Fixture rating: Each club’s opening draw analysed

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While the degree of importance is varied from person-to-person, few can deny that a team or player’s upcoming fixtures have an impact on their likely SuperCoach output.

To help ease the stress in selecting Round 1 teams, we’ve dissected the opening five fixtures of each team in the competition.

We’ve created a formula based on last year’s SuperCoach results and a team’s run of home and away games in the opening five rounds of 2020, to come up with a degree of difficulty ranking in their early season run.

While the system gives insight into the fixture difficulty, it’s based primarily on 2019 results and doesn’t take in the many potential variables looking towards the 2020 season.

Thus, it should only be used as a guide when making personal decisions, it shouldn’t be perceived as SuperCoach law, because it’s far from that.

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THE SYSTEM

Using the calculations of the clever folk at nrlsupercoachstats.com, we were able to create a ladder of where each team from 2019 ranked in terms of average SuperCoach points conceded per player, per game.

For example, the Titans topped the table having conceded on average 50.88 points to each opposition player.

Melbourne were on the bottom of the ladder having conceded a staggering low 39.76 points to each opposition payer.

The full 2019 table looks like this:

1. Titans (50.88)
2. Dragons (49.41)
3. Bulldogs (48.12)
4. Cowboys (47.76)
5. Warriors (47.41)
6. Broncos (46.35)
7. Eels (45.94)
8. Tigers (45.47)
9. Sea Eagles (45.35)
10. Panthers (45.35)
11. Knights (44.88)
12. Rabbitohs (43.65)
13. Roosters (43.41)
14. Raiders (43.18)
15. Sharks (43.12)
16. Storm (39.76)

From here, we assigned a difficulty ranking in points for each team.

1st-4th = 1 point

5th-8th = 2 points

9th-12th = 3 points

13th-16th = 4 points

Effectively, the lower the point value, the easier the opposition.

We then applied this to the opening five fixtures of each team in the 2020 season.

A team was then given 1 point for a home game, and detracted 1 point for an away game.

Each team was then given an overall score to determine the difficulty of their opening five games of the 2020 season.

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RANKINGS: FIXTURE DIFFICULTY (Rounds 1-5)

1. Titans – 17 points

Fixtures: Raiders (A), Eels, Broncos, Roosters (A), Storm (A)

2. Sea Eagles – 16 points

Fixtures: Storm, Roosters (A), Warriors, Raiders (A), Knights

3. Roosters – 15 points

Fixtures: Panthers (A), Sea Eagles, Rabbitohs (A), Titans, Sharks (A)

4. Warriors – 14 points

Fixtures: Knights (A), Raiders, Sea Eagles (A), Tigers, Dragons (A)

5. Panthers – 14 points

Fixtures: Roosters, Dragons (A), Storm (A), Broncos, Raiders

6. Rabbitohs – 14 points

Fixtures: Sharks, Broncos (A), Roosters, Storm (A), Bulldogs

7. Sharks – 14 points

Fixtures: Rabbitohs (A), Storm, Knights, Bulldogs (A), Roosters

8. Bulldogs – 13 points

Fixtures: Eels (A), Cowboys, Tigers (A), Sharks, Rabbitohs (A)

9. Knights – 13 points

Fixtures: Warriors, Tigers (A), Sharks (A), Cowboys, Sea Eagles (A)

10. Storm – 13 points

Fixtures: Sea Eagles (A), Sharks (A), Panthers, Rabbitohs, Titans

11. Dragons – 12 points

Fixtures: Tigers, Panthers, Raiders (A), Eels (A), Warriors

12. Cowboys – 11 points

Fixtures: Broncos, Bulldogs (A), Eels, Knights (A), Broncos (A)

13. Broncos – 10 points

Fixtures: Cowboys (A), Rabbitohs, Titans (A), Panthers (A), Cowboys

14. Raiders – 9 points

Fixtures: Titans, Warriors (A), Dragons, Sea Eagles, Panthers (A)

15. Tigers – 8 points

Fixtures: Dragons (A), Knights, Bulldogs, Warriors (A), Eels

16. Eels – 5 points

Fixtures: Bulldogs, Titans (A), Cowboys (A), Dragons, Tigers (*A – Bankwest)