Workhorse Watch Week 19
Shaun Fensom celebrated his 100th game in the NRL by scoring his 18th workhorse try of the season and the 93rd of his career. Since debuting in 2009 and only playing a handful of minutes in two games that season, Fensom has since established himself as one of the pre-eminent workhorses in the competition. Not only are his performances consistent, they’re consistently high; this season he’s averaging 62 involvements a game, which is up on last season (60) and the season before that (56).
The amount of tackles he makes is phenomenal. In fact it borders on the ridiculous because if there was one bugbear that NRLCEOs might have it’s that they wish he made more runs. Fensom has had 60+ involvements 7 times this season but missed a double workhorse because of a lack of metres. It’s the one thing that has stopped him from being completely head and shoulders above any other workhorse in history. But what are we talking about here? I’m having a go at him for not being more amazing than he already is? Enough already, there isn’t an NRLCEO that wouldn’t have him in their team and I am in awe of his numbers every week.
One thing we are yet to see this year is the elusive double-double (two tries and a double workhorse try scored in the same game). Over the weekend however we saw two players come incredibly close. On Friday night Sam Burgess who is no stranger to scoring double workhorse tries fell 5 involvements short racking up 32 tackles and 23 hit ups to go with tries in the 38th and 76th minutes. Then on Saturday afternoon Boyd Cordner made 37 tackles and 19 runs to go with the two tries he scored in the last ten minutes of the game.
One of the major talking points during Friday night’s game was 19-year-old Tepai Moeroa. Starting in just his second game in the top grade, Moeroa burst out of the gates with the opening try of the match and by half time had 22 tackles and 4 runs. Unfortunately he got caught a couple of times in defence and missed 3 tackles which would prove costly with the Seven Hills junior finishing with 38 involvements by full time. Moeroa will be no stranger to readers of the U20s Watch with Mitchell Delamotte highlighting his potential last week, unfortunately by the time I read the article, someone else in my league had already snapped him up.
The question was put to me by the NRLCEO’s powers that be on Sunday afternoon, who is the oldest player to score a workhorse try? Incidentally, the question occurred as two old stagers in Luke Bailey and Jeremy Smith were running around. Bailey is the oldest forward currently in the NRL, shading Smith by three months meaning his efforts this season, including Sunday (29 tackles, 13 hit ups) makes him the oldest player to score a workhorse this season. As for all time; that’s hard to say. As I write this, NRLCEO is trying to assemble a stats database including stats from years gone by so for now I’d have to guess Steve Price who was 35 when he retired at the end of 2009. Petero Civoniceva was 36 when he finished up at the end of 2012 but failed to score a workhorse try that season.
WORKHORSE OF THE WEEK:
Corey Parker:
For a player who finished 2013 as the top workhorse in the competition, a Workhorse of the Week accolade in 2014 has been a long time coming. Parker’s shift to the front row has been a blow to his ability to score double workhorse tries (he had 10 last year) but his performance on Saturday was the only double workhorse of the week with Elijah Taylor, Andrew Fifita, James Segeyaro and Jake Friend falling short in the yardage department.
WORKHORSE PACK OF THE WEEK (Round 19)
8. Andrew Fifita: 46 tackles + 17 hitups = 63
9. James Segeyaro: 49 tackles + 8 hitups = 57
10. Ben Hannant: 44 tackles + 15 hitups = 59
11. Elijah Taylor: 54 tackles + 7 hitups = 61
12. Corey Parker: 37 tackles + 23 hitups = 60
13. Shaun Fensom: 45 tackles + 14 hitups =59
14. Jake Friend: 51 tackles + 5 hit ups = 56
15. Boyd Cordner: 37 tackles + 19 hitups = 56
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
Some names you wouldn’t expect to see in the No Cigar Club, some because they usually make much more than that 39, some much less.
Andrew McCullough: 35 tackles + 4 hitups = 39
Feleti Mateo: 27 tackles + 12 hitups = 39
Joel Edwards: 26 tackles + 13 hitups = 39
Leeson Ah Mau: 33 tackles + 6 hitups = 39
Lewis Brown: 28 tackles + 11 hitups = 39
Michael Ennis: 37 tackles + 2 hitups = 39
Ryan Hinchcliffe: 34 tackles + 5 hitups = 39
STATS PER MINUTE
It was a huge week for Stats per Minute with 16 players scoring at an involvement or more per minute this round. Not since Round 8 have we seen a higher number.
Perhaps inspired by #RiseforAlex or perhaps by their spiffy Asgardian clobber, Glen Hall and Ashton Sims were the stand outs. Hall had 40 involvements in just 26 minutes (1.54SPM) and Sims had 45 involvements in 32 minutes (1.41SPM). Andrew Fifita was also mighty impressive in the same game, with his 63 involvements coming in 59 minutes (1.07SPM)
The Roosters vs Panthers game was also huge for Stats per Minute with 9 of the 16 fore mentioned players coming from this game. Casty, Kite, McKendry, Manu, Napa, Latimore, Moa, Waerea-Hargreaves and Plum all had high involvement rates but only Latimore, Moa and Waerea-Hargraves were on the field long enough to register workhorse tries.
It was also an interesting week for forwards playing out of position. Their stats per minute were terrible but playing in the backs meant extra minutes which meant Bryce Cartwright (0.6 SPM) scored his first workhorse try of the year and Aidan Guerra (0.55SPM) ran more times (17) and for more metres (149m) than he had all year. Not only that; they both scored tries to give themselves that highly valuable try-workhorse try double.
Josh Jackson (0.54 SPM) also got a workhorse try but Dave Taylor (0.39 SPM) missed out, but that’s hardly surprising. Not that you can really be critical of the Coal Train this week, he scored a try, a try assist, a line break, a line break assist and ran 190 metres. All of which has nothing to do with workhorse tries so why am I talking about it?
JUST QUICKLY
- Champion Data are the official supplier of stats to both the NRL and NRLCEO and one of the best ways to access live stats during the game is through the Rugby League Live App. But who is doing the running commentary? Yellow card for Elijah Taylor? Roosters referred to as Sydney City? What f*#king game (and in what era) are we playing?
Geoff Adams
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