NRL 2024: The good, the bad and the ugly statistics for every team in the regular season

The 2024 NRL regular season is done and dusted and to commemorate the fact we have dived deep into our stats database to present to you the good, bad and ugly for every team.

On the eve of the NRL Finals we take a look back at the NRL regular season breaking down the race to be crowned top try scorer, the best and worst defensive stats, bumper crowds, the stories that you had to read and more.

TOP TRY SCORER RACE

Titans speedster Alofiana Khan-Pereira showed his opposition a clean pair of heels in the race to score the most tries in 2024.

‘AKP’ finished with 24 tries, two clear of the ageless Kyle Feldt with the Roosters towering wingers Daniel Tupou and Dom Young sharing a tie for third place.

Special mention to Maiko Sivo who despite being limited to just 12 games (which included a cameo off the bench) still managed to score 17 tries. Sivo and Khan-Pereira were the only players in the top-20 try scorers to average better than one try per game.

THE BEST, AND WORST, TACKLERS REVEALED

When Canterbury hooker Reed Mahoney was not niggling his opponents he was tackling them. Lots of them. Mahoney, who made 1,089 tackles at an average of 45 per game, was the only player to reach four figures in the overall tackle count and ended up with 201 more than his nearest rival Jacob Liddle.

Fellow hooker Api Koroisau heads our list of ‘worst’ tacklers with 124 missed tackles over the course of the season. Koroisau is a perennial attendee at the top of the missed tackle list. This has more to do with his penchant for going very low on an opponent and having a miss recorded against his name when the attacking player all but trips over the Wests Tigers star than it is a suggestion he’s a terrible defender. Koroisau may not bring down his opponent every time, but he usually does enough to knock them off balance and hep his teammates effect the tackle quickly.

Mahoney is second on this list when measure by sheer volume (109 misses). However, a better reflection of the ‘worst defender’ in the NRL, might be to break down the number of misses as a percentage of tackles attempted.

Gold Coast centre Brian Kelly missed almost fully one quarter of all the tackles he attempted in 2024 with Ben Hunt and Ezra Mam not far behind on that list. By contrast, Koroisau’s 14.7% miss rate looks less worrisome though it is still an outlier in terms of those who regularly defend in the middle of the ruck.

CROWDS ARE BUILDING

The NRL is on track to break through the 4 million barrier for total attendance once again.

The total attendance number for the regular season came in just below that mark at 3,939,908 which equates to an average crowd of 19,898.

With bumper crowds predicted for the first week of finals a new record season attendance looks assured.

In 2023 a total of 4,086,680 (average 19,742) attended across the regular season and finals combined while in 2022 the total was 3,438,144 (average 17,105).

EVERY PLAYER FROM EVERY CLUB IN 2024

It will surprise nobody to read that the Wests Tigers did it tough this year with the wooden spoon ‘winners’ using a whopping 37 different players over the course of the season.

In comparison the Cowboys, Broncos and Sharks were required to use just 27 players each.

THE IRONMEN

While 28 players played in all 24 games of the regular season, only 15 had the honour of starting in each of those matches.

A special mention for bench weapons Tom Burgess (Souths) and Sam McIntyre (Cowboys) who played in all 24 games but started in only five and thus share the lowest ‘starting ratio’ of any of the 24 gamers.

THE HIGH FLYING ROOSTERS

The Roosters really piled on the points in 2024 finishing the regular season with 738 points and 130 tries for an average of 30.8 points and 5.4 tries per game.

At the other end of the scale the wooden spoon winning Wests Tigers scored the least points of any team with just 463 points at an average of 19.3 points per game.

Interestingly the Knights, who are playing finals footy after finishing in eighth place, scored the least number of tries across the competition with just 80 four pointers at an average of 3.3 per game. Newcastle still outscored the Tigers thanks to having slightly more shots at goal – 91 attempts for the Knights and 86 for the Tigers – and landing those shots at a better conversion rate – 82% accuracy for the Knights but just 77% for the Tigers.

ERROR-RIDDEN BRONCOS

The Brisbane Broncos have many problems to address and key among them is finding a way to address their shocking error count.

With 275 errors the Broncos comfortably ‘lead’ the NRL in that statistical category making a whopping 58 more mistakes than their Queensland cousins the Titans.

THE STORIES THAT CAUGHT YOUR EYE IN 2024