You must account for the new bonus point system. Stop focusing on a point differential and look at the wins and losss
Obviously UQ is in a league of their own & they would be the counter argument to my parity comment.
The new bonus point system encourages teams to keep scoring meat pies where as the old system is once you score 4 tries or more then you hand over the rest of the penalty opportunities to your goal kicker
I think what made this comp that much closer were the 2 ties the comp produced.
OK lets not focus on points differential as the new points system obviously makes it easier for the top teams to put big scores on the rest of the comp for some reason. and ignore that this in its self may hint that there is not as much parity as you might think.
Lets focus on wins. Only 2 teams have winning records at the moment. Does this make you think that comp is close, high quality and competitive week in week out if only 2 from 9 teams are going to win more than they lose??
This year about 1/3 of the games have finished within 7 points. This is the same number as the previous 2 seasons. So we are getting just as many close games as we have in past comps.
The big difference in my eyes this season is the ability of teams to be consistent. Most teams can come out and look like world beaters one week and then not turn up and get belted for the next 2.
By the looks of it I am alone on this forum when thinking that the overall quality of the comp has gone down from previous seasons. But my view is obviously skewed as well since these days I only watch UQ games and not too many teams have brought their best footy against us this season so far.