The Obstruction Rule

2022 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 119/174  (68%)  (Last Week: 7/8)

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.)

• Broncos by 1 – It should probably come as no surprise that we’re backing the Broncos again this week, after we picked them ahead of their 36-14 thumping of the Eels a month ago. That being said, this time around the tip comes with a lot less enthusiasm as a result of a pretty ordinary past month turned in by Brisbane. Since whacking Parramatta, they’ve gone 1-3, including losing to the current Wooden Spoon favourites  (Wests) and giving up 60 points to Melbourne last week. Their defense has absolutely fallen off a cliff, missing 40+ tackles in their past 3 losses. The upshot here then for Brisbane is that while all 3 losses came against sides ranked in the Top 8 for TBVOA, the Eels are actually one of the worst sides in the comp when it comes to busting tackles, coming in at a lowly 13th (-8.46%), and having failed to break 40 tackles in a game this season. And if Brisbane can shore up that aspect of their D, the rest has actually been relatively comparable to Parramatta, even while getting gashed. Over their past four games – a run that includes giving up 10 line breaks to Melbourne – Brisbane have a bog average LBCVOA of 19.86%. But Parra on the other hand (the side supposedly coming in playing well) are right there alongside them at 18.58% over the same period. Brisbane’s outcomes look embarrassing because their tries conceded are tracking along with their line breaks conceded, whereas the Eels’ look better than they are thanks to an abnormally low tries-to-line-breaks-conceded ratio (0.5). This is completely unsustainable (no team in the league scores at a lower ratio of tries-to-line-breaks than 0.7), and if they continue to get gashed for line breaks at a similar pace to Brisbane, we fully expect them to soon be giving up tries at a similar pace to Brisbane. Accordingly, these sides project extremely even. The loss of Selwyn Cobbo hurts Brisbane, but it’s worth noting that he didn’t play in their Round 19 win over the Eels, anyway. With their season on the line at Suncorp, we’re leaning towards the home crowd getting them home.
• Panthers by 20+
• Storm by 6 – Friday Night Footy brings an absolute belter this week, with two of the most in-form sides in the competition facing off. After shaking off a case of the mid-season yips, both the Storm and Roosters have been looking utterly phenomenal. In the case of Melbourne, they’ve now won 4 straight; over at Sydney they’ve now made it 6. If there’s any question marks surrounding the authenticity of their runs, it’d be that in both cases only 2 of each side’s wins have come against Top 8 opposition, but you can only beat who’s in front of you, and they’ve certainly been winning by decent margins. If we have to choose which offense is running the hottest, we’re inclined to side with Melbourne on account of the slightly stiffer quality of defenses they’ve faced – though they only scored 16 point against Penrith, putting 6 line breaks past the NRL’s best defense was enough to make us sit up and take notice, and was arguably more impressive than Sydney putting 13 past Wests (who had also given up 10 to Cronulla just a week earlier). If you prefer to use a common benchmark, the Storm put 60 points past the Broncos last weekend; two weeks earlier, the Roosters managed “just” 34 against the same team. Sydney’s offense has still been very good, but we’d argue it hasn’t quite hit the heights of Melbourne’s, and that’s with a lot breaking their way. The Roosters’ 6-week avalanche of points has coincided with a stretch of games in which they’ve outgained all their opponents by at least 230m per game (prior to their hot run, they’d been outgained in their previous 3 straight, and had only outgained an opponent by 230m+ 5 times all season). That’s great, but it’s also extraordinarily unlikely to be replicated here. The Storm bring the league’s 2nd best run defense (a RMCVOA of -6.87%), and are a good shot to win the possession battle, given their superior error rate (9 per game vs 11) and penalty rate (9 vs 9.3). If the home crowd can draw a few extra penalties out of the match officials, the Roosters will have an almost impossible task getting the sort of field position advantages they’ve enjoyed in recent weeks. And without it, we just don’t know if they can win – they’ve literally won just 2 of 8 games this year in which they’ve been outgained for run metres (and those wins came by a combined margin of just 11 points). If you think the return of Lindsay Collins and Siosiua Taukeiaho sufficiently move the needle, then by all means, we can get on board with backing Sydney. But we’re expecting the Storm to get the better of the field position, and if they do, this offense will be very difficult to stop.
• Raiders by 4 – We’re backing the Raiders here in large part because they’re in win-or-go-home mode (and also because Manly have been shockingly terrible for the past month or so), but we’ve got to be honest – we don’t feel great about it. Canberra were awful in the first half last weekend against Newcastle, giving up 22 points and 5 line breaks to a Knights team who hadn’t scored 22 points in an entire match since Round 17. We suppose the upshot for Canberra is that they ultimately did find a way to win, but their offense simply isn’t good enough to bail out their D if they wet the bed again. Last weekend marked the 4th week in a row that they’ve given up 22 points or more, with them scratching out narrow victories in 3 of those against the defenses ranked 4th-last, 3rd-last and last. If they face any defense showing even a hint of resistance, we just can’t see them scoring 20+ again. That being said, while Manly have been a much better defense than the sides mentioned over the course of the season, over the past few weeks they… well, they haven’t been good. They’ve now given up 7 tries and 5+ line breaks in their past three straight games, and have a real look about them of a team that’s ready for Mad Monday. But there’s no questioning the quality that remains in the squad, and if they were to decide to turn up, they’re significantly more dangerous than Newcastle (who themselves almost pulled Canberra’s pants down a week ago). We don’t have the stones to tip Manly straight up, but we’ll certainly have a piece of them at their current price of $4, on the off chance the real Sea Eagles turn up.
• Sharks by 20+
• Rabbitohs by 2 – We’ve to-ed and fro-ed over this game all week, before eventually settling on the Rabbitohs. With the Bunnies in at $1.50, the bookies seem to think this is a relatively straightforward tip, and we’re the first to admit that their form line since Latrell Mitchell returned has been pretty darn tidy. They’ve won 6 of those 8 games, with both losses coming to Top 4 sides, by a combined margin of just 5 points. But this is a run that’s been built pretty much entirely on the back of their offense; defensively, they’ve given up 4+ line breaks in their past 7 straight, including 4 games giving up 6+ – and this is despite winning the possession battle in all but 1 of those matches. This isn’t the defense of a serious title contender, and will have them in real strife if ever they run into a side capable of slowing down their O. In this respect, the Cowboys and their league 2nd-best defense could provide a bit of a tricky matchup for Souths. In North Queensland, Souths will be running into a side who’ve conceded more than 4 tries in a game just 4 times all year – if the Bunnies give up another score of 20+, there’s every chance the Cowboys could slow the Bunnies down just enough to hang on for a win. Ultimately though, we settled on Souths after seeing Tom Dearden ruled out. Not because we necessarily think he’s an irreplaceable talent, but rather because after watching the Rabbitohs abuse Penrith’s replacement half Jaeman Salmon last weekend, we’re nervous about what they’re going to do to Scott Drinkwater (though it’s worth noting that Drinky will likely defend on the left, whereas Salmon got carved up on the right). It’s extremely close though, and if Drinky stands up, the Cows probably do have an upset in them.
• Dragons by 8 – We’ve gone for a low margin here essentially because both sides are so unrecognisable that it’s hard to draw anything meaningful from their season-long stats. From the team that got them into this mess, the Tigers have now sent Luciano Leilua and David Nofoaluma to other clubs, have a further 9 players in the injury ward, and have lost captain James Tamou to suspension, bringing their missing starters list to 12. We suppose the Dragons are doing a little better, with this week’s losses of Andrew McCullough, Moses Mbye, Francis Molo and Michael Molo bringing their own total to 7, but like Wests, they also weren’t particularly good in the first place. Our expectation here is that the game descends into some sort of shoot-out, given Wests have leaked 108 points in two weeks, while the Dragons have given up 24+ in 4 straight. On paper you’d have to think the Dragons are better placed to take advantage of this, but with new combinations and a lack of talent in the first place, we’re not about to rule out the Tigers entirely.
• Titans by 6 – Maybe we’re just suckers, but we just can’t seem to quit these Titans. We backed them in last weekend against the Dragons, and they were in it up to their eyeballs – right up until Francis Molo got sent off, and the Gold Coast suddenly got roasted by 12 men. Not to be put off, we’re going to back to this (extremely dry) well once again. The appeal here is in the 24+ points that the Titans have put on in 4 of their past 5 matches. These may not be the sorts of eye-watering totals that the good teams were dropping last weekend, but they’re nevertheless more than the Knights have scored in the past 6 weeks, and in fact, Newcastle have only managed to hit 24+ in a match 4 times all year. Of course, the Gold Coast and their saloon-door defense are the perfect opponent against whom the Knights can get started, but without Kalyn Ponga, Bradman Best and Kurt Mann (among others), we’re not entirely sure where these points are supposed to come from. So we say “sign us up for another week of disappointment please, Mr. Holbrook”.

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2022 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 112/166  (67%)  (Last Week: 6/8)

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.)

• Panthers by 6 – After watching the Rabbitohs demolish the Eels last weekend, we can certainly understand why they’ve been installed as favourites here against an under-manned Panthers unit. The Bunnies’ offense was absolutely electric, led by yet another Turbo-esque performance by their star fullback, Latrell Mitchell (who posted a ludicrous 3 line breaks, 2 line break assists, 1 try assist, and 182 metres at almost 15 metres-per-carry). So why aren’t we tipping them here? Well, the question marks surrounding the availability of Mitchell are a good place to start. At time of writing, Mitchell is still tipped to line up, but after he failed to finish training on Monday with a groin issue, you’d have to think the Rabbitohs would be inclined to sit him with any sort of a niggle (especially having already lost him for two months this year with a soft tissue injury). If Mitchell sits, that takes a lot of the firepower out of South Sydney’s arsenal. But even if he does play, it might be presumptuous to think they can rip through Penrith. For as disappointing as the Panthers were in getting shut out by Melbourne, they nevertheless did a lot right last week, even without their stars. The Panthers did an outstanding job of maintaining possession, conceding just 2 total penalties and forcing 3 drop-outs, on their way to earning a 55% possession share. Sure, they were repeatedly shut down by a superb Melbourne defense, but the quality of Melbourne’s D and that of South Sydney are absolute worlds apart. In Melbourne, Penrith were facing the league’s 2nd-best defense, and 3rd-best in LBCVOA. In Souths, they’re facing the league’s 4th-worst defense, and 3rd-worst in LBCVOA; one that’s been stung for 4 or more line breaks in 6 consecutive matches, including getting gashed for 6+ by all of the Bottom 3 offenses in the NRL (Canterbury, New Zealand and Newcastle). However disappointing you may have found the Panthers’ B Crew halves to be last week, few would argue that Penrith’s offense as a whole is worse than that trio of stink. If Penrith can earn a similar possession share this week, there’s every reason to believe they can convert it into a swag of points. And it’s not particularly outlandish to think that they will earn that sort of possession share – last week was Penrith’s 10th outing earning 55%+ of the footy (a mark Souths have achieved just 4 times) – and this match-up pits the Panthers’ 2nd-best handling in the NRL against the Rabbitohs’ league-worst. Add in the return of fullback Dylan Edwards to the Panthers’ line-up, and we think there’s a compelling enough case to stick by the defending Premiers, injuries be damned.
• Cowboys by 16
• Storm by 16
• Eels by 14
• Sharks by 12 – If you’re wondering how we can have the margin looking relatively competitive after watching the Sea Eagles cop a pasting last weekend from the lowly Titans, the answer is simple – as ordinary as Manly’s defense has been since Rainbowgate, their underlying offensive numbers actually haven’t been too shabby, especially considering how little footy they’ve had. Across both their last two losses, the Eagles had just 46% of the ball and got smoked for yardage by 299+ metres in each game – and yet they somehow found a way to make 5 line breaks in each outing, on their way to posting scores of 20+. Granted, Cronulla are a much tougher defense to crack than either of the pedestrian units Manly have faced over the past fortnight, but the Sharks are also without a host of regular starters (like Will Kennedy, Siosifa Talakai, Sione Katoa and Toby Rudolph) and are just a fortnight removed from an underwhelming win over St George-Illawarra. As it happens, we fancy St George are actually pretty comparable to Manly in their present state – capable of dropping a big score every few weeks, but ultimately likely to bring themselves undone with defensive ineptitude. Accordingly, a scoreline similar to Cronulla’s 24-18 win over the Dragons doesn’t seem far from the mark; we’re throwing the Sharks an extra try on the likelihood that Manly’s D knocks off early.
• Roosters by 20+
• Titans by 6 – Well, they did it. The Titans finally managed to convert a decent statistical performance into an actual, bona fide win. Throughout their 10-match losing run, their numbers were typically decent (or, at least decent enough that they shouldn’t have been running last). In 6 of the 10, they lost by 2 scores or less; they made 4 or more line breaks 6 times; they made 8 or fewer errors 4 times. But, as surely as the sun rises each day, they’d inevitably find a way to lose. So, now that they’ve actually managed to beat somebody… can we dare to dream they can go back-to-back? Shockingly (and we can’t believe we’re typing this), we’re daring to say ‘yes’. Because having got that monkey off their back, we can feel a little more comfortable judging this game on its merits – and put simply, the Titans’ numbers have been consistently better than those of the Dragons. The Titans have both a better offense and defense, and conveniently, the Titans biggest strength – their tackle-busting ability – coincides with the Dragons’ biggest Achilles Heel (their league-worst TBCVOA of 19.47%). The Titans come in armed with 4 players ranked in the NRL’s Top 30 for tackle busts per game (Greg Marzhew, David Fifita, Jayden Campbell and Phillip Sami), while the Dragons are carrying two of the worst tackling defensive edges in football. Of the Saints’ three widest defenders on both sides of the field (half, centre and winger), Zac Lomax is somehow the best tackler of the six named, and his tackle efficiency is just 83% (and if you’re looking for the worst, you’re after Tautau Moga, who misses 37% of the tackles he attempts). This makes a superb matchup for the Titans, who look their best when they can just brute force their way through sides, rather than be required to produce any sort of finesse (unsurprisingly, in 3 of their 4 wins this season, they made a massive 35 or more tackle busts; with the exception being the pathetic 8-6 win over Wests). And if you’re worried they might slip straight back into that losing mindset, we do take some comfort in the fact that the last team the Titans beat prior to snapping their losing streak was, in fact, the Dragons.
• Raiders by 12

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2022 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 106/158  (67%)  (Last Week: 7/8)

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.)

• Panthers by 6- We don’t what it is about Panthers/Storm games, but they all seem to get ruined by the absence of star players. Over the past two years, the only time we’ve seen anything approaching a full-strength hit-out between the competition’s two best sides was last year’s enthralling Preliminary Final (won by Penrith, 10-6). Beyond that, we’ve seen the Storm whack Penrith 37-10 without Nathan Cleary, Brian To’o, James Fisher-Harris and Isaah Yeo; a Cleary and Api Koroisau-less Penrith win 12-10 against a Storm side missing Ryan Papenhuyzen and Harry Grant; and earlier this year, a full-strength Penrith smoked Melbourne without Papenhuyzen and Jahrome Hughes. It’s that demolition that’s of most interest to us, since Papenhuyzen and Hughes are once again out, and Penrith’s form without Cleary and Jarome Luai (also absent) has been significantly better than Melbourne’s without PapenHughesen. While Penrith are somehow 3-0 without their Origin halves (admittedly, playing Canterbury and Wests in two of those surely helped), the Storm are 0-2 without their fullback-halfback pairing, losing to Penrith and North Queensland by a cumulative score of 68-12. Granted, these games were against the two best defenses of 2022, but even after adjusting for quality of opponent, the Storm still posted an utterly dismal LBVOA of -63.31% across those two starts. This matters, because Penrith showed in holding Canberra to just 6 points last week – the 13th time this season in which they’ve held an opponent to 2 tries or fewer – that no matter who lines up, their defense remains top notch. In contrast, Melbourne’s has fallen off the planet over the past two months, having now leaked 3 tries or more in their past 8 games straight (a string that’s included some of the league’s worst offenses, like Canberra, Gold Coast and New Zealand). At home, and boosted by the return of Viliame Kikau, we fancy that Penrith’s NSW Cup halves should be able to find 3 tries – and that’s typically more than enough for their defense to do the rest.
• Warriors by 2 – We wrote a few weeks back about how the Bulldogs‘ attacking numbers are wildly fluctuating from week-to-week between straight up terrible and actually pretty decent (in contrast, their defensive numbers have been consistently trash since Mick Potter took over). Last weekend was the worst so far, as they turned in just a single line break and 17 tackle busts while getting hammered by the Cowboys. The good news for Canterbury fans is that last week’s clunker doesn’t make us think another one is any more or less likely (the last time they were this bad they backed it up by dropping 28 points on Souths); the bad news is that they seem to be trending down, while the Warriors have been trending up, and will be bolstered by another rowdy home crowd. Over the past three weeks, the Bulldogs’ LBVOA sequence reads as follows: 22.99% > -19.32% > -70.24%. Meanwhile, the Warriors have been tracking: -10.28% > -2.59% > 65.81%. Besides the upward trend, the other thing that jumps out there for New Zealand is that even at their worst, the Warriors were measurably better than the Dogs have been in either of their past two games. The other point worth mentioning is that as shockingly bad as the Warriors’ defense has been lately (and believe us, it’s awful), in their two games at Mt Smart they were actually extremely good. How good? They had a LBCVOA of -36.44%, a RMCVOA of 0.22%, and a TBCVOA of -34.30%, on their way to conceding just 4 tries across two matches against Wests and Melbourne. The sample size is obviously small, but for context, all those numbers would put them in the top half of the competition, and their LBCVOA and TBCVOA would be the best in the league for the season. Against an up-and-down Canterbury side missing impact forward Tevita Pangai Jr, another game at that level would certainly be good enough to stir up a boilover.
• Rabbitohs by 1 – Picking a winner out of the Rabbitohs and Eels is a little trickier than we’d have thought, because of how strikingly similar they are stylistically. Both sides appear to pay very little attention to defense, seemingly playing with an attitude of “however many you score, we’ll score more”. At Parramatta, they’re yet to win a game while scoring fewer than 22 points (they’re 0-6 from these matches); at the Rabbitohs it’s even worse, where they’ve failed to win any matches scoring less than 24 (0-8). Suffice to say, if your defense is so poor as to require you to score 22+ in order to win football games, you’re a bigger threat to your coach’s job security than you are to the premiership. Picking a winner then becomes a choice between the two offenses, and by this measure, it’s a no-contest. Parramatta are like the Aldi version of Souths – sure they’ve managed to post 5+ line breaks in a game 10 times this season, but Souths have now done it 11 times in a row (and a ridiculous 17 times this season, if you were wondering). Parramatta have managed to run up 30+ points 5 times this season; the Bunnies have done it 9. Oh – and don’t forget, Mitchell Moses remains sidelined. Honestly, the only reason we have the margin so close is because we feel a bit spooked after Parra’s avalanche of points in the final quarter against Manly. Deep down in our heart of hearts though, we still think the Eels are rubbish (we’re just being a bit less loud about it).
• Roosters by 1 – Speaking of even match-ups, Saturday arvo should bring the game of the round, with both the Roosters and Cowboys in absolutely piping hot form. After struggling away with narrow loss after narrow loss, the Roosters finally hit the win button four weeks ago, and haven’t looked back since. Over those 4 games they’re undefeated, winning by an average score of 38-16. They’re not just winning, they’re stomping all over teams, backed up by a defense that’s held two above average offenses to just 3 line breaks a piece in the past fortnight. Picking Sydney would be a total slam dunk were it not for the Cowboys’ sudden injection of line breaks into their footy. Here’s a team who’d depended heavily on kick tries to score any sort of points in most games, who out of nowhere have ripped through for 19 line breaks in their past 2 games combined (for comparison, it took them 6 weeks to hit this mark to open the season). If this isn’t a mirage and the Cowboys have suddenly figured out how to create running tries, the competition should be on notice – they’ve already got the 2nd-best defense in the competition, and have shown an uncanny knack for having the volatile attacking kick produce more than their share of 4-pointers. We’re taking the Roosters though, in part because they’ve got a longer form line of offensive production, and in part because we know they can do it against the Cowboys, having already whooped them 28-4 in Townsville. But we don’t think this is a gimme – we just want to see the Cows repeat their production one more time before we fully buy in.
• Sharks by 16
• Broncos by 12
• Raiders by 16
• Sea Eagles by 6 – Just to be clear, we do expect the Titans to lose here, but we have the margin close because… well.. it usually is. The Titans’ numbers have rarely been awful all season long (though their defensive numbers appear to be falling off over the past few weeks, now that they’ve given up on the season), but they just have a knack for losing, regardless of opponent. Whether it’s by 10 points to Canterbury, or by 4 points to Brisbane, or by 8 points to Cronulla, the Titans typically hang around well enough, before ultimately folding meekly into submission. We expect more of the same here against an under-manned Manly pack missing Sean Keppie, Taniela Paseka and Karl Lawton. This Manly side can certainly be beaten, but they almost certainly won’t be.

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2022 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 99/150  (66%)  (Last Week: 6/8)

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.)

• Roosters by 8 – Tonight’s clash feels a bit unpredictable, with both the Roosters and Broncos currently sitting within the NRL Top 8, but coming off a pair of the worst performances of Round 20. Sure, the Roosters got the chocolates last weekend, but after having the good fortune of drawing what was essentially a reserve grade Manly side, they would have liked to have seen a much better result than the paltry 3 tries to 2 victory they produced (particularly considering that Manly’s reggies side from which the replacements were drawn is running dead last in NSW Cup). The Roosters made a season-high 17 errors in that clunker, and missed a whopping 39 tackles (their 3rd-worst effort this year) on the way to one of the most extraordinarily underwhelming wins of recent memory. But what’s worse – barely beating a park football team, or getting pumped by the Tigers? That’s what we’re confronted with here, after Brisbane got torched by a team who hadn’t won a game since May*. To our tastes, we’re saying it’s the latter. Not entirely because of that result, but also because on closer inspection, we’re not sure how strong the Broncos’ recent form line was in the first place. Yes, they’ve quietly climbed their way into 5th spot on the back of 3 consecutive wins, but with those wins coming against Bottom 8-standard sides St George, the Gold Coast and Parramatta (not a misprint – we’re standing firmly on the side of ‘Parramatta are rubbish’), how well were they really traveling? Prior to that run, they were the last team Melbourne had beaten until last weekend, and they were the only Top 8 team North Queensland have beaten since Round 11. Indeed, even through their mini winning streak, the Broncos had an extremely run-of-the-mill LBVOA of 1.08% and LBCVOA of 2.91% – essentially the very definition of average. And this is why we’re rolling with the Roosters – because although the Roosters were ordinary last week, we feel like the Broncos have been a little ordinary for a while now.

* According to Ashley Klein

• Storm by 18
• Sea Eagles by 4 – Regular readers wouldn’t be surprised to see us once again tipping against the Eels, but let us be clear: this isn’t just because Mitch Moses is out (although we would admittedly struggle to ever tip a side with Jakob Arthur starting at halfback). Frankly, Manly are just better than Parra. While their respective offensive numbers are pretty comparable (which is impressive for the Sea Eagles in itself, considering they’ve played most of the season without Tom Trbojevic), there’s an absolute gulf between these sides on defense. Consider the following: the Eagles outperform the Eels in LBCVOA (4th vs 15th), RMCVOA (7th vs 13th) and TBCVOA (1st vs 9th). Prior to beating a 12-man Penrith side last week (whoopy-doo), the Eels gave up 36 points to Brisbane (the Broncos’ 2nd-highest score of the year), 18 to the Warriors (New Zealand’s 6th-highest total of the year) and 20 points to Wests (their 7th-highest total of the year). If we’re generous and suggest that Manly only score their own 7th-highest score of the season, the Eels would be left chasing down a score of 25 points against the league’s 7th-best defense, armed with an offense being steered around by a halfback whose chief ability is his knack for sharing DNA with the coach. We don’t want any part of that, thank you.
• Rabbitohs by 16
• Panthers by 10 – We’d ordinarily have the Panthers about 18 points better than the Raiders, but the loss of both Penrith’s starting halves certainly needs to be considered. Thankfully, we’ve already seen the Panthers play twice this year without their star duo (in Rounds 13 & 18 vs Canterbury and Wests), and in those games their LBVOA… improved from 14.69% to an other-worldly 58.34%. Now, we certainly don’t actually think the Panthers’ offense is better without two of their best players (the uptick in production is likely just a consequence of the small sample size), but it nevertheless suggests that whatever drop-off we do get isn’t likely to be too bad. We’re marking Penrith down a little bit, but if their defense isn’t badly affected (and with the rest of the side essentially at 100%, there’s no reason to think it shouldn’t be), they should still be good enough to keep Canberra’s offense to about 12 points, which would make this game pretty winnable, even with a reserve grade halves combo.
• Sharks by 20+
• Cowboys by 12 – The Cowboys/Bulldogs match is a little intriguing as a match-up, given that both sides struggle for line break production, but are able to prop their try scoring numbers up through the effective use of kick tries. It’s not a secret that we’re not huge believers that kick tries are a huge marker of success (if they were, history would remember Rugby League Hall of Famer Luke Walsh), but it’s nevertheless true that when you think of these sides in 2022, you immediately think of kicks for Jeremiah Nanai (who has an amazing 16 tries so far), or the Burton-to-Addo-Carr connection (with the Foxx having bagged 14 tries). The volatility of kick tries naturally makes this game difficult to predict (indeed, the outcome of their Round 1 meeting was appropriately decided by a bunker review of a last ditch Cowboys kick try), but we’re happy to favour the Cows on the assumption that they should earn the lion’s share of field position (which is one of the most vital contributing factors to scoring from kicks). The Cowboys have won the yardage battle by 200m or more in 11 matches so far this season; the Bulldogs have only won the yardage battle at all 7 times, and by 200+ metres twice. This mismatch of yardage should make it difficult for the Doggies to continue to pull tries out of their wazoo, and give the Cowboys a strong platform from which to grind out another win.
• Knights by 1 – As diabolically awful as the Knights have been lately, we find ourselves tipping them here largely on the strength of their team list alone. While the Tigers added Jackson Hastings to a growing injury ward that already included Luke Brooks, Alex Twal, Stefano Utoikamanu and Shawn Blore; the Knights are welcoming back star centre Bradman Best, as well as potentially utility Kurt Mann. The combined loss of Hastings and Brooks is a real blow for a Tigers unit who’ve been attacking pretty well over the past three weeks. Though they ultimately scored more points in their first match without Brooks last week, their LBVOA actually dropped from 66.37% over the previous two weeks, to 33.63% (which is still very good, but nevertheless headed in the wrong direction). The added loss of Hastings – who has almost 800 more touches this year than anyone named this week, and leads the team with 21 try involvements – will only hurt, given it must fundamentally alter their attacking structure. In contrast, though the Knights have been utterly atrocious of late, it’s worth noting that in Best’s only match of the last two months they put 28 points on Souths with a LBVOA of 27.46%. Meanwhile, Kurt Mann’s last 4 matches produced a LBVOA of 6.60%, while in the three games since, that dropped to a disturbing -42.40%. The point here is that if there is anyone you didn’t want to see the Tigers lose it was Hastings, and if there were any two players you really wanted to see the Knights get back, they’re arguably Best and Mann (though admittedly that Ponga guy would be pretty handy, too). Which leaves us picking Newcastle, albeit with no conviction whatsoever, and feeling so filthy that we need to go and take a shower.

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2022 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 93/142  (65%)  (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.)

• Roosters by 16 – At this point you’d need to have been living under a rock to be unaware of the Sea Eagles‘ Pride jersey fiasco, which has led to seven regular starters standing themselves down. Without wanting to wade into the ludicrous notion that wearing a rainbow somehow contravenes their religion (yet being a walking billboard for gambling, alcohol and the occasional church stabbing apparently doesn’t), let’s just say that this match should have been well within the range of winnability for Manly, should they be having an “on” day. Sure, they wet the bed pretty spectacularly against the Dragons last weekend, but the week after previous comparable bed-wettings they’ve actually played quite well (they backed up their flogging from Souths by touching up the Tigers 36-22; they backed up their 38-0 torching from Brisbane by getting within an inch of upsetting Parramatta). Unfortunately the loss of half their starting team probably puts an end to the chance of a similar rebound performance, and with this week’s opponent, the Roosters, immediately above them on the ladder, it’s likely to be a particularly painful loss. For what it’s worth, we’re still not expecting a complete demolition – this kind of feels like the sort of “us against the world” situation that should galvanize the players who do turn up – but the Eagles’ lack of roster depth (and the rapidly improving form of the Roosters) should still make for a comfortable enough Sydney victory.
• Storm by 18
• Panthers by 20+ – Parramatta apologists like to point to their upset 22-20 victory over the Panthers in Round 9 as some sort of “proof” that they’re contenders. Realists prefer to look at the fact that they got creamed in the stats that night – they lost the line breaks 6-2 and run metres 1492-1349, despite winning the possession battle 54-46 (how on earth do you get outgained by almost 150m while having an extra 30 runs?!) – as evidence of exactly how far away the Eels actually are. The Panthers will be without Origin stars Jahrome Luai and Stephen Crichton here, which could keep the margin below 20, but with Penrith’s offense recently heating right up (last week’s 4 line break effort against the league’s 4th-best defense snapped a 9-game streak of making 5 or more line breaks in matches – the Eels don’t have 9 such games collectively on the season), we’re still happy tipping a walloping.
• Raiders by 6 – We’ve been talking up the Raiders for a while now (and we still think they’re being quietly underrated as they continue their slow march up the NRL ladder), but we just want to warn that this game isn’t necessarily the slam dunk tip it may appear to be on first glance. As good as the Raiders may be, their offense remains strangely limited to a ceiling of 4 tries per game (they’ve exceeded that mark just 3 times all season). Given the strength of their D, this is often enough. But it’s nevertheless worth noting that in Jayden Campbell’s 8 games in first grade this year, the Titans have hit this mark themselves 6 times (and on his career, he’s 10 from 15). As it happens, last week he didn’t even hit the field until the 48th minute, from which point the Titans scored 3 tries in the following 20 minutes. If Justin Holbrook stops with the self-sabotage and actually plays his best attacking player for the full game, the Gold Coast do have the capacity to score enough points for this to be competitive (even against a defense of Canberra’s quality). Of course, they’d likely probably still lose (the theme of their season has been being otherwise competitive on the way to getting repeatedly beaten), but we’re not banking on them getting flogged, and we actually don’t mind the Titans at their current price of $3.10.
• Sharks by 8 – With the Rabbitohs extending their run to 4 consecutive wins since Latrell Mitchell’s return, we can certainly understand the appeal in picking the Bunnies. All of a sudden, the Rabbitohs are absolutely raining points, and seem to have put aside the inconsistency that plagued them earlier in the year. However, winning has a bit of a tendency to mask deficiencies – while the South Sydney Hype Train has been quickly gathering steam, apparently nobody’s noticed that they’ve now leaked 6 line breaks in 3 consecutive matches (2 of which were against offenses ranked in the competition’s bottom 3). Given the rate that their line has been getting put through the shredder, we can’t help feeling like the Sharks may be just the team to hand the Bunnies a heavy dose of reality. The Sharks rank 1st in the league for LBVOA, and are a better defense than any of the sides Souths have faced since Mitchell’s return (meaning we’re not expecting Souths to drop another 24+ score – which is exactly what they’re likely to need in order to keep pace with the Sharkies). This definitely has Match of the Round potential, but it nevertheless looks like a match-up that plays to Cronulla’s strengths.
• Broncos by 18
• Bulldogs by 6 – As with the Rabbitohs above, the recent wins for the Bulldogs seem to have obscured the extent to which their defense has completely disintegrated since the arrival of Mick Potter as coach. Yes, they’re suddenly scoring points, but when your defense is so shoddy that you’re forced to rely on multiple intercept tries in order to get past the Titans, it’s not a good sign. Since they switched coaches, their LBCVOA has collapsed from -18.50% with Barrett (good enough for 2nd in the competition) to 14.75% under Potter (12th). Accordingly, last week marked the 5th time in 8 games that they’ve given up 26 points or more. Thankfully, this week they’ve drawn a Knights side who have hit the 26 point mark just 3 times all season, and are now without their best player (Kalyn Ponga) and edge forward Lachlan Fitzgibbon (who’s having a curiously down year, but has historically been one of their better performers). The Knights’ attacking struggles are the only reason we’re tipping the Doggies, and if you’d been wondering why we refuse to buy into the mirage of the Bulldogs’ lift in form, now you know.
• Cowboys by 14

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