Hi RookieDog,
You should read the post on here from earlier this week called "An article worth sharing" particularly the bit below. When we beat the Roosters it was all about JAC's effort. Basically the whole game (and every game) we attack with zero push supports (players running in support or decoys)
"That brings us to the Bulldogs. It’s not a surprise that they’re bad at attacking at this stage, because it’s been done to death that they had the highest completion rate but scored the fewest tries in the NRL last year. Watching back, however, it’s clear that they really don’t bother that much with trying to make the opposition think.
They had five sets with zero push supports at all – no other side went more than one set without any – and even managed several with one or none when in good ball. In the half studied, they had 41 opposition half play-the-balls and 25 inside 20m play-the-balls, but failed to ask any tough questions of the Roosters’ defence.
As Cronulla have an agile pack, so the Dogs have a big, slow one. That’s not necessarily bad – Tevita Pangai Junior, Paul Vaughan and Luke Thompson are all good at what they do – but it does look quite exposed in this model.
If you were wondering why their halfbacks never get any good ball, the fact that the defence always knows exactly where the footy is going might go a long way to explaining it.
The study in itself was an interesting exercise in why rugby league needs an xG model –
discussed at length here – because Souths scored one try and created four, whereas the Dogs scored two and created next to nothing. There was no question about who attacked better"