NRL | 2023 NRL Season Stats A to Z Mega Summary

The 2023 NRL Season may be over, but before it is consigned to Wikipedia forever we have a final look at the best of the stats with our 2023 NRL Season Stats A to Z Mega Summary.

That’s right, we find at least one stat category for each letter of the alphabet to try and sum up the stats for the 2023 NRL season.

There are the regular stats you could see each week in our Weekly Stats reviews, but some special bonus stats too. But strap yourself in, it’s going to be a long one with our 2023 NRL Season Stats A to Z Mega Summary.

ASSISTS

Assists starts off the lengthy A to Z of 2023 NRL Season Stats, with the below determined on regular season.

• 40 of Cody Walker’s assists for the season came in Round 14 or before, further highlighting the Rabbitoh’s decline in 2023.
• Cameron Munster fell out of the top 15 for Assists in 2023.
• You have to go down to 16th to find the first Penrith Panther – Nathan Cleary.

AWAY FORM

Let’s see who was the best team On The Road Again like Willie Nelson once sung about. The below visuals include the finals series.

• Brisbane take the 2023 award for best away team. One loss includes the Grand Final.
• St George Illawarra lost all their away games this season.
• Just five teams ended up with a away win rate over 50% and a positive for and against away this season.

BAD BOYS

Picture the Inner Circle song used by the Cops TV show as we unveil the bad boys of the NRL in 2023.

How are they bad boys you ask? Well we have given all players 1 point for giving away a penalty or ruck infringement this season, two for being placed on report, three for a sin binning and four points for a send off.

The results are below, and the winner probably isn’t a surprise.

BOMB KICKS

The bomb kick can be an effective weapon in rugby league, especially when Matt Burton or Nathan Cleary hoists one in the air, but it can also get boring. So here are some stats on bomb kicks for you to make up your own mind.

CONVERSION %

Who had the best conversion rate for those who attempted 20 Goal Conversions of more? Well Nathan Cleary of course. Who else.

Then for fun we added another visual for those who made fewer than 20 attempts.

CENTRES

The first of our look at a specific position. The first visual for centres below is the Top Ten Centres of the season based on our Player of the Week/Season point scoring (explained at the bottom). 

Following that we have some key stats for the Centres of 2023.

DAY

Are some teams better on certain days than other days/teams?

You bet, and here are the 2023 NRL Season stats for each team’s winning record by day in 2023.

DEFENCE

They say defence wins competitions, and that remains the case in 2023 as the Panthers took the title and gave very little out in defence.

• Only Canberra failed to make it all eight top eight teams at season’s end were in the top eight teams for defence.
• Penrith’s defence was actually better on average against top teams than lower teams. Along with Wests Tigers, Dolphins and South Sydney.
• The Panthers conceded 20 points or more just four time in 2023.
• Worst defensive team Bulldogs conceded less than 20 points just five times in 2023.
• Bulldogs, Gold Coast, Canberra and South Sydney all conceded more points at home on average than away.  
• Six teams kept a clean sheet in 2023.

ERRORS

Not all teams can pull off an NRL game with just one error, like the Panthers did in the 2023 Grand Final. But given the below shows the Broncos are at the top of the error count, making errors doesn’t rule you out of a successful season. We guess in the case of Brisbane, as long as you are playing exciting rugby league, errors are ok.

FULLBACKS

The stats say Dylan Edwards is the best fullback, and based on the Panthers’ season, it’s hard to argue. He may not have the excitement factor, or the dazzling attacking stats of Reece Walsh, but he is very reliable, and consistent. Interestingly, our points system sees James Tedesco sneak into second ahead of Walsh too, giving two fingers for all of those critics who blamed him for Origin losses I and II.

FIVE EIGHTHS

Cameron Munster takes out our five eighth of the season in one of the tighter contest according to our NRL player rankings. 

• Although the Grand Final haul help, Ezra Mam was well ahead for tries scored.
• Cody Walker is the undisputed Assists King of the NRL in 2023.

FIRST TRY SCORERS

Some first try scorer information to keep in mind next season when tipping or betting on the first scorer.

GROUNDS

Which grounds saw the most points on average this season?

Which regular grounds have seen more or less points this season compared to last season?

Those questions and no other are answered below.

HALF RESULTS

Rugby League can be a game of two halves, and we have both of them covered here with our Half Time stats for 2023.

• Broncos were the only team not to blow a half time lead this season. They were however the only team to blow a 14 point lead in a Grand Final this season.
• Gold Coast blew the most half time leads with an incredible seven. Canberra weren’t far behind with five.
• Broncos were also the team to win the most games after trailing at the break, along with the Warriors and Knights. The Tigers and Manly were the only teams not to overcome a half time deficit.

HALFBACKS

Nathan Cleary is probably a little bit ripped off here by missing as many games as he did, but he may well comfort himself with a third straight premiership and a second Clive Churchill medal.

HOOKERS

Harry Grant takes out our hooker of the season with a solid performance in all the major stats just in front of Rabbitohs hooker Damien Cook.

HOME FORM

Home Form for 2023 throws up a few surprising stats.

• Broncos form was reasonably poor for their lofty ladder position. The below visual includes the two finals games which flatters their home record.
• South Sydney ended up with the worst home point scoring record in 2023.
• Seven of the 17 teams had a negative points difference at home this season.

INTERCHANGE

As part of our Team of the Week and Team of the Year, we always nominate the best players off the bench each week, earning Team of the Week points for various key stats.

So here in alphabetical order is our top ten players off the bench for 2023.

INTERCEPTS

Intercepts are spectacular, and no surprise that Stephen Crichton tops this stat for the season. The surprise being you’d think it would be more. Daly Cherry-Evans is a bit of surprise as equal king of the intercept though.

JERKS

So we didn’t have anything for J, so we thought we’d put all the On Report, Sin Bins and Send Offs under the Jerk banner.

KICKING

Anyone for some kicking stats?

LINE BREAKS

Broncos were top of the charts for Line Breaks in 2023, which was no surprise given their exciting way of playing.

Manly and Dolphins had a day out in the final round of the season, topping the one game totals, despite a solid midfield finish for the season for line breaks.

This was a stat dominated by Alex Johnston in 2023, but such was the Rabbitohs downturn in form in the second half of 2023 that he was only third this season.

LOCKS

A quality field of some of the great players of 2023 sees Isiah Yeo pip Patrick Carrigan to our Lock of the Year. Much like the Grand Final.

LAST TRY SCORERS

METRES

So many metres, so much we could say. Like Penrith were good at everything.

MISSED TACKLES

Defence wins matches they say, so here are some stats for missed tackles.

But looking at the Team x Round you’ll see Penrith’s 63 missed tackles from Round 31, which is the Grand Final. So maybe missed tackles can still win matches.

Hookers appear to be the worst offenders for missed tackles, as they are the stand outs for tackles made too though.

NEW TEAMS

The Dolphins – originally from Redcliffe – surprised many with their efforts in 2023 by account of not finishing dead last. 

But how do they compare against the most recent new teams? We took the new teams (not merged or existing clubs) from 1995 and got their end of season stats.

The Dolphins fared well for points per game, with the third best record. But they did concede the most points per game in their debut season of the teams below.

Their ladder position and win % puts them around the Gold Coast’s first season, and you could argue that the 2007 Titans were better equipped with star players than the Dolphins. And the Dolphins did lose five games this season by six points or less, so with a little luck could have looked an even better result.

At least the Dolphins were better than the Crushers.

ORIGIN PERIOD

Without a doubt State of Origin is the biggest pain in the arse for the NRL, the three game series spread over nearly two months effectively stuffs the competition up for the same period with injuries, rested players, unavailable players, and half-arsed rounds of a handful of games.

Rant over, here are the winning % of each team for before the players went into camp for Origin 1, after the third Origin 3, and in between.

OFFLOADS

Offloads can be a very effective tool in rugby league, and here are the stats on which teams and players were the best at it in 2023.

ONE ON ONE STEALS

Moving on to the thieves, those who pluck the ball away unsuspectingly, and those victims who had the crime occur to them more than once.

PENALTIES

• Worst Offenders Players
• Team Pen Record Season
• Average Pens for Winners / Losers

PROPS

A race of two for prop of the season for our Gurgler ratings, and it is hard to argue too. Feel free to argue with either at your own risk.

Those two top the key stats provided below, with Fonua-Blake having a rich try scoring season for a prop.

POINTS

A quick look at the points scored for the 2023 NRL season.

QUEENSLAND TEAMS and V QLD OPPOSITION

With a new Queensland team entering the NRL in 2023, and running short of ideas for the letter Q, here are some key stats for just the Queensland teams.

But then we had the idea of seeing how each team went in Queensland in 2023, as in who had the best and worst winning %.

QLD NRL SIDES TEAM OF THE YEAR

RUCK INFRINGEMENTS

Different to penalties, or at least is that way on the NRL website, it is still an indiscretion worth looking at before we close the 2023 NRL season.

Interestingly the Interchange players are the worst offenders, but no surprise the top five includes all the forwards.

A Manly double with Jake Trbojevic and Manly taking out the most Ruck Infringements for Team and Player.

SECOND ROWERS

Here are the best of the hard working second rowers, with all the stats trimmings.

David Fifita finally lived up to expectations for more than 15 minutes and took home our second rower of the season. He did come first or second in five of our six top categories and was a menace in most games.

TEAM OF THE YEAR

This season we compiled all player stats every week, and came up with a weekly Team of the Week.

Here then is our ultimate Team of the Season with only the regular season considered.

TACKLES

Who got through the most tackles this season, and who had the best tackle % for those involved in plenty throughout 2023?

We tackled those questions and more below.

The stand out is Cameron McInnes’ effort of a more than a tackle a minute in Round 22.

TACKLE BREAKS

Talking of tackles, which players were the hardest to stop, the ones who broke through the most tackles this season. The answers lie below.

We’ve even thrown in a 2022 v 2023 comparison by Team to see the improvement or decline this season.

UNDER SIX POINT LOSSES

Which teams were the most unlucky with some close games in 2023?

Well the bottom teams Tigers and Dragons had the most losses by small margins, but they also had a lot more practice at losing than most other clubs. The Warriors small loss total was interesting with just one of their 10 losses for the season being six points or under.

As for the day of the week, Sunday is the day for tight finishes.

Five of six Penrith losses for the season were six points or less.

VS TOP / BOTTOM HALF OPPOSITION

Here is the summary of each team’s effort vs Top and Bottom half opposition.

The first visuals are the opposition’s ladder position at the time of the match, not end of the season.

The last two are based on end of season ladder position.

WINGERS

Here are the top Wingers in the NRL is 2023, using our Player of the Week calculations to come up with a top ten, and some mildly interesting season stats.

Brian To’o comes out on top of the wingers is no surprise, he had another quality season.

Penrith and Newcastle players dominate the top five of just about everything.

X TRIES SCORED BY POSITION BY TEN MINUTE BLOCKS

OK, so we ran out of ideas for X, but this was super interesting and we have plenty of ideas under other letters.

YEAR COMPARISONS

Another letter where we ran out of ideas, but that doesn’t mean our yearly comparisons aren’t mildly interesting.

2023 was one of the better years for scoring points per game, but the games with a margin of six points or less has also made a comeback this season than the previous three. Maybe it is Covid related.

POINTS SCORED

BIG WINS

CLOSE GAMES

ZERO POINTS

Still think there’s no point to this entire A to Z of 2023 NRL Seasons Stats? Well you would be correct. As we end with a look at the games where one side scored zero points this season, plus a look at all the seasons going back to 1998.