Moronic Musings
Kennel Enthusiast
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- Jun 2, 2008
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Hey all, I picked up on something today when flicking through the individual match stats of Bulldogs games in the first 8 rounds of the season. The following is a breakdown of the penalty counts per game in our matches:
Round 1 - Manly win the penalty count 11-9
Round 2 - 8-8 between Penrith and the Bulldogs
Round 3 - Bulldogs win the penalty count 8-6
Round 4 - Souths win the penalty count 6-4
Round 5 - Raiders win the penalty count 9-7
Round 6 - Storm win the penalty count 7-3
Round 7 - Warriors win the penalty count 8-5
Round 8 - Titans win the penalty count 6-3
The Dogs have only won 1 penalty count all season. I compared the penalties received for and against of each of the teams we versed in the previous round (round 7) to quickly gauge what the penalties received and conceded were in matches not against the Bulldogs.
Manly - Won the penalty count 8-7
Penrith - Lost the penalty count 8-6
Eels - Lost the penalty count 8-7
Souths - Won the penalty count 8-4
Raiders - Won the penalty count 12-6
Storm - Lost the penalty count 9-5
Warriors - Lost the penalty count 11-10 (in round 6, we versed them in round 7)
Titans - Lost the penalty count 7-5
We have lost 6 penalty counts this season, drawn 1, and won 1. The teams we have versed have lost 5 of their penalty counts in round 7, winning 3. I know this is an extremely small sample size, but I am way too tired to go back another couple of rounds for a bigger sample size.
I made the following points:
I only mentioned these things to point out the glaring difference in penalties RECEIVED between the Dogs and other teams. Talking about some of the ridiculous penalties CONCEDED opens up an entirely different can of worms.
Imo, there are 2 possible explanations:
Is our lack of direct, hard running forwards (except Kas and Klem) hurting our ability to receive discretionary penalties?
For the record, I find this topic incredibly important due to the significance of penalties on the flow of a game, with the team winning the penalty count often being the one's to win the game.
Round 1 - Manly win the penalty count 11-9
Round 2 - 8-8 between Penrith and the Bulldogs
Round 3 - Bulldogs win the penalty count 8-6
Round 4 - Souths win the penalty count 6-4
Round 5 - Raiders win the penalty count 9-7
Round 6 - Storm win the penalty count 7-3
Round 7 - Warriors win the penalty count 8-5
Round 8 - Titans win the penalty count 6-3
The Dogs have only won 1 penalty count all season. I compared the penalties received for and against of each of the teams we versed in the previous round (round 7) to quickly gauge what the penalties received and conceded were in matches not against the Bulldogs.
Manly - Won the penalty count 8-7
Penrith - Lost the penalty count 8-6
Eels - Lost the penalty count 8-7
Souths - Won the penalty count 8-4
Raiders - Won the penalty count 12-6
Storm - Lost the penalty count 9-5
Warriors - Lost the penalty count 11-10 (in round 6, we versed them in round 7)
Titans - Lost the penalty count 7-5
We have lost 6 penalty counts this season, drawn 1, and won 1. The teams we have versed have lost 5 of their penalty counts in round 7, winning 3. I know this is an extremely small sample size, but I am way too tired to go back another couple of rounds for a bigger sample size.
I made the following points:
- The Bulldogs have conceded 61 penalties this season, whilst only managing to receive 47 penalties.
- Of the 6 teams that beat us in the penalty counts, only 3 of those teams won the penalty count the weak before.
- The total amount of all Bulldogs penalties received amounts to less that the total amount of penalties received for teams on the losing end of the penalty counts in round 7.
- The Bulldogs have only received 8 or more than 8 penalties three times in a game all season, whilst round 7 alone had Manly, Roosters, Souths, Tigers, Warriors, Broncos, Raiders all receive 8 penalties or more.
I only mentioned these things to point out the glaring difference in penalties RECEIVED between the Dogs and other teams. Talking about some of the ridiculous penalties CONCEDED opens up an entirely different can of worms.
Imo, there are 2 possible explanations:
- Greg Alexander pointed out in the Raiders game today that the Raiders average in the vicinity of 11 penalties RECEIVED per game. He hypothesised that this could be a result of the direct and aggressive nature of the Raiders forwards, and their desire to play the ball quickly when on the ground. This has resulted in a lot of discretionary penalties being given to them for ruck infringements. Although the Dogs forward pack has several great players, there are only 2 players that constantly seek out a quick play the ball - Kasiano and Klemmer (and Eastwood to an extent). Josh Morris and Sammy Perrett in the backline are also great at getting quick play the balls. In contrast, despite their undoubted abilities in other aspects, players like Tolman, Graham, T-Rex (main culprit), Jackson and Browne simply either do not run directly and hard enough ala the Raiders players (like T-Rex, Tolman, Graham). Whilst I love these players and acknowledge their abilities (Graham is in my top 3 front rowers in the game), direct running in the mould of Vaughan and Boyd is not their strong suit. The sideline commentator also mentioned that the new era of front rowers in the current environment with lessened interchanges should seek to play the ball quickly, running hard and direct, and always look for an offload to keep the defence backtracking. This is to increase the fatigue of opposition forwards. We as a team fail to push opposing forward packs back through direct running, and as such, fail to benefit from many discretionary penalties in the ruck. The new era of front rowers is upon us - hard and straight, which is ironically a throwback in itself.
- The refs are cockheads, have absolutely no idea what constitutes a penalty and/or the referees are influenced by their hatred for the Bulldogs.
Is our lack of direct, hard running forwards (except Kas and Klem) hurting our ability to receive discretionary penalties?
For the record, I find this topic incredibly important due to the significance of penalties on the flow of a game, with the team winning the penalty count often being the one's to win the game.