Mad Monday - NRL Finals (2012)

With the 26 NRL Rounds now complete and we embark on the pointy end of the season, many pundits start to talk up the prospects of the remaining clubs in the race.

I will hereby try and help enhance some viewpoints and destroy some others with some simple facts.

I have compiled a tally of all the teams and their win-loss records against teams who have made the finals and those who haven't. These statistics, like any, can be used to sway an argument any way you wish. There may be consequential circumstances surrounding a teams abject failure in one department etc, there may not.

Thats the beauty of stats. And today, because this is my opinion, I'm going to suggest that these stats show which sides are mentally tough enough to compete with the top sides and make the grand final.

Thes best way to show this is in my crazy ladder. How this works is simple. Any team that beat a top 8 side gets an extra 2 points. Any team that lost to a bottom 8 side loses 2 points.

Wins v Top 8 sides
Melbourne - 8
Canterbury, Manly, North Queensland, Cronulla and Gold Coast - 6
Newcastle - 5
Souths, Canberra, Wests Tigers and Parramatta - 4
Brisbane, St.George-Illawarra and Warriors - 3
Sydney and Penrith - 2

Wins v Bottom 8 sides
Canterbury and Souths - 12
Manly - 10
Melbourne, North Queensland, Canberra and Brisbane - 9
St.George-Illawarra - 8
Wests Tigers - 7
Cronulla, Sydney and Penrith - 6
Newcastle and Warriors - 5
Gold Coast - 4
Parramatta - 2

Losses v Top 8 sides
Manly - 3
Canterbury and Melbourne - 4
North Queensland and Cronulla - 5
Souths - 6
Canberra - 7
Gold Coast - 8
Brisbane, Wests Tigers, Sydney and Parramatta - 9
St.George-Illawarra, Newcastle and Penrith - 10
Warriors - 11

Losses v Bottom 8 sides
Canterbury and Souths - 2
Melbourne, Brisbane and St.George-Illawarra - 3
North Queensland, Canberra, Wests Tigers and Newcastle - 4
Manly and Warriors - 5
Cronulla, Gold Coast, Sydney and Penrith - 6
Parramatta - 9

Overall Ladder
Melbourne - 44
Canterbury - 40
North Queensland - 34
Manly - 34
Souths - 32
Canberra - 26
Cronulla - 25
Brisbane - 24

St.George-Illawarra - 22
Newcastle - 22
Wests Tigers - 22
Gold Coast - 20
Warriors - 12
Sydney - 9
Penrith - 8
Parramatta - 2

Obviously this sort of ladder isn't something that can be implemented, but it does show which teams have performed better against the top sides and also, how frequently they have played the top sides.

Based on the current top 8, this last list shows many times each team played against a side in the top 8 this year, out of their 24 games. This list shows some quite surprising results:

Newcastle - 15
Gold Coast and Warriors - 14
Parramatta, St.George-Illawarra and Wests Tigers - 13
Brisbane, Melbourne and Penrith - 12
Canberra, Cronulla, North Queensland and Sydney - 11
Canterbury and Souths - 10
Manly - 9

Only 2 teams in top 8 played at least half of their games against other sides in the top 8 (Melbourne and Brisbane, both with 12 of 24 games)

So are we seeing the finals of the best teams in the competition, or are we seeing a finals system of the teams that are consistently better against the rabble in the bottom 8?