Useless NRL Stats

Lots of talk about the 14-0 curse after Sunday’s result, so I had a look at NRL-era halftime margins (and specifically HT scores for 14-point margins), to see if the curse does exist

Answer: 14-0 is no better than any other 14-point HT margin (other than 20-6), BUT a 14 point lead is worse than 12

The most-capped reverse pairings (any position) are:
Michael Jennings | Josh Morris (16 times).
Brad Drew | Danny Buderus (7)
Mikaele Ravalawa | Ronaldo Mulitalo (6)

Will Kennedy and Kaeo Weekes face off as opposing fullbacks for the second time this season. Interestingly, they have reverse initials of each other (KW vs WK).

They are the fifth such pair of opposing fullbacks in the NRL-era, and the only pair to play more than one match against each other.

They've managed to make the VB hard earned index look like @leagueeyetest.bsky.social's ETPCR

Fox League is putting me out of business - how am I meant to compete with something as useless as AI player rankings?

Lucky Charms and Bad Omens: Shown are the players for each team that saw the largest improvements and declines in win-rate for their team when they played vs didn’t play.

Drop a comment if you’re curious about any particular players/clubs and I’ll share how their team went with/without them

This afternoon, Joe Roddy became the 8th player in the NRL/NRLW era to score a double on debut from the bench

This only includes movement of players with an NRL cap at one club who then represented a new club

Riley Price (Cowboys 23 ▸ Penrith 25) is included, but Nicholas Lenaz (Eels Jersey Flegg 23 ▸ Cowboys 25) isb't
Kai O'Donnell (Raiders 20 ▸ Leigh 22-24 ▸ Cowboys 25) is a Raiders to Cowboys transfer.

Each coloured line represents the transfer of player/s from one club to another across a season, with the colour denoting the club they came from, the arrow pointing to the club they went to, and the thickness denoting how many players went between the clubs.

Visualisation of all NRL player transfers that have occurred a) in 2025 and b) as a rolling 5 year total from 2021-25. The chord diagram shows the flow of players between clubs.

If Jesse Arthars can't score a try tonight, he'll become the 6th player in history to score 10+ tries in the first half of the season, and none in the second half of the season.

Hudson Young has already become the 5th player to do so, after not scoring any tries since I bought him in NRL Fantasy

Shown on each photo are the last times that each current NRL team scored the outright most and least points in a round.

Interestingly it's been a different team in each round since Rd20, while the Titans have somehow not scored the lowest in a round since last year

In the 19-18 Sharks/Knights NRLW match yesterday, hat-tricks to Lilly-Ann White and Georgia Ravics yesterday out of 37 total points set a new record [since 1983] for the lowest total points in a match to involve two hat-tricks.

This was also the first NRLW match to involve two hat-tricks.

The Roosters' 30-point win last night was the second highest winning margin by a team that was kept to nil at half-time in NSWRL/NRL history.

This was also the fourth highest team score after being kept to nil at half-time, only behind the 46, 44 and 42 point matches all also in this table

Note that a) the Seci/Smalley match was the Rainbow fiasco, and b) the 2019 Rd16 Coates/Farnworth debut match included an origin-depleted Brisbane defeating a full-strength Cronulla with a spine of Boyd/Turpin/O'Sullivan/McCullough

I feel like b) is more important than the Penrith stat

Penrith are debuting David Fale and Sione (John) Fonua in the centres tonight. Ignoring debuts from the interchange, Penrith are only the 8th team in the NRL-era to debut two players in the same position in the one match, and the first team to do so in a position other than wingers.

Zac Lipowicz debuts for Penrith this Thursday, making him the first NRL or NRLW player to have a name beginning and ending with the letter Z.

All up, he is the 386th such player whose name begins and ends with the same letter.

Kobe HetheringTON brings up a ton of matches today. He becomes the 78th player with a TON in their name to play 100 NSWRL/NRL matches, and the 11th active player.

He joins father Jason in this exclusive club, who was the 36th TON to play 100 matches.

Heck yeah. Everyone loves a good chord chart and nobody knows how to read them. Awesome stats

YouTube video by No Chill Gil GIL GUESSES ALL 46 NBA CHAMPS SINCE 1980

youtube.com/watch?v=PPN9...

The NBA vis video

Thanks to a fan request, I’ve had a shot at recreating an NRL version of the NBA premiers data vis seen in the linked video. I’m keen to try visualising other season-wide stats in this manner - keen for any ideas everyone might have

Congrats on 5 years of an awesome page mate! You've set the bar impressively high for NRL stats analysis, and I think many of us (sickos) love reading not just the stats and metrics, but the thought and logic behind them.

Phins UP - the Hammer has set a new NSWRL/NRL record for the most tries (4) by a player in a milestone match (100th, 200th, 300th etc).

He becomes the 6th player to score a hat-trick in their milestone match, and the first since Michael Robertson in 2007 for Manly.

Q: How many times have two sets of three brothers faced off in a NSWRL/NRL match?

A: Only twice previously before the Fainu’s/Trbojevic’s faced off last night and in Rd25 2024.

Thanks @lachlanjeffery.bsky.social for the pickup of my error on IG - I got my Burgii confused

The Broncos have officially set the all-time record for the most rounds into a season before a player makes their club debut.

No club has ever gone an entire season without a club debutant, with the previous record of 16 rounds held by the 1978 Bulldogs.

Origin Spirit you say? Led by his royal QLD-ness Kurt Capewell, the Maroons have claimed the 6th ever State of Origin win by a team that scored less tries than the opposition.

Tough luck Blues. Don't eye gouge next time.

There are 6 men’s origin players and no women’s origin players that share a first or last name with a Perth suburb. Two are playing tonight (Munster + Martin)

A special mention to NSW’s Dale Finucane, the only origin player whose first and last names are suburbs in WA

The Dolphins are currently on the same number of wins and losses (7) but with a difference of +146. In NSWRL/NRL history, they have the ninth-greatest PD [and 4th highest unique team] at any stage of the season for a team with wins less than or equal to losses.

The Dolphins are currently on the same number of wins and losses (7) but with a points difference of +146.

In NSWRL/NRL history, they have the ninth-greatest PD at any stage of the season for a team with wins less than or equal to losses.

2025 NRL INITIAGAMI update

- 40 debutants with 38 unique initials (dark blue)
- Xavier Va'a (XV) the only new, never-before-seen set of initials
- other rare initials include Owen Pattie (2nd OP) and Benaiah Ioelu (7th BI)
- debutants Nick Tsougranis, Josh Patston and Kaiden Lahrs all included here