Noura Al-Rashidi

I found rugby league through the expat sports bars of Dubai, where a mix of Australians and Englishmen turned every NRL and Super League morning into an event. I came to it with no inherited loyalties, which let me watch it coldly — and what I saw was a sport with far more structure than its breakneck pace suggests. The thirteen-a-side game rewards repetition and discipline in ways that took me a while to fully appreciate. My predictions are built around the things that travel from week to week: completion rates, how a side handles its own end of the field, the kicking game, and how an interchange bench is managed through the middle of a match. I spend most of my research on margins and totals, reading how two teams' tempo and defensive lines are likely to interact rather than just who should win. Five years in, I've learned how quickly a couple of errors or a sin-binning can swing a tight game, and how punishing a short turnaround can be on tired legs. I keep my reasoning open so readers can weigh it for themselves instead of taking a margin on faith. — Noura Al-Rashidi