No Teams Can Score Points This Year

[B-Train]

This season nearly every team in every game has struggled to score points despite some teams having a tonne of possesion in the opposition's 20, despite some teams getting alot of penalties, despite some teams having amazing attacking players and despite every NRL rule designed to benefit the attack and make things way too easy for them.

Has everyone's defence inproved that much? It appears defence across the board and effort in defence, at least for now, has been fantastic.

But I think one of the bigger problems is we are now seeing the complete effect of the Salary Cap and how it makes the competition so mediocre. We see way too many young kids in way too many key positions that don't know what they are doing.

We see alot of coaches making terrible decisions like putting wingers at 5/8th, locks at halfback etc. We see coaches not allowing and restricting amazing attacking players to basically one small section of the field.

All we see are dummy half runs, one out hitups on every tackle even deep inside the other teams half, teams relying on the mid field bomb and kicks and wanting to get to 5th tackle and hope for the best instead of throwing in backline movements, decoy runners and set plays.

I for one am bored to death. I love these sorts of scorelines we are seeing and love good defence more than anythying in footy but alot of the time it isn't because the defence is so great. It is because the attack is now so bad.

 

[B-Train]

Here are the stats for points per game for each team:

1: Tigers: 24.0
2: Souths: 23.2
3: Bulldogs: 22.4
4: Roosters: 22.4
5: Newcastle: 21.2
6: Penrith: 20.8
7: Brisbane: 20.2
8: Warriors: 20.0
9: Nth Qld: 20.0
10: Titans: 19.2
11: Canberra: 18.6
12: Saints: 17.8
13: Manly: 16.2
14: Storm: 15.8
15: Parra: 12.8
16: Cronulla: 12.4

You have great attacking teams like Canberra only scoring 3 tries a game. Then you have the competition leaders only scoring 17.8 a game. And a team like Melbourne who have Cronk, Smith, Inglis, Slater etc scoring less than 16 a game! Parra have Hayne, Inu, Mateo and score 2 tries a game.

I know it is still only round 5 but some of the attack on display is woeful.

 

[LebaneseBulldog]

agreed, low scoring games and they are very tight this year

 

[Slippery]

North Qld had 60 tackles in the Titan's 20metres, with 1 try, before JT crashed over.

 

[Slippery]

2nd ref. He keeps jumping in the way of every line break.

 

[B-Train]

North Qld had 60 tackles in the Titan's 20metres, with 1 try, before JT crashed over.

Yeah that is my point Slip. Plenty of teams have had situations like that this season, like Parra against the Roosters where they had around 50 tackles in their 20 and didn't score until a late intercept.

And both of those teams (Parra and Nth Qld) have some of the best attacking players in the comp.

Not only is it boring to watch but it is extremely frustrating because teams cannot score points even when they get opportunities gifted to them and dominate in the 20.

 

[cljunior]

mate ... bored to death? last night's game was great, except that i thought we should have won by 8 maybe

can't appreciate a good defensive effort?

defense will win you premierships as much as attack will.

so you were bored to death with the Wallabies impregnable defense when they won the world cup?

you have to appreciate all facets of the game i think ... scorelines of 42 - 36 doesn't mean good footy

 

[Dawgfather]

David Gallop is responsible for this ridiculous situation where he has forced teams to be identical to one another in strategy, ability, talent over a number of years.

 

[B-Train]

mate ... bored to death? last night's game was great, except that i thought we should have won by 8 maybe

can't appreciate a good defensive effort?

defense will win you premierships as much as attack will.

so you were bored to death with the Wallabies impregnable defense when they won the world cup?

you have to appreciate all facets of the game i think ... scorelines of 42 - 36 doesn't mean good footy

Did you read my post? I love great defence and hate scorelines of 42-36, can't stand them. But it is the way these scorelines are happening, not the scorelines themselves.

Alot of the time it isn't because of great defence but because of poor, thoughtless attack.

 

[B-Train]

David Gallop is responsible for this ridiculous situation where he has forced teams to be identical to one another in strategy, ability, talent over a number of years.

I agree. Kids are getting thrown into key positions when they aren't ready because of the cap and the attack suffers. Like I said above though, the coaches are also killing the game though by not encouraging attacking football and copying the same tactics across the board.

 

[bulldogs2010]

mate ... bored to death? last night's game was great, except that i thought we should have won by 8 maybe

can't appreciate a good defensive effort?

defense will win you premierships as much as attack will.

so you were bored to death with the Wallabies impregnable defense when they won the world cup?

you have to appreciate all facets of the game i think ... scorelines of 42 - 36 doesn't mean good footy

I agree with you 100% but Ben isn't arguing that point. He is just saying that not many points are being scored this year and it's weird and disappointing. That's all.

But your right. I don't like really high scoring games for eg 48-36. That's ugly. I like dominant high scoring wins for example 34-12 V Manly round 1.

 

[PantherPower83]

Let's also consider the error rate in all of this.

The Melb v Penrith, Nth Qld v Titans, Manly v Tigers match were frustrating to watch because of the error count.

Too much drop ball and forced passes.

Maybe the Sunday Roast gang have a point about the make of the football and how it isn't suited for night matches?!?

Maybe there's been alot of emphasis placed on defence too? I know that Penrith have been known for their lack of defence (especially on the line), however this season it has been awesome! We even have a F&A of +10!

 

[bulldogs2010]

Let's also consider the error rate in all of this.

The Melb v Penrith, Nth Qld v Titans, Manly v Tigers match were frustrating to watch because of the error count.

Too much drop ball and forced passes.

Maybe the Sunday Roast gang have a point about the make of the football and how it isn't suited for night matches?!?

Maybe there's been alot of emphasis placed on defence too? I know that Penrith have been known for their lack of defence (especially on the line), however this season it has been awesome! We even have a F&A of +10!

I have to question that theory made my Matty Johns. Yes, it would cause less errors but every player has 2 hands and 2 legs. They can all catch and secure the ball but choose not to.

Look at Dogs V Manly round 1. We completed most of our sets because the mindset was they will catch and secure the ball when in a tackle. It's as simple as that.

 

[w00t]

We did pretty well defending the 14-6 lead last night as well...

We did have dropsies but it was far less than the Rabbitoh's ones. Thing is i love watching these games at the stadium but if i was to download the game and rewatch it i'd probably be bored sh!tless.

With the Parra vs Souths game in Rnd2 i got so bored i just didn't even bother watching it anymore. The NRL's standard has dropped so much i only ever find interest in Bulldog games..

 

[JAMAL BRO]

5 rounds in.

 

[cljunior]

Did you read my post? I love great defence and hate scorelines of 42-36, can't stand them. But it is the way these scorelines are happening, not the scorelines themselves.

Alot of the time it isn't because of great defence but because of poor, thoughtless attack.

I did read your post .. i didn't get "i love great defence" from it. more, i find find games boring because not enough points are scored.

flip it around .. say the defense was really poor and the attack was great .. and all the scores were really high, does that makes games interesting?

i see your point about skill level, but that will come in time. just wait a few more weeks for more combinations to gel etc, and we should see better quality in attack.

for teams like nth qld, thurston is simply out of form at the moment, there isn't much that can be done about that ..

overall .. this last weekend of footy saw some really close contests with tippers falling all over each other. i think in terms of a contest we have the best comp in the world.

i wouldn't mind culling a couple of teams to increase the talent pool, but that's not going to happen

the cap has to stay

 

[cljunior]

I agree with you 100% but Ben isn't arguing that point. He is just saying that not many points are being scored this year and it's weird and disappointing. That's all.

But your right. I don't like really high scoring games for eg 48-36. That's ugly. I like dominant high scoring wins for example 34-12 V Manly round 1.

as long as the dogs are on the higher end, i don't care if its 54 - 4, 62 - 60, or 2 - 0

i miss the time when the dogs could get out there and put a team to the sword. we should have done that to the sharks, and to be honest should have beaten manly by more. not complaining still .. a win's a win after getting the spoon!

 

[cljunior]

We did have dropsies but it was far less than the Rabbitoh's ones. Thing is i love watching these games at the stadium but if i was to download the game and rewatch it i'd probably be bored sh!tless..

as long as its live (ground or tv) i don't mind watching it.

watched the sharks game after seeing it at the stadium and re-watched it next day on nrl.com.

not sure i'm going to bother with last night's game, not the 2nd half anyway!

 

[B-Train]

I did read your post .. i didn't get "i love great defence" from it. more, i find find games boring because not enough points are scored.

That is not what I was saying at all. Look at what I said below.

I love these sorts of scorelines we are seeing and love good defence more than anythying in footy but alot of the time it isn't because the defence is so great. It is because the attack is now so bad.