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According to the statisticians the Roosters were the best attacking and defensive team of the 2013 general season. In attack they put on 640 points and in defence conceded 325.
In 2012 the Melbourne Storm were the best defensive side conceding only 361 points while the North Queensland Cowboys the best attacking side with 597 points.
Given the Roosters outstripped both of these statistics in 2013 there is a good basis for the Roosters holding aloft the minor and major premiership trophies.
The next question is, how did they do it? Great coaching? Probably.
Buying a team? Probably.
Consistency? Probably.
Before addressing the most disturbing statistic from 2013, there was an amusing one from Sunday’s game: the only Rooster’s junior playing in the grand final played for Manly.
So the answer is “yes”, the Roosters bought a team.
That is the way the salary cap is supposed to work. It would be nice for the game’s administrators to encourage the retention of juniors through a mechanism such as exemptions from the cap for players who have been with a club for 10 years say.
But that is another debate for another article.
Trent Robinson has proved to be more than a competent coach and yet there is a one statistic that, in my opinion, shadows his achievements.
With the exception of four out of 26 Rounds, the Sydney Roosters have conceded more penalties every game than their opposition.
The Roosters and Manly, our esteemed grand finalists, were the most penalised teams this year. That answers the last question as to consistency.
Wayne Bennett complained after the Knights were downed in Round 20 with the Roosters conceding a colossal 14 penalties while still coming away victors.
That complaint was largely ignored.
The result was a record of 204 penalties conceded by the Roosters, the overwhelming majority of which were defensive infringements in their own half.
This was highlighted by Brad Walter in his article in the Sydney Morning Herald where he claimed that, up to Round 23, Manly had conceded 40 penalties in their own 20 metre zone defending, while the Roosters had conceded 32 in theirs.
ABC Grandstand stats analyst Tim Gore wasn’t to know the identity of the grand finalists and highlighted the issue in his article dated 18 August 2013.
Perhaps prophetically he asked, “The other sides in the top four – Melbourne and the Rabbitohs – score almost as many points as The Roosters. But both give away far fewer penalties and concede a fair few more points. A coincidence?
The Storm in fact concede the second fewest penalties in the NRL after the Sharks. What reward – apart from a lower ladder position – do the Storm and the Sharks get for having such good discipline?
More importantly, what punishment do the Roosters and the Sea Eagles get for having such terrible discipline? It is fairly clear that penalties conceded alone are not a disincentive.”
The answer is no punishment: the Roosters won the competition, the Sea Eagles came second.
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