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You are here: Home / What Have We Learned

What Have We Learned

A collection of concepts and theories collected from earlier articles. These aren’t presented as indisputable facts, but do represent the views of The Obstruction Rule, and contain links to the original articles to allow you to form your own opinions.

Teams who make more line breaks tend to score more tries

Though not necessarily true over the short term (in any single game, it’s very much possible for teams to score more line breaks than their opposition yet score less tries), it is certainly the case long term, and by the conclusion of a season a team’s line break and try rankings will typically be remarkably similar.

Original article: Tries from kicks: Where is Luke Walsh now, anyway?

Elite teams are not significantly better at winning close matches

A popular furphy told by rugby league commentators for years is that top teams “know how to win the tight ones”. In short, they don’t. Through the 5 years of data studied, elite teams won close matches (defined as games decided by between 1 and 7 points) at a rate of 55% – not significantly better than could be expected by luck alone.

Original article: Tight Games: Why top teams don’t have to blame the ref

Elite teams tend to dominate their opposition

Though the best teams don’t perform particularly well in tight games, they do perform particularly well in blowouts – through 5 years of data, elite teams won on average 83% of matches decided by 13+. This naturally follows from the previous point – if close games come down to little more than luck, the top teams should avoid getting into those situations to begin with.

Original article: Tight Games: Why top teams don’t have to blame the ref

Having an elite defense is more valuable than having an elite offense

Though ideally you’d rather have both, teams with elite defenses on average perform better than those with elite offenses. Historically, an elite defense alone is enough to qualify for the finals, whereas an elite offense may not be.
Original article: Defense Wins Championships: Why Melbourne always wins (and your team doesn’t)
 

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Top 5 NRL Offense VOA

Melbourne34.04%
Cronulla26.65%
Penrith23.46%
South Sydney22.76%
Sydney21.79%

Top 5 NRL Defense VOA

Penrith-46.43%
North Queensland-24.33%
Melbourne-22.88%
Cronulla-20.29%
Sydney-20.25%

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