With only 160 minutes of football under their belt, it's difficult to get a strong grasp of any trends building in the NRL at the moment. However, there are still some numbers worth looking into.

Some may end up meaning nothing by the end of the season, while others act as a sign of things to come despite the current small sample size.

This first one might be a mixture of both.

Ponga's Presence

The talk around Kalyn Ponga's switch to five-eighth is likely to keep going around in circles until it's either accepted that he is now a half, or, Nathan Brown moves him back to fullback.

As a fullback, Ponga can pick and chose his moments to insert himself into the attack. He regularly takes the ball behind the line which gives him time and space to use his speed and step. 

As a half, the defence can reduce his time with the ball and close down his space. He's asked to make more decisions with less time on the ball while also having more of a role in organising the coming plays. The increased workload defensively can't be ignored either. Ponga made 105 tackles in 20 games (avg 5.25tpg) throughout 2018. He's already made 23 in two games (11.5tpg) playing in the halves in 2019.

It's early days, but the move forward is having a negative impact on Ponga's game.

After registering 12 linebreaks in 20 games in 2018, Ponga has yet to break the line once in 2019. He's touching the ball almost seven fewer times per game while his yardage has dropped from 142.6 to 70.2 running metres per game. After averaging the most tackle breaks with seven per game in 2018, he's only recorded six in two games.

The drop in running metres in tackle breaks obviously comes due to the lack of kick returns as a five-eighth, but does that not highlight what the Knights are missing by moving him there?

Take this beautiful try assist from the weekend.

The line Ponga runs to take possession of the ball is enough for James Maloney to stop which, in turn, forces his Panthers teammates outside to come in. The option to pass to an open Edrick Lee is now available and Ponga nails it.

It's a line he ran hundred's of times as a fullback in 2018. There's a good chance he would have added an extra 100 running metres and three tackle breaks to this try assist, had he lined up at the back.

Ponga is too good for these numbers to mean nothing. 

Despite being a better fullback than a five-eighth, the 20-year old is going to have an impact no matter where he plays.

However, they're showing us something now.

His effectiveness and influence are down on his 2018 efforts.

Boring Bulldogs

The Bulldogs are far and away the worst team in the NRL through two rounds.

They're planted at the bottom of the ladder after already building a -54 points differential. Going up against the Tigers who have the best points differential at +42, means it could soon get a lot worse for the Dogs.

When looking through the numbers, the obvious ones stand out.

The Bulldogs have missed the most tackles at 37 per game and, as a result, have conceded an NRL-high 76 points in two games.

But, it's the error and completion rate numbers that may come as a surprise.

The Bulldogs have made the fewest errors with only 14 through two games while completing at 83% - the highest completion rate in the competition.

That two traditionally positive statistics paint such a damning picture of their offense, which has scored the second-fewest points in the NRL so far (22), caught me completely off guard. 

These numbers are saying something: nothing.

'Nothing' being the Bulldogs attack.

CLICK TO VIEW MATCH PREDICTIONS FOR THE BULLDOGS R3 GAME

Risky Roosters 

In contrast to the Bulldogs, the Roosters have made more than double the number of errors (30) through two games, while completing at just a poultry 65%.

Ugly numbers in a vacuum, Sydney's points and linebreak figures soon show that fortune certainly does favour the brave, and errors and completion rates can mean very little at times.

The Roosters have scored 42 points so far this season - 20 more points than the high-completing Bulldogs. They've done that by breaking the line an NRL-high nine times. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs rank dead last in linebreaks with just three.

A lot of people will think Sydney's high-error and low-completion rates mean nothing this early in the season, and they are right.

Although, they will more than likely mean nothing by the end of the season too.

No team averaged more errors in 2018 than the Roosters' 10.6 per game. Their whole first-choice backline made up of James Tedesco, Daniel Tupou, Latrell Mitchell, Joseph Manu and Blake Ferguson all finished inside the top 50 for errors made in 2018. 

On the back of those errors, only three teams completed at a worse rate than Sydney's 76.4% set completion percentage.

And, how did the Roosters finish 2018?

NRL Premiers. 

CLICK TO VIEW MATCH PREDICTIONS FOR THE ROOSTERS R3 GAME

Smith's Storm Attack

Alongside the Rabbitohs, the Storm have been the pick of the bunch after two rounds.

Always one step ahead of the rest, Craig Bellamy has this group attacking a little differently to start 2019, and it's most definitely something.

Despite making plans for his 36th birthday in two weeks, Cameron Smith is getting his hands on the ball more than ever before. He averaged 101.4 receipts per game last season. The 121.5 receipts he's averaged through two in 2019 is not only a lot more than 2018, but the most since 2013 when receipts per game were recorded. 

With long passes out of dummy half, and regular appearances at first-receiver in the middle of the field, Smith is orchestrating an attack that is of a Premiership-winning calibre, early on.

The Storm may only average 22 points per game, but they look a lot more likely to sustain that number over the course of a full season than the Warriors (23ppg), Tigers (27ppg), Eels (28ppg) and Rabbitohs (30ppg) ahead of them. 

Again, it's only a small sample size, but the Storm are #1 in the NRL in: support runs, running metres, tackle breaks, line breaks and line engaged runs.  

The Storm forward pack is big, strong, and mobile. Nelson Asofa-Solomona and Jesse Bromwich have displayed a tendency to shift the ball more than they have done so before, adding a small amount of ball playing to their combined 252 running metres per game so far.

Meanwhile, the Melbourne backline has plenty of points in them as perfectly shown with Suliasi Vunivalu's 29-minute hat-trick in Round 2.

It's early days and Melbourne's numbers will (probably) regress to the mean as opposition teams start to scheme against this shift-heavy attack. However, for a side many experts predicted would start to fall down the ladder and possibly outside the Top 8, there is something behind these early numbers.

Enough to suggest that we've not yet seen the end of the Smith-Bellamy Storm dynasty.

CLICK TO VIEW MATCH PREDICTIONS FOR THE STORM'S R3 GAME

Making Stats Insider free is a conscious effort to make advanced analytics and predictive data more publicly available to Australian sports fans, punters and everyone else. 

Check out our NRL Hub for more comprehensive NRL content, fixtures, predictions and results.

Join in the conversation and tell us how you feel! 

Drop a comment at the bottom of the page to participate in discussion with like-minded-sports-and-data-nerds 👇

Follow us on Social Media!
FACEBOOK / TWITTER / INSTAGRAM