Wednesday 30 August 2017 16:39, UK
Two of the trophies in the domestic Rugby League season have been awarded now, which means it's non-stop to the finish line at Old Trafford for the third and final chance of glory in 2017.
Congratulations to Castleford and Hull for what they've achieved so far, but the big question is whether or not they can back it up with the Super League trophy in six weeks' time?
The winners will need to cross the tryline and score more tries than their opponents, unless teams start to kick more penalty goals. So with this in mind, I decided to look at where the top eight teams' tries have come from, as this is the most likely way that they'll lift the trophy in Manchester in October.
I know that tries get scored when a team puts the ball down over the line, but I took a quick look to see if there were any differences between the teams that make up the top eight and where are they most likely to strike?
If we split the field into three sections with a left, a middle and a right, you will see below some interesting aspects about the best teams this year.
The left section is from the touchline to 20m in-field, the right is obviously the 20-metre part of the pitch inside the right wing, and the middle section is a bit bigger; 28 metres wide on most grounds. Where necessary, the percentage has been rounded down rather than rounded up.
As you can see at the bottom of the table, it's common for most teams to score the majority of their tries in the middle, which is where most of the action in a game takes place.
For the last 10 years that I've looked at these stats, more tries get scored on the left wing than the right. I'm guessing that's because over 80% of the world's population are right-handed and are therefore more comfortable and more accurate passing the ball from right to left - just imagine how many tries Billy Boston would have scored if he'd played on the other wing!
All of the Clubs have an analyst who will have provided his or her coach with this information, and the coach's job is then to try to make a difference armed with this knowledge.
Leeds have scored more tries than any other team in the middle of the field, perhaps because Matt Parcell and Adam Cuthbertson are so dangerous in attack. What will Hull do this week to cope with them?
Wigan have been prolific at scoring on their left, scoring more than double the number of tries compared to their right. It's almost as if their opponents need another defender out there to cope with George Williams & co.
Mark Percival's brilliance may have restricted the chances that Ryan Morgan and his team-mates on the right have had - they've struggled to score on that side - but it wouldn't surprise me if Ben Barba now helps to make their right-sided wide players as dangerous as the ones around Mark Percival.
The Giants are unique among the top eight in scoring more tries on their right, and Hull dominate in a physical way with big men in the middle, even though your perception is that they only score from Marc Sneyd's kicks. Albert Kelly exploits any slow movers in the middle after they have been softened up by Scott Taylor and Liam Watts.
Last year's Super 8's had two teams that struggled to compete. Widnes and Wakefield ran out of energy which gave the final stages of the season a slightly predictable feel.
That isn't the case this season, and although the Giants lie eighth, they are capable of winning perhaps three of the last four games. They might not make the top four but they'll have a say in shaping it.
I've tipped Hull to make it to the Grand Final and have assumed that they've learned from last year when they lost three of four games after walking up the Wembley steps as winners. The table above is interesting as only St Helens have scored fewer tries than Hull after 26 rounds, and yet it is the Black and Whites who I see as the main challengers to Daryl Powell's team.
The Tigers have been clearly head and shoulders above the rest so far, but now the pressure mounts and we've got an intriguing six weeks ahead.
