Crap stats and spin are no reason to make more changes to NRL's rules

Well, it was nice while it lasted. After two years of footy in which the wrestle was completely, completely eradicated, a simple tweak to the six-again rule has seen it come roaring back like Stone Cold Steve Austin.

At least, that’s what we’re being led to believe after an anonymous coach had a series of stats published in the weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald, in a column that claimed “coaches are privately fuming at the way the game’s most exciting players are being strangled by defence and the wrestle as time-wasting resurfaces in the game”.

The stats published compared the opening three rounds of 2022 vs 2021 and showed:

• 319 more runs made by players in 2021
• 2456 more total metres made in 2021
• 12 more line-breaks in 2021
• 28 more offloads in 2021, “indicating there are more players in tackles”
• 151 more penalties in 2022
• An average of 12 penalties a game in 2022
• 159 six agains in 2021 compared to 87 in 2022

Asked about these statistics, Graham Annesley noted that three rounds is a bit soon to be making game-wide conclusions, although he also noted “the average time the ball is in play is marginally up on last year and the number of play-the-balls is pretty much the same, so any suggestion there has been a significant deterioration in the flow and continuity of the game would seem premature.”

It was a fair and measured response, so naturally Peter V’landys undermined his head of football in response to the article, telling the SMH that the wrestle is “sneaking back in” and that the ARL Commission would “address those issues” at a meeting set to be held today.

Bloody hell. This again?

How has the ARLC not worked out by now that their on-the-fly adjustment of the rules led to two years of blowout scorelines and some truly ridiculous attacking statistics.

Last year, the leading individual scorer was Reuben Garrick with 334, the second-most points in NRL history behind only Hazem El Masri’s 342, although ‘El Magic’ had 28 games compared to Garrick’s 27 to amass his points.

Alex Johnston scored a comp-best 30 tries, which is good for third-most in rugby league history, bettered only by Dave Brown’s 38 tries in 1935 and Ray Preston’s 34 in 1954 – completely different eras and, one could argue, therefore almost a completely different game. For the record, every other player in the top seven for tries in a season is from the ‘40s or ‘50s, except one – Tom Trbojevic, who scored 28 tries in, you guessed it, 2021.

Or have a look at Cody Walker, who was the NRL’s best for try assists in ‘21, with 33, which was more than double his career average of 16.2 until that point. Likewise, his whopping 46 linebreak assists was 2.5 times more than his previous career average of 18.4.

As for team stats, the Storm scored 861 points and 151 tries, both of which are second on the all-time list, behind only Parramatta’s 2001 season (953 points and 159 tries), a year in which the Eels played 29 games compared to Melbourne’s 26. For the record, 2001 was a statistical anomaly of a year, as the league got rid of the unlimited interchange rule in favour of 12 per game.

The point is 2021 was also a statistical anomaly, a year in which the pendulum swung wildly in favour of attack over defence, which can be attributed almost exclusively to the six-again rule being applied in a ridiculously heavy-handed fashion.

Comparing last year to this year and finding that things have slowed down a bit was the whole point of the six-again rule being adjusted. Because last year was, frankly, stupid.

Even so, it’s not like the stats in the SMH are actually as damning as they appear, they’ve just been spun, because for the most part we’re talking about collective stats across 24 games, which makes them seem far more dramatic than they really are.

Here’s what those stats look like as a percentage of 24 games, rather than a total:

• An average of 13.29 more runs made per game in ‘21, which is 6.65 metres per team. That’s a drop of a little less than four per cent in ’22 for the Sea Eagles, who are currently ranked eighth in that stat.
• An average of 102.33 more total metres made in ’21, or 51.17 metres per team – a drop of around three per cent in ’22 for the Warriors, who are currently eighth in that stat.
• 12 more line-breaks in 2021 – 0.5 more per game and 0.25 per team compared to ’22.
• 28 more offloads in 2021 – 1.17 more per game and 0.59 per team compared to ’22.

The bottom two stats are virtually statistically negligible, while the top two are hardly large enough to ring alarm bells – particularly when, again, the whole point of the tweaked rules this season was to settle the game down a bit.

I’d say a settle-down factor of three or four per cent is maybe even a little light compared to a year Cody Walker magically got two-and-a-half times better at assisting linebreaks.

As for the concerning-sounding 151 more penalties in ‘22, versus 72 more six-agains in ’21, you can attribute this to the six-again rule being turned into a penalty for infringements in a team’s own 40 metres and refs probably coming out of the gate a bit over-eager on that one, showing they mean business in the early rounds before likely easing up a bit as the season progresses.

It’s also worth remembering we’re in a post-Magic Round 2021 comp, with match officials going after head-knocks and pressure on the neck with more gusto than they did in the opening rounds of the ’21 season.

Put it all together and how is it we’re blaming the wrestle for ruining the opening rounds of this year?

What’s more, did anyone who’s saying the wrestle was eliminated last year watch, for example, Felise Kaufusi? Every time he tackles someone he’s all legs and arms trying to get up, somehow managing to entangle himself in the body of the opposing player trying to play the ball. Last year that was just clumsy ol’ Felise but this year he’s wrestling!

Felise Kaufusi. (Photo by Ashley Feder/Getty Images)

The nature of the game these days, with multiple players wrapping up a single player in a tackle, means the wrestle is part of how things go down, it’s just that some teams are just better at it than others.

Eliminating this aspect of rugby league is going to take a lot more than a tweak to the laws of the game and efforts to implement a rule-change just four rounds into the season will have numerous unintended – almost certainly negative – consequences.

I accept – and actually quite like – that the NRL is a constant work in progress. The problem of late has been that major works are being done mid-season, with no consultation with the clubs, players’ union or supporters (and no Peter, reading a mysterious ‘fan survey’ published by News Corp. does not count as consulting the supporters).

It’s fixing a pothole on the Pacific Highway at 9am on a Tuesday morning and wondering why people are pissed off.

If you have to make mid-season changes, then do something about the re-emergence of the cannon-ball tackle. Or maybe ensure dirty shots like Nelson Asofa-Solomona’s on Makahesi Makatoa get more than a fine, while momentarily late hits on halves digging into the line (ahh ‘digging into the line’ – hasn’t that been the buzzphrase of the first few weeks of this season) don’t result in sin binnings.

Y’know, basic reassertions of existing rules.

Because knee-jerk reactions to one pissed-off coach with a willing journo’s phone number is no way to run a multi-billion-dollar organisation.