Did the Eagles and Roosters penalise their way to the NRL's big day?

All this talk about conceding penalties deliberately has got to be the biggest b/s argument I have ever heard. What coach in his right mind would encourage that when the result is either a shot at goal or another six tackles. I'm also failrly certain that the Roosters have been the most penalised under other coaches as well. 2012 they were and Robbo wasn't there now was he?

no neither side did i dont understand the assumption that some how the Roosters and Sea Eagles milked penalties to get to the Grandfinal obviously this writer of this biased article a neville nobody hasn;t a clue - suck it up epod Roosters won so stuff you

Totally disagree with that assertion, I watched every game and most of the penalties awarded against the Roosters were nothing penalties that had no reason to be given. As an example, so many times the Roosters will tackle a player and when the player gets up as he is about to play the ball the Roosters are penalised for not getting off the tackled player when the guy was just about to put foot to ball, totally ridiculous. Also if the Roosters are conceding so few line breaks they have no reason to give away a penalty. Another thing, during games when there are no penalties being blown the game is in the other teams half, the Roosters are totally dominant and I believe they were a victim in 2013 of being so dominant with the referees feeling compelled to even up the contest. On the other side of the coin, Souths are constantly given piggy back penalties to get out of their own half and did not have to work as hard to assert dominance, when they were not given a free ride they seemed to struggle as shown in their finals match against Manly.

It is not a new tactic gavin, but it is definitely a tactic. It allows a team to set their defensive structure again. I remember Hasler using another tactic while coaching Manly that revolved around giving away penalties early in the match. It had 2 major benefits 1. You work out early the length of time the refs will allow you to wrestle in the ruck 2. Whether consciously or subconsciously the refs will even up the penalty count by the end. And receiving penalties at the back end of the game is very beneficial against a fatigued side. With all teams so closely matched the best sides are the one's who exploit the rules to their advantage to gain an extra 1 or 2%.

It has been discussed pretty widely and reported in the media in some detail outside of Wayne B and the Roar. It is also pretty obvious when you watch the games. If it is not a coached / accepted tactic then I am certain Robinson would not keep selecting players who give away so many penalties through a lack of discipline. Again I will say; full credit to them because you need to be great in defence to back it up.

How can you say that it is a coached tactic, were you privy to Trent Robinson's team talks. All there is to go on is an article from Tim Gore and some whinging from Wayne Bennet.

They were the most penalised team in 2012 because they were disorganised, undisciplined rabble. Now they are the most disciplined. A great effort in one season. It is absolutely a coached tactic to concede a penalty rather than leave your defence in disarray. Re-set for 6 tackles and usually you will be defending a kick to the corner on the 5th - Roosters had the wingers to cover this well. Roosters and Manly are not the only ones to do it but I would say after watching most of the Roosters games this year, that they fall back on this tactic more than any other team. But, all credit to them. You need great defence and confidence to be able to do it without gifting points. The only way to stop it? The tactic doesn't work if you get penalised every time you breach and the next one is sin binned. Or when you complain about the penalty you get marched 10m. Or the attacking team is ALWAYS allowed to take the quick tap. I had a rant yesterday about refs ignoring the "less penalties to let the game flow" mantra and just penalise breaches from the 1st to 80th minute. Watch the coaches pull back on the wrestling etc when it results in penalties every time and sin bins for serial offenders.

can somebody come up with a statistic for how many penalties in each half did the Roosters concede? IMO most would be in opposition territory and be cheap penalties from the refs to piggy back the opposition into attacking position. All we have is that 32 out of 204 penalties for the Roosters were in their own 20m zone, which is only 15% (and the 20m zone is 20% of the field) which suggests that Easts are conceding less penalties close to their line compared to other parts of the field.

This tactic works well for the Roosters - at least for this season - no doubt there will be a rule adjustment of some sort next year. Credit where it's due, good coaching.

The Eagles and Roosters did not penalise their way to the NRL’s big day. They were simply the best defensive teams.Going by the stats above, the Roosters conceded approximately 1.5 penalties a game in their red zone, Manly 2. Hardly a game changer. The Roosters have been the most penalised team for the last 7 or 8 seasons. Different coaches, different captains and different players. That is a story worth exploring. No one complained when they were the most penalised last year and came 13th.

Souths had 7 local juniors play in their side this year.

Good article mate! I enjoyed the read You make a powerful point, conceding a penalty allows you to regroup, catch your breath, and get a message from the coach via the trainer, especially if the captain walks up to the Ref and demands an explanation. My least favourite part of watching Rugby is the disappointment when a promising attacking move is snuffed out by a professional foul and we spend the next three minutes watching a glacial penalty kick. But look at the alternative, 2 point penalties, teams going for the six instead of the two, and the NRL teams conceding the most penalties seem to be thriving. Not to say that this is the sole reason why these two teams made the finals, but a very interesting talk point about the value of conceding a penalty when under pressure.

The number of penalties conceded is irrelevant. It's where and when penalties are given that decides a game. If you give away 10 penalties in benign positions yet receive 4 penalties on the 6th tackle or when the opposition is about to score or at a time when you look shot then more than likely you'll win the game. PS Wolfman and Foran both grew up on the north side. No top liners bought into the team in nearly a decade.

I'm not sure if it counts or not James but it should. Recruiting junior players from national feeder clubs is a good system for Sydney clubs where areas are small. When you look at the population/demographic of the eastern suburbs of Sydney it's pretty obvious why the Roosters would have difficulties recruiting ample local junior talent when compared to a team like Newcastle, for example. Andrew and Matthew Johns came from Cessnock, some 50 kilometres from Hunter Stadium (Knights home ground). If you drive a similar distance of 65km from Bondi to Penrith, as a comparison, you pass through team areas for Rabbitohs, Tigers, Eels and Bulldogs.

From memory Jason King and Watmough are local junions. Not sure who else. If you bring a player on board and play him through your u20s programme, does that count as a local junior these days?

Not being a smartar$e but does anyone know how many local juniors were playing for Manly in the GF? Do any Sydney teams actually have any local juniors playing for them anymore? How does this compare to Souths and the Sharks etc?

I'm a massive roosters fan and I noticed it by about halfway through the season. The roosters would rather concede a penalty than lose defensive line structure. In the Newcastle game it became most obvious. Sharks did it to st George late in the season, and qld did it for the majority of the origin series. A typical attacking set when worked well tries get a forward attracting 3 defenders in and around the 5-10 metre zone in front or adjacent to the posts. A quick play the ball and a second man play (or in the roosters case the double hole running back rower play) will odds on get a try. To stop this you need to slow the play the ball, but if you can't then it is better to concede a penalty. Luckily there is a simple way to fix this: 1. Sin bin for repeat offences 2. Quicker "quick" taps 3. Less interchange so the forwards doing all the defence actually get fatigued by it

Hi Colin, For me the most pertinent question is not so much how many penalties a team conceded, but why were they conceded. I'd assume that most penalties conceded were for things like holding down the player, interfering with the play the ball, etc. If that's correct then it reflects what I regard as the greatest blight on the game - wrestling. Everyone says that the game is quicker than it was 15 or 20 years ago, but when you look at old footage from the eighties and nineties (before wrestling became endemic), the game was just as fast as defending players were getting off the tackled player straight away, there were fast play the balls, etc. For me the lesson from the last 10 years is that the teams that are dominant at wrestling (currently Melbourne, Roosters, Manly and Souths) are the teams that generally win the most games. Get rid of wrestling and you (hopefully) go a long way to getting rid of the ability of sides to penalise their way to victories. With regards to the Roosters, I had a look at the Tim Gore article and the stat that impressed me most was the list of "line breaks conceded". According to Gore, the Roosters conceded 50 line breaks whereas Souths (my team) conceded 83. Now that's a pretty huge difference and I would suggest that it explains why the Roosters defence (and Manly too) was so dominant during the year. Souths conceded 33 more line breaks and conceded 13 more tries than the Roosters, so I reckon the extra line breaks conceded by the Bunnies explains why they leaked more tries. Sure penalties are important too, but it's defence that matters most.