Brett finch used to lead the league in try assists most of the years he was at the roosters too. It's a case of just touching the ball so much you wind up playing 5/8.
Gallen improved immensely once he wound back his involvement and let actual play makers run the show. It's a big reason why they won last year
Gallen didn't "improve immensely". Look at that list of Harry Sunderland medal winners. Minnichiello is (rightly) the only other modern era player to get 2.
At rep level he has been able to do what he now does for the Sharks, which is concentrate on "stats" (I can't imagine why taking lots of hard hit ups and making big first contact tackles is considered a bad thing) and get a few good attacking plays in.
He was always a clever forward who did a lot of work. He just had to do more play making before we got Lewis, Graham, and more recently, Maloney and Ennis, because for years our team was utter crap.
The team improved immensely since it relied less on him for play making, but his stats have been as "padded" as ever. He is the leading metre making forward in the competition so far this year.
So if winding back his involvement means doing as much work as any forward, and improve immensely means Maloney has helped the team much more than our awesome halves like Jeff Robson, then I agree entirely with you.
