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NRL Tips – 2020 Grand Final

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2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 125/168 (74%) (Last week: 2/2)

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.)
  • Panthers

Notes

As rugby league purists, we love this Grand Final. It’s far too common under the NRL Finals system for random, ill-deserving plebeians to fluke their way into the big one, and spoil what should be a showcase for the best teams in football to square off (teams like the 2014 Bulldogs, 2016 Sharks and 2017 Cowboys spring immediately to mind; and in the case of Cronulla, they even won the bloody thing). That won’t be the case here. 2020 has been a season with an elite tier of three team – the Panthers, Storm and Roosters – and everybody else a long way back. As it happens, the Roosters had their opportunity against Penrith and squandered it; now Penrith and Melbourne are the last two giants standing. We’re not going to argue that one team or the other can’t win. Both sides project to score between 2-3 tries, and in all likelihood the game will still be in doubt right up until the final whistle blows. Instead, we’ll argue that the consensus view that’s seen Melbourne installed as favourites is wrong, and that if anyone has a slight edge in this contest, it’s Penrith. The Storm were not as good as you thought they were The fact that we even have to muster an argument in favour of a team currently riding a 17-game winning streak (that includes beating this week’s opponent) should immediately strike you as odd in the first place. The swing in behind Melbourne has been driven by a few factors, the most significant being that the Storm were so ‘impressively dominant’ in their dismantling of the Raiders. However, we beg to disagree. For a start, the Raiders were terrible. Even the most one-eyed Melbourne fan would have to admit that the Raiders’ opening 20 minutes was one of the most spectacular bed-wettings of recent memory. The Raiders made a staggering 7 errors in the first half alone (as an aside, the Panthers have made 7 or fewer errors in 6 complete games this season), presenting the Storm with both possession and field position. Yes, Melbourne capitalised, but only the Ryan Papenhuyzen try required any real creativity (and even it was gifted by a bad read from Jordan Rapana; if he releases and leaves Justin Olam for George Williams, there’s no overlap). The other three were some of the softest tries you’ll see in a Finals game – a barge-over by Jesse Bromwich; an embarrassing sequence of jersey-grabbing on Suliasi Vunivalu; and an unfortunate cock-up by Nic Cotric created the rest of the Storm’s points. Yes, they were up 24-0 after as many minutes, but that score was dependent on poor Canberra defense errors – the sort that Penrith haven’t made all year. Next, let’s pretend that Canberra weren’t shit (though they most definitely were). After adjusting for the different opponents and possession shares (remembering that the Raiders are considered a ‘difficult’ match-up), it was actually Penrith who produced the better attacking numbers, not Melbourne. As it happens, Penrith out-produced Melbourne in LBVOA (20.92% v -0.92%), RMVOA (15.32% v -9.92%) and TBVOA (30.60% v 26.94%). In layman’s terms, Penrith performed better at ‘the things that contribute to scoring points’ than Melbourne did, despite ultimately scoring fewer tries. And in case you’re thinking “yeah, but that’s just your stupid algorithm; I know what I saw”, we’ll say two things. One, if you hate our algorithms, what are you doing here? And two, your eyes deceive you – Penrith outperformed Melbourne in absolute terms, too. The Panthers made more LBs (5 v 4) and RMs (1550 v 1283), with the Storm only winning in TBs (32 v 28) – though with Penrith having had to make 25% more tackles, we consider that number in the Panthers’ favour, too. Penrith were better than you thought they were So, having established that the Storm’s performance was more ‘opportunistic’ than dominant, let’s turn our eyes to the other common position – that the Panthers were unconvincing, and “if they play like that against Melbourne, they’ll get flogged”. First, we agree that Penrith bombed a stack of opportunities (the “forward pass” called on Josh Mansour; Jarome Luai kicking instead of passing; Nathan Cleary missing a wide open Brian To’o, just to name a few). However, the critical takeaway shouldn’t be the fact that they bombed them, it’s the fact that they created them. While popular opinion is that if Penrith perform the same against Melbourne they’ll get pumped (wrong), we’d argue it’s in fact the opposite – the Storm could play Penrith for four weeks in a row and not be gifted the sorts of tries they were handed by Canberra. Without fail, Penrith force teams to earn their tries – the Panthers have conceded more than 2 tries in a game just 7 times all season (and no, the Storm weren’t one of them). We agree Melbourne’s offense is capable of it, but not the way they scored their points last weekend. If the Storm play the same, never mind scoring 30; they’ll be lucky to get to 6. Second, let’s discuss Penrith’s handling. Here, Penrith were clearly worse than Melbourne, making 13 errors to the Storm’s 3. The argument surrounding Penrith’s sloppy possession comes in two parts – first, that since Penrith were bad and Melbourne were good, this is likely to be repeated; and second, that if it’s repeated, Melbourne will blow the doors off the Panthers. To the first point, we have two notable objections. For starters, while the Storm were playing on a dry track at Suncorp Stadium, the Panthers were playing on soggy ANZ Stadium turf – comparing the two numbers head-to-head in this case is like apples and oranges. The Panthers made more errors because of course they did – the ball was as slippery as a Vasolined-up James Graham. But further, if we’re going to consider ball control a key factor in this game, surely it favours the Panthers? Over the much larger sample size of the entire season, Penrith average a full 2 errors per game fewer than Melbourne. Yes, Melbourne were impressively disciplined with the footy last weekend, but it was also their lowest error count of the year by a full 4 errors, while Penrith’s was their highest. What’s more likely – that both sides repeat these outlier performances, or that they regress to their mean? And regardless, we still disagree on the second point (that giving the same number of extra sets to Melbourne would see them get flogged). Let’s unpack the ludicrousness of that statement for a moment. In taking that view, you’re implying that given an equal opportunity, the Storm would score roughly twice as many points as the Rabbitohs. The same Rabbitohs who came into the Preliminary Final averaging 48 points per game over the previous 3 weeks (a period in which they faced the 3rd, 5th and 8th best defenses in the league)? If there is any team capable of punishing opposition errors, it surely has to be Souths – and the impenetrable Panthers D held them to just 16 points, despite the Rabbitohs’ 53% possession share. Put differently, even while producing their worst handling of the year, providing the most opportunities to the most in-form attacking team in the league, Penrith still conceded 16 or less points (something they’ve achieved in 20 of 23 games this year). And you think they’re likely to get flogged? How we see it playing out As we said at the outset, this should be a tight game nonetheless. It’s likely Melbourne earn an extra line break across the course of the game, though this is likely to be counterbalanced by the Panthers enjoying territorial advantage (a line break on your own 30 is less likely to result in a try than a line break on your opponent’s 30). We expect a reasonably significant possession advantage in favour of the Panthers (something like 52-48), courtesy of their typically tight ball control and knack for forcing repeat sets (they average 2.55 forced drop-outs per game, vs Melbourne’s 1.36). With such a weight of possession and field position, we’d expect them to be in better spots to score tries – and for that matter, kick field goals. In a tight game, we want the team with the best kicker, who’s likely to spend the most time with the ball down the other end. That kicker is Nathan Cleary, and that team is the Penrith Panthers.
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NRL Tips – Finals Week 3

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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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NRL Tips – Finals Week 2, 2020

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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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NRL Tips – Finals Week 1, 2020

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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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NRL Tips – Week 20, 2020

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2020 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 116/152 (76%) (Last week: 6/8)

2019 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (64%)

2018 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: (58%) Line Betting: (46%)

2017 Season Results:

Head-to-Head Tipping: 66% Line Betting: 55% (NOTE: If this is your first visit to the site, be sure to click here for an explanation of what we’re all about.)
  • Broncos
  • Knights
  • Roosters
  • Panthers
  • Sharks
  • Tigers
  • Sea Eagles
  • Dragons

Notes

  • The final round kicks off tonight with the Broncos battling to offload the wooden spoon. This presents as a difficult match-up to pick, due to the staggering incompetence of both teams. As it stands, we’d give a slight attacking edge to the Cowboys, but it’s not convincing. The Cows barely fired a shot against Penrith, and despite the return of Jason Taumalolo (who gave a good account of himself with 117 run metres in just 40 minutes) they still got steamrolled up the middle, outgained by over 400m. It’s also noteworthy that the Cowboys’ offense is particularly error-prone – they rank 2nd-worst in the league, averaging almost 2 errors per game more than Brisbane. This is critical, as many of Brisbane’s issues are exacerbated by a persistent lack of possession. While North Queensland have won the possession count 6 times (winning half of those games), the Broncos have done so on just 3 occasions, winning 2 (with the third a 4-point loss to the Dragons). The opportunity to receive a few extra sets could be a refreshing change for Brisbane, helping protect their defense from too much exposure. And if they can maintain a little bit of possession, the Cowboys D is generally pretty friendly. They’ve leaked 10+ line breaks in over a quarter of their matches, and 6+ in more than half. Much of this is just the result of bad tackling – the Cowboys have 2 players in the NRL Top 10 for missed tackles (Scott Drinkwater and Josh Maguire), and rank 3rd last for TBCVOA. Though Brisbane lack any kind of ability to create space, they do pack a few guys who bust tackles one-on-one (Kotoni Staggs and Payne Haas immediately spring to mind; and if Staggs does indeed end up playing in the 6, he’ll have the freedom to go and find Drinky, wherever he’s hiding). This just might provide the opportunities required for Brisbane to find a few tries. Finally, it’s probably important to remember that while this game is essentially meaningless to the Cows, it means everything to Brisbane to avoid finishing in last place; and at home, you’d think that should motivate them to try that little bit harder than their typical ‘effort’.
  • The rapid sudden improvement of the Titans over the final two months of the competition has been one of the great stories of 2020. After scoring 3 tries total over the opening three weeks of the competition, the Titans have now scored 3 or more tries in their past 7 games straight. We tipped their offensive breakout a while back, but it wasn’t until they started getting positive possession shares that we really started seeing what they’ve got. The past 3 weeks they’ve seen 50%+ of the ball in each game, winning all three and piling up 78 combined points. Though Jamal Fogarty has been the hot new thing, Ash Taylor has really been the key piece in the Titans’ rise (and he’s no doubt rescued his own career in the process). Throughout his career, good games have been few and far between, but have all had one thing in common – they’ve arrived on occasions where his forwards have been able to get on top. Though such games have typically been as rare as hen’s teeth, in 2020 the Titans pack has played with a ferocity we can’t recall ever seeing from a Gold Coast side. Yes, over the season they rank dead last for RMVOA, but you must remember: they were awful for much of the year. If we draw a line and measure the Titans from their narrow Round 12 loss to the Roosters onwards, we see a tale of two seasons. Pre-Round 12, the Titans were getting smoked between the 20s, with an embarrassing RMVOA of -9.18%. Since the Roosters game though, that number has been 0.25% (good enough to be 7th in the league). Behind a bit of forward momentum, their offense has exploded, with their LBVOA leaping from -48.70% pre-Round 12 to 61.66% post-Round 12. This tells us two things: first, the Titans are much better than you think. And second, their attacking success is closely tied to their run metres. We don’t have them winning here, but we do think they have a few tries in them. The issue will be their defense having to keep out a Knights side that just flexed its attacking muscles on the Dragons, and is getting back key attacking weapons Bradman Best and Kurt Mann. This game should be a lot of fun, but we’re expecting the Knights to get up in a shoot-out.
  • We were certainly shocked to see the Rabbitohs get rolled by Canterbury last weekend. Granted, the Bulldogs did much of the damage against 12 men, but that isn’t really the point – it’s simply inexcusable for any team to concede 5 line breaks to Canterbury, much less a Canterbury team missing Kieran Foran. That outing marked the Bulldogs’ highest line break number of the year, resulting in their 2nd highest points total. For a South Sydney side who are depending on their defense to keep them competitive (due to the absence of Latrell Mitchell), this performance came out of nowhere, and casts serious doubt over how long they’re survive in the finals. As for how long they’ll survive against a Roosters team welcoming back James Tedesco, Jake Friend, Boyd Cordner and Siosiua Taukeiaho? Maybe until halftime.
  • The Panthers will once again be resting a selection of stars this weekend, after James Tamou, Api Koroisau and Zane Tetevano took Friday off last weekend. In case you missed it, the absences did very little to slow the Panthers down, as Penrith put North Queensland to the sword in the opening stanza. This week those guys come back, with Dylan Edwards, Stephen Crichton and Viliame Kikau having breathers. This presents an interesting opportunity for the Bulldogs, who get to attack a brand new Penrith left edge of Tyrone May and Kurt Capewell. Unfortunately, we’ve seen nothing from Canterbury’s right edge to suggest they’re capable of taking advantage. Right centre Reimis Smith has just 4 line breaks and 4 try involvements all season, while winger DWZ has 7 line breaks for 3 try involvements. As a general rule, the Bulldogs prefer attacking to their left – where they’ll find a Penrith right edge that’s completely untouched (indeed, this may have been a factor in deciding who to rest). Consequently, we don’t expect Penrith’s absences to make much of a difference, and their dominant forward pack should once again lay the platform for victory (the Panthers have run for over 1700m for 4 weeks in a row; the Bulldogs haven’t done it once all year).
  • Of all the teams resting players this weekend, the Raiders are the most perplexing one. A win here would put them temporarily above Parramatta, who won’t play until afterwards (and who are certainly not guaranteed to win). And with a Top 4 spot potentially on offer, what do they do? Rest half the team. They have a whole new spine, new back row, and gave Jarrod Croker a breather, to boot. The Sharks may have been ordinary lately (and have lost their best player, Shaun Johnson), but given the sheer scale of the changes for Canberra, we feel compelled to tip Cronulla. If the Sharks can’t get a win here, they’re absolutely no chance whatsoever when these sides meet again (potentially next week).
  • We’ve been wrong before, but the Eels/Tigers game just might be the best of the round. In the blue corner, we have the misfiring Eels. They come limping into the finals in bog average form, despite eventually putting away Brisbane last weekend. Their offense has been held tryless twice in the past month, and has scored more than 2 tries in a game just twice in their past 7 games (Wests have managed it in 8 of their past 10). Defensively, they’ve been solid, though it should be noted that in the two games they’ve played against Top 5 offenses in that stretch (we’re not counting their game against Melbourne’s reserve unit), they conceded a combined 18 line breaks, while losing 58-2 (in case you’re wondering, the Tigers rank 5th in the league for Offense). In the orange corner, we have the opposite problem – the Tigers’ defense has gone totally to water over the past two months, conceding 4+ tries for 9 games straight (over the same period, the Eels have done this just once). So when these sides meet, who’ll break? Well, we’re inclined to turn back to last week and our observation about the Eels’ offense. In case you missed it, Parramatta’s offense has only been decent when they’ve outgained their opponent by 200m+. They rely on winning at the advantage line, before playing back through the middle of the ruck (as seen by Clint Gutherson’s 11 line breaks and 28 try involvements). However, the Tigers’ run defense is surprisingly good, ranking 4th in the league for RMCVOA (-3.54%). The Eels had success through the middle the last time they met, in Round 11 (they outgained the Tigers by 368m, and scored 5 tries as a consequence), but Wests were missing a host of regular forwards in that outing. Alex Twal, Luke Garner, Thomas Mikaele, Elijah Taylor – all will add starch to the Tigers’ run defense and slow Parramatta down. And if they can do that, we’re comfortable backing the Tigers to score enough points to get home in Benji Marshall’s last game for the club. Maybe we’re just sentimental, but at this price, we’re giving the Tigers a huge chance to pull off an upset, and claim their traditional ladder position of 9th spot.
  • After sitting through the Sea Eagles‘ painful attempt at ‘football’ last weekend, we can’t believe we’re tipping them again here. They were absolutely horrendous against the Titans, completing just 70% of their sets, while giving away a further 11 total penalties (this was their worst performance of the season for combined errors and penalties). So how will we back them again? Reluctantly. First, we note that Manly will almost inevitably be better than last week (it was their worst effort of the season, after all). Any sort of positive regression will see them have a bit more ball, and we should remember that as bad as they were last week, they still managed to score 24 points. Defensively they’ll be better too, with Reuben Garrick back (whose best assets are his speed, and the fact that he’s not Albert Hopoate). And while Manly should be a little bit better, we expect the Warriors to be a lot worse. Without George Jennings, their offense dried up to score just 14 points, and now they’ve lost their captain, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. In general, the loss of Tuivasa-Sheck wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for us (he’s contributed a surprisingly low 10 try involvements all season), however our issue lies with how they have to replace him. The Warriors have opted to fill the fullback slot with utility back Peta Hiku – a generally sound choice. However, in a very limited attacking team, Hiku’s right hand flick pass has been the side’s primary attacking weapon. He ranks 2nd in the team for line breaks assists with 7, and has a whopping 17 try involvements. In moving him to fullback, they’ve somehow managed to downgrade two positions at once, and take away their best attacking combination. Instead, Hiku will be floating around in the middle of the field, where he’s far less likely to be able to isolate defenders and spring a man free. We hate this look for the Warriors’ offense, and Manly always a few points in them. As a result, here we are again tipping Manly, and preparing to hate ourselves later.
  • Finally, we have very little analysis to give about the Storm, given they’ve decided to rest an absurd 12 regular starters against the Dragons. Sure, they managed an upset over the Roosters back in Round 14 without their Camerons, but this is a totally different situation. This outfit is significantly weaker than the one they trotted out the following week against Parramatta, and that team got shut out. Accordingly, our inclination is that they’ll similarly struggle for any sort of offensive output, and the Dragons should certainly have the firepower to put them away. If anything, we think the Dragons are generously priced at $1.77 at time of writing.
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