NRLCEO

Fantasy Rugby League

Featured Workhorse Watch 

Workhorse Watch – Round 17

JB

What do we want?

NO SPLIT ROUNDS!

When do we want them?

NOW!

If you haven’t guessed, Round 17 was a disaster for me with only six players taking the field and only one of them, that’s right one of them bothering the scorers.

Thank you Viliame Kikau, the rest of you are on notice!

Especially you Shaun Johnson. Of all the weeks to come up with a duck egg.

In addition to that, the Workhorse Watcher had no workhorse tries from his team with Kevin Proctor only managing 31 involvements and bye week recruit Blake Lawrie finishing on 35. Everyone else was out with the bye or Origin.

I’ve always accepted that like in the NRL, the bye affected week is the round where nuffies get a chance to get one up on the front runners and it’s the price for having really good players. Only I wasn’t against a battling team, my second placed Rams were up against the team coming fourth who were virtually gifted two points. They only had one workhorse try scorer, Josh Jackson who had 46 against the Raiders.

Speaking of Raiders, my opponent also had Blake Austin who, thanks to some funny maths from the Fox Sports Lab is apparently the ultimate super-sub, thank goodness he didn’t play 80 minutes or I would have been done by 60!

What about Rhyse the Beast! Canterbury rookie Rhyse Martin had a wow of a game scoring three tries, a workhorse try, two line breaks, a metre eater and six goals! His workhorse try was his fifth of the season and the departure of Moses Mbye opens up all sorts of possibilities in terms of goal kicking options for those who possess him.

 

Workhorse of the Week:

It’s been a pretty quiet season for the Gold Coast hooker who has had to contend with some injuries but more importantly with the presence of Mitch Rein. Peats has gone from averaging 76.1 minutes per game last year to just 61.9 this year. Last year there were just four occasions where he didn’t play 80 minutes. This year he’s reached that mark just three times. Against the Broncos he scored his first double workhorse try since 2016 as he racked up 60 involvements.

WORKHORSE PACK OF THE WEEK

Shout out to Siliva Havili and Jason Nightingale who each had 50 involvements. Unfortunately there wasn’t any more room hookers and an no room at all for wingers.

  1. Joe Ofahengaue: 31 tackles + 18 hitups = 49
  2. Nathan Peats: 50 tackles + 10 hitups = 60
  3. Moeaki Fotuaika: 40 tackles + 11 hitups = 54
  4. Simon Mannering: 44 tackles + 8 hitups = 52
  5. Alex Glenn: 41 tackles + 9 hitups = 50
  6. Ryan James: 39 tackles + 18 hitups = 57
  7. Cameron McInnes: 46 tackles + 9 hitups = 55
  8. Michael Lichaa: 42 tackles + 9 hitups = 62

 

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

For the first time ever, the Close But No Cigar Club is empty!

 

STATS PER MINUTE

Of all the Dragons players stepping up in the absence of their Origin contingent, the player I least expected to make an impact last week was Luciano Leilua. Leilua played 80 minutes for the first time in his NRL career and scored both his first ever try and first ever workhorse try (0.50 SPM). His performance is a good lesson in keeping an eye on the lower grades because although Leilua had only been averaging 19.5 minutes a game in first grade this year, between Rounds 10 and 15, Paul McGregor had him in reserve grade where he played 80 minutes every week. Clearly ‘Mary’ was conditioning the Hurstville junior just for the Melbourne game when he knew all his stars would be away.

Still with the Dragons and what was Jason Nightingale doing among the workhorse try scorers on the weekend? The Dragons winger/backrower? had 42 tackles and 5 runs in his 71 minutes on the park (0.66 SPM). Nightingale had 16 tries last season but with just one to his name this year now has as many workhorse tries to his name as he does actual tries.

Special mention to Josh Hodgson who after three weeks back in the action finally has a workhorse try to his name. Last week the Englishman found himself in the ‘Close But No Cigar Club’ with one involvement shy of a workhorse try. This week he stormed through with 37 tackles and 6 runs in 80 minutes (0.54 SPM).

Following this weekend just past, I heard talk about reviewing the stats required for hookers to score double workhorse tries with the possibility of raising the benchmark to 60 involvements instead of 50 amid what they called “hooker domination” this year. While there are some stand out dummy halves this season only three of the top ten workhorses play in the number 9. And after Cook, the next 6 are back rowers or props.

Sure they score in other ways more often than other forwards but surely that’s a reflection on their influence in the game seeing as though they touch the ball more than any other player.

I think it’s fine where it is.

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Google+ profile

JB

A Founder of NRLCEO. Jamie spends far more time on running the site than his own team and is therefore a perennial struggler, much to the delight of his mates. He is a former Bears, now Raiders tragic. A rangy lock who avoided running the ball at all costs, he once tackled (flopped on) John Hopoate. Web geek by day, web geek by night.
My Twitter profileMy Google+ profile

Latest posts by JB (see all)

JB

A Founder of NRLCEO. Jamie spends far more time on running the site than his own team and is therefore a perennial struggler, much to the delight of his mates. He is a former Bears, now Raiders tragic. A rangy lock who avoided running the ball at all costs, he once tackled (flopped on) John Hopoate. Web geek by day, web geek by night.