2022 Season Results:
Head-to-Head Tipping: 50/80 (63%) (Last Week: 5/8)2021 Season Results:
Head-to-Head Tipping: (74%)2020 Season Results:
Head-to-Head Tipping: (74%)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.)- Knights by 2 – After successfully tipping the Knights to end their 7-game losing run last week against Canterbury, we’re going back to the well again here. To be clear, this isn’t because Newcastle were terribly impressive in that win – a stodgy 16-6 win over the team coming last does little to fill us with confidence. Rather, this is all to do with with who’s missing for the Broncos – Adam Reynolds. You’d have to have been living under a rock to be unaware of the impact Reyno has had on Brisbane, but the sheer magnitude of his role in their offense can’t be understated. Reynolds has had a ridiculous 18 try involvements for a team that’s only scored 34 tries – a share of 53%. With Brisbane’s offense running almost entirely through Reynolds, that means that in his absence, their offense will almost certainly look completely different (and simply giving Tyson Gamble more touches is a very poor alternative). And whatever shape their offense takes, it’s extremely difficult to see them replacing his production. From 9 starts, Reynolds has amassed 11 try assists and 8 line break assists. From a combined 8 starts, his spine partners Te Maire Martin and Gamble have combined for just 3 and 7. Reynolds’ replacement – the highly-rated youngster Ezra Mam – has filled plenty of Broncos fans with excitement, but we fancy expectations of an immediate impact should be tempered a little bit: from 7 starts against lower-quality opposition in the Queensland Cup, Mam has just 3 try assists and 4 line break assists himself. If he’s not yet carving up in the second-tier, it feels a bit unreasonable to expect Mam to turn up and immediately provide anything resembling Reynolds’ production. So, Brisbane aren’t likely to look anything like themselves offensively, and to be frank, their offense was hardly setting the world alight in the first place (last week’s rout of Manly notwithstanding). They’ve been held to 3 or fewer line breaks in 6 of their 9 matches so far, leaning heavily on Reynolds’ right boot to keep their scores competitive. Without it, they likely become yet another dry offense that struggles for creativity, and we already saw the Knights knock over one such team last week. The Knights aren’t a particularly exciting-looking offense themselves, but with Dane Gagai and Tyson Frizell returning – as well as the mystery box addition of Anthony Milford – you have to think they’ll be at least as good as they were last week. And against this particular Broncos team, that should be just good enough.
- Tigers by 4 – If you’re wondering why we’re not more enthusiastically tipping the Tigers here, it’s largely due to the type of game we’re expecting when the two lowest-ranked offenses in the NRL go head-to-head. It’s hard to imagine this game bringing any sort of offensive fireworks (between them, they have 13 outings in which they’ve been held to 2 tries or fewer, from 20 starts), and in low-scoring games, a single ref’s decision (or dropped ball in your own in-goal, as Tigers fans would remember all too well) can be the difference. That being said, we still prefer the Tigers – whatever bounce the Bulldogs may get from their coaching change may be more than outweighed by the sizeable absence of Josh Addo-Carr (who’s contributed 6 tries and 8 line breaks for a side who’ve otherwise had absolutely nothing – the next highest in these categories have made 2 and 3, respectively). We’re not expecting much, but in a match they need to win in order to prolong their relevance in the competition, we’d like to think the Tigers can get it done.
- Eels by 2 – As with the above game, we’re not embracing the Eels anywhere near as enthusiastically as the bookies, and it’s not just because of our well-entrenched position that Parramatta are shockingly overrated (and absolutely nowhere near Top 4 quality, for the record). Rather, it’s to do with the structure of their offense, and how it matches up against how the Sea Eagles like to “defend” (if you can call whatever it is Manly’s been doing this year defense). You see, while Parra’s offense has admittedly been extremely productivethis season (they rank 5th in the league for Offense VOA, and have scored the 3rd-most tries), what’s interesting is wherethey generate most of their production. While many teams enjoy stripping sides for numbers and getting around defenses, the Eels prefer to attack a few defenders in, going through teams. This is may be at least partly due to their well-documented injuries in the outside backs, but their fondness for attacking through their second-rowers and halves is hardly new. Of the guys they’ve named this week, Dylan Brown, Clint Gutherson, Mitch Moses, Isaiah Papali’i, Shaun Lane and Ryan Matterson all have more line breaks than any of their three-quarters. And this isn’t just a quirk due to limited usage – both Bailey Simonsson and Will Penisini have played in all 10 matches, yet have just 2 tries and 4 line breaks… combined. The reason this is interesting is that against Des Hasler’s fast outside-in umbrella defense, three defenders in isn’t typically where the holes are, with teams so far cutting the Eagles up further wide. Unsurprisingly then, the Eels have struggled to post scores against Manly for a while – they’ve lost their last 3 straight against Manly, and haven’t scored more than 3 tries against them since 2019. With Manly playing so unbelievably shit in their last start, we can’t quite bring ourselves to actually tip them, but be warned: this may not be the slam dunk victory for Parramatta that many assume it will be.
- Dragons by 1 – After writing at length last week about how we fancied the Dragons on account of their spine continuity, you can imagine how pleased we were to see Moses Mbye shuffled to hooker and Tyrell Sloan return to fullback (that is, we were not pleased. Not pleased at all.). The Dragons ultimately paid for that Anthony Griffin brain explosion, as Sloan completely wet the bed in his return to the side, costing his team the game (why one earth you’d parachute a teenage fullback with just 8 career starts into the top grade in torrential rain we just don’t know; but we’re sure immediately dropping him again will do wonders for his confidence and development). Without Mbye at fullback, the Dragons’ offense certainly loses a little bit, but to be fair, this match likely isn’t decided by anything St George-Illawarra do, anyway. Rather, it’s the Warriors who have the ability to take the match completely away from sides – unfortunately, the longer the season wears on, the less and less interested they look in actually competing. After a decent little period earlier in the year, their defense has completely given way, with New Zealand conceding 20+ points in their past 6 consecutive matches. In the past fortnight, they found themselves in two situations that you’d think would surely encourage them to fire up – playing against 11 men against Cronulla, and reeling in a big score against Souths. Rather than lift their defensive intensity, they conceded over 1500m in both starts, and averaged almost 40 missed tackles a game (indeed, even mid-comeback last week, they managed to miss 19 in the second half alone, despite the Bunnies only making 80 runs). We’re complete believers in the Warriors’ ability, but we have absolutely no faith whatsoever that they’ll actually turn up. And say what you like about the Dragons, they do at least turn up and have a go each week.
- Storm by 6 – We were as shocked as anyone to see the Storm come crashing back to earth last week. Without Ryan Papenhuyzen and Jahrome Hughes, we didn’t actually expect them to win, but even if they had played, we’re not sure the result would have been any different. As good as those two blokes are, would the addition of a fullback and a half have stopped the Panthers from running for over 1600m? Watching Penrith run straight through the middle of the Storm, you might have thought they were exposing a blueprint for beating Melbourne. Unfortunately, there’s probably no other team than Penrith who are actually capable of putting that kind of yardage on Melbourne. The Storm have only conceded more than 1300m in one other game this season (Round 2, in which they were taken into Golden Point by Souths). We suppose North Queensland are as good a shot as anybody to make it three – they rank 3rd in the league for RMVOA, right between the aforementioned Rabbits and Panthers – but getting up towards Penrith-levels will be extremely difficult, and without that sort of yardage we can’t see them racking up that kind of total. Instead, we’re expecting a competitive, grinding game of field position; and if comes down to the wire, we’d rather be on the team featuring Cameron Munster and Hughes in the halves, rather than Tom Dearden and Chad Townsend (no offense).
- Panthers by 10 – The Roosters are looking more and more like the Roosters with every passing week, and we really think they’re warming nicely into the season. That being said, they still haven’t quite reached ‘peak-Roosters’ yet, and even when they have been at their best, they haven’t been able to stop the Panthers. Penrith have posted 20+ in their past 4 straight against Sydney (winning all four), largely on the back of dominating the Roosters through the middle third. Coming off their demolition of the Storm (in which 5 Penrith forwards ran for over 100m), the Panthers should fancy their chances against a Roosters pack missing lock forward Victor Radley. Panthers-Roosters games are typically high quality and extremely entertaining; they’re also typically won by the blokes from the foot of the mountains.
- Rabbitohs by 2 – Two weeks ago we wouldn’t have dreamed that this match would turn out to be so difficult to tip, but after watching the Raiders turn in a clinical dismantling of the Sharks – and seeing the Rabbitohs leak 20+ points for the 4th week in a row – this game is suddenly quite intriguing. For the Raiders, their defensive “improvement” is probably not so much an improvement as it is a correction, following a few weeks in which they gave up more tries than their numbers would have otherwise suggested. In 3 of their 10 games, the Raiders have conceded more tries than they have line breaks, and they’ve hit parity in another 3. This suggests that either they’re shockingly bad at defending kicks, or they’ve been at least a little bit unlucky defensively (the answer is probably somewhere in between). The bad news for Canberra is that the Bunnies are probably due for something similar. In amongst their 4 straight games conceding 20+, the Rabbits only gave up 3 line breaks in 3 of those, instead getting lit up for kick tries by Daly Cherry-Evans and Adam Reynolds. This may explain Ricky Stuart’s decision to keep Matt Frawley this week over Brad Schneider – Frawley is the best attacking kicker the Raiders have, and if there is indeed a weakness there for Souths, he’s probably their best chance of finding it. There’s not likely to much else for them though, with Canberra having been held to 2 or fewer tries in 6 different matches so far. In contrast, Souths consistently find scores, even while not really looking their best. We expect both teams’ defenses to be switched on and firing here, but eventually the Raiders may have to submit to the Rabbits’ firepower.
- Sharks by 12 – Craig Fitzgibbon has immediately reversed his switch of Nicho Hynes to fullback, but to be honest, we don’t think Nicho’s re-positioning was the cause of the Sharks‘ upset loss last week. Quite simply, the Sharks are prone to odd explosion of errors, and once again, they simply turned over more ball than they were capable of defending. It might have made for difficult viewing, but it shouldn’t significantly change your perception of Cronulla – this was actually the 4th time this year that they’ve made 14+ errors in a game, and they’ve lost 3 of those (for those of you wondering, only the Tigers have been incapable of winning while being gifted a mountain of extra sets, losing 30-4). In the games immediately following the previous three stinkers, the Sharks are averaging less than 8 errors per game. So don’t hit the panic button – if anything, it’s more likely that they turn up and annihilate the Titans than it is they turn in another clunker.