The NRL can lay claim to finally getting its mojo back after recording the tightest start to a season in almost 30 years.
After two years of blowouts and point-scoring records, data from the opening two rounds of 2022 shows the turnaround the NRL so desperately needed.
The average margin of games has dropped to 9.2 points so far this season, marking the equal-lowest figure since 1996.
That figure is well down on the 15.5 points at the same stage of last year, or the 2021 season average of 18 which doubled as the highest since 1935.
Defence is also back in fashion, with the average of 33.56 points per game in the opening fortnight the lowest since 2000 and contributing to tighter games.
Notably, blowout scores are gone with no matches decided by more than 24 points in the opening two rounds for the first time since the start of the 1993 season.
"The signs are promising," NRL head of football Graham Annesley said.
"I'm not going to suggest that the whole season is going to be like this.
"But it's great for the game to have close matches where fans can go to games and any team can win in any match.
"That's been one of the great advantages of our competition over a long period of time now."
The introduction of penalties for ruck infringements and offsides as teams come out of their own end has no doubt been the biggest factor, making it harder to nail sides in a corner.
Pre-season fears from the likes of winless Manly it would slow the game down have proven correct, with stoppages making for 19 less play-the-balls per match on this time 12 months ago.
In turn it has given defenders the chance to recover, making it harder for dominant attacking teams to break the line at will and score on back-to-back sets.
"It means the teams are (no longer) constantly on the backfoot at their own in their own end of the field," Annesley said.
"Last year, you could probably give away a few six-agains and hope for an error and then you're automatically back on the attack in very good field position.
"Now when you're in that position and you give away a penalty, you find that the team that has committed the offence are now on the back foot instead."
Annesley also believed part of the improvement had come from clubs, after the NRL made the point of putting the blowouts on their failure to adapt to the set-restart era rather than the rules themselves.
"The teams that were probably a bit slower adapting to that, I think they've caught up to a degree," Annesley said.
"But it's very early ...we will probably still see some fluctuations."
