Workhorse Watch Rd 22
So Jarryd Hayne might be a gun for hire, but it appears the fastest hands belong to me. Too fast in fact. One of the footnotes to Hayne’s return was the fall out it had within my private league. Knowing that, as it stood under the rules it would just be a free for all, on Thursday morning I opened up a discussion on our message board to see what people in my league thought we should do. Only a few voiced an opinion and of that, one or two said maybe wait till next year and the other half said give it to the lowest ranked team – without specifying when (we’ll get to that later).
Several expressed a wish to have a free for all if only to give themselves a chance but, knowing the odds of securing him were low, and not wanting risk a strong rival getting him instead they conceded that it might best it go to the lowest ranked team. And yet nothing was categorically agreed on. At the same time everyone was cutting players left and right to make room to recruit players during the finals as under NRLCEO rules you can recruit after the trade cut off, you just can’t cut. Were they getting ready to make a run at Hayne?
The dilemma in all this is that my private league, the UV2RL, is a keeper league. So getting Hayne now is huge get if only to have him for next year. The way our draft always works is in reverse order of the ladder from the previous season. So the idea of the lowest ranked team getting him now and then having the number 1 draft pick next season seemed too much of an advantage. However none of this was truly discussed so come 6pm on Thursday night, the consensus was there was no clear consensus. Then that whatever the fantasy football equivalent of white line fever hit! I couldn’t help myself. He was my player. He’d walked out on me and I wanted him back. I refreshed and refreshed and refreshed again. The fantasy addict in me took over, I wanted him. Like many addicts I became paranoid, I thought that others in my league were going for him too. At 6:15 I landed him! Success! But after you get your hit, there is the come down.
Outrage! “I thought we agreed not to try and recruit him” said people who hadn’t posted when I tried have an open conversation about. There were people who were OK with me having him and no doubt just as many bad mouthing me too. Even former Moneyball host Phil Prior weighed in showing he hasn’t completely forgotten about us little guys here at NRLCEO. The discussion continued over the weekend and in respect for the ongoing debate, Hayne did not line up for the Rams. In the cold light of day I concede that it is better he be ignored until next season. I am all about making the competition as fair and as even as possible, even when it’s to the detriment of my own team – introducing line breaks and line break assists this season has done me no favours. And it’s not like I was trying to grab Hayne on the sly, I was the one that brought it up in the first place. So even though I would be within my rights to hold onto him, I won’t. He will however remain at the club until next February though as I have a truckload of Castle Hill Rams jerseys with #38 on the back which need his help to sell.
Damien Cook owners will be relieved to know that an early guilty plea will help him escape suspension just days after he put in his best ever workhorse performance. The Rabbitohs rake scored his first ever double workhorse try with 48 tackles, 7 runs along with 75 metres during the golden point match against Melbourne. Cook has played second fiddle to Cameron McInnes for much of the season but got his opportunity following the Rabbitohs 50 points flogging at the hands of Canberra.
Speaking of Canberra, the idea of the Raiders hosting a Preliminary Final is one of those things that NRL powers-that-be probably always put off, thinking, “It’ll never happen, we’ll let someone else deal with it down the track”. But that idea is a reality with the Raiders now sitting in third place. Should the Raiders advance to week 3 they’ll be forced to host their match in Sydney. It’s completely absurd that a team based in the nation’s capital are forced to travel 3 hours up the road while the Cowboys, based in the “thriving metropolis” of Townsville can choose to host their games up north.
Workhorse of the Week:
Sam Burgess: That’s two double workhorse tries in three weeks for Slammin’ Sam and whilst people might be critical of dynamics of the Rabbitohs this season, you can’t argue with his NRLCEO output. He is now the leading back rower for workhorse tries and is second behind James Taumalolo among second rowers for Metre Eaters.
WORKHORSE PACK OF THE WEEK
- Josh McGuire: 47 tackles + 19 hitups = 66
- Damien Cook: 48 tackles + 7 hitups = 55
- Ryan James: 47 tackles + 14 hitups = 61
- Jack De Belin: 52 tackles + 15=7 hitups = 69
- Matt Gillett: 56 tackles + 10 hitups = 66
- Sam Burgess: 54 tackles + 17 hitups = 71
- Andrew McCullough: 60 tackles + 1 hitups = 61
- Korbin Sims: 50 tackles + 9 hitups = 59
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
Elliott Whitehead: 31 tackles + 8 hitups = 39
Chris McQueen: 35 tackles + 4 hitups = 39
Darcy Lussick: 24 tackles + 15 hitups = 39
Kenny Bromwich: 24 tackles + 15 hitups = 39
Daniel Levi: 34 tackles + 5 hitups = 39
Pauli Pauli: 27 tackles + 12 hitups = 39
Chris Grevsmuhl: 26 tackles + 13 hitups = 39
Zane Musgrove: 27 tackles + 12 hitups = 39
STATS PER MINUTE
Fair play to Ben Hunt who scored his first workhorse try of the season with 33 tackles and 7 runs in Thursday’s dour affair against the Broncos (0.40 SPM). The game was played in front of just 5662 fans with bad weather keeping many away. The turnout was the lowest to ever watch the Dragons play at WIN Stadium and while the poor conditions might be a reasonable excuse, that match combined with the 7568 people who attended the last home game against Melbourne means that Illawarra based fans can’t complain about the Dragons’ Right Game, Right Venue policy if they’re not going to turn up to the games they do get.
Does anyone know what came over Korbin Sims on Saturday afternoon? More to the point, why Nathan Brown opted to play him the full 80 minutes? Sims is having a career best year with 9 workhorse tries for the season but against the Bulldogs he made 50 tackles to go with 9 runs (0.74 SPM). The most tackles he’d ever made in a game prior to that was 39. Sims played the full 80 minutes, well up on the 57.8 minutes he’s been averaging this season.
For a game that featured just two tries, there wasn’t a whole lot of workhorse tries to come out of the Parramatta vs Manly game with just 6 workhorses (3 each) in total. Jake Trbojevic got back amongst it with 47 involvements as did Api Koroisau who missed out last week. Meanwhile Danny Wicks (0.77 SPM) and Manu Ma’u (0.54 SPM) both took their workhorse tally to 9 for the season to be Parramatta’s joint leaders.
Round 22 marked three straight weeks that Gavin Cooper has gone without a workhorse try with the Cowboys backrower finishing on 38 involvements for the second straight week. Cooper has missed out on a workhorse on 10 occasions this season and in seven of those, he missed by 3 involvements or less. He continues to be an 80 minute player and on average his workrate is the same as last year (0.53 SPM) but this season there are more occasions where he just misses out and fewer occasions where goes way beyond the 40 involvement criteria.
Geoff Adams
Latest posts by Geoff Adams (see all)
- 2018 Workhorse Watch Awards - September 3, 2018
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- Workhorse Watch – Round 23 - August 22, 2018
