Workhorse Watch Week 23
Forget death, forget taxes. Is there a greater certainty than Tim Mannah missing a workhorse try? A glut of possession by Canterbury on Friday night had the Eels prop on 18 tackles and 7 hit ups at half time. Mannah played a strong first half and when he started the second he continued to steam towards his first workhorse try since Round 12. He eventually came off in the 50th minute with 34 involvements to his name. A quick breather and surely he would come back for the last stanza to notch up 40? Don’t be ridiculous! He sat on the bench of the rest of the game. Not even an injury to David Gower required Mannah to return to the rotation leaving him stranded again!
The Bulldogs’ front rowers had an absolute field day. Both James Graham and Aiden Tolman scored double workhorse tries with the latter crashing over for a try to boot! It’s the second time this season that Graham and a teammate have scored a double workhorse try in the same game. The first was with Josh Jackson in round 13. Graham now moves to 24 workhorse tries for the season, two behind Sam Burgess, who hasn’t scored a double workhorse since round 17. At the beginning of the year I asked who people thought would score the most workhorse tries by season’s end and it was NRLCEO’s own Trade Doctor @aussiepiston who said James Graham. Will he run Burgess down?
James Segeyaro has been named this week but is expected to be out for at least a week. Segeyaro went off in the 68th minute with an ankle injury that some outlets reported as season-ending. Segeyaro already had 42 involvements on Monday night when he came off and now moves to 17 for the season.
Last week ‘The Commish’ sent out a tweet, wondering who would be the best two to name out of Adam Docker, Chris Houston and Luke Bailey. All provided workhorse potential. Although Docker only had 4 workhorses for the season going into Round 23, 2 of those had been scored in the previous two games with Docker forced to step up following injuries to a number of Penrith forwards. With 10 workhorse tries in 14 games this season, Houston also had a strong case but posed a risk given that he had been named in jersey 19 and the Knights weren’t playing till Sunday. Bailey appeared to be the weak link but the fact that the Titans were in for a tough game against Manly did present an opportunity. In the end I leant towards Docker and Houston which turned out to be the best option. Docker (41 involvements) was the only one to score a workhorse with Houston (39) just missing out and Bailey (37) third.
WORKHORSE OF THE WEEK:
Aiden Tolman: A massive effort by Tolman topping the involvement count and scoring a double workhorse try to go with an actual try as well. This week’s Workhorse Pack of the Week is dominated by front rowers with four making the team, the most we’ve seen all year.
WORKHORSE PACK OF THE WEEK (Round 23)
8. Aiden Tolman: 41 tackles + 25 hitups = 66
9. Andrew McCullough: 55 tackles + 4 hitups = 59
10. James Graham: 41 tackles + 21 hitups = 62
11. Paul Gallen: 35 tackles + 23 hitups = 58
12. Simon Mannering: 39 tackles + 12 hitups = 51
13. Anthony Watmough: 33 tackles + 17 hitups = 50
14. Josh McGuire: 39 tackles + 18 hit ups = 57
15. Matt Scott: 38 tackles + 17 hitups = 55
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
The No Cigar Club has exploded this week with the normally reliable Robbie Farah slipping into the dreaded club.
Chris Houston: 35 tackles + 4 hitups = 39
Isaac Luke: 27 tackles + 12 hitups = 39
Lewis Brown: 25 tackles + 14 hitups = 39
Mitch Aubusson: 33 tackles + 6 hitups = 39
Robbie Farah: 36 tackles + 3 hitups = 39
Tom Symonds: 29 tackles + 10 hitups = 39
STATS PER MINUTE
If Tim Mannah is the King of the ‘No Cigar Club’ then Jack De Belin might be the heir apparent. Going into round 23 De Belin had fallen into the 35-39 involvements bracket in each of his last six games. After scoring a workhorse try off the bench in round 13, NRLCEOs would have been excited about him coming into the starting side in Round 15. However De Belin’s work rate has dropped with the increase in minutes and after averaging a stat per minute in his first ten games of the season, his SPM had dropped to 0.79 in the last 7 games as a starter. The duck was finally broken against the Raiders with the Cootamundra junior topping his team’s involvement count with 44 for the match. His stats per minute was only 0.77, his workhorse came thanks to playing a season high 57 minutes.
Another player to rival Mannah as head of the ‘No Cigar Club’ in 2014 is Josh Papalii. Papalii has 4 workhorse tries for the season but in the last 6 weeks he’s finished with 39 involvements every second week. He has had 39 involvements in rounds 18, 20 and 22. If the pattern continues look for the Canberra backrower to get another 39 this week and edge past Tim Mannah for most 39s so far this season. With just 33 involvements in 80 minutes on the weekend (0.41 SPM) its little wonder Ricky Stuart forgot that he already has State of Origin/international players in his ranks when he had a whinge after Saturday’s game.
Daniel Mortimer achieved a notable feat on the weekend becoming the first half to top his team’s involvement count. His 41 involvements (0.51 SPM) were only matched by Luke Douglas and were more than the likes of Greg Bird, Luke Bailey and Nate Myles. After reaching 41 involvements the week before Mortimer now has two workhorse tries for the season and moves past Tony Williams (1) and is now equal with Tim Mannah.
Shout out to Lloyd Perrett who had an extraordinary stats-per-minute score on Friday night (1.5 SPM). Unfortunately that score was slightly skewed given that it came from 3 involvements in just 2 minutes of game time!
JUST QUICKLY
- Given some of the scores and crowds we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, are we simply seeing a sign of regular season fatigue?
- Should the NRL be now in the midst of finals footy? I’m not advocating that we should be playing finals footy through August but at 26 weeks is the regular season too long? Should we cut it down to 22?
- Teams like the Tigers, Raiders and Sharks are just waiting for their disastrous seasons to end. Sides like the Roosters and Panthers are certainties for the finals and it seems as if fans are deciding not to bother about going to games at the moment and are holding off until the semis. The Knights, Titans and Dragons are all in limbo at the moment until they can confirm their coach for next year (or in Newcastle’s case wait for the current one to leave) and are left twiddling their thumbs for the next month. Meanwhile there are a bunch of teams in the middle of the pack that are still fighting to make the finals, but those who get there are really only going to just provide fodder for the top four anyway.
- I’m grateful that the NRLCEO Finals are in full swing. 22 weeks is enough time to separate the contenders from the pretenders.
- In saying that, the upshot of having a 26 round NRL season means you can fit in a 22 round NRLCEO season. In my first year of NRLCEO we accidentally set it at 22 weeks including finals which meant an 18 week regular season which was far too short.
Geoff Adams
Latest posts by Geoff Adams (see all)
- 2018 Workhorse Watch Awards - September 3, 2018
- Workhorse Watch – Round 24 - August 29, 2018
- Workhorse Watch – Round 23 - August 22, 2018
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