the expense of Chanel Harris-Tavita. Nikorima immediately becomes the team leader in total try involvements and line break assists, but we can’t help but feel Harris-Tavita is a bit hard done by – he’s been a minor revelation for the Warriors this season, and we’d argue demands to at least be in the Warriors’ Top 17 somewhere. Hopefully he won’t be missing for long.
• We’ve got the Storm tipped to win here (last week’s result aside, their defense is still ridiculously amazing), but we feel the need to sound a warning – if we were to pick the kind of team capable of upsetting the Storm, the Eels are exactly that team. To get to the point, the Storm’s offense ain’t that flash. They’ve been held to 22 points or less in all but 1 match this year, and have now scored 3 tries or less in their last 5 matches straight. To put it differently, the Storm aren’t winning because they’re outscoring teams, but rather because they’re able to limit the scoring of their opponents. Enter the Eels. Parramatta come into this match ranked 1st in Offense VOA (45.76%), off a 32-point performance against the Dragons, and having been held to under 20 points just 3 times so far this year. If somebody’s ever going to put 20+ on the Storm, the Eels seem as good a chance as any. In fact, the only reason we haven’t tipped them here is the fact that of their 3 flops, 2 came against elite opposition (the Roosters and Raiders). It remains plausible to us that the Eels are just flat-track bullies who punish bad teams, while going to water against the legit contenders. But if not, they’ve got a huge chance to shock the nation on Saturday night.

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2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 38/56 (68%) (Last week: 6/8)

2018 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (58%) Line Betting: (46%)

2017 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 66% Line Betting: 55% (NOTE: If this is your first visit to the site, be sure to click here for an explanation of what we’re all about.)

• Rabbitohs
• Titans
• Storm
• Panthers
• Bulldogs
• Roosters
• Warriors
• Eels

Notes

• Having finally put it together for a thumping win over the Sharks, the Broncos have curiously opted to celebrate by punting halfback Kodi Nikorima across the Tasman. We wouldn’t have been tipping the Broncos here anyway, with the combination of their 3rd worst defense in the NRL meeting the Rabbitohs’ 3rd best offense suggesting that points are likely to come thick and fast for Souths. But with the added upheaval of the loss of Nikorima added to rumours swirling around the futures of other Broncos notables like James Roberts and Matt Lodge, we really don’t like them now.
• Titans fans who’ve been writing in for the past three years asking when we’ll ever pick their team – this is the moment. Coming off a disappointing loss to the mediocre Tigers might seem like an odd time to buy into the Titans, but we genuinely don’t believe that the Gold Coast are the worst team in the comp. Up until last week’s flop, the Titans’ offensive output had been trending steadily upward for five weeks; and though their defense remains shockingly bad, it’s arguably no worse than that of this week’s opponents, the Cowboys – in fact, we’d argue it’s actually (marginally) better. Though the Titans’ D has been consistently leaky, conceding at least 5 line breaks in all but 2 matches, they’ve only conceded more than 5 twice; and even in those stinkers, they actually didn’t concede that many tries (relatively speaking), allowing just 3 and 4, respectively. In comparison, the Cowboys have conceded at least 5 line breaks 6 times, more than 5  in 4 of 7 matches, and allowed 6, 7 ,5 and 4 tries in those outings. TLDR; the Cowboys concede more line breaks more often, and more tries per line break when they do.
• All of that being said, please don’t misinterpret those numbers as suggesting that the Titans should romp in; after all, we’re merely comparing the league’s worst defense with the league’s 2nd worst – in many ways, it’s like arguing for a preference in instant coffee (ultimately, they’ll all leave you with a bad taste in your mouth). Instead, consider this tip as a commentary on the Cowboys‘ season so far. After seven weeks, they rank last in Offense VOA (-42.09%) and last in Defense VOA (57.68%). They’ve scored 18 points in a match just once, while conceding at least that many on 5 separate occasions. In 4 different matches this season, their teams have registered their highest points total of the season when playing North Queensland (as bad as the Titans have been, they’ve only allowed such an outing once). With a home ground advantage here likely to win them a stack of penalties (assuming their fan-base haven’t deserted them in disgust) and against a notoriously ill-disciplined Titans side (who are the most penalised team this year), the Cowboys remain in with a good chance; and, like last week, if Jason Taumalolo ultimately plays, it’s close enough that we’d probably jump over to the Cows. But we feel the need to make clear that so far in 2019, the Cowboys have been the worst team in the NRL. And there’s no clearer way to express that than by tipping them to lose… at home… to the Titans.
• If the Sharks were at full strength, we’d actually give them a shot of pulling off an upset here. Though the Storm are sitting pretty at the top of ladder, their success so far has been almost entirely the result of their phenomenal defense. Their offense, on the other hand, has been noticeably weak. After starting the season with a bang through the opening fortnight, they’ve since been held to 3 or less line breaks in 4 of their past 5, and accordingly, that’s resulted in them being held to 3 tries or less in their past 4 matches. This, despite them benefiting from a stack of field position, as they’ve outgained their opponents in every match this year. Granted, the Sharks’ defense has been disappointing, but their O has been surprisingly efficient, particularly considering they’ve been without Matt Moylan since Round 4 (they still made 4 or more line breaks in 3 of the 4 matches without him). Unfortunately, they’ve now added Shaun Johnson to their injury list, leaving them with a ridiculously green spine that we just can’t expect to trouble the Storm defense at all.
• What have the Panthers got to do to get a win? After treating the home crowd to easily their best performance of the season against the Rabbitohs, they still went home empty-handed. Ironically, given this week’s opponent, they’re at risk of turning into this year’s edition of the 2018 Raiders. The Panthers have lost 5 of their first 7, but 4 of those losses have been by 8 points or less. Some may consider it karmic justice for all the wins they pulled out of their backsides a year ago, but we’ll just argue that it’s a sign of a team outperforming their ladder position, and capable of going on a tear at any moment.
• That tear may well begin this weekend against the Raiders. The Panthers have become something of a bogey team for the Raiders of late, winning 5 of their past 6 meetings, with Canberra’s only win coming at GIO. You’d imagine the Panthers would be thrilled then that this game has been moved to Wagga Wagga, where the home ground advantage is likely to be far less intimidating. With these sides being quite evenly matched, the winner may well wind up being whoever earns the most possession; and when we compare the two sides’ discipline, it’s close, but we’d give a slight edge to Penrith. Though the Raiders average 1 less error per game than the Panthers, it’s worth noting that the Panthers’ handling was absolutely woeful through the opening month, and since that time, they’ve actually cleaned it right up – and their offensive output has improved accordingly. Through their last 3 outings, the Panthers average just 9.3 errors per game, while the Raiders average 10.7. It’s also worth mentioning that the Panthers’ elite short-kicking game has them leading the league in forced dropouts with 3.29 per game – almost 1.5 more than the Raiders. Put together, that’s enough reason to believe that the Panthers may be able to earn enough footy to squeak out a win against Canberra.
• We’ve got to take our hats off to the Sea Eagles – for a side necessarily lacking in depth due to salary cap mismanagement, they’ve managed to accumulate some of the league’s best depth in the positions that matter. Journeyman Brendan Elliot has been superb in place of Tom Trbojevic this season, and actually leads his team in tackle breaks. Manase Fainu may be the best bench hooker in the league. Now, despite losing Daly Cherry-Evans to an ankle injury, they’re able to recall another experienced NRL half in Kane Elgey to fill his boots. Say what you like about Manly, but while they may not have the most depth, they very well might have the best depth. Which is why we don’t feel great tipping the Bulldogs here. We feel we have to – it’s simply too hard to imagine any team missing its star fullback and halfback winning many matches. However, this is still pretty darn even. Both defenses have been great so far – the Eagles have conceded 3 tries or less in their past 5 straight, while the Bulldogs have managed the same in 4 of their past 5, while boasting 3 outings in which they’ve conceded 2 or less line breaks (the Sea Eagles have just 1). If we consider the two defenses reasonably even, then the question becomes which team has more points in them – Manly with a back-up spine, or the unspectacular Bulldogs. We’re taking Canterbury, but honestly, we don’t love it.
• Statistically, there’s no chance in hell of the Roosters losing to the Tigers, but it would be remiss of us not to mention that the same was true last year when the Tigers did beat the Roosters in Round 1, and they went within 2 points of beating the eventual premiers again in June. We’re certainly not backing them, but we’re at least stopping short this year of declaring the result a foregone conclusion.
• We’ve gone the Warriors this week. Gross.
• Finally, regular readers of The Obstruction Rule will know that we’re all about the Dragons this year – they’re building nicely, and have integrated Corey Norman well into their attack so far (he ranks 4th in the league for line break assists). You may be surprised then, to see that we’ve fallen in behind the Eels this week. Yes, we believe that the Dragons are a better team than the Eels generally in 2019, however seeing Parramatta vs St George-Illawarra on the schedule has sent us off into a cold sweat in a Pavlov’s Dog-type of scenario. You see, we don’t just think the Dragons are better than the Eels this year; we’ve thought they’re better than the Eels every year for most of the past decade. And in that time, what’s happened when these two sides meet?  The Eels have won 7 of their past 8 matches, dating back to 2013. In that time the Eels have finished: last, 10th, 12th, 4th (an aberration), and last. The point here is that the Eels were beating the Dragons even when Parramatta were absolute trash. Generally, we tend to disregard these sorts of historical trends, largely due to the variation in squads from year-to-year. So, let’s shorten the timeframe and just look at the last time they met. If we begin from the position that the Eels of 2019 are traveling better than their Wooden Spoon model from last year, then the question is – how different are the Dragons? Well, from the team that lined up in Round 22, the only changes to the Dragons’ starting 13 are the losses of Gareth Widdop,  Nene McDonald and Jack de Belin – who’ve been replaced by Corey Norman, Mikaele Ravalawa and Paul Vaughan (further, Euan Aitken and Luciano Leilua have been dropped to the bench). Regardless of whether or not you think these changes make them marginally better or worse, the point here is that their squad (including coach) is pretty darn similar – and that day, they got pumped 40-4 by the team coming last. Given the Dragons’ historic struggles defending against Parramatta (who scored 24 or more points in 6 of those 7 wins), we just can’t feel good about their chances of stopping them when the Eels are coming in with the 2nd highest Offense VOA in the league.

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