NRL 2022: True Kicker Ratings: Top 15 Leaderboard
Last updated: Oct 10, 2022, 10:56PM | Published: Oct 10, 2022, 3:45PM
With the 2022 NRL season concluding, it's time to look at the Stats Insider True Kicker Ratings to determine who the best goal kickers are across the league.
NRL games blew out beyond the influence of goal kickers too often in 2021 but a reversal of rules started to bring them back into play in 2022.
The usual suspects are towards the top of the list as the Broncos, Panthers, Eels and Rabbitohs head into the summer confident they won't be leaving any points on the tee in 2023. The Titans, on the other hand, might need a preseason shootout to decide who takes the role after struggling for consistency off the boot throughout 2022.
What is NRL True Kicker?
True Kicker Ratings are a different way of ranking goal kickers in the NRL.
In a nutshell, Stats Insider's NRL True Kicker ratings tell us how many points a player's goal kicking has earned (or cost) their team, over a set period of time, compared to the NRL average kicker - shown in the True Kicker Score column in the table below.
While the True Kicker Score gives us a good gauge on just how many points a players goal kicking has earned (or cost) their team, much like a total goals leaderboard, it can be influenced by players who have attempted more shots.
Thankfully, the True Kicker Rating system also has a way to deal with this.
The kick-by-kick difficulty-adjusted-rating system allows us to calculate ‘what we would expect’ a player’s goal-kicking success rate (penalty goals + conversions) to be based on the kicks they have taken - shown in the Expected Success Rate column below.
By comparing this to a player’s ‘actual’ goal-kicking success rate we can calculate how much they have exceeded (or fallen below) expectation. This number is presented in the form of a percentage (shown in the Difference column) and represents 'how much better or worse a player’s conversion success rate is than we would expect it to be based on the kicks they have taken’.NRL
NRL 2022 - True Kicker Leaderboard
(min. 20 shots at goal)
| NRL Player | True Kicker Score | Att. | Goals | Success % | Expected % | True Kicker +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam Reynolds | +19.3 | 72 | 61 | 84.7% | 71.3% | +13.4 |
| Mitchell Moses | +15.1 | 121 | 95 | 78.5% | 72.3% | +6.2 |
| Nathan Cleary | +14.2 | 89 | 76 | 85.4% | 77.4% | +8.0 |
| Latrell Mitchell | +10.1 | 78 | 61 | 78.2% | 71.7% | +6.5 |
| Valentine Holmes | +9.9 | 122 | 100 | 82.0% | 77.9% | +4.0 |
| Blake Taaffe | +8.4 | 35 | 30 | 85.7% | 73.7% | +12.0 |
| Stephen Crichton | +5.9 | 39 | 32 | 82.1% | 74.5% | +7.6 |
| Sam Walker | +5.4 | 117 | 91 | 77.8% | 75.5% | +2.3 |
| Kotoni Staggs | +4.7 | 20 | 16 | 80.0% | 68.2% | +11.8 |
| Reece Walsh | +4.6 | 61 | 48 | 78.7% | 74.9% | +3.8 |
| Jamayne Isaako | +4.2 | 20 | 16 | 80.0% | 69.5% | +10.5 |
| Zac Lomax | +4.0 | 91 | 71 | 78.0% | 75.8% | +2.2 |
| Ryan Papenhuyzen | +3.4 | 52 | 41 | 78.8% | 75.5% | +3.3 |
| Nicho Hynes | +3.4 | 112 | 83 | 74.1% | 72.6% | +1.5 |
| Brad Schneider | +1.9 | 29 | 23 | 79.3% | 76.0% | +3.3 |
Adam Reynolds of the Broncos finished the 2022 NRL season as the competition's premier goal kicker after adding +19.5 points off the tee compared to the average kicker. The change of scenery and kicking location didn't impact Reynolds' success off the boot. In fact, his +67.4 True Kicker Score ranks 1st of all kickers since 2020.
Eels kicker Mitchell Moses made significant improvements to his kicking game this year. After adding only +2.5 points at a +1.4% differential in 2021, Moses finished second on the list in 2022 with a +15.1 True Kicker Score and +6.2% differential. Moses finished ahead of Panthers champion Nathan Cleary who, after topping the list in 2021 and finishing third in 2022, is going to be a mainstay towards the top of this list over the next decade.
While Cleary missed time due to State of Origin and suspension, the Penrith Panthers have a capable backup kicker in Stephen Crichton. The young centre added +5.9 points off the tee and can be trusted to take over the duties when required moving forward.
There were some questions around Latrell Mitchell of the Rabbitohs at one point but he snuck past Valentine Holmes to finish fourth on the list by the end of the 2022 season. It took him some time to start hitting the target from out wide with the expected success rate of just 71.7%, but Mitchell finished the year strong to kick 20 in a row through September.
Storm fullback Ryan Papenhuyzen's +3.4 points added doesn't jump off the page. However, when you consider that his teammates in Nick Meaney (-5.6) and Cameron Munster (-4.6) finished up at third and fourth to last of all kickers with at least five attempts this season, it becomes clear how much Papenhuyzen was missed as a goal kicker. While Munster put some impressive performances together in Papenhuyzen's absence, he couldn't emulate the fullback's form off the tee.
It was a similar story for the Gold Coast Titans, with Jamayne Isaako failing to keep his place on the wing, but perhaps he should have. Adding +4.2 points compared with the average kicker across his 20 attempts, Isaako is the only Titans player to record a positive kicking number in 2022.
The Titans' Toby Sexton ranked dead last in 2022 with a score of -12.3, while his teammate Tanah Boyd ended up just below average at -1.0.
RELATED: NRL 2022 True Kicker Full Rankings
