NRL Preview: Strength of Schedule Analysis

We are off and racing in the NRL, with the season kicking off last night with the Rabbitohs and the Roosters. It also saw the most cringeworthy sports broadcast in recent memory with the voice of Sonny Bill, Spidercam, the plethora of presenters and an over abundance of cross promotion (I'm looking at you Tom Waterhouse).

While most fans, experts and commentators will look at the season ahead based on off-season trades, video ref changes, player development, coaches and injuries, thefanfare has taken a different approach, focusing on the numbers and statistics over emotion and opinion. It is often hard, even for the most subjective fan, to fairly evaluate the season without some predisposition of bias towards certain teams or players. For instance, my personal dislike of the Roosters stems not from their current team or waste of good player talent, but from a dislike of them growing up. This in no way affects anything statistically like the fact they had the toughest schedule during origin last year and it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t pick Sonny Bill in my fantasy team every day of the week because historically his numbers are great in fantasy football.

What I am trying to say is that if you strip away the rumours, speculation and hype from it all, you are left with the numbers. In this study the numbers represent the Strength of Schedule (SOS). Commonly used in the US, the SOS is valuable in a league when not all teams play each other the same number of times.

Example A – NFL: In the NFL there are 32 teams, 16 in each conference. Each conference has 4 divisions of 4 teams. The schedule is based on the fact you play each team in your division twice (6 games), the teams from another division in your conference once (4 games), the teams from another division in the other conference once (4 games) and two games against the team that finished in the same position as you in the other divisions of your conference. Got it? Simple right?

What I am trying to highlight is that you play different teams every year, and some years you play poorer performing teams than the year before.

Example B – English Premier League: In the EPL all teams play each other twice, once home and once away. Simple yet effective, an easy way to ensure everyone plays the same teams.

In summary, SOS refers to the difficulty or ease of a team's opponents compared to others. What it gives you is the win/loss percentage of the teams you are going to play, allowing you to calculate the average quality of your opponents.

In the tables below you will see a numbers ranging from 9 to 15. A 9 implies that over the specified time period, your average opponent will be a team that wins 9 games and loses 15 over a season. On the flip side, a 14 implies your team is playing a 14 win-10 loss team over that period. Basically, you want your team to have the lowest number possible.

Hopefully that all made sense, as we are about to look not only at SOS for the year as a whole, both this year and last, but break it down and look at which teams benefit and lose out home or away, pre/during/post origin and finally who has the best run into the finals.

2012 preview and review

The benefit of looking back before we look forward is to see how accurate the figures from last season were. Before the 2012 season we could have done the SOS by using the final ladder from 2011. Once the season was done we could redo it using the final 2012 positions.

Picture 1: 2012 Strength of schedule based on 2011 ladder

Picture 2: 2012 Strength of schedule based on 2012 positions

Green – Easy:           Average record of opponent is less than 11 wins
White – Average:      Average record of opponent between 11-13 wins
Yellow – Difficult:     Average record of opponent between 13-13.5 wins
Red – Hard:              Average record of opponent over 13.5 wins

For the season as a whole, no team was outside the average, with more than half the teams falling within a game of the pre-season estimate while the rest fell within two games of the prediction. Home and away results show that only the Warriors had a difficult rating, averaging a 13/11 team at home. This may not seem significant, but for a team that relies so much on home wins, a difficult home rating is not ideal.

The most beneficial information is the numbers surrounding State of Origin and the final 5 games or 'run home'. The State of Origin period is important given that those games encompass 7 games of the season, a significant enough size to affect your ladder position. The run home is important for momentum, with the last five games not only helping/hindering your ladder position, but giving you the confidence come finals. Just ask the Eels of 2010.

For the purpose of discussing what actually happened, we will use picture 2 for discussion.

Example 1: Does the run into the finals affect your finals chances?

What we see from the results is that the top 3 teams all had an easy last 5 rounds before the finals. In fact, both the Storm and Rabbitohs had an easy run all the way from the end of Origin. This was also true for the Raiders, who as we know climbed from outside the top 8 just weeks before the season ended, to claim a home final which they proceeded to win. In stark contrast the Sharks, who were the Raiders first finals opponents, had a tough last 5 weeks, slipping from a possible top 4 spot to 7th. The Sharks should have known, as the pre-season number shows, that this was always going to be the case.

Some comfort here for Knights supporters, who over the last 5 weeks averaged playing a team with a 15-9 record, or the equivalent of playing the 4^th or 5^th team each week. This wasn’t just tough, it was the highest number of the season for any team over any split.

Example 2: The State of Origin Curse

Each year we hear about how clubs are disadvantaged by their best players missing games or backing up from Origin. Often overlooked is the SOS during this time. In this analysis Origin time was defined as the round before Origin 1 when players had to sit out, to the game after Origin 3 when players backed up.

Both the Roosters and Storm had tough schedules, as predicted before the season. For a team that has players out due to selection, this is the worst time for the Storm to encounter a tough schedule. It shows just how important that 9-0 start was last year, as they went 3-4 during the origin period.

We could read as much as we want into the previous numbers, but the whole point of the exercise is to try and look at the year ahead through a non subjective method, and see how your team will fare.

2013 Preview

So there we have it, the numbers for this year. Before we write off any teams or lock them in for finals, there are a few scheduling anomalies that should be noted that aren’t reflected in the strength of opponent, but should be considered when reviewing the year.

• The Cowboys play 8 of their first 12 games away and 6 of the last 8 at home
• The Rabbitohs have a three game away run on the Gold Coast, Townsville and Melbourne
• The Roosters only play out of NSW twice: Round 2 at the Warriors, Round 10 at Cowboys (Canberra doesn't count)
• The Titans play 5 of first 7 at home, but 1 of last 5 away

There are obviously plenty of other anomalies in the season but those four stand out, particularly for the Cowboys. The Cowboys have the second easiest final 5 games, second only to the Dragons. If the Cowboys can survive their difficult Origin period, where they will be without Thurston, then their home game heaven to end the season, combined with their easy schedule, it could be time to lock them in for the finals much to the delight of my best man Menzies.In complete contrast the Rabbitohs have a horror run into September. Following the easiest run during the Origin period where they play a 9.7-14.3 team, they move on to playing a 13.6 win team post Origin. Their final 5 games get worse with a 14.1 average. The flip side to this is that they are a top 4 team from last year and should counteract this to some extent. As we saw last year, two teams with bad ends to the seasons dropped far enough down the ladder to seriously affect their finals aspirations. As we have seen in the AFL and now the NRL with the finals system, if you don’t finish in the top four it is basically impossible to make the grand final.

A quick summary of the rest of the year:

• Once Origin starts the Titans have the toughest schedule in the league
• The Bulldogs have an easier post Origin schedule. For Bulldogs fans this could coincide nicely with a return of the Dally M Medal winner, Ben Barba
• The Broncos, unlike last year, have an easy run into the finals. After missing the finals for the first time in decades, this could signal the end of their transition period
• The Sharks have an easier post Origin schedule. If the club doesn't crumble following the recent news it could be another finals year for them
• The Raiders have a slightly more difficult schedule than the numbers show. The last six games are: Storm(H), Roosters(A), Bulldogs(H), Manly(H), Warriors(A) and Sharks (H). They play four of the top seven from last year and the Warriors away. The benefit is that they are at home for most of them but a real challenge for a team that seems to disappoint so many.

So that's it. Make of it what you will. Before finishing, it is important to note that the season overall is really even in terms of fairness, to the credit of the NRL. As you will see in a couple of weeks, the schedule for the NRL is a lot fairer than the AFL.

Now I wasn’t going to do this but it’s time for the final ladder of 2013, 26 rounds in advance. Enjoy!

1.       Sea Eagles

2.      Storm

3.      Rabbitohs

4.      Cowboys

5.      Broncos

6.      Tigers

7.      Bulldogs

8.      Sharks
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9.      Raiders

10.   Roosters

11.    Knights

12.   Dragons

13.   Warriors

14.   Panthers

15.   Eels

16.   Titans (much to my wife's disgust)