Workhorse Watch Week 20
Yikes!
Talk about going from the penthouse to the outhouse!
It’s too early to hit the panic button just yet but the effort by the Brisbane Broncos on Friday night will be of some concern to NRLCEOs boasting Corey Parker. In round 19, Parker had his best performance in almost a year, scoring a double workhorse try, 4 goals, 2 try assists and 2 line break assists; but last week Parker was only good for a workhorse try and a line break assist as he missed both his attempts at goal. It was the first time all season that Parker has failed to at least land one goal and whilst relying on your goal kicker to get you through each week is hardly a great strategy, it’s hard to have a real impact in the finals without a good one. Did the Bennett-Griffin saga impact on the Broncos against the Storm? If so, that’s a real problem for NRLCEOs with Parker as their kicker given Brisbane’s run doesn’t get any easier with games against Manly, Canterbury and the Rabbitohs in the next three weeks. At least there’ll be no shortage of workhorse tries.
No such problems for those boasting Cameron Smith who in the same game became the highest scoring forward in NRL history. Smith kicked 5 goals and snuck over for a workhorse try as well and whilst the Broncos have a tough run over the next three weeks, Melbourne’s could hardly be more charmed. The Storm plays the Tigers, the Knights and the Sharks in their next three matches which will be a major advantage for NRLCEOs in their finals charge. Having Cooper Cronk back in the Storm side is a massive boost as well for Smith and his NRLCEOs alike.
Last week I highlighted some very impressive try/workhorse try doubles from round 19 but what I failed to mention was that round 19 saw the highest number we’d seen all season. The 11 that were scored were way up on the season average of 4.8 per round. Whilst it’s no surprise to see Sam Burgess at the top of the try/workhorse try standings with 6 this season, I did raise an eyebrow upon seeing James Segeyaro with 6 as well. I shouldn’t be surprised though; since injury forced Kevin Kingston out back in round 9, Segeyaro has become an 80 minute player and has been on a tear when it comes to both tries and workhorse tries. The Papua New Guinean had only a couple of line break and line break assists up until that point but now boasts 6 tries and 11 workhorse tries. Co-incidentally, in that same time frame, the Panthers have won 7 from 9 games after starting the year 4 from 8. (Leave comments about the unfair draw and impact of Origin at the bottom.)
Tariq Sims great run in the try/workhorse try department finally came to an end against the Bulldogs. Going into round 20 Sims had scored a try/workhorse try double in his previous four games. He only managed a workhorse try on the weekend but his 46 involvements was a game high in the Bulldogs vs Cowboys match. Sims now has 12 workhorse tries for the season.
WORKHORSE OF THE WEEK:
Jake Friend:
Last week only saw one double workhorse try and this week there were none! It’s the first time this season a double workhorse hasn’t been scored in a full round with 8 games of footy. Friend had a phenomenal 76 involvements but only ran the ball for 58 metres.
WORKHORSE PACK OF THE WEEK (Round 20)
8. Corey Parker: 34 tackles + 19 hitups = 53
9. Jake Friend: 69 tackles + 7 hitups = 76
10. James Graham: 33 tackles + 18 hitups = 51
11. Elijah Taylor: 57 tackles + 9 hitups = 66
12. Aiden Guerra: 47 tackles + 16 hitups = 63
13. Shaun Fensom: 56 tackles + 10 hitups =66
14. Nathan Friend: 59 tackles + 3 hit ups = 61
15. Ben Henry: 42 tackles + 11 hitups = 53
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
The good news is all of last week’s members got out of the No Cigar Club; the bad news is only 3 of the 7 saw their stats go up. Here are this week’s entrants.
Ben Hannant: 30 tackles + 9 hitups = 39
Josh Papalii: 27 tackles + 12 hitups = 39
Greg Bird: 24 tackles + 16 hitups = 39
Jason Taumalolo: 21 tackles + 18 hitups = 39
Jack De Belin: 32 tackles + 7 hitups = 39
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves: 28 tackles + 11 hitups = 39
STATS PER MINUTE
There were plenty of hearts in mouths on Monday night as Sam Burgess was taken off the ground with a shoulder injury. The result was he missed out on scoring a workhorse try for the first time this season but fortunately he appears to have been cleared of any serious injury. He’s been named this week but it remains to be seen whether he will line up. Given that McGuire also named John Sutton who is expected to be out for a month one can only imagine he named a team on Tuesday without having had time to assess things from the night before.
If Sam is rested, it’s hard to predict who is likely to benefit. On Monday night, front row pair George Burgess and Dave Tyrell both played an extra 10 or so minutes but had fewer involvements than the week before which naturally saw their SPMs dip. George and Dave’s SPMs against the Eels were 0.94 and 0.97 respectively but against Canberra they were 0.51 and 0.53. There wasn’t a huge disparity on the number of sets in either game, or the number of penalties and even the score lines were similar. Clearly the extra minutes just took their toll.
The trend of having forward in the backline continued last week with Aidan Guerra again being named in jersey 13 but taking the field out in the centres. Guerra hit a season personal best for number of involvements in a game with 63 in 80 minutes. (0.73SPM). Bodene Thompson also had 80 minutes out in the centres but only managed 30 involvements (0.38SPM)
Special mention to Ben Hannant who despite finishing in the dreaded No Cigar Club with 39, he did so in just 37 minutes of game time for an SPM of 1.05. And whilst Brisbane continue to struggle to give enough game time to their workhorses, Manly appear to have come up with an ingenious solution, make your front rowers do their normal workload but force them to split the time. Geoff Toovey gave Josh Starling and Jason King 22 and 17 minutes respectively and yet both had more involvements than their season average and finished with SPMs of 1.55 and 1.51 respectively. Neither of them got workhorses but Tooves might be onto something. Meanwhlie Brenton Lawrence had 63 minutes of game time and still fell short of a workhorse try.
JUST QUICKLY
- Be sure to catch this week’s edition of Tantasy podcast where yours truly will be talking all things workhorse related with Mark and The Commish himself, Jamie B.
Geoff Adams
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