Backlinks fresh and regular help SEO

I wanted to quickly mention something that I have found helped me achieve the highest search engine rankings for my NRL site.

On the google.com.au engine, I am up against quite heavy competition for the keyword NRL. After regular article posting and some white hat backlinks generated I eventually climbed up to second position for the keyterm. The leading position would be hard to crack, given that it's the official National Rugby League site. (Similar to say the NFL in the USA)

However, I noticed when I stopped getting as many fresh daily backlinks to my articles - I was quickly pipped for second place and pushed back to third place.

Frustrating sure. But if you are running the SEO tool for FireFox and you see the amount of backlinks my competitors have over me - it's amazing I am actually in the top 10, let alone 2nd or 3rd place. So it seems Google does place a strong emphasis on the amount of daily, fresh backlinks to your content and of course the anchor text being critical in this aspect as well.