Welcome to The Maroon Observer, a weekly newsletter about rugby league, Queensland and rugby league in Queensland.
MOET et Chandon in a pretty cabinet
Friend of the newsletter, the Rugby League Eye Test, has created the most exciting cross-collaboration in the field of armchair rugby league statistical analysis possibly ever. Dare I say it is the greatest achievement in human endeavour since the moon landing?
Predicting the 2025 NRL Dally M winner – introducing the MOET Player of the Year award
Before people fly off the handle because they were shown a cherry picked screen cap of one graph without reading the analysis that provides the necessary context - thanks Steve, but also welcome Parko - you should read the analysis that provides the necessary context, which is included in the above link.
Much in the way that the Dally M award doesn’t always go to the best player, this isn’t about annoiting the definitive best player. Most people won’t even agree on what the definition of “best” is, let alone who meets it. The word “best” is used once and not in conjunction with any MOET votes. We’re all veterans of enough stupid arguments on the internet to know that choosing words carefully is important.
Primarily, this is a comparison of two player rating systems and seeing what they say about the sport. Secondarily, there is a commentary that quantitativity has a sheen of objectivity that disappears if you peel back enough layers. That said, isolating a given player getting a particular rating that you disagree with says less about the value of the mechanics of the system than it does your own peccadilloes.
My contribution was fairly limited, spending about 15 minutes tapping formulas into Excel to produce my “votes”, although I guess that doesn’t include the countless hours required to get to a point where you can sort out a medium-complexity, bespoke query with 15 minutes of work. Have you considered getting a paid subscription to get direct access to some of that work and/or support future work?
I did a significant overhaul of my player ratings over the off-season. As usual, progress may resolve previous problems but usually creates several more. One thing I’ve noticed over the various Stats Drops is that the revised system is not necessarily better, but it is more interesting, even if it has a prediliction for guys who make meters and score tries. I mentioned to RLET that my system would give votes to random bench players that got ten minutes and a try that would normally never be considered by Dally M voters and this is reflected in the greater spread of players who got votes from my side. Jayden Campbell in 2025 being the top vote getter by WARG alone was a surprise, but less so when you think about the way that Titans games unfold, and not as much as David Nofoaluma nearly topping voting in 2020 (this was a formula error that I rectified).
What even makes a successful franchise?
The Gold Coast Suns have qualified for the AFL finals for the first time since their admission to the league in 2011. Gold Coast (AFL version) heads to Perth to take on Fremantle on Saturday. After pouring tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars of central funding into them, the Suns’ finals drought is over, after their fans suffered for a similar length of time to the Wests Tigers’ are currently going through.
Contrasting to the ongoing uselessness of the Titans and the last lingering novelty wearing off the Dolphins, a lot of pundits have talked and continue to talk about the importance of the foundations of a new club. The curious thing is that no one ever tells you what they mean by that.
If you stood in November 2002 and looked at the North Queensland Cowboys, you’d see a team that’s been in the league for eight seasons and never had a double digit number of wins. To the extent anyone thought about the Cowboys in 2002, you would rightly wonder what the future could hold and whether the NRL or Newscorp might have been better placed bailing out other teams.
From there, the Cowboys built and by 2004, beat the Broncos for the first time and won a finals game in the same night, make the grand final in 2005, win a premiership in 2015 and are mostly competitive the years in between.
By 2025, North Queensland have accumulated 19,000 members, are mid-table for average attendances despite being based in by far the smallest city in the league and command the second highest commercial revenue. But, the last decade since that premiership win has been largely fallow, with only another appearance in 2017’s grand final steamrolling and a preliminary final loss in 2022.
Is this what a successful club looks like? What do the foundations of the Cowboy say about them now or where the Cowboys will go? The recent experience of English rugby union clubs suggests that day-to-day cash flow remains king and the past and future be damned.
The questions are really one of what yardstick do you use to measure these things and what timeframe are we considering. Too often that yardstick is the Brisbane Broncos, especially in the context of the Titans, Dolphins or a hypothetical fourth NRL team in the Southeast.
The Broncos are a one of one franchise: the conditions that created the Broncos and turned them into the machine they are, will never be replicated. Expecting 40,000 to regularly turn up to Dolphins home games seems misplaced at best, not least because the Broncos have only just started doing those kinds of numbers very recently after getting a three and a half decade head start. The Dolphins were always more likely to look more like the Titans than the Broncos.
Does the Dolphins’ sixth-best revenue, sixth-best 20,000 average crowds, decent TV ratings, waning novelty and exposure and overall 31-40 record mean anything about the future, if they miss finals for the third time? I don’t know. How long do we expect the Dolphins to be around? Or the NRL? Or Australia? How long are any of us for this world?
There is another layer to this question. The AFL is in a particular quandry. It makes money hand over fist but has nothing to spend it on. Pre-covid, money was dumped into the Giants, the Suns, Shanghai games and AFLX in a futile effort to find new audiences, which in itself was drudgery to keep making money for the purposes of making more money.
I think what covid brought home for the AFL was that there are no more worlds for them to conquer. They have a firm national footprint that appeals to broadcasters and sponsors alike. They have enough money to keep their members going in perpetuity and have clubs like the Suns and Giants who can do whatever. It doesn’t matter if they are “successful”, irrespective of the benchmark used, the AFL can just keep funding it until something happens. If nothing happens, what else were they going to spend it on? A Tasmanian team? Sure, why not.
The NRL doesn’t have that problem. It can expand overseas and find new audiences because it isn’t Australian rules football. It has toeholds in New Zealand and France, and a foothold in Papua New Guinea and England, and can stand up an international arena that other nations might like to join.
Ironically, this requires greater care and strategic thinking because there are more opportunities, not all of them equal. There are then more costs for bad decision making but also broader horizons for returns on investment that might allow the continued reproduction of more rugby league. That suggests perpetual funding of clubs who do not justify their existence might be more fraught but it’s hard to imagine that paradigm ever being put in place.
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Around the grounds
Bulldogs 28 defeated Panthers 4. Like vampires, the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs have to be personally invited into your in-goal area to score. Normal teams use skill, speed, strength, subterfuge to find a way through the line with the ball. Not the Bulldogs, who are gentlemen that must be asked nicely to score points. The Storm are going to crush this team in week 1 and the Panthers will exact a biblical revenge and atomise them in week 2.
Roosters 40 defeated Storm 10. I haven't been this annoyed about a result that didn't feature a Queensland team since the 2019 grand final. What really boils my piss is that tiresomely aggressive dipshit Bellamy saving players for the last game against the Broncos. Why? He’s the second biggest lameoid in that fixture, only behind the Broncos themselves who will almost certainly meekly fold instead of wreaking havoc. Let’s hear some good stats from the fans.
Roosters 30 defeated Cowboys 0 (W). The Cowboys performed admirably and kept the score respectable in the first half but there was a point early in the second where I was like “they've played really well and still might lose this 30-0.” Sure enough. North Queensland’s attack lacked creativity and was too sideways. The defence was fine but there’s only so much it could do. Without really threatening any points, it was always going to be a tall order. Goldthorp did the comp a real favour by taking out one of the Roosters’ best players.
Broncos 38 defeated Cowboys 30 (M). This was frustrating and should never have been close, let alone seen Brisbane fall behind. The Broncos played like the ones that were out of finals contention and never seem to manage to make plays stick like they did in 2023. Reece Walsh can baffle and delight in equal measure, both in athletically stupefying ways. I just wish he would learn to pass backwards or at least the refs would get off his case about it. Enjoy Bali, you neon cowboys. We’ll meet again next year.
Broncos 44 defeated Bulldogs 0 (W).
Bears 38 defeated Falcons 14 (M). So my excuse for not watching this game is twofold: 1) my kids were annoying, so I had to get them out of the house on Sunday afternoon and 2) I found out it was a blowout, 28-0 at half time and 34-4 late in the game. That the Falcons finished fifth on the QCup ladder doesn’t bode super well for the competitiveness of the finals series.
Dolphins 36 defeated Titans 30. Having sat through the second half of this game, I no longer care if the Dolphins do pull off a miracle and make finals. They should be collectively punished for wasting my time. Starting to see why Trai Fuller is a career reserve grader: fast but not fast enough to justify not being able to position or commit to tackling.
Titans 26 defeated Eels 10 (W). A comprehensive performance from the Gold Coast. I will admit it’s been a few weeks since I paid them reasonable attention and in that some of the younger prospects that have been filling in are proving themselves capable. This result puts Gold Coast 1.5 wins clear of the seventh-placed Warriors (the Dragons, Eels, Raiders are all equal on three wins) with only two rounds to go. The final game is against the Raiders, which isn’t as easy a win as it was three weeks ago, but should seal the deal if the Titans can’t get it done against the Knights next week.
Duchy of Upper Melbourne dissolves
From Lower Melbourne:
Melbourne Storm wishes to thank feeder clubs Brisbane Tigers, Sunshine Coast Falcons and the North Sydney Bears for their partnerships which will end at the conclusion of the 2025 season.
The Falcons’ and Tigers’ statements were strangely similar and bereft of grievance. The Bears do not give a shit for obvious reasons. You’d think that the Dolphins might extend themselves to include the Sunshine Coast and the Tigers could reunite with the Broncos or go it alone. Either way, we should find out what imperial machinations we have to look forward to in the short term.
In the medium term, I wrote about this when it first popped up in June and don’t really have anything to add. I should send an email and find out what the QRL’s plans are, which could be somewhere between do nothing and see what happens, and give up on QCup/QDub and focus on district A-grade to feed into the fringes of NRL2 rosters. There is scope for myriad format possibilities between these two points but I think the status quo we’ve enjoyed since 2008 is rapidly coming to a close. Personally, if we have to farewell QCup as is, I’m keen for some sort of Southeastern Conference or possibly a SEQ Supercup.
Intermission
I don’t know why but the thongs and shorts combo with drink in hand really sells it for me. They should probably put a lock on those things.
Hotseat
Finally, some blood:
The nib Newcastle Knights and Adam O’Brien have agreed to terms on a mutual separation, releasing the NRL Head Coach from the remaining two years of his employment contract with the Club.
O’Brien will complete his commitments for the remainder of the National Rugby League season, including the last two games as the Knights Head Coach.
There goes Newcastle’s (inexplicably imo) second greatest coach, a fact you can file with Fittler being the second most successful Blues coach of all time. O’Brien won one (1) finals game in five attempts over five years. The guillotine is not sated - we need one more head to roll to hit the overs - but we’re getting somewhere. Look at the Knights put their big boy pants on to line up the next victim.
In Townsville:
Payten has missed the finals three times in five seasons, but Cowboys bosses believe he needs more support, instead pulling the trigger on Morgan, Rauter and Sheppard…
The Cowboys will undertake an extensive review at season’s end. But Reibel, breaking his silence on Payten’s future, confirmed the head coach will not be sacked.
“Todd is our coach and he’ll continue that into 2026,” Reibel said.
Firing all of the assistants is classic ass-covering when the top dog has run out of ideas. Right on cue, here’s the other guys taking the fall, some of whom have me doing the eyes emoji. In the meantime, I am willing to concede that this does mean Payten is staying on, new CEO or otherwise, but then begs the question, why not do this last year and fire him this year? Why waste another year of Tom Dearden, et al?
The Titans did the assistants thing too, for the opposite reason, which suggests that the assistant coaches probably need the guaranteed money more than the head coaches.
The Queensland Cup coaching carousel finally got going. Eric Smith, formerly of the Pride and latterly of Redcliffe, is becoming a Raiders assistant. Dave Elliott, current assistant to Redcliffe and the women’s Maroons, and formerly of the 2024 Devils’ premiership winning team that was sidelined for the returning Rohan Smith (himself temporarily of Leeds), will take over as Dolphins head coach in 2026. Not going to be a lot of love lost in the next northside derby.
The Tigers then announced that Matt Church would be moving on. I didn’t have Church on my hotseat, figuring that if you break a multi-decade premiership drought, you get to go when you want to, but two seasons missing finals, even though I think there are some extenuating circumstances relating to injuries and roster construction, is apparently beneath the Tigers’ expectations. Maybe Adam O’Brien would bring some good alignment, as a person used to riding the Storm’s coattails? Church and Old Jimmy Lenihan then come on to the market while the Tweed job is still notionally open but the best available - Elliott - is now off the board.
Meanwhile at West End, Karmichael Hunt extends for two more years with Souths Logan, and in the Dub, Brett Kimmorley has been given the nudge from the Tigers, after winning five games in three years.
Upcoming Slate
The NRLM is a contest of resting teams. I have removed my fairly lengthy diatribe about how the resting crisis was grossly overblown and the terrible mush served up was from the nominally full strength team. The intrigue is whether the Roosters beat the Rabbitohs (likely) and wrap up eighth place. If City loses, then a Redcliffe win over the Baby Raiders or Manly over the fading Wahs might propel those teams into the finals with the Phins holding the points difference advantage. The Broncos, Sharks and Warriors are all competing for fourth place, which is going to be difficult to predict given that all three teams could lose their respective games against the Storm, Bulldogs and Manly.
The State Cups go into finals mode from this week. There do not appear to be any broadcast details for QCup at time of writing, but would assume it will on Qplus, maybe Kayo or NineNow, but there are three games on Saturday - I will try to get to both Nundah and Redcliffe - with the feature slot set aside for Jets at Falcons on Sunday.
The finals are almost set in concrete for NRLW, so you get a pass from watching from that competition for two more weeks, unless the Titans really fall over. The Clydesdales and Devils effectively have a play-in in the QDub for sixth place, although if its a draw then theoretically the Falcons could swoop in with a win over Tweed.
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Read this
The Sportress: Six, Again: Countdown
Steve Mascord: The Catalans conundrum
Rugby League Writers: A Change In Field Goal Setup?
Campo: Why Canterbury added yet another attacking switch on the eve of the NRL finals
Notes
A win for the Raiders this week would send them to a 20-4 record. Other NRL teams to hit that mark or better it: Eels in 2001; Storm in 2006, 2007, 2017 and 2019; three teams in 2021; Panthers in 2022. Not bad company to keep, unless you don’t like choking away grand finals, which was the case for four of the nine teams. The only team to miss the grand final altogether was the 2021 Storm (the other two teams played).
Following on this nugget earlier in the year about PVL’s film festival ambitions, I see he’s made his way on to the board for a revived Tropfest. Why would you even try to start your own film festival when you could just revive Tropfest? If you’re too young to remember, Tropfest was a short film festival that I watched on TV to feel like a sophisticated film and TV student while in high school.
Hill to depart PNG for Panthers. People seem to think this is a big deal but I don’t think it is. It’s not terribly clear how much impact or what the CEO is expected to actually do when there’s no product to sell. They can’t even officially sign players. The franchise is going to be a soft landing and revolving door for Australians who invariably leave for better jobs back home and the structure is going to have to reflect that. Alternatively, they’ll plonk in some Marape crony and it’ll be fine. It’s not like there’s no high profile businesses in PNG to draw on. The bigger issue is the government getting on with building NRL Island II: Port Moresby so they can impress some veterans into signing a tax free $1.6 million per year deal.
Mascord: “My spies tell me the PNG Consul General was telling everyone who would listen that the PNG NRL team should be called The Angels, or the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels which is a World War Two reference. But the shortened ‘Angels’ is considered more likely.”
Tino: “I’m not saying there needs to be changes, but both times there’s been two people kept accountable [Holbrook, Hasler] and no one else.” Tino is very close to getting it (by leaving the Titans and signing for the Bears).
UK rugby league's second and third tiers to merge. No details on format though.
This week in PNG: Fan and umbrella invade field in wild Digicel ExxonMobil Cup semi-final (it’s not that wild)
Calls for corruption probe into completion of mayor's Surfers Paradise Bowls Club site purchase. Plus ca change.
Queensland government dumps Gold Coast light rail stage four. I got pissy about this but then remembered it won’t affect me in any way and the people of the Gold Coast (and the same on the Sunshine Coast) voted for this, so they get what they get.
Descendant of immigrant gets angry about being referred to as a descendant of an immigrant ahead of racist rally
Nickelware
Some good content
Reece Walsh drinks toilet water. Reece Walsh… drinks… toilet water. Reece Walsh drinks water, from the toilet. The toilet is where Reece Walsh drinks water from.
English, the shower drain of languages, can be so beautiful.
The only thing more embarrassing than Walsh’s joke not landing is the Broncos feeling compelled to comment on it. Then again, if they beat Melbourne on Thursday, then it’s going to be glug-glug, motherfuckers.