NRL Round 1 Stats + Barely Interesting Facts

The first round of the NRL season has been completed, against all odds mind you, and before it gets brushed into dustpan of NRL Wikipedia history, let us have a quick review of the NRL Round 1 Stats.

Like most things we do here, we dive into the data of the sport and try and produce a handful of eyebrow shifting barely interesting facts. Some you can take to your next BBQ, Supercoach catchup, and just to enjoy if you are in self or mandatory isolation. 

So even if you don’t currently have the Coronavirus, you can still enjoy our NRL Round 1 Stats + Barely Interesting Facts.

NRL Round 1 Stats + Barely Interesting Facts

• Melbourne remain the best team in Round 1 of the NRL competition, taking their tally to plenty in a row, and undefeated under Craig Bellamy. Way back in 2000 the Storm also beat St George-Illawarra by 70-10, the biggest win in the first round of any season.
• Manly remain the worst Round 1 team in the NRL, and have lost their last six opening weekend games.
• Before going into this match only two defending premiers have failed to win the first game of the season since 2010 – Roosters (twice) and Sharks (once), so the Rooster’s loss to Penrith on Saturday made it three straight.
• Latrell Mitchell had the fewest minutes of the big off season signings from a defending premier, his six runs was a Round 1 low for fullbacks.
• The NZ Warriors have not been the only team to score no points in the first game of the season. It ha happened on four other occasions since 1998. In four of the five games where zero points has been scored by one team, the opposition score is between 18-21.
  • 1999 Sharks 44 Balmain 0
  • 2007 Sharks 18 Penrith 0
  • 2012 North Qld 0 Gold Coast 18
  • 2019 Gold Coast 0 Canberra 21
• Parramatta and Bulldogs low scoring dross-fest that opened the season had one silver lining, apart from the raising of the Parra fans hopes, it now holds the record for the lowest scoring first round round game since 1998. The previous worst was St George 4 Melbourne 12 in 2015.
• The Wests Tigers have won their last five first rounds games, and if the season is stopped after this round won’t finish 9th for the first time in a few seasons.
• Hookers and Five-Eighths scored as many first tries as wingers.
• The Warriors and Cowboys made the third and fifth fewest errors this round despite losing.
• Have a few extra graphs to say what we already haven’t.

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