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Every team has a side they hate playing and a club they have ‘the wood’ over. PAUL CRAWLEY breaks down the match-ups which could prove a turning point for your club this season.
Every team has a side they just hate playing. For South Sydney, it’s Melbourne, who the Rabbitohs have only beaten once in the past five years, and never at the Storm’s home ground going all the way back to 1999.
To put it further in perspective, before the Bunnies last win against the Storm in 2018, the previous was 2013. Essentially once in the last decade.
Ahead of Thursday night’s blockbuster to mark Craig Bellamy’s 500th NRL match milestone, we have crunched the numbers for all 16 clubs. Breaking down their records against every team since 2017, and identifying all the bogey and bunny sides.
We have also calculated how each team has fared against top four, top eight and bottom eight opposition last season.
It shows some startling statistics across the board.
Like the fact eight clubs have not beaten another team in the past five years, and of those five are against Melbourne, making the Storm the NRL’s ultimate bogey team.
As for the Rabbitohs, it highlights why Latrell Mitchell’s return could not come at a better time for Jason Demetriou who is about to get his first real taste of the pressure that goes with the top job in what is shaping up to be an extremely challenging first month.
If history is anything to go by, this has the potential to be a dream start for Kevvie Walters after a huge round-one upset.
Overall, the Broncos’ best record over the past five seasons is a 77.8 winning percentage against the Sharks. But that is followed by the Bulldogs (62.5%), who they play this Sunday.
After that, it’s the Cowboys, who they have a 60% record against and they take on in round three.
The reality check is the Broncos had a rotten record against top teams last year with no wins against top four opposition (although they broke that drought against the Bunnies) and only three of 15 against top eight teams. It’s also no great surprise the Storm are their bogey team.
As impressive as the Raiders were against the Sharks to start the season, the next six weeks is a lottery. This Saturday it’s the Cowboys (who the Raiders only have a 50% recent winning record against), followed by the Titans (75%), Sea Eagles (22.2%), Storm (27.3%), Cowboys again and Panthers (25%).
What will concern Raiders fans is they only won one of six against top four teams (16.7%) last year and three from 14 against top eight teams (21.4%). They had a 70 per cent record against bottom eight teams.
Over the past five years they have a less than 30 per cent winning record against four teams all up, the Sea Eagles (22.2%), Panthers (25%), Storm (27.3%) and Knights (28.6%). They have their most success against the Tigers (85.7%) followed by the Bulldogs (83.3%).
