Defence determining NRL Premiership favourites

An elite team defence is greater than the sum of its parts. It's little things, reactions to cues of the player opposite the defender, and also those beside them in the defensive line. It's a gameplan plan that can take on a new cog without breaking the wheel that allows teams to defend well all season and into September.

It's built over time, not only in the players involved, but the culture of the club. It's why the Storm can see a turnover in players over 17 years and remain as one of the best devensive teams in the competition while others - take the Tigers or Warriors recently - can't back one promising defensive season up with another despite only replacing a handful of the faces from the previous year.

A team's collective experience, cohesion, gameplan and footy IQ make up as much of a defence as tackle technique - probably more.

Wingers are regularly called out for coming in off his wing or is alleged to have made the wrong read. However, it's often what occurs inside him that forces the winger to make the decision before he's thrown into the fire of blame.

It's a team game, and that fact is never more evident than it is in defence.

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When looking down the list of premiers throughout the NRL era, the correlation to top-ranked team defence is undeniable.

The average defensive rank that the eventual NRL Premiers carry into the finals at the end of the regular season is 2.7. Only one of the last 13 NRL premiers have played with a defence outside the top three in the competition; the 2015 Cowboys (5th) who beat the third-ranked team in a golden point Grand Final.

Of all 21 NRL premierships, the 2005 Tigers are the significant outlier. They managed to lift the trophy after conceding 23.9 points per game for the tenth-ranked defence of the regular season.

All recent history trends toward the top of the defensive ladder when assessing potential premiers in 2019, though.

The Storm have the best defence in the NRL right now, and it's on track to be one of the best in the NRL era. They concede just 12.2 points per game. It ensures the Storm are in every match for the full 80 minutes with their three losses this season coming by a combined four points.

As a big believer in the power of cohesion when it comes to defence, in particular, it's no surprise to see the Storm have only used 26 different players in 2019. Only the Tigers and Knights have used fewer (25). It has allowed their defence to improve and develop a near-impenetrable middle to concede just four tries through the guts all year. Their left-side defence is also the best in the competition with only nine tries let through in 19 games. It's significantly less than the 21.9 tries being scored through left-side defences across the competition.

The Storm dynasty is credited to the attacking brilliance of Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk, and more recently, Cameron Munster. But it's their consistency in defence that has allowed the dynasty to continue as the dominant faces in attack change.

While it might not seem like it in Canberra, the improved Raiders defence can also be put down to cohesion as much as the rocket Ricky Stuart sent up his side in the preseason.

Unlike so many teams at the bottom of the NRL ladder and defensive ranks, the Raiders have kept a large chunk of their team together over the last three seasons. Despite injuries to key players popping up all year, the cohesion they've developed through the squad has allowed them to plug and play reserve graders into the first-grade side without giving up too much defensively.

Couple that with the fitness and defensive drills Stuart put his team through across the first two months of the preseason, and you've got a team that conceded 22.5 points per game in 2018 allowing only 14.6 points per gamethrough them in 2019. Funnily enough, the average points conceded by the last 13 premiers is 14.7 points.

The Roosters won last seasons premiership on the back of the best defence in the competition conceding 15 points per game. They had 361 points put on them throughout the 24 rounds of footy. Weirdly, three of the last seven premiers have also registered the same number in the regular season.

With the injuries they've picked up during the season, in particular, to their defensive-specialist hooker, the Chooks have done well to only add a single point per game to their 2018 average. When push comes to shove and this team is healthy, they'll be up there with the Storm and Raiders as a premier defensive team through September.

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History suggests things will be difficult for the two remaining premiership contenders.

The Rabbitohs and Sea Eagles are both conceding over 17 points per game in 2019.

Again, the 2015 Cowboys are the only premiers of the last 13 years to concede more than 17 points per game. Just five of the 21 NRL premiers overall have allowed more.

It's a number that is historically unfavourable, and one Souths and Manly will need to improve on when you consider the winning teams throughout the 2018 preliminary finals and grand final conceded a combined 16 points.

So, with all that said, which team will win it all?

The Stats Insider futures model fancies the Storm and their NRL-best defence.

With Melbourne's history of backing up a Grand Final loss with a win the following year, along with their defensive domination in 2019, it's hard to go past them as premiers. At the very least, we should expect to see them again in the season finale.

The bigger question might be who faces the Storm in the Grand Final?

The Stats Insider Model suggests the Roosters are a fair chance while historical defensive performance can't go past the Raiders and their 14.6 points conceded per game.

All of the talk is about which of the five perceived contenders will end up lifting the Provan-Summons Trophy, but we can almost whittle the list down to three already.

The coaching ability of Des Hasler and Wayne Bennett is where the "almost" comes in. A month is a long time in rugby league, and Septemeber is a different season for year-long Top 8 certainties like the Rabbitohs. There is every chance the conversation changes by the end of Round 25.

However, any change will need to be triggered by an improved defence.

For now, though, the Storm, Roosters and Raiders are a step or two ahead of the pack on the back of the three best defensive records in the competition through 20 rounds.

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