Super League 2020: Standout stats
12 Nov 2020
"The game has changed completely - it’s so much quicker now.??
Those were the words of Castleford Tigers’ Oli Holmes back in August just after his 51-tackle performance against St Helens.
His thoughts were backed up in the stats when superleague.co.uk crunched the numbers after the first three rounds of action post the initial lockdown - which included new laws such as ‘six again’ and no scrums.
Games were faster, shorter and more intense and players were getting through more tackles and metres.
But has that trend continued?
Now the Super League regular season has come to an end, superleague.co.uk is in a position to provide a more rounded look at the data.
Importance of quick play-the-ball increases
The increase in the number of quick play-the-balls per match is startling since the August restart.
The figure has risen by 99% to an average of 61.
It is therefore not surprising that the correlation between quick ruck ball and success in Super League has gone up.
Back in 2018, NRL.com argued that strong quick PTB statistics does not automatically lead to success in terms of results.
Their findings, before this season, are backed up with Super League data.
In 2019, St Helens averaged 17.8 quick PTB a game – a figure that left them only sixth in the overall rankings.
Castleford Tigers were League Leaders in 2017, yet they averaged just 15.3 quick PTB a game, which was ninth across all Super League teams.
Leeds Rhinos, who struggled in 2018, had the highest average of 19.5 per match.
But what does this all suggest?
Before the change in rules, a fast PTB by no means guaranteed success.
However, things have changed. Take a look at the table below.
The teams that occupy the top four spots of average quick PTB per match have all made the play-offs.
Whether this trend in the data continues beyond 2020 remains to be seen – but it is certainly something to look out for if the current ‘six again’ rule remains in place.
Speed of the game
Super League players have been asked to work harder than ever since the initial lockdown.
The first three weekends of action in August saw an average ball-in-play time of 63 minutes and 20 seconds - a ten-minute rise on early season numbers (53 minutes and 12 seconds), and 11 minutes up on 2019.
That figure has dropped a little and is now at an average of 56 minutes and 57 seconds post-lockdown.
However, it is still higher than what we saw pre-lockdown in 2020 and in 2019, in which the average was 52 minutes and 4 seconds.
This rise in ball-in-play time would be tough on players in any normal season.
And you have to consider as well that players have been asked to play two, even three, matches a week on occasions.
It is a testament to their endurance and fitness that they have been able to continue to provide entertaining and exciting rugby league.
Tackles, tackles, tackles
2020 has become the year of the tackle – especially post the enforced Covid-19 shutdown.
There have been 61 games since Super League’s return with an average of 708 tackles per match.
That figure is down slightly from the early rounds of post-lockdown Super League but well up on the pre-lockdown average of 658 and the 652 average in 2019.
Huddersfield Giants hooker Brandon Moore has averaged an incredible 60 tackles per game since joining the club on-loan last month.
To contextualise those numbers, no other player in Super League has averaged more than 47 tackles per match in 2020.
He’s only played four matches and to continue with those kinds of numbers across a season would be tricky, but it is still some achievement.
What is particularly notable is that despite the increased work rate required in defence, the number of missed tackles per game has only risen by 3.6% to 68.5, which is actually lower than the 2019 average of 70.
Attacking numbers
Back in August, Luke Gale described how “there are more opportunities [to score] as the opposition become tired and the line speed isn’t as quick towards the end of the game??.
The stats certainly back up his assessment.
As you would expect with the number of tackles increasing, stats around attack have also gone up.
Tries, clean breaks, carries, metres, tackle busts and offloads are all up on their pre-lockdown average.
The post-lockdown average number of tries is just shy of eight per game; an increase of 14% and is the highest it has been since 2016.
The rise in metres per game also stands out. They are up from 2435 to 2760 per game at an increase of 13%.
Consistency the key for Warriors
Wigan Warriors have put in consistently strong performances throughout 2020.
It’s not just their results in which they have been consistent but also across the various stat groups.
They haven’t been the best at everything, but their numbers are often in the top two or three in each stat.
Something you would expect from a side who have won the League Leaders’ Shield.
Interestingly, Warriors have the lowest offloads per game average of just 6.2.
Conversely, they average the highest number of passes per match and the second least number of errors.
Any ruck infringements, including ‘six-again’ calls from officials, are recorded as errors and we’ve seen how influential they can be in matches.
It is a credit to the discipline that the Warriors have shown to keep those numbers down.
Zak Hardaker told superleague.co.uk in August about how “adapting quickly is going to be key".
Warriors have certainly done that; it is something they will hope to continue as Super League 2020 reaches its crescendo.
