More and more, the focus on tackles is not who makes the most, but who misses the least.
2021 has seen more of a skew to that pattern of statistical thinking as clubs grapple with a faster style of play created by the new rules and record scorelines as a result week after week.
Those teams who can tackle better than the rest give themselves an enormous advantage week after week, and it shows, with six of the top eight teams on the tackle efficiency leaderboard finishing in the overall top eight.
Tackle efficiency is worked out by missed tackles as a percentage of a team's total attempted tackles.
Here, we go over the top five teams when it comes to tackling, before revealing the full list, with the final list loosely reflecting ladder position, revealing again just how important this is.
2. South Sydney Rabbitohs
8460 tackles, 609 missed, 93.16%
The first team who have managed to click over the 93 per cent mark, the Rabbitohs were widely and routinely criticised for their supposed defensive fragilities during the first half of the season.
For a team who let in over 50 points twice this season, only to go on and make the grand final, the improvement has been dramatic.
Their regular-season numbers maybe shouldn't come as such a surprise given the way they fought with the Penrith Panthers in the opening week of the finals, but this is a team who, rightly or wrongly, have copped a reputation as an attacking weapon.
But Wayne Bennett's teams know how to defend. That is the short and skinny of it.
Over the second half of the season, since that blowout loss to the Panthers, the Rabbitohs have only conceded 201 points across 12 games at less than 17 points per game.
Cameron Murray is the man you immediately point at as the defensive leader, but Mark Nicholls and Tevita Tatola have consistently improved, while Damien Cook is the New South Wales Origin hooker. Adam Reynolds and Cody Walker are excellent defensively for halves, while all of the outside backs have worked on combinations and trust throughout the season.
They say defence wins premierships, and it's not why you'd expect the Rabbitohs to win the grand final, but it might just get them over the line.
