I get what you say, but I notice that when a side is playing confidently, they keep errors and transgressions to a minimum. Struggling sides make silly errors, and do stupid things in defence.
There is a spiralling effect from penalties (inc set restarts) especially early in a game and even the teams with a number of talented players can get trapped in that spiral. The teams with their strike players can get off the slippery slope with one stroke of genius. Strike players can turn games around in one play and we haven't had anyone close to that for 5 years at least.
Teams Statistics Table for NRL Premiership
www.foxsports.com.au
According to the stats we made less errors per game than any other team and no team completed sets any better than we did. Yes, I know when and where the errors are made is a factor, but still. There are number of other stats where we are competitive, such as our kick metres per game which ranked 3rd. The obvious issues were penalties conceded = worst, and penalties awarded = least. We can argue what percentage of that is due to the refs preconceived bias (eg; they are coming last, so they obviously have to commit illegal plays to try and stay in the game) and what is related to fatigue due to the previous factor. After those 2 factors what is left is our own self inflicted poor discipline, which is not anywhere near as bad as would first appear.
Then comes the killer stats, those based on attack, which is what truly shows up our lack of strike players. Next year we have added a number of players, such as JAC, Burton, Dufty, TPJ, that add substantially to our strike power. Is it enough, only time will tell.
Always a Bulldog