Round 12: Home Is Where The...Tips Is

It has long been the consensus view that, in any type of sporting contest, the player or team with the familiarity benefits of home ground advantage usually has an edge over most opponents. Matches in the NRL are no exception. In years past, most teams’ home grounds were quite different to their opponents. Not surprisingly, the home team would have better knowledge of local conditions, any peculiar playing field dimensions or be much more familiar with any antiquated facilities (or, of course, use much superior facilities to the visiting teams).

As Rugby League became professional and grew well beyond Sydney’s borders, home ground advantage extended to home city or home state advantage and the extra dimensions of travel and climate became factors which could help the home team.

However, as teams became used to travel and became more professional in their approach when travelling interstate or overseas, and as stadiums have been upgraded and homogenised and playing surfaces improved, the advantage enjoyed by the home team has slowly diminished. For much of the 2000s, the home team winning percentage oscillated between 55 and 62 per cent; quite a way below levels seen in previous years and mostly below the levels of other basic tipping theories.

Inexplicably, in Rounds 11 and 12 of the 2011 NRL season, home teams have dominated in a way not seen since the bizarre season of 2000. But at least in 2000, there was a reason behind the home ground dominance; the season was shifted back due to the Olympics and this more even competition meant the home ground edge became pivotal.

In the last two weeks, home teams have not lost, but many would argue the competition is less even than it has been in several years. So far in 2011, home teams (including the bookmaker-favoured team for neutral games) are winning 67 per cent of the time.

It might take some time to establish exactly why the home teams are fighting back after a decade or so, but in the meantime, here’s a look back at Round 12 with the importance of Home Sweet Home to the round’s 7 winners (and others).

Home Is Where The….Cash Is: On Friday night, it was the annual double-header from Brisbane. However, on this occasion, neither south-east Queensland side was the ‘home’ team. Manly and Canterbury took the cash on offer and moved home games to Brisbane. Both Sydney teams played quite well but they were helped by patchy performances by their opposition.

First up, Manly took a while to get going, but once they did, Brisbane had no answer for them. Brisbane rested many of their representative players as they did for the Melbourne game a few weeks back but this time the effort from the remainder of the team was not there. Manly’s second half was very good. Daly Cherry-Evans’ first game in his home city of Brisbane saw him celebrate with two tries, but the kudos went to Kieran Foran (amongst others) for another excellent game in the main playmaker role.

While this was Manly’s first home game moved across the border, the Bulldogs have done something similar each year since 2005, with varying results. This time they took on the Titans in one of the weirder games seen in recent times.

Despite having the better of possession and field position for most of the game, the Titans were unable to successfully cross the line until the game was well out of reach. Incredibly, the referee requested video assistance on 7 occasions regarding possible Titans tries and each request came back with a verdict against the Gold Coast. In almost all instances, there was little room for argument, but the Bulldogs certainly had the ‘luck’ home teams are often accustomed to in this game. With that said, they jumped to a 12-nil lead before the Titans responded; the Bulldogs would probably have responded well had the Titans troubled the scorer in the early going.

Home Is Where The….Heart Is: Newcastle’s performance against the Roosters last Sunday was pathetic. They had less structure than an invertebrate, less passion than Rain Man and exhibited less teamwork than the Australian Women’s Rowing Team in 2004. Somehow they lucked out and played the second worst team in the world that day and almost won, but a vast improvement was needed – even with the opposition being the wildly inconsistent Eels.

Luckily for Newcastle, they were going back home to their loyal crowd, which has long prided itself in the ability to rouse the ‘local’ (not as much as they once were, admittedly) boys to a stirring win. Also, the Knights welcomed back club captain Kurt Gidley and finally, God/Joey provided a wet night. All 3 elements, plus a much improved effort, saw Newcastle earn the close win over the Eels. Newcastle games have been very hard on the eye of late, as this one was, but they might have turned the corner with a win here.

Home Is Where The….Love Is: How can it be anything else for a supporter base which regularly travels many hours to watch home games? Or for a supporter base that can tolerate living in the same state as Feral Thurston? There were two other instances to support this theme for Saturday night’s Cowbores versus Roosters game in Townsville: the return of Todd Carney to the part of the world where his life was turned around but also to remember the life of former Cowbore Sam Faust, who passed far too soon last week.

The Cowbores weathered some unusually solid Roosters play to record a fairly easy win in this game and, in doing so, extending their winning run at home to 6 games: a run not seen since the halcyon days of 2005.

Home Is Where The….Second Contr... I mean Family Is: In Melbourne on Sunday, Cameron Smith played his 200th game for the Storm. Many expected them to thrash the struggling Sharks but victory was a surprisingly difficult task. The Storm did end up winning, but have been less than convincing at home in recent games. This is not the juggernaut at home that they once were (at the moment anyway).

Smith spoke yesterday of his (and presumably other representative players’) desire to see the governing bodies leave weekends free for State of Origin from 2013 onwards. The burden on representative players’ bodies (and the shortening of their careers) from backing up soon after representative games is not in doubt, but Smith alluded to the poor quality of games in recent weeks and over the Origin period in recent years as another reason for wanting Origin to move to otherwise free weekends.

Sorry Cameron, but there’s plenty of other reasons for uninspiring games in June and July than tired representative players, such as (non representative game) injuries, wet and windy weather, too many night games and the ongoing effect of the salary cap and less than optimal revenues on the quality/depth of many teams’ rosters. You won’t win much sympathy using incorrect reasoning in your battles.

Home Is Where The….History Is: The St George Dragons (back when Illawarra was purely a nursery and not a pesky half-brother) once went 56 games and over 12 years without a loss at Kogarah. Their winning streak at the famous ground was merely 5 before Sunday’s game against the Wests Tigers, but their overall winning streak of 8 games was nearing the upper limits in today’s game.

In another entry from the slightly-interesting-but-only-if-you-have-too-much-time-on-your-hands files, St George’s last loss before their 56 game unbeaten streak was against Balmain. The Tigers also registered a draw with the Dragons during this time and it was Wests who ended the win streak in 1966. The Magpies also recorded wins at Kogarah in two of their next three visits.

On Sunday, it looked like being more of the same for the modern Dragons; yet another strong and probably match-winning half-time lead. The only team to beat the Dragons during Wayne Bennett’s tenure after the Dragons got off to a strong start was Newcastle in 2009, but the Tigers hung in and aided by some Dragons’ tiredness, cut the deficit to 6 in the game’s final 5 minutes. A decent comeback by the Tigers but it was ultimately only a mild improvement over recent weeks. Meanwhile, the Dragons keep on winning; you wonder if 11 in a row wouldn’t be so crazy to consider if Bennett wasn’t leaving at the end of the season.

Home Is Where The….Freak Tries/Ex-Colleagues/Lower House Prices Is: It looks a somewhat convoluted series of links for the final game of the round, but it will all make sense soon.

First off though, Penrith continued their recent improvement with a decent 22-10 win over a struggling South Sydney side to end the successful week for the ‘home’ teams. The platform here was laid by a very good start and a strong attitude in adverse conditions. Luke Lewis started very well and continued this for most of the game, Civoniceva backed up very well from Origin (although his opposition in the Souths forward pack made his job quite easy) and Penrith’s halves of Burns and Walsh had excellent games in one-on-one defence and taking on the line with rare ball-running respectively.

However Souths had a decent chance to come back in the second half; the game was seemingly stuck at 16-10 to Penrith and anything looked possible. Ultimately, Penrith took their lead back to 12 and secured the win with a freak try that those with long memories had seen before. Penrith’s Masada Iosefa dropped the ball in a potential try-scoring chance, but the falling ball collided with his foot in an inadvertent way before the ball hit the ground. Iosefa fell to the ground and was upset at his mistake and Souths’ Shaune Corrigan assumed it was a knock-on and slowed to a walk, allowing the ball and Penrith’s determined, play-to-the-whistle (or extremely-good-memoried) fullback Lachlan Coote to race through and dive on the loose ball for a try.

Souths coach John Lang – formerly of Penrith – was probably upset at his players for their lack of attention to detail but he could not have seriously challenged the legitimacy of the try. It was Round 8 in 2006 and Penrith’s first game at home for the season after an off-season upgrade to what was then known as CUA Stadium. Cronulla got off to a very fast start and things looked grim for Penrith, before reserve prop Matt Cross appeared to lose the ball on a run deep in attack. Cross, however, with a savvy few props possess, realised his boot connected with the ball before the ball hit the ground and then kept running through to score the try. Of course, Cronulla went on to thrash Penrith.

So this game brought us a near-replay of a previous freak try, John Lang and Rhys Wesser – both former Penrith premiership winners who were moved on against their wishes – returning to their former home and lastly….house prices?!

Yes, house prices. Who knows how different Souths’ fortunes – or Penrith’s fortunes – may have been if Luke Lewis hadn’t reneged on his deal to move to Souths in 2008? His stated reason: to be nearer to a sick relative. However there was a whisper at the time that Lewis, who had recently bought a house in the Penrith area, did not want to sell up to buy near South Sydney. Or maybe Penrith just secretly upped their offer to Lewis in the ‘cooling off’ period? We’ll never know…

Finally, Home Is Where The…Favourites Is: For the first time since Round 24 2008 and the second time since Round 13 2006, the bookmakers got it completely right. With more of the representative season to come than has gone and surely more bad weather as well, can this recent predictability last?? Tune in next week to find out.