With the NRLW season complete, I’m going to finish up this year as I did last season by looking at the advanced statistical leaders for 2024. Usually I’d post this immediately after the grand final but real life got in the way again and I apologise for the delay. There’s not a great deal of difference between this post and the NRLM version in terms of statistics, but the main difference is the sample size. WIth the NRLM competition being 24 games plus finals, there’s no issue ring fencing the data to regular season data only. For NRLW, because of...
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NRLW 2024 efficiency update – how different are Crounlla to the rest of the top four?
With the NRLW regular season completed and finals starting this weekend, it’s time for and Eye Test efficiency update. And like the NRLM, the women’s competition this season featured a pretty obvious gap between the top four and the rest of the league, although Parramatta tried to make it competitive and sneak into fourth spot. Even within that top four, there’s another stylistic gap between the top three NRLW sides and Cronulla, which we’ll examine in detail later. First up though we’re going to clarify the methodology. As usual, we’re comparing on field performance by way of average points scored...
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NRLW double special – Bootwatch AND Sockwatch together at last!
What could be better than a Bootwatch post, or a Sockwatch post? Combining them together of course. And that’s exactly what I’ve done for the first piece of dedicated NRLW content on the site this season. As usual you can trust the Eye Test to provide you with the hard hitting rugby league analysis you need as the season winds down. I’ve been a bit slack with my NRLW content this season due to life and work getting in the way, and for this I apologise. Last weeks 2024 NRL advanced statistical leaders post was the final NRLM post...
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The Eye Test’s advanced stat leaders for NRL season 2024
The home and away segment of the competition is over, which means we can take a look at who were the advanced statistical leaders for the 2024 National Rugby League season. I’m using regular season numbers only because I’d like to normalise putting finals stats into a completely different bucket. As noted last year during this analysis, most of these metrics are adjusted for possession, and with good reason. Last year the Panthers had at least 7% more play the balls than the second placed team, and 20% more play the balls than Canterbury. This season the Warriors averaged 159.8...
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Does anyone want to win the 2024 NRL title? August efficiency update
The last month of rugby league hasn’t done much to cement a clear favourite for the 2024 National Rugby League premiership. Nearly every team in the top eight has had serious issues with injuries, or issues with being serious. It’s created some much needed uncertainty after the early 2020s domination of Penrith, who are starting look like four straight seasons with multiple finals games is catching up with them. Along with Melbourne, it’s difficult to see a grand finalist let alone another winner coming from the field. The uncertainty of the past month culminated in the Roosters being unable to...
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Tedesco or Hughes? Predicting the 2024 Dally M leaderboard by statistics
Last season around this time I tried to “simulate” Dally M or Player of the Year voting, based purely on statistics. I used this site’s player impact metric the Eye Test Player Contribution Rating (ETPCR) to give out “votes” to the top three players from every game to see how it would look compared to the Dally M award. This season I’m trying it again, and from the looks of the numbers it will be an incredibly tight race between James Tedesco and Jahrome Hughes. The Storm’s planned resting schedule might end up influencing the vote. Unsurprisingly Hughes is running...
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