The final day of the NRL regular season. Some years, it brings us glorious footy which puts fans on the edge of their seat.
Today, itโll be no different.
The Gold Coast Titans find themselves in a position where an 11-point win will get them into the top eight. Anything less and the Cronulla Sharks will have done enough after fighting to the wire against the Melbourne Storm on Friday evening.
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The 11-point win for the Titans would put them equal on for and against, which, when you run down the list of tie breakers used by the NRL, would be enough this season.
That's because the second tie-breaker used by the NRL is percentage of for and against. Essentially, this is worked out by points for, divided by points against, multiplied by 100 to spit out a percentage.
For the Sharks this season, that's 520 divided by 556, multiplied by 100. It gives them a percentage of 93.5.
Right now, the Titans sit on 91.9, however, an 11-point win of any margin will tip their percentage just past the 93.5 mark set by the Sharks.
But, let's say for example one day in the future two teams ended up with exactly the same percentage. What next?
Well, the NRL rules say the third criteria is tries scored during the season, followed by most goals kicked, and then the least amount of penalties conceded during the competition rounds.
By this stage, cricket fans would be getting traumatic flashbacks to the 2019 Cricket World Cup final when England won on a boundary countback after a tied super over.
But as if that wasn't bad enough, if none of those can split teams - and we have to say it's about as unlikely as pigs flying or grass turning blue - then the toss of a coin would be used to determine the final top-eight side.
Yes, that's right. A call of heads or tails could one day cost a team a spot in the top eight.
But luckily, the world's most important coin toss won't be called on today. It's a simple case of the Titans either winning by 11 points or more and playing the Sydney Roosters next weekend in an elimination final in Townsville on Saturday evening, or falling short of that mark and having the Sharks take their place.
