NRLW news: Statistics show league has avoided expansion blowout fears, set for more sin bins
The NRLW’s expansion approach has been vindicated by statistics which show it has avoided dire predictions of a lopsided competition.
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The NRL has predicted more sin bins will come for the women’s competition as the speed of the game, strength of athletes and match awareness increases.
So far five players have been sin-binned and two sent off after three rounds of the expanded NRLW season, which is up from three sin-bins in the 2022 season across the same number of games.
The spike in foul play is no cause for concern for NRL’s head of football elite operations Graham Annesley, who expects more professional fouls to come into the game as a symptom of professionalism.
“Most incidents that result in sin bins or send offs are not any type of intentional act, they tend to be accidental,” he said.
“What happens in the NRL and what will increasingly happen in the NRLW, is as the speed of the game increases, some of the velocity that the game gets played at has an impact on errors that are made defensively.
“While it’s not acceptable to have an increase in foul play, in some ways it’s to be expected to a degree.
“The players get more professional in how they approach the game and you’ll probably see an increase in players ultimately being sin-binned for professional fouls and things like that, but I don’t think it’s a trend that we need to be concerned about.”
It comes as data from Fox Sports Lab reveals four new teams and 70 debutants added to the NRLW this year have had a less dramatic impact on scorelines as was first widely feared.
Across the 15 games so far this season — the same number of games across the past two seasons in their entirety — the number of points per game have gradually increased in a year-on-year trend.
In 2023 there has been 584 points scored (an average of 38.93 per game), which is slightly up from 2022’s 565 points (37.67 per game) and 2021’s 516 (34.4 per game).
The average margin has increased from 11.73 in 2021, 13.13 in 2022 to 16.27 this year.
However, that doesn’t mean more blowouts.
The number of games decided by 0-12 points (seven) or 13+ (eight) is exactly the same as 2022.
“Even the highest score of 40 is only two points up on last year,” Annesley said.
“The margins are up but the average margin is only up by less than three points per game. When you think about the number of new players and the new teams we’ve introduced to the competition, it’s not like we’re seeing a lot more blowout games as a result of new teams, it exactly the same as last year.
“What we’re seeing is those standards being maintained and not dropping as a result of the influx of new players and new teams.”
The two seasons played last year with six teams went for five rounds before finals, while this year the 10-team season will have nine rounds.
The biggest impact on the game itself may not be seen until the later rounds when injuries take hold and depth of squads is truly tested.
“It’s early days, we’re only 15 games into the expanded season so injuries will start to take their toll and perhaps as we get deeper into the season we’ll see the cream rise to the top, but what we’ve seen so far is the very good statistics we were seeing last year have held, and we’re seeing a quality of football on the field that’s improving year on year.”
ROOSTERS NRLW COACH MAY HAVE TO CHOOSE SON OVER TEAM
Sydney Roosters NRLW coach John Strange has made a shock bid to coach his team remotely on Sunday so he can be in the stands to watch his son’s NRL debut in Melbourne.
Strange will front the club’s powerbrokers on Thursday night to outline his plan to monitor the Roosters’ game against Cronulla at PointsBet Stadium via Zoom in a situation that has left him with divided loyalties.
The Roosters play the Sharks at 12.03pm, less than two hours before Ethan Strange will make his NRL debut for the Canberra Raiders against the Storm in Melbourne.
Adding a further twist, Ethan’s sister, Knights winger Jasmin Strange, is scheduled to take on the Gold Coast at Newcastle’s McDonald Jones Stadium at 1.50pm.
In a massive day for the Strange family, John, Ethan and Jasmin will become the first father, son and daughter combination to coach and play across the NRL and NRLW at the same time.
Ethan Strange, 18, has been rushed into coach Ricky Stuart’s side, replacing Sebastian Kris for the AAMI Park clash.
Mum Adele will also be there, but John is working on a contingency plan with the Roosters to potentially coach the team remotely, with the highly respected NSW Origin women’s coach and Roosters NRLW assistant Kylie Hilder on the ground in Cronulla for a game where the Tricolours could drop out of the top four with a loss.
He has the support of Roosters captain Isabelle Kelly, but is due to meet with club bosses and the rest of the playing group on Thursday night to pitch his plans for a Covid-style remote working set-up.
Essentially he would communicate with Hilder via Zoom from Melbourne, enabling him to be there for his team but also for one of the biggest moments of his son’s life.
“I’m committed to both,” Strange said.
“It‘s a big thing, my son debuting, but the responsibility I have to these girls is big too. They are my family too.
“That’s how I feel whenever I coach. It’s definitely a difficult decision, whatever happens.”
Jasmin, 20, has played four NRLW games, including three for the Knights, while Ethan has played 12 matches for the Raiders’ NSW Cup team, switching between centre and five-eighth.
He was the best player on the field while playing for NSW in the under-19s State of Origin in July, scoring a hat-trick of tries.
But, even as a kid, dad knew he was destined for success.
When Ethan was 10, John had to put a lock on the home gym because he wouldn’t stop trying to do weights and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“It’s no surprise he’s got there. He’s really driven. A really competitive kid as well,” John Strange said.
“I’ve always said he’s like his mum, very competitive.
“He’s always trained really hard.”
Since the Origin match he’s gone to a new level in NSW Cup, and finally earned an NRL call-up.
“He started off in Jersey Flegg this year, but he could have played SG Ball,” John said.
“He was one of the more dominant players and then they moved him into NSW Cup.
“He started off well, but I’ve always said to him that before you go up a step, you have to dominate the step you’re on.
“The last two weeks I’ve watched him play NSW Cup, and in my mind, as a coach and not his father, I’ve looked at him and thought ‘I actually think he’s ready now’. It was always going to be a matter of when, not if.”
Ethan moved out of the family home on the Central Coast at the end of last year after signing with the Raiders.
Adele Strange is the academy manager for the Central Coast Roosters, and has been driving down to Canberra almost weekly to make sure he’s eating right and looking after himself.
“He moved down there two weeks before the pre-season started,” John said.
“Adele goes back there nearly every week to make sure he’s all right.
“She’s his personal cleaner, she reckons, but she makes sure his fridge is stocked with the right foods. She’ll make him big batches of food and then he just has to reheat them when he gets home from training.
“Without her going down there, he wouldn’t be where he is, to be perfectly honest. She makes sure he’s prepped to play at that high level.
“She’s done an awesome job.”
As for Jasmin, whose Knights could go to the top of the table, she might have to settle for mum and dad watching her game on Kayo.
“Jaz is all right, she knows that,” John said.
“When Ethan was named to make his debut she said ‘well I guess no one is watching me this weekend’.
“She’s old enough now to know we have to share things around a bit. But basically she’s on her own on Sunday.”
Originally published as NRLW news: Statistics show league has avoided expansion blowout fears, set for more sin bins
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