The Obstruction Rule

2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 76/104 (73%) (Last week: 6/8)

2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (64%)

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
• Panthers
• Eels
• Sharks
• Rabbitohs
• Raiders
• Knights
• Tigers

Notes

• We’ve got to say: we strongly disagree with the bookies that the latest edition of the Roosters-Storm rivalry looks like an open-and-shut win for Sydney. To be frank, the Storm have been playing visibly better football than the Roosters for at least the last month (and there’s an argument that the Roosters have hardly played good footy lately at all). While Sydney were limping to unconvincing wins over competition weaklings like the Titans and Warriors (and losing to a Josh Hodgson-less Raiders team), the Storm have been thumping all comers. Their 41-10 win over Canterbury on the weekend was their 7th in a row; a period in which they’ve scored 20+ in every game, with an average winning margin of 23.9. There should be very little debate that along with Penrith, Melbourne have simply been on a different level to every other team in the competition. So how can they be written off so quickly? The answer lies in the two big Camerons missing from their team list: Munster and Smith. With Melbourne’s two best players out, the price has lurched towards Sydney – and the bookies may yet prove to be right. But we’re not sold. First, it seems odd to assume that Melbourne can’t beat the Roosters without Munster at 6 and Smith at 9 – particularly when they did exactly that barely over a month ago. Yes (for those of you with short memories), Munster missed the Storm’s 27-25 win over Sydney at the start of July, while Smith was giving a pretty average turn at halfback. Sure, they were massively helped by an error-riddled Roosters display (their 17 errors was their worst outing of the season), but the point stands – they did win. Secondly, though Smith will now be missing altogether, we shouldn’t ignore the outs on the other side of the ledger. Try this on for size: Daniel Tupou, Brett Morris, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Boyd Cordner and Angus Crichton are all missing from that team – a team that wasn’t good enough to win then. We’re not saying the Storm will definitely win – there are far too many question marks over both squads to say that with conviction. But, we are saying that the arguments for backing the Roosters look suspect at best. Their offense has looked bog average in any game that their pack hasn’t dominated, and given they’re deploying a reserve unit here against one of (if not the) best packs in the competition, we see no reason for that to change. That being the case, we’ll take the team with the better D, and who’s likely to enjoy the better field position. And that team is Melbourne.
• We wouldn’t have picked the Warriors anyway here, but we should point out what a big loss Jack Hetherington will be for New Zealand going forward. Since his arrival, he’s lifted his side’s RMVOA from -0.32% (9th) pre-Jack to 3.15% (5th) post-Jack, thanks almost entirely to his team-leading 9.22 metres-per-carry. On the back of that go-forward, New Zealand have won 3 of 6 matches since he arrived, after opening the season 2 from 7. The difference has been night-and-day, and there couldn’t be a worse time for them to lose him, with a match-up against one of the league’s best engine rooms coming up here. Given their offensive struggles, they would have been very little chance against an elite D such as the Panthers‘ (indeed, Penrith held them to 0 back in Round 4), but without their best forward, there’s now an additional risk that they get dominated for field position, exposing their D to an offense that’s scored 19+ for the past 8 weeks in a row.
• Apparently dropping Corey Norman didn’t work out, and so the Dragons will spin the team selection wheel once again this weekend (and, as it turns out, the coaching wheel). Having failed to capitalise on a strong showing by their forwards – St George got 92 or more metres out of every member of their starting pack, plus a further 60+ from each of their bench forwards – they’ve decided to roll out the Norman/Adam Clune combo this week. For those of you trying to keep track without pen-and-paper, this particular variation (with Ben Hunt at hooker) was previously used between Rounds 9-11, and resulted in 2 wins (a pretty good stretch for this side). We don’t hate this arrangement, and in general, actually think the Dragons are in with a shot here. However, we’re reluctant to pull the trigger due to a potential mismatch on the Dragons left edge, where Tyrell Fuimaono has been brought in to replace Tariq Sims. In case you aren’t familiar with Fuimaono’s career work so far, allow us to fill you in: through 4 seasons and 38 appearances, Fuimaono’s teams have a combined win rate of 34.21%, thanks largely to his bewilderingly bad defense (the 2018 Rabbitohs, for example, won 70% of games without him, but just 25% with him; the 2019 Panthers won 50% without him, but 29% with him). So far this year, his defensive stylings have seen him concede 6 line breaks (4th most on his team) and 4 tries, and he’s also added 7 errors for good measure (the most of any Dragons forward). Here, he’ll be up against the returning Ryan Matterson, who has so far provided 3 line break assists and 5 try involvements, helped largely by his 24 offloads (4th in the league). If we were the Eels, we’d be hitting this edge early and often, and it should be enough to get it done.
• The Titans are playing significantly better football of late, and deserve to be applauded for their improvement. However, in a battle between two dreadful defenses, they’re a long way out of their depth here. Consider this: last week against North Queensland was the first time they’ve scored more than 3 tries in a game since Round 7, and just the 3rd such occasion this year. In contrast, last week was the first time the Sharks haven’t scored more than 3 tries since Round 6, and it took playing a game of football in a kiddie pool in order to slow them down. We’re superbly confident that Cronulla have 4+ tries in them, at home against the league’s 3rd worst defense – and that ought to be enough.
• We stated in last week’s preview that we expected Michael Morgan to be the difference between the Cowboys and the Titans, and he was – by being the worst player on the field. Though it generally isn’t terribly difficult for teams to beat the Gold Coast, it gets a lot harder when you’re carrying a guy who makes 7 missed tackles and 3 errors in a single game of footy. He’ll be better for the run, but his defensive lapses don’t fill us with confidence, particularly ahead of a date with the league’s 5th ranked offense. Their attack should be better with the return of Scott Drinkwater, though he’s been something of an error-machine this season, too. Best to steer clear of tipping these guys, we think.
• The Sea Eagles‘ clash with the Knights is crucially important for keeping touch with the Top 8, but we can’t see a path to victory for them. Though they’re getting their back-rowers back, they are more than cancelled out by the loss of key big man, Addin Fonua-Blake. In case you’ve forgotten how their pack stood up without him last time, let us remind you: in those two weeks, they were outgained by over 1200m combined. This is bad at the best of times, but is a particularly big issue when facing the surprisingly dominant Newcastle pack, who rank 1st in the league for RMVOA, and who are getting their forward leader Daniel Saifiti back from injury. Newcastle are better than Manly anyway – they beat them last start despite finishing the game with a one-man bench and playing what felt like the entire second half down their own end. With what we’re expecting to be a dominant territorial advantage, they should be able to take advantage of a suddenly shaky Manly defense that’s leaked 68 points in the past 2 weeks.

Related NRL News & Posts:

• No Related NRL News

2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 70/96 (73%) (Last week: 7/8)

2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (64%)

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.)

• Roosters
• Sea Eagles
• Rabbitohs
• Storm
• Knights
• Panthers
• Cowboys
• Eels

Notes

• Both the Dragons and Roosters dropped selection bombshells on Tuesday, with halves Corey Norman and Kyle Flanagan both dropped for the first time this season. In both cases, the desire for change is understandable – the Dragons’ offense ranks a lowly 11th in the league, while the Roosters LBVOA over the past three weeks (-33.55%) would be good enough to place them 3rd-last in the competition. That being said, the consequences of the changes are likely to be felt differently for each side. At the Dragons, Norman’s role is that of the primary attacking playmaker. He’s responsible for the majority of the team’s attacking kicks (and as a result, is 9th in the NRL for forced drop-outs), and his frequent touches in positive field position see him 3rd in the team for try involvements (behind Matt Dufty and Zac Lomax). Removing Norman will fundamentally change the side’s attack, and likely result in the side reverting to Ben Hunt as the go-to man, with Adam Clune in a complimentary role. Whether or not that change is a positive remains to be seen, and your view is likely to be shaped by how positively you view Hunt (or if you just can’t stand Norman). At the Roosters though, Flanagan plays a clear second fiddle to Luke Keary, and is only the primary option for long kicks. Whether or not he deserves to be dropped is debatable (we’d argue that after a quiet opening to the season he’s really blossomed since the resumption), but regardless, replacing him with Lachlan Lam is unlikely to move the needle very much – this is Keary’s team, and their fate remains firmly in his hands. For what it’s worth, we’re of the view that the Roosters’ lack of recent production is instead tied to a decline in dominance of their forward pack, and we don’t see any obvious reason why that’s likely to have improved (if anything, with the mid-week scratching of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, it’s likely to have gotten worse). For this reason, though we’re tipping the Roosters to get home, we’re expecting it to be significantly more competitive than the current odds would suggest.
• Speaking of curiously-priced underdogs, we’d love to know what makes the bookies so confident in the Sea Eagles. Since losing Tom Trbojevic in Round 6, they’ve offered absolutely nothing offensively, averaging under 3 tries per game, with a LBVOA of -16.49%. Though we’d subjectively agree that Cade Cust is a better 6 than Lachlan Croker, it’s difficult to back that up with numbers, with Cust having produced just a single try assist and zero line break assists in his 5 matches so far. So if you’re backing Manly, you’re doing so on the notoriety of their D – and to be honest, that hasn’t been that crash hot lately, either. After conceding 3 tries or less in all of their opening six matches, they’ve now conceded 4 or more in 4 of their last 6, including a last-start walloping in which Penrith laid the blueprint for how to attack the Sea Eagles’ umbrella defense. Adding further questions to the Eagles’ D is the loss of the ginger menace, Brad Parker. In Parker, Manly have one of the better defensive centres in the league, with Parker having conceded just 4 line breaks and 3 tries all season (compare that to, say, Moses Suli, who’s allowed 7 and 5, respectively, while playing 2 fewer games). He’ll be replaced here by Tevita Funa, who’s only previous start at centre was in the side’s 40-22 hammering at the hands of Cronulla. Like in the match above, we agree that Manly are generally speaking the better side, and likely the safer bet; but do they deserve to be overwhelming favourites? Honestly, probably not.
• On a related note, can we finally put to bed the myth that Jake Trbojevic is the best lock forward in the game? Going head-to-head against Penrith lock Isaah Yeo, the gulf in class was obvious. While Emperor Plod Trbojevic turned in another 7 metres-per-carry effort (“Kneel before Plod!”), Yeo was once again outstanding, averaging almost an extra 3m per hit-up. This isn’t a fluke – Yeo has outplayed Plod consistently across the season. Amongst all eligible lock forwards this season, Yeo ranks 9th in metres-per-carry, 1st in line breaks, and 2nd in tackle breaks. Our mate Plod, meanwhile, is 37th, 4th and 31st. Now, Plod’s supporters love to scream, “but he’s a ballplayer! Having Plod is like having an extra half!” Please. Plod has all of 2 line break assists on the season. The only way that would be like having an extra half, is if that half were Lachlan Lewis. And before you point to his defense, we’ll stop you right there – he makes just 3 extra tackles per game, but with a lower tackle efficiency (93% v 95%); has conceded an extra line break; and also has an extra error, for good measure. So let’s just call a spade a spade – Yeo is better than Trbojevic, and deserves both his rep jerseys. We hope this clears that up.
• Though Anthony Seibold keeps assuring us all that the Broncos are apparently playing “much better”, last week marked the 3rd week on the trot in which they’ve conceded 7 or more line breaks in a game, and the 5th such occasion this year (indeed, there’s an argument to be made that on that side of the ball, they’re actually getting worse). We’d agree that their offense looked significantly better against Cronulla, but that should be taken with a grain of salt – at this point, just about everyone who plays the Sharks has a field day with the ball. Against the Rabbitohs, their pitiful defense will be subjected to another high-end offense, and will have to keep pace without key playmaker Anthony Milford. The return of David Fifita helps, but unless they’ve got another half a dozen of him out the back, they’re in a world of strife here. Wayne Bennett will be licking his lips at the opportunity to drop the hammer on the man who replaced him.
• We don’t expect the Storm to lose, but it’ll be worth observing how their offense looks this weekend without both Cameron Smith and Ryan Papenhuyzen. It shouldn’t need to be terribly good – their defense is the best in the league, while the Bulldogs’ O is 2nd-worst; to be perfectly honest, we’d be shocked if Canterbury get to 10 points. But nonetheless, with Smith in the twilight of his career, this week may provide a glimpse of what their future holds, and what a Cameron Munster-led offense would look like.
• We would have backed the Knights this week anyway – we made the point last week that in our view, Newcastle are being consistently underestimated – but the loss of Harry Grant for the Tigers is devastating. Grant has been a revelation this season, providing 9 try involvements, 6 line break assists and 5 try assists for Wests. That’s a lot of production to replace. Worse, with Jacob Liddle still sidelined with injury, that leaves certified non-hooker Moses Mbye to fill-in at dummy-half – a move that will compromise the quality of service provided to the side’s halves. Grant is probably the one player the Tigers could least afford to lose, and hopefully is absence is a short one.
• While the rugby league world continues to be enthralled by the Raiders’ three-game winning streak without star hooker Josh Hodgson, it’s about time we put those performances into perspective. They haven’t been winning due to anything they’ve done offensively – they have just 3 combined line breaks over the past fortnight, and a LBVOA of -41.56% since Hodgson went down (for comparison, this week’s opponent, the Panthers, have made 3 or more breaks in all but one match this season, and possess the 2nd best LBVOA in the league). No, they’ve been winning because their defense has improved considerably – something that has nothing to do with Hodgson whatsoever. If we had to guess, we’d say the absence of serial liability Curtis Scott for two of those weeks probably helped, as did the opportunity to defend against a North Queensland team missing three quarters of its starting spine (in a game being played in a monsoon). Here, they’ll have no such luck. Scott and his bewildering decision-making is in, and the Raiders’ brittle right edge will be tasked with trying to defend the NRL’s most potent attacking left edge (the Viliame Kikau/Stephen Crichton combo, that has 53 tackle busts, 21 try involvements and 17 line breaks between them). The Raiders will need to find something special if they’re to survive that mismatch; and even then, they’d also need to find a way through one of the league’s premium defenses. Penrith to win, and we fancy they’re a good shout for 13+.
• The clash between the Titans and Cowboys has the potential to be very interesting, if only because of both sides’ propensity to concede points. Here, we’ll find the league’s 4th-worst and 2nd-worst defense going head-to-head, which should – in theory – lead to a potential avalanche of points. But where are those points going to come from? For their part, the Titans are bringing the league’s worst offense to the table, having exceeded 16 points just twice all year. Their issues lie with their spine – the dreadfully mediocre Ash Taylor is their only player with more than 2 line break assists all season, and even he has only mustered 6. However, the Cows come with issues of their own. Scott Drinkwater and Valentine Holmes have been their two most effective attacking weapons, and both remain sidelined with injuries. Our hope is that the return of Michael Morgan offers the Cowboys a little bit of something, otherwise this match could easily descend into a frustrating 80 minutes of watching both sides butchering opportunities.
• Even by their own shockingly low standards, the Sharks’ defense was pitiful last weekend, leaking 9 line breaks and 26 points to a Brisbane side who’ve won just 1 of their last 10 games. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Cronulla’s defensive deficiencies is that they somehow are still in the Top 8. For better or worse, Cronulla just keep on winning, and they do it by scoring an absurd volume of points. After last week’s win, the Sharks have now managed to score 20+ points for 7 weeks in a row, a period in which they’ve racked up 40+ on 3 separate occasions. They were slow to get going this season, but at this point their offense is absolutely humming. Our issue with Cronulla though, is that it has to be – yes, they’ve scored 20+ for seven straight weeks (and 8 games, total), but they’ve also leaked 20+ points in 7 separate games. Through 12 weeks, Cronulla average 22.8 points conceded per game – winning matches with a defense that bad simply isn’t sustainable. Which means that either their defense needs to get better, or losses may be just around the corner. We’re not exactly huge believers in the Eels, but having just seen Cronulla get shredded by Brisbane, we feel like we have to give them the benefit of the doubt here. But the Sharks’ future is in their own hands, and if they can find a way to make their defense even remotely competitive, their offense is that good that they could easily make a deep run into the finals.

Related NRL News & Posts:

• No Related NRL News

2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 63/88 (72%) (Last week: 7/8)

2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (64%)

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
• Tigers
• Sharks
• Roosters
• Raiders
• Panthers
• Eels
• Storm

Notes

• We’re not sure why exactly it took the awarding of Jack Williams’ “try” to finally see a video ref dropped (it was just the latest in a string of woeful bunker calls in 2020), but regardless; that call didn’t cost the Dragons the game – rather, it was their D conceding 4 consecutive tries that got them into a 28-14 hole from which their painfully stale offense couldn’t find a way out. Unfortunately for St George-Illawarra, it doesn’t get much easier for their defense this week. Though the Rabbitohs‘ offense hasn’t looked itself over the past fortnight, this was fairly predictable and was the result of losing Latrell Mitchell to suspension. Despite having played just 9 matches, Mitchell has produced 11 try involvements and a whopping 14 line break assists (2nd in the NRL) – assists they’ve badly missed, with their LBVOA collapsing from 24.22% with Mitchell playing to just 2.04% without him. With Mitchell back, we’d expect Souths’ offense to immediately return to form – and the last time we saw the Bunnies with Mitchell in the team, they were putting 10 line breaks past a decent Wests defense.
• Which means the Dragons will need their offense firing if they’re going to keep pace, but they’re facing a huge jump in caliber of opponent. Against Cronulla, they got to have a crack against one of the worst defenses in the league; against Souths, they’ll face an opponent who just held Canberra to 1 line break and 3 kick tries. And if you’re thinking that the Dragons’ offense looked kind of alright in racking up 4 total tries last week, we’d suggest you check again – their 4 line breaks was the equal-fewest the Sharks have conceded since Week 2 (tied with such offensive powerhouses as the Warriors, Bulldogs and Cowboys), and their 26 tackle busts were Cronulla’s equal-fewest since Round 4. In short, though these numbers were comparatively strong for St George, they were absolutely dismal for anyone playing against Cronulla. So, if that kind of production is as good as it gets for the Dragons, they’ll struggle to out-point any sort of serviceable offense.
• The Warriors reminded us all just how good their defense actually is against the Roosters – we’ve maintained all season that for as long as games are competitive, their defense is the real deal. Yes, they’re prone to giving up and getting themselves smoked, but we believe this is more a reflection of how little faith they have in their offense – when you’ve only scored more than 2 tries in 3 of 11 matches, it’s somewhat understandable to lose hope onceyou fall behind by 3 scores. This can be seen by examining their results – since Round 3, the Warriors have been involved in 5 competitive games (that is, matches they’ve either won, or lost by 12 or less). But in the other 4 games, they’ve lost them all by 26 points or more (with an average points conceded of 40.5). This illustrates the cavernous range of outcomes for New Zealand – if they can jag a couple of tries and keep the game competitive, they can defensively hang with anybody. But once they lose touch, it can get ugly very quickly. Against a Tigers offense that is absolutely humming, we fear this could be another thumping.
• At a glance, this Broncos team looks like the best combination they’ve trotted out so far. After closer inspection though, we’re not so sure. Hiding Darius Boyd at fullback looks like a wise move on the surface, until you realise that his replacement – Herbie Farnworth – is an even worse defender than he is. Boyd has so far shown himself to be a complete defensive liability, conceding 9 line breaks (4th in the team) and missing 16 tackles (5th in his team). However, replacing him in the centres with Farnworth is like trying to fix a leaky bucket by drilling an even bigger hole next to it. In Farnworth, they have a guy who has conceded more line breaks (10) from fewer games (10) than Boyd; and has missed just 3 fewer tackles, despite making 73 fewer attempts. Similarly, though Brodie Croft hasn’t been winning any admirers, Anthony Milford has been in career-worst form in 2020, personally conceding 11 tries, while having a hand in just 7.
• Of course, the quality of their defense won’t be the difference here – the Sharks‘ D is near the worst in the league. However, in a battle between two shockingly incompetent defenses, the difference is likely to come down to their respective offenses – and here it’s a total mismatch. The Broncos have been held to 2 tries or fewer in more than half their games this season; this has been done to the Sharks just once (and it took the incredible Melbourne defense to do it). Though the loss of Chad Townsend may affect the Sharks’ offense somewhat, that should be offset by Brisbane losing Croft. And regardless, the Sharks still have Shaun Johnson and his 25 try involvements to lean on. The Broncos’ best in that regard? Milford… with his 7.
• Though the Roosters can still be expected to comfortably win here, it’s worth noting that last weekend marked the 3rd straight week of LBVOA decline for them since losing Victor Radley and Sam Verrills, and their lowest RMVOA of the season so far (-11.27%). They’re still better than the Titans, but the gap between themselves and the chasing pack (Penrith and Melbourne) is narrowing with each passing week.
• The loss of Josh Hodgson was bound to impact the Raiders‘ offense sooner or later, and it came to a grinding halt last weekend against South Sydney. Were it not for 3 streaky tries from kicks, they’d have suffered a disappointing defeat and fallen into the group of teams clambering for a spot at the bottom of the 8. As it happens, that’s still where we think they’ll finish – but not this week. As bad as their offense looked, their defense has been exceptional since Hodgson went down, with the Raiders producing a LBCVOA of just -37.51% over the past 3 weeks (1st in the league). This defense should be good enough to contain an injury-ravaged Cowboys side that hasn’t scored more than 3 tries in a game for over a month. And once you contain North Queensland’s offense, the game just about wins itself. The Cowboys have so far conceded 20+ points in 9 of their 11 matches so far; including leaking 37 to the Warriors (the 3rd-worst offense in the league), 28 to Brisbane (4th-worst) and 24 to Manly (5th-worst). So, Canberra’s offensive struggles shouldn’t be an issue here.
• On the one hand, the Sea Eagles are getting the Panthers at the right time – Penrith have been recently decimated by injury, and though they get Viliame Kikau back this week, they remain without a host of stars, such as Dylan Edwards, Brian To’o and Luke Capewell, while key players Api Koroisau and Zane Tetevano remain under question marks on an extended bench. But on the other hand, we still can’t construct a plausible narrative for how exactly Manly can win. Looking at the way these sides are built, the Sea Eagles’ are essentially just a poor man’s Penrith. They’re able to make games competitive through their very good defense; but the Panthers’ is bona fide elite. The Sea Eagles’ pack was significantly better with Addin Fonua-Blake in it, but Penrith’s is arguably the best in the league. And though the Panthers’ offense looked like a shadow of itself without Edwards and Koroisau last weekend, it remained a long way better than the Tom Trbojevic-less Sea Eagles, whose LBVOA since losing their fullback (-11.68%) has been exceeded by Penrith in 8 of 11 matches so far. If their strengths and weaknesses are similar, but Penrith are better across all of them, Manly would essentially be depending on Penrith wetting the bed for this to be competitive. And with the Panthers possessing the lowest error-rate in the league, they’re not exactly prone to beating themselves.
• We’ll state this up-front – we don’t expect the Knights to win on Sunday. But, their $5 price with the bookmakers looks like a bit of an over-correction following what went down against Canterbury. First, let’s make something clear: Newcastle didn’t lose because they weren’t productive with the footy. They produced 6 line breaks (their 2nd-most of the season), 33 tackles breaks (3rd-most), and ran for an absurd 1931m (the 5th-highest total of any team this year). In any other week, these sorts of numbers would lead to a score of 30+ – exactly the sort of total you’d expect them to rack up against Canterbury. So what happened? Well, they dropped the darn ball. Over. And over. And over again. Their 16 errors came at the most inopportune times, either bombing tries or turning over the footy in good field position. Ok, these things happen. But get over it. Even the best teams turn in the odd clunker from time to time (indeed, this week’s opponent, the Storm, made 16 errors just a fortnight ago; they just didn’t prove as costly), and in a torrential downpour, it should kind of be expected (though if we’re observing the conditions, we should point out how remarkably well the Bulldogs did to limit their own handling errors to just 8). Second, though the Knights lost both their second and third-string hookers within minutes of each other, we don’t believe it’s that big a deal. The reason is that the hooker role simply isn’t that important within the Knights’ offensive structure. Though some teams lean heavily on their hooker as a playmaker (think Melbourne with Cameron Smith, the Tigers with Harry Grant, or Penrith and Api Koroisau), the Knights’ offense runs exclusively through their 1, 6 and 7 (who have combined for 38 try involvements and 20 line break assists). Their hooker – whether its Jayden Brailey, Andrew McCullough or the ghost of Danny Buderus – is just there to shovel them the ball and make his tackles (McCullough, for example, has just 3 try involvements and 0 assists on the season). For this reason, changing hooker is unlikely to significantly change their fortunes. Are they likely to win? Probably not, but $5 puts them in the company of teams like the Titans and Warriors – and they’re a long way better than both of them.

Related NRL News & Posts:

• No Related NRL News

2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 56/80 (70%) (Last week: 6/8)

2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (64%)

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
• Storm
• Roosters
• Sharks
• Raiders
• Knights
• Panthers

Notes

• Though the odds mightn’t show it, there’s an argument to be made that the Tigers just might be the form attacking team in the competition. After being held to just 3 line breaks in 4 of their first 5 games, their whipping of the Broncos marked the 5th game in a row in which they’ve exceeded that total. Granted, they’ve faced four bottom-8 defenses through that stretch, but you have to give them credit – they’ve punished each and every one of them. So why aren’t we tipping them here? Quite simply, it’s because they’re still yet to produce against a good defense – and the Eels are exactly that. In their six games against bottom-8 Ds, the Tigers average an incredible 29.8 points per game. Against top-8 defenses though, that drops to just 16.5. For this reason, it’s likely that in order to win, they’ll need to keep Parra to under 3 tries – something that’s easier said than done. Indeed, through ten weeks, only 3 teams have managed it (the Bulldogs, Roosters and Knights). Of further interest is the fact that those three games are also the only three games in which Parra have lost the possession battle, suggesting that the only way Parramatta have been beaten so far was by starving their attack of the football. If this is the secret, it doesn’t bode well for Wests, who’ve only won the possession battle 3 times so far this year. We really like what Wests have been doing, and believe they’re far more competitive than their $3.55 price suggests. We expect a contest, but fancy with Mitch Moses back in, the Eels should be able to find the four tries they need to get it done.
• We spent some time agonising over it, but after Addin Fonua-Blake finally complied the flu shot regulations, we’ve decided to back the Sea Eagles again. To be clear, we were not impressed by anything they did against Parramatta – if you tune out the talking heads and look at what actually happened, Manly were every bit as bog average as they’ve been every other week since they lost Tom Trbojevic (who’s now apparently been rubbed out for another month). All the same problems were there, they simply benefited from a shockingly high Parramatta error count (15 – the Eels’ second-worst performance of the year), and a couple of embarrassing moments from Parramatta’s defense. So why then, are we tipping them now? Because Manly’s defense remains solid (they rank 8th in the league, vs the Cowboys‘ 16th), and the return of Fonua-Blake should help address their go-forward concerns. Long-time readers will know that we regard Manly’s pack as among the worst in the competition (they rank 5th-last in both RMVOA and RMCVOA), but without their forward leader the past two weeks (and yes, he’s definitely the leader – despite having missed two games, he still leads the entire team by over 400m), they’ve been completely dominated. After managing four straight weeks with relatively even yardage shares, the past fortnight has seen Manly somehow outgained by a combined 1200m(!). So, it’s obviously a huge plus for Manly to get Fonua-Blake back in. The next is the fact that the second-worst team over that period was this week’s opponent, the Cowboys (whose net yardage over the past fortnight is -777m). This gives us hope that Manly won’t just match it with the Cowboys’ middles – they may actually beat them. And finally, the other reason they keep losing is the fact that without Tom Trbojevic, their offense is completely one-dimensional, running entirely through Daly Cherry-Evans. The Dragons and Knights both found that pretty easy to shut down, but those sides are also Top-5 defenses; we’re not convinced the Cowboys defense can shut down anybody.
• Don’t say we didn’t warn you that the Roosters had fallen off a bit. Of course, we certainly didn’t see them losing to Canberra, but responsibility for that should fall firmly at the feet of the Roosters’ analytics guy (how on earth they could enter that match with a clear plan to attack the Raiders’ left edge is simply beyond us). That being said, there’s certainly some reason to believe that Sydney may struggle with the top teams going forward (and having already recorded losses to Penrith, Melbourne and Canberra, you could say they’ve struggled with the top teams going backward, too). The Roosters’ go-forward has clearly regressed without Victor Radley and Sam Verrills, producing a RMVOA below 2% for the second week running (and in the first game without the duo, they lost the yardage battle for just the second time all season). As we’ve already stated, this alone isn’t why they lost to Canberra – that was a strategy issue – but it does give us pause for concern when Sydney play the better teams. Why? Because all the other decent teams have top packs. Parramatta, Newcastle and Penrith all feature Top-5 offenses for yardage, while Melbourne and Penrith are Top-5 for limiting opposition yardage. The Roosters remain the best team in the league, but they’re not far enough better than the competition to consistently beat the top sides without good field position – and at the rate their forwards are dropping, they may need to learn how quickly.
• The Sharks/Dragons contest looms as an especially tricky game to pick, presenting the classic battle of a stoppable force meeting a moveable object. The stoppable force here is St George-Illawarra – while Shane Flanagan’s work as attacking assistant has been getting all the praise in the mainstream press, we’ve been sitting here dumbfounded – why on earth would anyone be wrapping an offense that hasn’t exceeded 3 line breaks in a game for four weeks running? I mean, we agree that over the past five weeks they’ve “turned it around” – but only insofar as the fact that their offense was previously OK, and now it’s terrible. Since they’ve been “good”, the Dragons have seen declines in LBVOA (from -18.56% in the first five weeks to -30.68% in the last five), RMVOA (from 8.24% to 4.63%) and TBVOA (from 6.76% to -11.28%). So no, they haven’t been winning because of their offense at all; they’ve been winning thanks to a bit of good fortune and a defense that’s kept every team they’ve beaten to 3 line breaks or fewer. And can they keep the Sharks to that kind of number? It’s not likely. After stinking the place up through the opening six weeks, the Sharks, on the other hand, have legitimately turned a corner with the ball, averaging 6.5 line breaks per game over the past four weeks (and that’s despite playing two Top-8 defenses in that period). The issue for the Sharks is that their defense is SO bad, it’s become comparable to that of the Titans (yikes!). While their offense has been humming, their D has been getting massacred, with a LBCVOA of 82.77% over the past four weeks (worst in the league) and a TBCVOA of 45.64% (also league worst). Sharks fans have been hating on Chad Townsend’s defense, but we’re more bothered by the 9 line breaks Wade Graham has conceded so far (because unlike Townsend, Graham is typically very good). So, since we’re confident that the Sharks have a few tries in them, the question becomes: how many can the Dragons put past one of the league’s worst defenses? And it’s here that we find ourselves leaning towards Cronulla. You see, the issue with Cronulla’s defense is overwhelmingly on the edges – Graham, Townsend and Jesse Ramien have all conceded 9 line breaks so far; while Sione Katoa and Josh Dugan have added another 8 and 7, respectively. Through the middle, though, they’ve been comparatively stout, with only Toby Rudolf and Aaron Woods conceding more than 5. However, attacking the edges is hardly the Dragons strong suit – through ten weeks, their only outside back with more than 2 line breaks is Mikaele Ravalawa. There’s definitely a weakness there to be taken advantage of, but we’re simply not convinced that St George have the ability to capitalise. For this reason, we’re taking the Sharks.
• We’ve backed the Raiders on Saturday night, but don’t feel great about it at all. Though last weekend’s defensive effort was decent, their frail right edge was hardly tested, and in the meantime has somehow gotten worse. Their right centre slot that has so far conceded 9 line breaks (vs 5 on the left) will now be filled by Jordan Rapana – a career winger who has played just one game at centre (a 34-6 loss to the Roosters five years ago). Rapana’s lack of defensive experience at centre makes us extremely uncomfortable, and his 72% tackle efficiency doesn’t help either.
• The Rabbitohs, however, may be just as bad. With Latrell Mitchell, Braidon Burns and James Roberts out, they’ll be trotting out a makeshift backline of their own – a combination that last week got shredded for 5 line breaks by Newcastle, all made exclusively down the edges. With two dreadful edge defenses going head-to-head, it’s near impossible to split these teams. Their packs are evenly matched, and both spines are missing their best attacking player (Josh Hodgson for Canberra, and Mitchell for Souths). In the end, we’ve essentially just picked the home team.
• Though we still fancy the Panthers should be too good for the Titans, we’d be dialing back our expectations of a whooping a little bit. The loss of Api Koroisau is significant, but not a deal-breaker (Mitch Kenny is a decent enough short-term replacement), but the loss of Dylan Edwards has the potential to be significant. The value of Edwards to Penrith lies in his number of supports – Edwards’ speed and fitness allow him to consistently back up line breaks and offloads, converting opportunities into tries. In the five games with Caleb Aekins at fullback, Penrith’s try-to-LB ratio was 68%; in the four full games Edwards played, that climbed to 80%. The difference in tries is directly attributable to the fullbacks, with Aekins producing just 1 try involvement in five games, vs 9 for Edwards in four-and-a-half. The takeaway here is that if the Panthers do indeed trot out Aekins at fullback (we’re still holding out hope of a late change that could see either Stephen Crichton or debutante Daine Laurie slot in at the back), they can expect to score fewer tries per opportunity created. Thankfully, the Titans are generally quite accommodating when it comes to allowing try scoring opportunities, so this shouldn’t be a huge drama for the competition-leaders. But if Aekins remains at the back for an extended period, Penrith may struggle to score points when they run into a side with a decent LBCVOA (like, for example, Manly – who they play next week).

Related NRL News & Posts:

• No Related NRL News

2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 50/72 (69%) (Last week: 6/8)

2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (64%)

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.)

• Roosters
• Storm
• Tigers
• Dragons
• Knights
• Eels
• Sharks
• Panthers

Notes

• Despite ultimately romping in by 26 points, the Roosters‘ last-start win over North Queensland was undoubtedly their weakest performance in a long while. Putting aside their clumsy handling, it was of some interest to us that with Victor Radley, Isaac Liu and Sam Verrills on the sidelines, the Roosters logged their lowest RMVOA since their Round 1 loss to Penrith (though to keep things in perspective, they did still outgain the Cows by over 300m). With both Radley and Verrills gone for the year, it can be expected that their forward pack’s best days are now behind them, and their #2 ranked RMVOA will likely regress somewhat going forward. Of course, they’re still the best team in football, but the gap between them and everybody else has probably tightened just a smidge.
• Speaking of injuries, the loss of Josh Hodgson for the Raiders has likely put a pin in the Green Machine’s recent offensive resurgence. After a pretty ordinary start to their campaign, Canberra’s offense had really kicked into gear over the past four weeks, a period in which they made 20 line breaks at a LBVOA of 47.33% (2nd in the league). Though they managed just a single win through that difficult section of the draw, they looked to be rounding into some form. Unfortunately, that’s probably over. We can’t possibly tip them here without Hodgson, and the most interesting part of this game will instead be assessing just how far Canberra’s offense drops off.
• We’ve got to hand it to the Titans – we can’t imagine any other team going the opening quarter of an hour without completing a set, yet still managing to come away with the win (mainly because no other team would go that long without completing a set, period). To their credit, they hung in there – but that’s where the positives end. They made an absurd 20 errors over the course of the game (their worst of the year  – which is a fair effort, given they lead the entire league for errors), made just a single line break, and required one of the most mind-bogglingly stupid bunker calls to rob the Warriors of a try and secure the game (no, Graham Annesley, not even Titans fans would argue Jack Hetherington’s try should have been disallowed). They should have lost last weekend, and they’ll definitely lose this weekend.
• We already mentioned the Raiders’ impressive LBVOA over the past four weeks, but you mightn’t have noticed is that the Tigers have quietly given that a nudge, posting a similarly impressive 36.01% over the same period – and unlike Canberra, with Benji Marshall coming back into the side, it’s conceivable that their offense may be about to get even better. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops though – it must be pointed out that Marshall has been a complete defensive liability so far in 2020, and his return will likely come at the cost of a few extra points conceded (in games Benji’s played, the Tigers have conceded an average of 23.6 points per game; without him that drops to 14.75). This should give some hope to Broncos fans, though we weren’t terribly smitten with anything Brisbane did against Canterbury. We’re happy to roll with the Tigers.
• While nobody was watching, the Dragons have quietly joined the group of mediocre sides competing for a spot at the bottom of the 8. And just quietly – they’re probably playing better than many of them. Though most of the credit has been given to their remodeled spine, we believe this is misplaced – throughout their five-game “good” period, they’re still yet to record a single game with a positive LBVOA, and their TBVOA of -7.97% over that period is actually worse than before the changes. No, the heroes of this improvement are the Dragons’ forwards, and their defense. St George’s middles have been superb through this period, outgaining every opponent they’ve faced except the Roosters. Against an undermanned Manly side, the Dragons forwards were merciless, outgaining the Sea Eagles by over 500m, despite an essentially even possession share. Winning the yardage battles has clearly boosted their defense, with the side conceding 3 or fewer line breaks in 4 of their past 5 games. At this point, the biggest thing stopping the Dragons from having a realistic shot at the finals is their draw – they can only afford to lose at most 4 more games the rest of the way, yet still have Souths, Sydney, Parramatta, Canberra, Newcastle and Melbourne on the menu. Good luck.
• Speaking of those good teams, we have the Saturday arvo Rabbitohs/Knights game as the pick of the round. On form, there’s a struck match between these sides, and both bring their own injury issues into the game. However, if we’re balancing the ins-and-outs against one another, the advantage surely falls with Newcastle. In the red-and-blue corner, Newcastle regain a few serviceable first graders in Mitch Barnett, Connor Watson and Sione Mata’utia; however they also lose Daniel Saifiti – and we can’t stress enough what a huge out he is. Where in previous seasons Knights fans have had to suffer through watching their elite playmakers being constantly starved of field position, in 2020 it’s been the opposite – they lead the league in RMVOA, but have been held back by misfiring spine players squandering opportunities. Saifiti has been a huge part of that yardage – he leads his team for metres per carry, and somehow also ranks 3rd in his side for line breaks (yes, Newcastle have a prop forward third on the team for line breaks). Losing Saifiti will surely sting – but not as much as losing Latrell Mitchell will hurt Souths. As much as Mitchell has been a lightning rod for criticism, he nonetheless leads the league for line break assists, and has more than the next three players in his team combined (Latrell has 14, while Cody Walker, Damien Cook and Adam Reynolds combine for 13). Quite simply, losing Latrell will fundamentally change the way Souths have to attack, and that’s an adjustment that will be hard to execute in one week. Add in the further loss of Campbell Graham and the necessary shift of Alex Johnston to fullback, and they now have to deal with fresh edge combinations as well. Taken together, these are major adjustments for the Rabbitohs, and the new edges in particular present excellent opportunities for the Knights’ attacking players to take advantage of, and work themselves into a bit of form.
• It’s official – the Sea Eagles are toast. Though Daly Cherry-Evans’ stinker will be all anyone remembers from their loss to the Dragons, they really lost that game in the forwards. They were starved of field position for huge lengths of time, and if there’s any positive, it’s that in that context their D wasn’t actually half bad. But they’re not going to beat anyone if they can’t get downfield, and against an Eels pack that’s better than the St George one that crushed them last Sunday, it’s hard to give Manly much of a shot.
• On overall numbers, the Warriors should actually be right in this contest with the Sharks. They’ve been consistently competitive against other opponents of a similar standard (they’ve recorded wins against the Dragons, Cowboys and Broncos), and Penrith just laid bare for the entire league just how ordinary Cronulla’s edge defense really is. Unfortunately, events have transpired that make it near impossible to tip New Zealand. After the howler Hetherington no-try call, the Warriors appeared to mentally fall out of the game, and there’s little reason to believe they’ll be able to get back up for this contest. Four players have quite literally already booked their trips home, and with a whooping from the Roosters on the immediate horizon, we simply can’t trust that the Warriors will be up for this contest at all. They’re good enough if they’re up for it, but we’ll leave it for someone else to gamble on their mindset.
• If the Panthers’ complete dismantling of Cronulla didn’t make you feel compelled to tip Penrith, the loss of Scott Drinkwater and Valentine Holmes for the Cowboys ought to do the trick. Though Drinkwater’s greasy palms cost his side any hope of competing with the Roosters, he and Holmes remain the Cowboys’ only remotely competent attacking weapons. To give you some idea of just what the Cows are up against, consider this: Drinkwater and Holmes have together produced 15 line break assists, while the rest of the team combined have just 13. Together with the long-term absence of Michael Morgan, that eliminates pretty much all the Cowboys’ firepower, for an away trip against one of the league’s best defenses. Oh, and they have the worst D in the league, facing a Panthers’ offense that just posted 56 points against an opponent who at the time was in the Top 8. Honestly, this has the potential to be a record-setting level of horrific for North Queensland.

Related NRL News & Posts:

• No Related NRL News