The Obstruction Rule

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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2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 32/48 (67%) (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.)

• Roosters
• Storm
• Bulldogs
• Rabbitohs
• Tigers
• Broncos
• Raiders
• Eels

Notes

• Like clockwork, the Warriors once again let us down the moment we decided to trust them. Having just conceded 17 points to an insipid Cowboys offense who had only hit that mark once in the opening 5 rounds, there’s very little reason to back them here against a Storm side who put 20 on the elite Roosters defense in the space of half an hour. Throw in the losses of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, David Fusitu’a and Solomone Kata, on top of the memory of the Storm’s 50-10 victory in the corresponding game last year, and we wouldn’t go near New Zealand with a 50-foot barge-pole.
• Spoonfest 2019 may have come early this year, with the Bulldogs and Cowboys meeting on Friday evening. Neither side appears to have the attacking cattle to seriously trouble decent teams, with the sides ranking 14th and 13th respectively for LBVOA, and 15th and 16th for TBVOA. Unsurprisingly then, both sides appear to have adopted the same conservative, high-percentage gameplan, in the hope of protecting possession and controlling field position. It’s boring, but it at least puts these sides in a position to compete. It makes trying to pick a winner here tough, though. We’ve gone the Bulldogs for two reasons. First, in the absence of Jason Taumalolo, the Cowboys have lacked any sort of go-forward whatsoever, ranking a distant last in RMVOA (-12.11%). The only way they earn field position is when they’re gifted short fields from opposition mistakes – something that the Bulldogs have done very little of so far this year. Second, in what’s likely to be a low-scoring game, we’d rather have the better defense – and in that area, it’s once again advantage Canterbury. It’s worth keeping an eye on the team that runs out though – Jason Taumalolo has been named in the reserve list, and should he play, he makes a significant enough difference that we’d likely flip over to North Queensland.
• The poor old Panthers can’t catch a break. Having finally put it all together and dominated the Sharks for 50 minutes last weekend, Dean Whare did a hammy and left the field, taking the Panthers’ chances of winning with him. Ivan Cleary opted against playing a utility back on the bench, and without one, was forced to play backrower Isiaah Yeo in the centres for the remainder of the match. Trying to defend against the speed of Shaun Johnson and co, Yeo looked like he was wading through a pool of treacle, as the Sharks sent raid after raid down the Panthers’ left edge. The good news for Penrith is that Yeo is back to the second row where he belongs. The bad news is that they’ve had to once again re-shuffle their spine in order to replace Whare. Fullback Dallin Watene-Zelezniak moves into the centres, with youngster Caleb Aekins coming in as custodian. We love Aekins as a talent – you may recall him running for over 200m on debut against Cronulla last year – but we can’t feel good about yet another re-shuffle, with the quietly efficient Rabbitohs coming to town. We certainly don’t think a win is beyond the improving Panthers, but it’s not the most likely result, either.
• Dare we say it – the Titans actually looked good last week against the Knights. We weren’t that surprised – their offensive numbers have been tracking progressively upward over the last four weeks since they managed to get Tyrone Roberts and Ash Taylor on the field together. That said, we’re still not ready to tip them. Their two wins coincided with being the only two games in which they’ve outgained their opponent this year, and they’ve now lost key middle Ryan James to an ACL injury. Yes, you could say that they beat the Knights without him, but for the most part, Newcastle beat themselves. The Knights’ 12 errors were more than this week’s opponent, the Tigers, have made since Round 1, and their 7 penalties conceded were more than Wests have made in any match this season. Without those piggy-backs upfield, the Titans are still likely to struggle for field position, given they rank 14th in RMVOA. Yes, the Tigers’ D was abysmal last weekend, but in fairness, that was the exception to their year so far – prior to Week 6, they’d conceded 2 or less tries in 4 of their first 5 matches. It’s certainly a tough game to pick, but we just aren’t ready to buy into the Gold Coast yet, especially in the face of an expected Tigers bounce-back.
• While all the talk this week has been about the Broncos‘ 1-5 start to the year, we fancy they’re actually traveling better than the Sharks. This isn’t a slam dunk by any stretch, but lost in the Sharks’ come-from-behind win over the Panthers is the fact that they were getting soundly beaten by a Penrith team who’d struggled for any sort of effectiveness through the opening month, and only got home by abusing a fortunately timed injury (or unfortunately timed, depending on which team’s jersey you were wearing). The Panthers’ 20 point effort was their second-highest score this season, and they did it with just 42% of the football. That doesn’t bode well for a Sharks defense about to face a Broncos offense who’ve exceeded 20 points in half their matches so far, and rank 5th in handling errors (the Sharks are 2nd last). If Brisbane are ever going to get going, this is the game.

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