As always stats are only as good as those entering the data but in that Try stats it is not good reading for the right.
Alamoti played v Cows on that right wing and 3 of their tries was on that side. So even that skewes Alamoti's numbers
But if we are doing a rough table
Left side
To'o - most of the year 10 try causes
May/Alamoti/McLean 16 - Although Alamoti played wing a few games
Luai - 8.
Cole has 1 but not sure what side so lets put it here.
Sorensen 3 Try Causes
Mav/Garner played a bit of both sides but have 0 try causes anyway.
Right side
Turuva - 19
Tago - 18
Schneider/Cleary - 11
Martin - 5
Henry has 2 but not sure if they were when he play
So even with allocating all of Alamoti's to the right there is a decent difference.
This is allowing for McLean and Mav debuting. Alamoti and May new to that centre role here.
As opposed to the experienced and virtually unchanged right.
So data is there to match that
The right hand side in 10 of the 17 NRL sides, concedes the most points. In fact, on average over the last six years the right hand side concede the most tries in 12 of the 17 NRL sides. The Panthers six year average is 43% right vs 32% left. Players are mostly right handed and favour passing to their left, thereby attacking the right so it makes sense.
But as you point out, we do concede more tries on our right side with 55% vs left side 29% or 36 tries vs 19 tries. If we can tighten this area and reduce the penalty count we will go a long way to winning number four.
We should also note that the right hand side has contributed the most to attack, with Tago 4th and Turuva 5th for try involvements. Tries scored on our right side was 39 vs 29 on the left. Tago and Turuva are 2nd and 3rd for line breaks as well.
I was surprised at the right side attack dominance because Luai is the main playmaker this year and has kept mainly to the left, so I had a look a bit closer.
In 21 games, Luai has 13 try assists and 12 linebreak assists. In only 10 games Cleary had 10 try assists and 10 line break assists. When Cleary has played he has been unbelievably productive in attack. He has more line engagements than any player in our team and sits 11th in the NRL, all in only 10 games. If you add in Cleary's ability to tactically kick and put teams under pressure for the kick chase, you can understand why people think he is the best player in the NRL. I didn't realise just how good he has become, because this year we have seen so little of him. We are a different level when he plays.
The corollary of this is Luai, who lets be honest has been really quiet the last few weeks, is not yet really an elite main man. Good, but not elite. Maybe in a new environment at the Tigers he can get to the next level but this talk of he has taken over when Cleary was out isn't really supported by the facts. I wish he was staying and wish him well, but I think he will be shocked at how hard it is to be the main playmaker in a struggling team. That said, he has managed to help us finished 2nd, so he has done his job.
While we are on stats, Yeo is 17th in the NRL for line engagements. He is more effective at getting to the line and passing than many of the halves in the NRL. He is very unappreciated in the NRL by the journalists and commentators. They wanted to sack him from the Blues, they passed him over as the captain. Do they even watch him play? The man is a legend.