Workhorse Watch: Rd 5
James Graham is the best workhorse in the game and therefore one of my favourite players but his display toward the referee on Good Friday was not a good look. Graham pushed the envelope but not enough for Gerard Sutton to send him off. He has a knack for arguing his point (even when he is wrong) without swearing at the referee like David Klemmer did, meaning the ref wasn’t compelled to give him a spell.
One way referees could handle these situations a little better without resorting to the sin bin would be to take on this advice from Fox Sports stats guru Aaron Wallace.
Referees should go back to referring to players by numbers. They get no respect from players by being their buddies.
— Aaron Wallace (@wallyscr) April 4, 2015
And as for the deplorable scenes that unfolded after the game; along with life bans for bottle throwers, any fan, commentator or journalist who blew up over the ruling should be dropped & forced to attend/cover NSW Cup games for the next few weeks.
Jarrad Kennedy scored a try/workhorse try double on the weekend and took his tally to four workhorse tries for the season. He’s already halfway to equalling the eight workhorse tries he scored for all of 2014. Meanwhile teammate Josh Hodgson scored his first workhorse try of the year. The former Hull KR player has scored 35+ involvements for the last three weeks and finally cracked the 40+ benchmark. No doubt a few NRLCEOs may have lost faith in Hodgson despite his try in Round 3 and excluded him after a month without a workhorse.
There was an extraordinary 12 workhorse tries in the Knights vs Dragons game on Saturday night. Whilst Trent Merrin got a double workhorse try with 68 involvements, plenty of eyes were on Tariq Sims. The former Cowboy slipped straight into workhorse mode in his first game for 2015. Sims had 36 tackles and 13 hit ups. After last year’s 14 workhorse tries in 19 games, he’ll be a solid investment for those who have him.
Special mention to Elijah Taylor who broke the record for most tackles in an 80 minute game. Although only down for 67 tackles according to Champion Data who supplies the stats to NRLCEO, the NRL’s official stat provider had Taylor at 76, breaking the previous record of 75 jointly held by Shaun Fensom and Nathan Hindmarsh. I have no idea how two statisticians can be so far apart but we can only work with what we have. Unfortunately neither number helped Taylor get a double workhorse as he only ran for 53 metres.
Elijah Taylor sets a new nrl record with 76 tackles in a match going 80 minutes. Micheal Luck had 78 in a 90 minute match — NRL Stats (@NRLstats) April 6, 2015
‘Workhorse Team of the Weak’
With a month of footy under our belt there are a number of players who have quickly emerged as NRLCEO duds. Despite being among the top 100 players picked at the start of the season these 6 forwards have contributed almost nothing in 2015 and make up the inaugural ‘Workhorse Team of the Weak’.
Ben Creagh and Brenton Lawrence have only played one game each but that doesn’t stop them from being disappointments for NRLCEOs who drafted them. In the top 100 picks, Creagh was ranked #92 and Lawrence #49.
Nathan Friend (#51) and Joseph Paulo (#79) have been huge let downs having been reduced to bit players off the bench for their respective sides. Neither have scored a workhorse this season despite boasting 36 between them in 2014.
Jason Taumalolo (#61) has also been hugely disappointing. He was one of the big names on the market at the beginning of the year but is yet to register a single point in NRLCEO this season.
Sam Moa (#96) is the only player to have scored a workhorse try this year and even then it was with the minimum 40 involvements.
Workhorse of the Week:
Shaun Fensom.
Regular readers of this column will know I’m a huge Fensom fan and my comments about him being bad luck for the Raiders have been firmly tongue in cheek. Fensom was phenomenal on the weekend in perfect workhorse conditions.
WORKHORSE PACK OF THE WEEK
- Aiden Tolman: 40 tackles + 22 hitups = 62
- Robbie Farah: 44 tackles + 10 hitups = 54
- James Graham: 43 tackles + 17 hitups = 60
- Elijah Taylor: 67 tackles + 6 hitups = 73
- Trent Merrin: 47 tackles + 21 hitups = 68
- Shaun Fensom: 56 tackles + 19 hitups = 75
14. Nathan Peats: 44 tackles + 7 hitups = 51
15. Simon Mannering: 50 tackles + 10 hitups = 60
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
Sam Thaiday is in the Close but No Cigar Club for the second time this year. After a Workhorse Lite crown last year, is he ready to take a step down and become the new Tim Mannah?
Joseph Paulo: 35 tackles + 4 hitups = 39
Sam Thaiday: 31 tackles + 8 hitups = 39
Jason Clark: 29 tackles + 10 hitups = 39
David Gower: 26 tackles + 13 hitups = 39
STATS PER MINUTE
With a 1.03SPM in 2015 & a starting berth tonight, I expect Jarrod Wallace to get his first @Fantasy_NRLCEO workhorse fairly easily tonight
— Geoff Adams (@geoffadams81) April 3, 2015
I went out on a limb on Friday night and predicted that Jarrod Wallace would get his first workhorse try thanks to his great workrate and his first starting berth. Unfortunately the other key ingredient is time on the park which Wallace didn’t get. The Broncos prop had 14 involvements in the opening 14 minutes but then wasn’t seen again until late in the second half.
Has Tom Burgess finally arrived? As equally big as his twin brother George, Tom’s biggest hurdle in the past, according to Souths coach Michael Maguire, has been his attitude and approach to putting in the work. It seems he may have turned a corner this year. After scoring 39 last week Burgess had 44 involvements in 46 minutes against the Bulldogs for an SPM of 0.96. His SPM for the opening 4 rounds was 0.85.
Aiden Guerra has been relegated to the sidelines for an extended period after breaking his cheekbone on Sunday afternoon. With the Sharks having the bulk of possession in the first half, Guerra was a certainty for a workhorse and had 35 involvements before the incident which occurred just before the break (0.86SPM). However he didn’t come back in the second half and won’t be back for several weeks. In the same game, Michael Ennis went off after a head clash while sitting on 39 involvements. Fortunately he returned and was able to get a workhorse.
One of the few upsides of a boring game like the Eels vs Tigers game is the amount of workhorses to come out of it. There were 10 in total including Robbie Farah’s first double workhorse of the season but equally notable were the three Parramatta props. Between Tim Mannah, Darcy Lussick and Danny Wicks, it’s rare for one of them to get a workhorse let alone all three. Mannah and Lussick got their second workhorse tries of the year (both with 42 involvements) with an SPM of 1.11 and 0.95 respectively. Danny Wicks got his first workhorse ever (I assume) making 40 involvements in 42 minutes (0.95SPM)
JUST QUICKLY
In addition to the Fensom double workhorse try, my favourite part of the Raiders game against Manly was that it was played in Albury and hearing the commentators say “from Lavington Oval.”
One of the teams in my private league, the team I played on the weekend no less, are the Lavington Snuffmonkeys. So to hear “Lavington Oval” in the call made it feel like my NRLCEO league, the UV2RL, being called for real!
Hopefully in the future we can see games out at other UV2RL home grounds like Goulburn Workers Arena, home of the Goulburn Warriors. Sadly we’ll never see a game from Eric Weissel Oval, home of the Wagga Sharks after it got knocked down a few years ago.
Geoff Adams
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