We’ve crunched the numbers based on club form in 2016 to see how every potential pairing would fare against Queensland.

It is State of Origin time and NSW is desperate to make the right decision on the highly contested halves pairing. After all, they’re up against Jonathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk, mainstays of the nine victories Queensland has earned in the past ten series – daunting opponents to say the least.

Last year, it was Mitchell Pearce and Trent Hodkinson in the NSW halves spots, but a change in club for the latter and a romance with a dog for the former, have thrown the concept of “incumbents” into disarray. So who should be the NSW State of Origin halves?

We have the answer.

We’ve collated the year-to-date statistics of all the potential NSW halves pairings. We’ve then compared these against the minutes played this year to work out how much each pairing of halves, as a duo, contribute to a team on average over 80 minutes. Using this data, we can establish – based on current club form – how much a halves pairing will contribute to the NSW team over the course of 80 minutes in our nine key metrics. We’ve also compared that to the form of Thurston and Cronk to establish where the NSW options sit against their foe.

We then ranked each of the halves pairings across the metrics, and added up that ranking to establish which halves pairing can provide the most amount of value for NSW based on this year’s real world data. Here are all the key rankings determined by that data. The lower the score, the better the pairing.

State of Origin Halves Comparison Total J Reynolds/Pearce 35 Maloney/Pearce 41 J Reynolds/Maloney 48 Moylan/Maloney 51 Maloney/Townsend 52 Maloney/A Reynolds 55 J Reynolds/Hodkinson 62 Maloney/Sezer 64 Pearce/Hodkinson 65 G Bird/Maloney 66 Austin/Sezer 70 Soward/Pearce 70 Maloney/Hodkinson 79

Who can beat Thurston and Cronk?

Thurston and Cronk form the benchmark that any NSW pairing will have to match and better. On current form across the opening 11 rounds of the 2016 season, the Queensland halves pairing of Jonathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk will together contribute the following value to their state’s State of Origin performance:

Runs = 15

15 Metres Gained = 96m

96m Errors = 0.9

0.9 Tackles = 30

30 Missed Tackles = 6 Kicks = 22

22 Try Assists = 1.7

1.7 Line Breaks = 0.5

0.5 Tries = 0.7

So how does each NSW pairing measure up against that? You can see the results across each of those metrics in the chart below.

And there you have it rugby league fans, the data does not lie. According to the real-world performance information from this year thus far, NSW State of Origin’s halves pairing should be Josh Reynolds and Mitchell Pearce. In the event that the latter isn’t considered to have had enough game time this year to be in contention (or stands himself down as he has previously suggested), then Josh Reynolds and James Maloney are the next best pairing.

Got that Laurie?

All the data

Here's how we calculated the scores for each pairing. You can sort on any column by clicking on the heading.

State of Origin Halves Comparison Runs Metres Gained Errors Tackles Missed Tackles Kicks Try Assists Line Breaks Tries Austin/Sezer 13 98 1.4 31 5 11 0.4 0.9 1 G.Bird/Maloney 28 235 1.7 46 9 7 1.1 0.3 0.4 J.Reynolds/Hodkinson 15 103 1.3 36 6 14 1.2 0.6 0.2 J.Reynolds/Maloney 19 161 1.6 36 7 15 1.3 0.8 0.6 J.Reynolds/Pearce 21 173 1.8 41 5 20 1.3 0.5 0.7 Maloney/A.Reynolds 17 149 1.8 39 6 18 1.2 0.3 0.7 Maloney/Hodkinson 15 117 1.3 36 8 13 1 0.4 0.4 Maloney/Pearce 21 186 1.8 41 7 19 1.1 0.3 0.9 Maloney/Sezer 16 133 1.3 32 7 14 0.7 0.8 1 Maloney/Townsend 17 151 1.6 38 7 12 1.3 0.5 0.8 Moylan/Maloney 23 196 1.3 27 7 9 1.4 0.5 0.6 Pearce/Hodkinson 16 128 1.6 41 6 18 1 0.1 0.5 Soward/Pearce 15 129 1.7 36 6 24 0.9 0.1 0.6 Thurston/Cronk 15 96 0.9 30 6 22 1.7 0.5 0.7

Half pairings ranked

Surname of NRL player

State of Origin Halves Comparison Runs Metres Gained Errors Tackles Missed Tackles Kicks Try Assists Line Breaks Tries Total J.Reynolds/Pearce 3 4 11 2 1 2 2 5 5 35 Maloney/Pearce 3 3 11 2 7 3 7 2 3 41 J.Reynolds/Maloney 5 5 6 7 7 6 2 2 8 48 Moylan/Maloney 2 2 1 13 7 12 1 5 8 51 Maloney/Townsend 6 6 6 6 7 10 2 5 4 52 Maloney/A Reynolds 6 7 11 5 3 4 5 9 5 55 J.Reynolds/Hodkinson 10 12 1 7 3 7 5 4 13 62 Maloney/Sezer 8 8 1 11 7 7 12 9 1 64 Pearce/Hodkinson 8 10 6 2 3 4 9 12 11 65 G.Bird/Maloney 1 1 9 1 13 13 7 9 12 66 Austin/Sezer 13 13 5 12 1 11 13 1 1 70 Soward/Pearce 10 9 9 7 3 1 11 12 8 70 Maloney/Hodkinson 10 11 1 7 12 9 9 8 12 79

All data sourced from official NRL statistics.