2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 123/166 (74%) (Last week: 1/2)

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

Notes

• We should say from the outset: tonight’s blockbuster between the Storm and Raiders projects as a bit lop-sided. That being said, so did last week’s Raiders game – and we all saw how that turned out. Critically, we have to point out that the Raiders had to turn in their best game of the year to get the result (and even then, it went down to the wire). Against the Roosters, Canberra produced their highest RMVOA of the year (17.56%), their highest LBVOA of the year (66.84%), and their best TBVOA in a month (25.16%). Put differently, they played their absolute best game of the season last weekend, and snuck home by a whisker. This tells us two things:
  1. That they’re absolutely good enough to match up with the league’s best teams; but also,
  2. That they need to be red-lining to do it.

Which leads us a popular point of view: that Canberra “always turn up against Melbourne”. This is an odd position to hang your hat on – partly because Melbourne actually won their last clash, and partly because prior to Canberra’s 3-game streak against the Storm, Melbourne had won 5-in-a-row against Canberra between 2016-2019 (by an average margin of 16 points); and even including the Raiders recent success against them, the Storm have won 9 of the last 14 between the sides. It’s really not as close as you think it is.

So, as we often say: what’s more likely? That Canberra play the game of their lives for the second time in a fortnight, or that they regress – even a little – back to their average? This isn’t intended to knock them – Canberra’s average is still a long way better than most teams in the league. But the Storm aren’t most teams in the league. They feature the league’s 2nd best defense, and are coming in having made double-digit line breaks in 3 of their past 4 (something the Raiders have yet to achieve in any game this year). Melbourne are in form, healthy, and well-accustomed to winning at this time of year. Frankly, the odds look pretty accurate to us.

• As for the other game, it projects as the closer contest, but we don’t think it’s a friendly match-up for the Rabbitohs. The problem for South Sydney is their dependency on forward dominance for their attack to fire. When their middles are rolling and providing quick play-the-balls, they’re almost unstoppable. Damien Cook is easily the best running hooker in the competition, and South Sydney’s structured attack is a well-oiled machine. But if they’re not winning the ruck, it’s a different story. So far this season, they’ve played 8 games against teams ranking Top-5 in RMCVOA. If we discard their 60-8 pummeling of the Roosters (in which they outgained Sydney by over 700m, which actually proves our point), they’ve averaged just 14 points per game in those contests (and for the record, that’s a group that includes 3 games against defensive lightweights Cronulla and Wests). This is because as the ruck gets slowed, Cook’s influence is stifled, while their beautiful attacking moves are blunted by needing to attack a set defense. And the set defense they’re facing here is the best in the league. Yes, they’ve looked unbeatable with the ball recently, but they’ve done it while running for over 1600m in 4 of their last 5. You know how many teams have run for even 1500m on Penrith? Zero.

And that’s where this game will be decided. The only chance the Rabbitohs have of matching it with Penrith is if the ref gets involved and starts punishing the Panthers with set restarts. It’s not impossible – they were the most pinged team in the league in that regard for much of the season. But of late, they’ve actually improved significantly, conceding 4 or fewer set restarts in 10 of their past 12 (after conceding 6 or more in 5 of their first 7). Without that, we doubt the Bunnies can score more than 3 tries – and considering that they’ve conceded 3 or more in 10 of their past 13 games, and the fact the Panthers have scored 3 or more in all but 2 games this season, it just looks like a tough spot for South Sydney. We don’t necessarily think Penrith will pump them; about 4 tries looks right for Penrith. The issue is that 4 tries is generally all Penrith needs for their defense to do the rest.

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2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 122/164 (74%) (Last week: 4/4)

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
• Rabbitohs

Notes

• Unsurprisingly, the Roosters were significantly better last weekend, but still couldn’t quite do enough to get the chocolates. It appeared as though the Roosters blew their wad in a dominant opening quarter hour, before getting steamrolled by Penrith’s bench rotation. Forward leader Jared Waerea-Hargreaves looked particularly shot, playing a total of just 42 minutes (his 4th-lowest volume this season), one week removed from back-to-back 66-minute efforts. Once the Panthers got the ascendancy, they never looked back (though Brent Naden’s brain-snap certainly made for a nervous few minutes). We suspect that Sydney’s opening blitzkrieg was a team-specific strategy (Penrith are known for having an impenetrable defense through the opening 20 minutes, that allows them to quickly build leads), and won’t be repeated against the Raiders. Which is good – if they’re forced to spend half the game without JWH again, Canberra’s middles could really make a game of it. As for the Raiders, they were indescribably awful against Cronulla – and somehow still managed to get home. Canberra made a disturbing 14 errors (their 2nd-most this year) and conceded 4 drop-outs, providing Cronulla with never-ending field position. The fact that Canberra ultimately won speaks more to Cronulla’s ineffectiveness without Shaun Johnson than anything else – if Canberra were to play the same this week, they’d get lit up for 50 points. But of course, they won’t – last week was an uncharacteristically bad day, and we’d expect their performance to positively regress toward the mean. The question though, is whether or not their mean is good enough to win. On this point, we think not. The back half of Canberra’s season has been built on surprisingly strong offensive performances (we say ‘surprisingly’ because they’ve managed it without their best player, Josh Hodgson). After failing to score 5 tries in a game at all over the opening 13 weeks, they’ve now hit that mark in 7 of their past 8 games. They’ve achieved this through a balanced team effort: go-forward has improved from a RMVOA of -1.36% to 2.24% pre-/post-Round 13; that’s led to extra field position and more opportunities for repeat sets (forced drop-outs have risen by an average of 1 per game), which in turn has built pressure, and eventually led to tries. However, the Roosters pack is a different beast; they rank 2nd in the league in both RMVOA and RMCVOA. While Canberra have won the net yardage battle in 6 of their past 8, there’s virtually no chance that happens here. In Canberra’s only loss since Round 13 – which, by the way, came against the Roosters – they got outgained by 132m, and without field position got strangled out of the contest, producing just 2 line breaks on their way to an 18-6 defeat. Without many points, we doubt Canberra’s D alone can keep them in the contest, so our expectation is that something very similar happens here.
• The Eels completed Part 1 of their 2020 Finals disappearing act with aplomb last weekend, getting smoked 36-24 by the Storm. It speaks volumes about how badly Parramatta’s traveling that many observers considered that a ‘better’ performance. Let’s be serious – if conceding 11 line breaks in a single game of football is ‘better’, how bad must you have been? Even allowing for the strength of their opponent, that level of defensive ineptitude is completely inexcusable for a team with any designs on winning the competition; actual competition heavyweights Penrith and Melbourne have yet to concede more than 6 in a game all year. Meanwhile, Parramatta back up a 9 line break conceded performance against the Tigers with a further 11, and they’re somehow considered to have improved? If they turn up and defend like that again, they’ll get absolutely destroyed by the Rabbitohs, as they did five weeks ago, when they got pumped 38-0. We’re happy to concede that Parra’s offense has looked a bit better the past few weeks, but against Souths, they’ll be completely outgunned if they let this turn into a shoot-out. The only way to beat the Bunnies is to defend well – something the Eels have been struggling to do for a while now.

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2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 118/160 (74%) (Last week: 2/8)

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.)

• Panthers
• Raiders
• Storm
• Rabbitohs

Notes

• Welcome back to all two of our readers who could be bothered returning to the site after the absolute horror that was the final round. Why exactly that round was filled with inexplicable meltdowns by some of the league’s best teams will forever remain a mystery to us, so let’s just put it behind us and move on.
• The most notable poor showing of the weekend was that of the Roosters, who surprisingly opted to end their own 5-game winning streak by capitulating 60-8 to Souths. On this, we have two thoughts. First, don’t expect them to play like that again. Part of the demolition was that they were simply terrible, but another significant factor was the lopsided 61-39 possession distribution. With so little ball, it was virtually inevitable they’d get flogged (though admittedly, it needn’t have been that bad). The reason for the difference is obvious – though they made 2 extra errors and conceded 1 extra drop-out, the real culprit was the 13-2 total penalty count in favour of the Bunnies. To be clear, the Roosters are ill-disciplined and in general their penalties conceded did not seem particularly ill-deserved, butit is somewhat difficult to believe that South Sydney really went 80 minutes without making more than two infringements. Regardless, you can be sure that the penalty count will be far closer to even this week (not least because Penrith are frequent offenders when it comes to conceding set restarts). Secondly, though we’re not putting much stock in the Roosters’ last effort, it wouldn’t affect our tip here anyway. Broadly speaking, we like the way the Panthers match up against Sydney. Though the Roosters are experts at carving up retreating defenses, the Panthers are one of the few teams in the league capable of slowing the Roosters’ middles down. When the Roosters got their pants pulled down by a Cameron-less Melbourne Storm team in Round 14, this was how the game was won – the dominant Storm pack outgained Sydney by almost 300m, on their way to holding them to just 6 points (one of just 4 games all year in which the Roosters scored less than 18 points – and one of the others was against Penrith). Ranking 2nd in the league for RMCVOA, the Panthers are well-equipped to repeat the process. From there, there’s little doubt the Panthers have the points in them to win, having themselves been held to less than 18 points just twice (and no, the Roosters weren’t one of them). For the Roosters to win this game, we expect they’ll need to run up a bit of a score, and to be frank, we’d be surprised if Penrith let them. Instead, we’re expecting a brutal, forwards-dominated grind, plenty of repeat sets, and the Panthers to suffocate the Roosters out of the game.
• If the Sharks couldn’t stop Canberra’s reserve grade side racking up 38 points against them last week, it’s very difficult to envision any possible way they contain the Raiders proper. The Sharks should be a bit more dangerous with Jesse Ramien, Sione Katoa and Siosifa Talakai all returning, but none of these guys will help that horrendous defense. This looks like a formality and the most straightforward pick of the week.
• If you’re looking for the second most straightforward pick of the week, look no further than the Storm on Saturday night. Melbourne’s back-ups very nearly rolled the Dragons last Sunday – the very same Dragons who are just six weeks removed from beating the Eels. Quite frankly, at this point Parramatta are a wet fart of a football team, and have no business competing in the finals, let alone figuring in the Top 4 (we’d argue they’re the worst Top 4 side since… the 2017 Eels, who got bundled out of the playoffs in straight sets, in much the same fashion as this year’s model is about to do). Parramatta fans may point to their unconvincing Round 15 victory over a group of no-names wearing Storm jerseys, but the laundry was just about all that side had in common with the regular Melbourne Storm. Regular names absent from that match included guys like Vunivalu, Munster, Hughes, Smith, Bromwich… the Eels also won the total penalty count 11-4, and yet the game was still somehow in the balance deep into the second half. With a full-strength side in action here, we’d expect Melbourne to look more like the Penrith side that crushed Parramatta 20-2 three weeks ago. We like Melbourne, and we give them a good shot at doing it by 13+.
• Finally, we get to the weekend mystery box between the Knights and Rabbitohs. Predicting this game is darn near impossible due to the erratic form lines of both combatants. Working backwards, the Knights’ last five games are: a 30-point loss; 24-point win; 30-point loss; 28-point win; and another 30-point loss. We suppose that should put them on track for a 20+ point win, but if you had the misfortune of sitting through their insipid effort against the Titans, we’re sure you’d share our reluctance to tip them again. The Rabbits, meanwhile, are coming off the most dominant win of any side this year – a 52-point massacre of the defending champs. So, why aren’t we enthusiastically falling in behind Souths? Because they’re just a fortnight removed from an embarrassing loss to Canterbury, themselves. If both sides play to their abilities, there’s a struck match between them – their Round 10 clash saw them separated by just 11 metres (advantage Souths), 5 tackle busts (advantage Newcastle) and 1 line break (again Newcastle). For this reason we’re inclined to just back the home team – which is now Souths, after the Knights blew it for their fans last weekend. But we’re not inclined to bet on it, and if we were, we’d actually prefer Newcastle at the current price ($3.40).

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2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 110/144 (76%) (Last week: 8/8)

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
• Panthers
• Eels
• Sea Eagles
• Storm
• Roosters
• Raiders
• Knights

Notes

• As expected, the Bulldogs struggled badly without their only good player, Keiran Foran. The side produced just 2 line breaks in his absence, the lowest number conceded by Manly since Round 8, and less than a third of the Eagles’ average conceded over the previous three weeks (7 per game). Without Foran they have absolutely nothing with the ball in hand, and over the past two months their defense has deserted them as well, with Canterbury having now conceded 4+ tries and 5+ line breaks in six consecutive games. Against a Rabbitohs team that’s purring, they’ll be lucky not get massacred.
• We should probably mention that the Panthers have decided to rest key forwards James Tamou and Zane Tetevano (as well as hooker Api Koroisau) since Penrith’s success is built so firmly on the back of their forward pack’s dominance. Penrith have won the yardage battle in 17 of 18 games so far, with their 755m victory against Parramatta their most impressive yet. The losses of Tamou and Tetevano should slow Penrith down a little, but not by much – in their place, they’ll have Jack Hetherington (who came of age during his cameo as the Warriors’ forward leader), and will give longer minutes to Spencer Leniu (who ranks 12th among NRL forwards in metres-per-carry; 5th if you don’t include hookers). The Cowboys, meanwhile, are without Josh McGuire and John Asiata, have been outgained in 13 of their past 15, and are coming off an effort in which they conceded 10+ line breaks for the 4th time this year. We think Penrith will be fine.
• Over the past few weeks, the Eels have shown how badly they struggle when they’re unable to win through the middle of the field. Five times this year, Parramatta have outgained their opponent by 200m+; in those matches, they average 5.8 tries per game. But what happens when they’re not rumbling downfield? Well, when they outgain their opponent by less than 200m, their tries scored per match drops to 2.6. And when they get outgained? 1.25. In short, the Eels’ success is closely tied to their yardage, which helps explain their general failure against the top sides (who all feature strong packs). Their issue is that they lack creativity – Dylan Brown (who’s now injured anyway) and Mitch Moses have combined for just 9 line break assists all season – that’s less than or equal to both Penrith halves (18 and 17) , Roosters halves (11 and 10) and Melbourne halves (13 and 9) each, as well as maligned nobodies like Matt Dufty and Will Kennedy (14 and 12), and something called Darius Boyd (13). This leaves all their attacking hopes pinned on Clint Gutherson, who’s barely been sighted for two months. Fortunately, they get a Broncos side here without Payne Haas and Rhys Kennedy, who’ve been outgained by over 300m for three weeks on the trot, and who Parramatta smoked for 896m back in Round 3. Surely this is a matchup that can make the Eels start feeling better about themselves. But when they run into another decent pack? It’ll be curtains.
• In this week’s edition of “needlessly reckless decision-making”, the Sea Eagles have decided to name the fate of their franchise, Tom Trbojevic, on their extended bench. Given that their season is gone and Manly’s competitiveness is inextricably tied to Trbojevic’s health, playing him sits right alongside eating a pangolin as the most needless risk of 2020 (at least if you’re from the Northern Beaches). Still, this somehow won’t even be the stupidest piece of roster management for Manly this week (that honour goes to allowing the game’s premier forward, Addin Fonua-Blake, to leave on account of “issues” that could have easily been resolved by paying him the sort of money that was instead allocated to Jake “Plodzilla” Trobojevic; why can’t Manly fans have nice things?). All of this being said, we can only judge this game on the players who’ve been named, and assuming Tom plays, this is probably the end of the streak for the Titans. We really like what the Titans have been doing of late, and they looked primed for an upset here. But Tom changes everything for Manly – he still ranks 2nd on the team for try involvements (11) and line break assists (10), and he’s only played 6 games! Quite simply, Manly are a completely different beast with him in the side, and despite the Gold Coast’s recent defensive improvements, we simply don’t believe they’ll be able to contain a team with him in it (until his hamstring explodes).
• The Storm were uncharacteristically poor defensively last weekend, conceding 4 tries in a game for just the 3rd time all year. The game was never in doubt, as their offense strode through the Cowboys’ defensive line at will, but nonetheless, we’d expect Craig Bellamy to have focused on D this week, and to be viewing a game against a typically strong Tigers offense (6th in the league) as a good pre-finals tune-up.
• The Roosters have opted to rest James Tedesco and Siosiua Taukeiaho for this clash with the Sharks, but like the Penrith game above, we doubt it makes much difference. The Sharks’ defense is typically shocking, and Joey Manu is a perfectly capable replacement at the back. The Roosters should still find plenty of points.
• With the Warriors now out of the playoff hunt, the Eels have recalled Daniel Alvaro and George Jennings, leaving New Zealand even thinner for numbers to close out the season. The loss of Jennings in particular takes a lot of air out of their attacking balloon, with the Eels flyer having made 5 line breaks and 19 tackle breaks across just 7 appearances this season (6 for the Warriors). He’ll be replaced on the wing by Hayze Perham, who’s managed just 1 and 8 from 5 outings. They weren’t likely to win here anyway, but at this point they’re likely just looking forward to the season being over.
• The Knights made the curious decision to rest a few stars for their inevitable loss to the Roosters, and got exactly what they deserved – a 42-12 beat-down. Now, they find themselves in a tricky spot, likely needing to win out in order to secure a home final in two weeks time (which may well be crucial, should a playoff date with the in-form Rabbitohs be looming). They’ll have to do it with a re-tooled spine, having dropped Mason Lino and lost Kurt Mann to suspension. This feels like the worst possible time to be making adjustments to key positions, especially coming into a match against a Dragons side who’ve been playing relatively well of late. Sure, St George-Illawarra ultimately got pumped by Canberra, but they were well in the game at half-time (trailing 14-8), and do have the capacity to put points on. If Newcastle’s attack stutters, we actually give the Dragons a reasonable chance for an upset here – the Knights’ D has shown a propensity for being torched on occasion (they leaked 10 line breaks in a game to both the Roosters and Warriors within the past month), and winger Starford Toa is fast becoming a prime target for opposition offenses (he has a tackle efficiency of just 63%, and has leaked 7 line breaks in 6 games). With so much on the line for Newcastle, we’re putting our faith in Kalyn Ponga and co to outscore the Dragons, but to be quite honest, we’re actually not terribly confident.

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2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 102/136 (75%) (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
• Sea Eagles
• Panthers
• Raiders
• Titans
• Roosters
• Storm
• Sharks

Notes

• After ripping apart Manly and Parramatta for 11 line breaks each, it was no surprise to see the Rabbitohs crash back to earth without their star fullback Latrell Mitchell, and against the premier defense in the NRL. That being said, they certainly weren’t terrible. Most impressive to us was their continued improvement on D. On the season, the Bunnies have been slightly above average in the key defensive metrics of LBCVOA (-7.94%) and TBCVOA (-9.49%). However, if we narrow that down to just their past 4 weeks, they suddenly begin to look elite. Over that period, their numbers are -29.68% and -18.84%, respectively – placing them 2nd and 1st in the league. If this trend continues, their improved defense may well counterbalance any Mitchell-related drop in offensive output, and keep them in the tier just below Melbourne, Penrith and Sydney. It’ll get another good test this weekend against the Tigers, who crept into the Top 5 offenses with their 8th score of 24+ against the Sea Eagles last weekend. If it holds up, the Tigers’ woeful D should take care of the rest; but as we often point out, the Tigers’ do have the attacking aptitude to punish a poor effort, which is enough to stop us short of considering the outcome a lock.
• No Keiran Foran, no chance. That’s our summarised position for the Bulldogs. Foran has been herculean in his efforts to carry his side this year, and his production is unlikely to be replaced by… *checks notes* Jake Averillo. Let’s consider what they have to replace: despite having missed three games (and failed to finish a fourth), Foran has had a hand in 19 of his side’s 39 tries in 2020, providing the assist in 13 of those. He’s created 15 line break assists – almost triple the next best option (Will Hopoate and Jeremy Marshall-King, with 6 each) – and somehow even leads his team in metres-per-carry, despite hobbling around the field like a geriatric. The Bulldogs are the worst attacking team in the competition with him – it’s difficult to imagine just how bad they’ll be without him. Casting our minds back to the opening three weeks of the season (in which Foran was absent), it makes for unhappy reading – they scored just 4 tries combined in 3 games, with a LBVOA of -58.26%. Yes, the Sea Eagles are shit, and have leaked 26+ for 6 weeks in a row, but it would take an extraordinary surge in Canterbury’s productivity for that to become 7.
• We certainly weren’t whelmed by anything the Panthers did against Brisbane last weekend (though we note that they did still manage to win by 13), but whatever disappointment they caused seemed to stem primarily from their ultra-conservative gameplan more than anything else. It was immediately obvious that Penrith had come into the match committed to working exclusively through the middle third of the field, with Nathan Cleary turning the ball inside so much, he would have brought back bad memories of Luke Walsh to long-time Panthers fans. This is reflected in their numbers – against Brisbane, Penrith has 7 forwards make double-digit runs, with James Fisher-Harris topping the group with 24(!). The week earlier against Wests, there was 3. And when the ball gets turned back inside, it naturally comes at the expense of the guys on the outside, with Stephen Crichton in particular seeing his touches drop from 16 against Cronulla, to just 7 last weekend. Suffice to say that if you’re not getting the ball to your top attacking weapons, you’re surely aware that your offensive output will be adversely affected. That being said, they weren’t the only side to slip into an attacking coma last weekend. Compare the following numbers:
  • Team A) LBVOA: -68.68% RMVOA: 5.10%
  • Team B) LBVOA: -45.57% RMVOA: 5.97%

The top team was the painfully conservative Panthers. The second? The Roosters. Our point here isn’t to say that Penrith were good. They weren’t. Rather it’s to say that they were boring because they chose to be boring, and weren’t considerably worse than their main competition (and nobody’s calling the Roosters pretenders). They’ll be fine.

• As for the Eels, we don’t like this matchup for them one bit. The issue here is that the Eels’ offense is built to attack on the back of quick play-the-balls, rolling through the middle third of the field. This was particularly glaring against the Warriors, with Parra’s offense coming to a grinding halt the moment that Joseph Paulo and Reagan Campbell-Gillard came off the field (indeed, they haven’t scored a try without them on the field since putting one past Melbourne’s reserve grade side in Round 15, and have just 3 combined since Round 12). The issue here is twofold: the Panthers’ offense doesn’t slow down at all when their bench rotation comes on (working backwards, the Panthers have scored 3, 3, 3 and 2 tries over the past 4 weeks with their bench forwards on the field), and also their run defense (2nd in the league for RMCVOA) is notoriously good at slowing down the ruck, taking away Parramatta’s go-forward. Last time they met, the Eels needed six minutes of miracles to pull it out of the fire after getting dominated for the opening hour. We’re not counting on that happening again.
• The Titans and Broncos is suddenly shaping as the game of the round, with the Gold Coast on a 2-game winning streak (their longest such streak since Rounds 5 & 6 last year), and the Broncos showing some signs of life against Penrith. We’ve been writing for weeks about the Titans’ offensive improvement, but Brisbane are better than you think with the ball, too. Since their 48-0 thrashing at the hands of the Tigers, Brisbane have actually posted an impressive LBVOA of 20.96% (which would place them 4th on the season). So, why are they stuck in the middle of an 8-game losing streak? Well, there’s two reasons. First, they constantly find themselves on the wrong side of the possession count. Through that 7-week period, Brisbane have won the possession count just once (by a slim 51-49), with an average possession share of just 46%. This is caused partly by their absurdly bad discipline (they average 10 total penalties per game, worst in the league), and also a total inability to generate repeat sets (as a team, they rank dead last for forced drop-outs; incidentally, they’ve forced 2 or more drop-outs in just 3 games all year… and won 2 of them). This is bad news for Brisbane, but wonderful news for the Titans, who’ve won just 1 from 10 when they’ve lost the possession battle. The other major issue for Brisbane is that their defense is simply horrendous. Prior to last week, they’d conceded 6+ line breaks for 7 weeks in a row; and before you get carried away with their effort against Penrith, we’ll stop you there. As we explained above, Penrith inexplicably focused their attack through the middle third of the Broncos’ D… but that isn’t where they struggle. Rather, Brisbane’s issues lie on their edges – and they didn’t do anything terribly impressive there, they simply weren’t tested. Brisbane somehow manage to have 4 players within the NRL’s worst 20 for line breaks conceded, and all play on the edge (Herbie Farnworth, Brodie Croft, Xavier Coates and Kotoni Staggs). Though Croft (and possibly Coates) won’t be there, it’s nonetheless obvious where teams should be attacking. And if there’s one thing the Titans do extremely well, it’s hit those edges. Outside backs Anthony Don, AJ Brimson and Corey Thompson rank 18th, 21st and 23rd in the league respectively for line breaks, they just need to get better at converting them into tries. With plenty of ball and an attacking style built to hit the Broncos’ biggest weakness, this looks like a good matchup for the Gold Coast – if their defense can hold up.
• If you’re wondering why the Knights look so juicily priced coming off their dominant thumping of Cronulla, the answer is that Kalyn Ponga, Mitch Barnett and Hymel Hunt have all been rested. We’d suggest looking elsewhere.
• There’s certainly an argument to be made that the Warriors are well priced for their knockout tilt against the Sharks this weekend, but we’re only on board if Shaun Johnson is ultimately ruled out. As surprisingly good as New Zealand have been, they remain hugely inconsistent on D, and have only turned in 2 above average attacking performances all year (against Canterbury and Newcastle). Picking them would require putting your faith in their defense – which has been hit-and-miss all season, and is facing one of the real high-octane offenses of the competition this week. Sure, Cronulla were terrible last weekend, but their defense is always terrible – they rank 2nd last in the competition. There real issue was that their offense didn’t turn up to dig them out of trouble, something that should be aided by the return of Johnson. Prior to losing Johnson, the Sharks had scored 12 or less points just twice in their first 14 matches; without him, it happened twice from 3. Johnson has been in irresistible form in 2020, ranking 1st in the league for try assists. Without him, Cronulla were a shell of themselves. Assuming he’s back – and he has been named – we have far more faith in Cronulla’s offense than we do gambling on the Warriors’ ability to punish Cronulla’s crummy D (they’ve played 5 games against bottom-5 defenses, scoring 20+ 3 times, but 12 or less twice).

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