In this case, either the Dragons played three sides who are incredibly slow in possession (they haven’t) or they are forcing the other team to attack slowly (they aren’t) or they are taking ages to get through their time with the ball. Over a league-wide sample, the other aspects of the loop – breaks in play, the opposition speed among others – can be held as a constant because every other team faces every other team, thus one side’s difference in speed can be assumed to be their own doing. Set loop times are really useful as they’re pretty easily worked out from the public data and they can be used to tell you which teams are fast and slow comparatively to the other teams. The loop is the time it takes for them to get the ball, go through their motions, kick it away and then have the other team have their set before getting it back.Ĭlub analysts will have access to their own side’s individual set times, but the rest of us don’t. Their average set loop this year has been 134 seconds long, the worst in 2023 and, indeed, seven seconds longer than the worst of 2022 (Wests Tigers) as well. The combination of a high completion rate, a decent time in possession and the long list of failings points to one very specific problem: the Dragons are the slowest team in the NRL.

They complete at 79% when they get it, well above average. They do get the ball, with around 49% of the share of time in possession across their games, which is perfectly fine.

The Dragons don’t get any ball and when they do get it, they don’t do anything with it.īut that’s not the whole story. Congratulations if you can see the theme emerging here.

Mike dozer