Our run of bad luck with penalties

[Spirit of 66]

I really hope we can get our fair share of penalties this year. The stats are very, very peculiar and I am at a loss to explain them.

For instance:

- Only once since 2000 have we finished a season with more penalties than we have conceded. That's despite having 5 different coaches in that period and many different playing rosters. Any reasonable person would say that over a 13 year period, a team could expect to finish with a penalty surplus more than once. Souths, for example, have had a penalty surplus 8 times in the last 10 years. Amazingly, until 2012, Parramatta had not had a penalty deficit in ANY of the previous 12 years.

- Even stranger, other "ill-disciplined" teams become more "disciplined" when - and only when - they play the Roosters. The Roosters have been among the 5 most penalised teams since 2008. In this period, the Roosters played 23 games against the other four most "ill-disciplined" teams and won the penalty count only 6 times.

I know its only statistics. It's just bad luck. It's like any other statistical quirk - you know, like tossing 25 heads in a row. Any day now, the statistics will change in our favour and start to even up.

I reckon tonight, playing in a packed NZ stadium against a notoriously ill-disciplined team, we will win the penalties handsomely. Don't you?

[Guest]

I really hope we can get our fair share of penalties this year. The stats are very, very peculiar and I am at a loss to explain them.

For instance:

- Only once since 2000 have we finished a season with more penalties than we have conceded. That's despite having 5 different coaches in that period and many different playing rosters. Any reasonable person would say that over a 13 year period, a team could expect to finish with a penalty surplus more than once. Souths, for example, have had a penalty surplus 8 times in the last 10 years. Amazingly, until 2012, Parramatta had not had a penalty deficit in ANY of the previous 12 years.

- Even stranger, other "ill-disciplined" teams become more "disciplined" when - and only when - they play the Roosters. The Roosters have been among the 5 most penalised teams since 2008. In this period, the Roosters played 23 games against the other four most "ill-disciplined" teams and won the penalty count only 6 times.

I know its only statistics. It's just bad luck. It's like any other statistical quirk - you know, like tossing 25 heads in a row. Any day now, the statistics will change in our favour and start to even up.

I reckon tonight, playing in a packed NZ stadium against a notoriously ill-disciplined team, we will win the penalties handsomely. Don't you?

Do you really think thats bad luck ??? Ok different playing rosters is fair enough to think that the penalties should have been sifted out but it doesnt seem so.

I'd call it ill discipline rather than bad luck. As much as I hum and har during games at the end I know we deserved 90% of the penalties we gave away.

We're just shit when it comes to discipline plain and simple.

[Guest]

Good stuff dude.

[Woodsta]

Hopefully when we get Luke Phillips as ref he will look after us........ being an ex Rooster???

[Spirit of 66]

Do you really think thats bad luck ??? Ok different playing rosters is fair enough to think that the penalties should have been sifted out but it doesnt seem so.

I'd call it ill discipline rather than bad luck. As much as I hum and har during games at the end I know we deserved 90% of the penalties we gave away.

We're just shit when it comes to discipline plain and simple.

I know! I know! We deserve EVERY penalty that goes against us. We are terribly, terribly naughty and, looking at the statistics, we have been so for 13 years.

When I said "bad luck" I was referring to the fact that the OTHER naughty teams stop being naughty when they play us. How else can you explain that other than bad luck?

[Guest]

It is not the penalties that we give away rather the lack of penalties we receive that is frustrating and very suspect.

[Spirit of 66]

It is not the penalties that we give away rather the lack of penalties we receive that is frustrating and very suspect.

I think you might be on to something there, BAW. If it weren't for the fact that our game is as pure as the driven snow, the statistics I quote might puzzle a reasonable person and drive a paranoid person into the realm of madness.

[Kurt Sherlock's Mo]

It is not the penalties that we give away rather the lack of penalties we receive that is frustrating and very suspect.

This.

It's clear as day that the team becomes frustrated very easily by other teams pushing the boundaries without repurcussion. Other teams know we have a reputation as being easily baited and, when we do react, unsubtle in our response.

Don't underestimate the impact of a world-class niggler in a team ala Cam Smith, Hodges, Gallen.

[Spanner in the works]

It's not the number of penalties, it's when and where we give them which is the problem. And it's the usual suspects who do it. The number of times I have seen us put together a good defensive set only for us to give away a penalty on the last tackle, or have seen us have a team on the ropes with repeat sets then give away a stupid penalty, or give away a penalty shortly before halftime leading to a try, is ridiculous.

[Spirit of 66]

Kurt and Spanner - you both make good points.

Yes, it would be nice to think that we can do things differently and that this will result in better penalty outcomes. But it's the things that are out of our control - like the fewer penalties that are conceded by equally ill-disciplined teams when they play us - that is puzzling and frustrating.

[Thirteen]

It's a big issue that hopefully Robbo's addressing. Hopefully last week was a once-off.

[stephenj]

i wouldnt expect luke phillips to 'look after us'! id expect him to be fair and honest and maintain his persOnal credability unlike some of the current posers in pink!

[Thirteen]

i wouldnt expect luke phillips to 'look after us'! id expect him to be fair and honest and maintain his persOnal credability unlike some of the current posers in pink!

I think the 'look after us' comment was tongue in cheek Stephen....

[Spirit of 66]

It's a big issue that hopefully Robbo's addressing. Hopefully last week was a once-off.

I hope so too, but it's something that Graham Murray, Ricky Stuart, Chris Anderson, Brad Fittler and Brian Smith all couldn't do.

[bondi-boy]

Bad luck?

Bad luck?