A Brisbane State League heartbeat
What is Micheal Luck doing?
Welcome to The Maroon Observer, a weekly newsletter about rugby league, Queensland and rugby league in Queensland.
Intuitions
Every now and again the blogosphere hits it out of the park. This analysis from Rugby League Eye Test may seem bereft of the usual charts and paraphenalia that get the nerds excited but it’s hard to overstate just how critical these three paragraphs are:
A traditional set (no set restart awarded), has a try scored 8.9% of the time. Assuming that try is worth 5.5 points based on a 75% goal conversion, the expected point value of a normal set is 0.52 points.
An adjusted set that includes a set restart sees a try scored 22.5% of the time, and multiplied by 5.5 is worth 1.24 points.
Yes, a single set restart being called in an adjusted set is worth 2.4x the expected points than that of a traditional set with no restart of the tackle count. That’s a substantial benefit. Assuming 8 set restarts are called in a game with four given to each side, that is worth an extra 5.8 points per game over a match with zero set restarts.
This made my jaw drop for two reasons. One, that is an astonishing advantage for the NRL to hand out such little consideration. Two, I can’t believe I didn’t do this first.
We’re finally getting to the underlying mechanisms of why the set restart has altered rugby league for the worse. We understand it qualitatively - the pile-on of aerobic effort caused by set restarts drives the defending team above their lactic acid threshold, from which they are unable to defend effectively and over the course of the game, fatigue compounds, causes errors, leading to more defending, creating a doom loop of pain that is inevitable and boring - but the quantitative aspect - why margins don’t correlate with a straight count of set restarts and why the impact is non-linear - remained less clear.
Many years ago I took a stab at expected points for rugby league and if you re-read that piece from 2018, you’ll see just how far ARLAF have come in the eight years since. In the pre-set restart rugby league of the late 2010s, a set that started 35 metres from the team’s own goal line would covert to a try at a rate of approximately 9.5% or 0.52 expected points. A set that starts 70 metres out (or 30 metres from the opposition goal line) converts at 16.6% for 0.91 expected points. While those numbers are precise but not necessarily accurate due to the sample used, that means the lift downfield from a typical kick for touch given for a ruck infringement penalty is worth something like 0.4 expected points. Any set restart, which was intended to supplant those penalties and stop them from slowing the game down, is worth 0.7 expected points.
Congratulations, you invented a super penalty to bring the little man back to satisfy the readership of a now-retired alcoholic dinosaur. Great stuff.
The beautiful thing about the set restart is no one knows why they’re given. “Ruck infringement” could mean any number of a thousand things. This gives referees a huge amount of discretion to deploy set restarts and an even bigger influence on the outcome of the game. One team getting as few as three more set restarts than the opposition is worth two expected points, which is enough to lift that team’s winning probability to around 60%.
This seems to confirm my suspicion that the outcomes of games in 2026 are hard to predict pre-game but very easy to predict in-game. One team gets an early leg up through set restarts and the rest of the game follows through on the physiological consequences. The outcome then depends on who gets the favour of the referee and that looks a lot like a coin toss. Because the referees employ the Nuremberg defence at every opportunity, they will decline responsibility, although I think there’s plenty of blame to go around for everyone at NRL HQ for this.
Developing an intuition for what was going to happen when this rule was introduced seemed straightforward enough in 2020, we’re now six years into this and there’s more nuance to consider. While I admit that I don’t have a good feel for these second order effects, do you know who should? That the changes in the area that set restarts that can be given and the way the set restart is deployed passed through without any stakeholders - the committee it originated from, the coaches, players, administrators and club officials - sending up more than a cursory concern, says a great deal about the amount of expertise in charge of the sport.
If only there could be some accountability for this. Oh well.
We’re so back
I have returned to Australia, where people talk normal.
While battling the worst jet lag I’ve ever had, and that of my young children which makes it ten times worse, people ask me if I enjoyed my holiday and I shrug, which is the most concise way I can communicate that I am thankful that I can watch footy again without it taking place at an extremely weird time (the morning) and am glad my children are sleeping in their own rooms again.
I don’t have the time to go back and catch up on the games of the last four rounds of the NRL (I have watched the QCup feature games of the last few weeks though, and boy, is the defence bad) but similar to 2021, when I didn’t watch the last third of the season and I missed nothing, I don’t think any team’s season is going to hinge on what just happened. If that makes me a hack and a fraud, so be it.
Women’s Origin
The Blues defeated the Maroons, 11-6, last Thursday night in Newcastle. The difference was a pair of Origin plays. Booo, hiss.
The Maroons hasn’t won the women’s Origin opener since 2023. 2026 was far from the disaster of 2025 or even 2024, a series that the Maroons won. In theory, that provides some hope that a rearguard defence can be put together in Brisbane and Gold Coast to reclaim the series.
However, the quality of the game makes it difficult to extrapolate forward. Queensland had control in the first half, thanks mostly to good kicking and the Blues’ errors, but lost the imperative in the second half, as Queensland began making their own errors and were slowly ground down and out of the game. Opportunities for both sides were rare, which might be the highest compliment to be paid to this, handling aside, otherwise compelling contest.
I was reasonably happy with the Queensland performance, which looks a step up from last year’s squad in disarray, even if that squad was several steps off the Blues’ pace. The debutants, particularly Hippi (who is now injured) and Kiria-Ratu, did not look out of place and it is somewhat relieving that the conveyor belt that turns over talent for the men’s team is starting to fire up for the women’s. Queensland may not win the series but if the Maroons maintain this standard, even a whitewash would not be as concerning as the performance of the first two games of last series.
The squad for game 2 has been announced with minimal changes.
It may have been my absence from Australia but I didn’t notice much of a buildup to the game until the day of. We all understand that this should not be the first game of the women’s season (All-Stars is on an island on its own in the calendar and that is what it is) and the players would be better off with some game time under their belts but until the NRL expands the Dub further, we’re going to have to live with it. Acknowledging that, this is still the earliest any State of Origin game has been played and having only just completed Anzac Round, Origin starting this early feels out of sync with the rhythm of the season.
Vibe check
Coming in to round 10, with Origin season officially open and men’s Magic Round just over the horizon, instead of going around the grounds, let’s check in on where each of the Q4 are at.
Cowboys (6-3, 6th) - Todd Payten is going to make eat a lot of shit, isn’t he? It’s an even numbered year, so the Cowboys are running well, on paper at least. Other than a very concerning opening fortnight and a supremely lack lustre performance against a Sea Eagles side that the Cowboys have struggled with in recent years, North Queensland have won all their games. That includes beating the Sharks, Bulldogs and Broncos. They’ve yet to play any of the season’s apex predators - clashes with Souths, Penrith and Warriors are through the Origin period - and the rest of their schedule looks no harder than it has been so far, so why not a finals berth, an early exit and a big fat extension for Toddo?
Broncos (5-4, 9th) - When I left, the looming injury crisis suggested that results would turn against Brisbane. Surprisingly, the Broncos are 2-2 over the last month, which is fine, and more surprisingly, the crisis has somehow gotten even worse. Players are now suffering from injuries that I have to google. Accordingly, there’s no real telling what’s going to come from the babiest of Baby Broncos. Even once the team starts to resemble something like its best configuration, it’ll take time for fitness and cohesion to rebuild. Whether there’s any season left or anything to salvage remains to be seen.
Dolphins (3-5, 11th) - None of the Dolphins’ pre-season problems seem to have been solved. Sure, they’re playing teams closer and chalked up a win over a very bad Storm team but the defence isn’t there, the attack isn’t coherent and they keep losing close games through their own stupidity. They are, once again, underperforming their Pythagorean expectation. It won’t be impossible to turn this around but when are we going to see it?
Titans (2-6, 14th) - Along with getting three byes, an absolute hammering of the Eels might be one of a few bright spots in this Gold Coast season. It is going to be a challenging start to the Hannay era but the sheer dreadfulness of the Dragons should insulate the Titans from last place. How could they possibly be under cap pressure?
Intermission
Does Micheal Luck know what a ‘justification’ is?
The Broncos, Titans and Cowboys could field reserve grade teams under a controversial $2 million proposal for NRL clubs to join the Queensland Cup.
In one of the biggest shake-ups in Queensland Cup history, this masthead has been leaked a top-secret document outlining plans to expand from 15 teams to 18, including NRL glamour club the Broncos.
The proposal has been put together by Cowboys football boss Micheal Luck, who has presented the plan to Queensland Rugby League chairman Brian Canavan as the Broncos’ derby rivals ramp-up their push for a reserve-grade outfit.
This idea has been floating around for a while, with its background in the Kyle Laybutt scandal, and we’ve most recently talked about it here and here. While I could learn to live with the NRL teams fielding in QCup, the benefits being touted, for all concerned, are extremely dubious in my view and would put existing rugby league heritage in this state at risk.
There are two new bits of information to consider. The first:
The Broncos and Titans, who already have feeder-club arrangements, are said to be ambivalent about the proposal, while Redcliffe have had a Brisbane State League heartbeat since 1947.
That suggests the Cowboys are out on an island here, which we’ll get to in more detail once I’ve finished asking what the “Brisbane State League” is? In his fevered rush to drop this bombshell, Badel has conflated the Brisbane Rugby League, which Redcliffe entered the lower grades of in 1947 and joined the premiership in 1961, and the Winfield State League, which was the precursor to the Queensland Cup and ran in various formats from 1982 to 1994, which we talked a bit about here, in which Redcliffe participated in the early editions when it was run alongside the BRL.
The second is that Micheal Luck, recently promoted from football general manager to CEO of the Cowboys NRL experience and instigator of the Kyle Laybutt scandal, has laid out his proposal:
In the proposal obtained by this masthead and sent to Canavan:
* Luck proposes a 22-round format, starting next season;
* The travel and accommodation bill is budgeted to cost $2.1 million; and
* The competition will feature big-game blockbusters with NRL-style derbies involving the Cowboys, Broncos, Dolphins and Titans.
You know where you can see blockbuster NRL derbies? The NRL. Is this the best you can do? Here’s the quotes from Luck:
“We’re of the opinion that having the NRL brands in the Q Cup comp strengthens the competition and gives it more national relevance, both from a fan perspective and commercial partnership perspective. The one step in Queensland that we believe is still out of touch is that second-tier of football. Our club-contracted players can’t all be together under the same banner. We want this operational for 2027. The modelling that we have done suggests there is very little negative impact on our affiliate teams, so it’s a win-win in our view.”
The first part may turn out to be true, or is at least plausible because more people, inexplicably in my view, care about the NRL teams than Queensland Cup but I’d want to see a bit more than a napkin of business plan before committing to it.
The second part makes no sense. The quotes are joined up by me to save space but there isn’t a lot of connected thinking. Seemingly only the Cowboys think the second-tier is “out of touch” - out of touch with what? What the Cowboys want? Sorry if that doesn’t move anyone.
Good teams don’t make changes because they are good. Bad teams are bad and so need to make changes to address their problems. Looking at this and concluding that good teams are good because they don’t change is backwards. Expecting the Queensland Cup to be redrawn so the Cowboys’ juniors can play together before they are inevitably dumped onto other clubs to find success to keep cap space clear for duds and has-beens is not compelling.
As I’ve written before, an 18-team Queensland Cup is unwieldy. The quality of competition as it is with 15 teams, and the background labour market disruptions caused by expansion at home and in the UK, is at a low. Ringfencing the fringe NRL players into four clubs leaves a bunch of other spaces in rosters that have to be filled in with players from district A grade, competitions which are already under strain. Quelle surprise that was outside the scope of their modelling.
An expanded competition with more roster spots to fill will mean a lower average quality of play, which would not benefit the Cowboys reserves in any case, and the QCup is already at some distance from the standard of NSW Cup. The only way to improve the quality would be to cull teams. Luck hasn’t outlined which clubs are going to be excluded to make way for him to fumble his reserve grade roster. Perhaps it is time the Cowboys decamped for NSW? It’s going very well for the Storm so far and then we wouldn’t have to hear about this anymore.
“It wouldn’t take too much to organise. Under the wider proposal, it would create another eight to 10 big rivalry games a year. You could have Broncos versus Cowboys or Broncos versus Dolphins in the Q Cup, but we also could have derbies within our own footprint. For example, the Cowboys versus Northern Pride would be a big drawcard for Barlow Park (in Cairns). That’s not only a benefit for us, but for the Hostplus Cup from a revenue and commercial partnership perspective. At a time when the NRL are crying out for more content and going into a broadcast negotiation, I would think that the QRL would like to have something that they value to be able to add to the offering.”
The intra-NRL rivalry games are worth nothing in the second division. If they were worth something, they would already exist. If the NRL was “crying out for more content”, they could get the broadcasters to engage with QCup as is but instead let them off their hook from their FTA obligations during covid. NRLQ may have football benefits but it has had precisely zero cultural impact and it is made entirely of Queensland NRL derbies. The most likely scenario is these QCup games end up being curtain-raisers for the real deal, so add nothing to either ticket sales or broadcast revenue. Where does the revenue come from? There’s barely a market for Dolphins-Titans in the NRL as it is.
For games between NRL reserves and statewide programs, maybe there’s something there. The average Blackhawks game might get a couple hundred people and given the NRLW Cowboys don’t attract much in the way of spectators, assuming that level of interest is a reasonable proxy for the interest in the Young Guns (a debatable assumption), we’re looking at maybe one or two thousand for the really big draws? That’s generally bigger than a QCup game gets, an injection of $10k or so once or twice a year for the QCup clubs, but would they want to give up the fringe NRL players, invest in marketing to pump up the fixture and build a tradition, and admit three more sharks to the tank for $20,000? I dunno if that stacks up.
For it to make a real difference to the bottom line, you’d want a crowd that’s in the several thousands, which would require different venues for hosting QCup clubs and changes their cost structure, or equivalent cash considerations from the NRL clubs. A tripling (or more) of demand seems unlikely and smacks of Blake Solly arguing an all-Sydney conference would automatically generate 30k crowds. Again, dunno if that stacks up.
“The disconnection is a massive thing we have to work on. We have major logistical disadvantages.”
Buddy, that’s what you signed up for. Being a regional club has its pluses - the parochialism of the fanbase - and its minuses - its harder to manage and recruit players. Canberra has the same issue but instead of whining about it, they try to find solutions. Complaining about the vast, underpopulated expanse that is North Queensland is like Brisbane complaining about media pressure or Gold Coast about the lack of. It is what it is. Get on with it.
The real problem the Cowboys face isn’t their development pathways. It’s their management that - say it with me - doesn’t know what it’s doing or why it’s doing it.
Strangely, Luck hasn’t proposed any changes in this regard.
Upcoming slate
It’s the Challenge Cup semi-final weekend (Saints vs Warriors, Wolves v Rovers) so there’s no Super League on the slate.
There isn’t a lot of compelling fixtures in the southern hemisphere, although who picked Capras-Jets as a bellringer in the pre-season? Not this guy.
If you really hate yourself, there is a toxic waste dump of a Dragons-Knights game that you could take in on Saturday before Tweed-Clydesdales on Sunday. I can’t believe the Walker Brothers haven’t turned Western around yet.
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Stats pop
The competition pages on The Almanac have been updated to round 9, as has the 2026 Dataset spreadsheet (paid subs scroll to the bottom of The Almanac).
There is also a new page for Super League. I will likely do the historical tables in the next few weeks and follow up with club pages in the off-season.
While I was away, I mentioned that I had thought I had a problem with the way player ratings were calculated. I was right, I found the problem and fixed it. Apologies for the poor QA on my part.
Fortunately, only a sliver of one analysis this year used (and did not really rely on) these dodgy numbers, which has now been amended, and this now allows me to get to work on updating club pages with the correct player ratings (more a problem for NRL than state comps) and then producing advanced stats for paid subscribers, the commencement of which was how I found out there was an issue in the first place.
Maroon Observer QCup Tipping Sickoship
Don’t forget to tip if you are in this competition. The frequent draws are not helping aynone. Stop tipping the Clydesdales.
Nickelware
Read this
The Times - Super League risks becoming part-time if it snubs NRL — no one else wants it
Rugby League Writers - Why Standing Tackles Kill
The Sportress - Six, again: Entertainment, baby!
What You Get Is What You See - How to watch the Dolphins in 2026
Storm Machine - Game 750 – S29E09 Review
Notes
Belated statewide rep updates: Wynnum Manly defeated Norths, 26-16, to win the Cyril Connell grand final, Burleigh defeated Townsville, 30-12, to win the U17 Women’s, and Easts defeated Souths Logan, 32-22, to win the U19s. Wynnum and Townsville play the Mal Meninga Cup grand final this Saturday. Mackay won the men’s Foley Shield for the first time since 2021 and Townsville picked up the women’s title for the fourth year running, although this year’s competition was much more competitive. Gold Coast won the men’s and Brisbane won the women’s SEQ Chair’s Challenge. In the 47th Battalion, Capricornia claimed the women’s title and Sunshine Coast the men’s in Toowoomba. Players from those three carnivals will feed into City-Country seclections on QCup grand final day.
Margin watch: 2026 is still tracking with 2021 at 17.5 points per game. I don’t really want to speak this into existence but the gimmick the NRL are looking for to end their self-inflicted blowout-a-thon is that the trailing team always receives the kick off (when tied, the scoring team can receive), not to introduce a faux-decision-making process. It would be better to restrict the set restart to the attacking 20 metre zone or, better yet, disappear it into a void but we know this not to be a realistic possibility.
Broncos Annual Report: won both NRL premierships, dividend up from 2 cents per share to 3, profits after tax in 2025 up $2m to $7.7m (attributed to winning two premierships, increased ARLC grants ($24.4m) and “additional funding for each Club for competition expansion”, i.e. waving through the Chiefs), operating revenue up 20% on 2024 to just under $100m, ticketing and membership up 12%, merch revenue doubled and then some, board registered perfect attendance, keeping an eye on environmental risk, Donaghy makes $535k per year plus car plus a short term incentive scheme (another $300k in 2025), stadium expenses up to $10.4m, the racist owner of the Storm (Brett Ralph) is no longer listed in the top 20 shareholders.
Separately, Stephen Mayne is running as a non-board endorsed candidate for the Broncos board. His pitch, that Australian sports clubs are community owned instead of being an asset for News Corp, is not compelling. For mine, News Corp is the ideal owner, with deep pockets and no interest in interfering with the board and letting the CEO get on with it. The Broncos don’t need to take a leaf out of the Eels’ playbook, on top of all the other Broncos-ness, and plenty of other “community” clubs are the playthings of a handful of idle rich people (see: Wests’ debenture system, how do you get a membership to Easts?, etc). At least the Broncos’ corporate operations are transparent. Mayne does not expect to win the election or have any influence.
Rugby union’s Pacific heartlands threatened by NRL spree after Moana Pasifika’s collapse. Speaking of clueless whinging, pretty satisfying to see the shoe on the other foot. Albo’s going to have to do something about the Chinese sponsors though (proclaim the Australasian Empire, with rugby league as its imperial sport).
Melbourne Storm insist Craig Bellamy has ‘fire in the belly’ to continue following Dolphins defeat
Cowboys: Hifo & Veivers join Top 24, Nanai out for a month, Harrison Edwards released, Ashley Marsters signs
RLP continues to add BRL results. Take this as a reminder to chuck some money at their Patreon and check out Redcap’s BRL site.
PIF to cut LIV Golf funding after 2026, league announces new board members, strategic plan. Feels like we can put breakaway leagues in the bin for a while at least.
Hung Vuong Stadium construction begins as part of Vietnam transformation plan. Sounds like something that could be aided with a NRL team.