How the FNS player rating works

By FootyNRLScore — 2026-07-08

Every player who takes the field in an NRL game gets an FNS rating from us, on a 0-10 scale, published within minutes of full-time. This is how that number is put together, and just as importantly, what it can and cannot tell you.

## What the rating measures

The rating is a single number summarising a player's statistical output in one game, weighted for context. It is built from the same stat lines you can see on our leaderboards: attacking involvements (tries, try assists, line breaks, line break assists, tackle breaks, offloads), volume work (runs, run metres, post-contact metres), defensive workload (tackles made, dominant tackles, tackle efficiency), discipline (errors, handling errors, penalties conceded), and kicking contribution where it applies.

Each stat is scaled by position group. A hooker making 45 tackles is doing their job; a winger making 45 tackles means something has gone badly wrong somewhere. The engine compares output against what the position demands, then adjusts for minutes played so a 25-minute bench forward is measured on rate, not raw totals.

## Why a prop can outrate a try scorer

Tries are loud. Metres are quiet. A middle forward who carries the ball 18 times for 190 metres, half of them after contact, has bent the defensive line all night and probably created the space the try scorer ran into. The rating is deliberately built so that this work counts. If you have ever watched a game and thought the best player on the field never scored, that is the instinct the rating is trying to capture with numbers.

## What a 10.0 means

A 10.0 is a best-on-ground standard, not perfection. It means the engine could not find a meaningful weakness in the stat line and the volume of positive contributions was elite for the position. They are rare by design. Most good performances land between 6.5 and 8. A rating below 5 usually means limited minutes, a heavy error count, or both.

## Where the rating has limits

We are upfront about what the engine cannot see. It does not measure off-ball defensive reads, decoy runs that hold defenders, or leadership. Kicks in general play are weighted conservatively because raw kick metres reward aimless boot as much as smart territory play. A halfback who controls a game with variety and short kicking can be underrated on a quiet attacking night. We would rather admit that than pretend the number is gospel.

## Why all 34 players

Plenty of sites rate the stars. We publish a rating for every player in every game, including the bench, because arguments about footy do not restrict themselves to the big names, and neither do we. Player ratings feed our Player of the Week, Team of the Week, Power Rankings and the Pro Insights tables, so one bad input would ripple a long way. That is also why we correct data errors quickly.

If you think a rating is wrong, tell us which game via the contact page. When data corrections land, we re-run the engine.