But if you’re gonna talk about tackle efficiency shouldn’t you talk about the forward packs they play around as well? Mcinnes and Wallace play around 2 of the best forward packs in the competition. The reason why this is so important is because a missed tackle is counted when there is an offload and some teams are much better at preventing that than others. Souths’ big boys are terrible at wrapping the ball up whilst the Dragons and Panthers do a much better job of it. There is also less of a chance that Mcinnes will be left by himself considering he’s got two world class props outside of him plus a NSW rep in JDB.
Tackle efficiencies are always gonna be higher when you’re not doing as much running either. That’s just common sense. You’re gonna be more fatigued from running so tackling will be harder. You can’t just say running is insignificant and tackling matters more in origin because it’s a subjective statement. Last year NSW played with a player who imo is an exact model of Mcinnes in Nathan Peats. It was fine for the first game because we had an X factor in Fifita who the opposition couldn’t handle but as soon as they figured him out we had nothing. They rolled over us and Peats offered nothing in attack. Mcinnes is the same. He doesn’t offer anything in attack besides the occasional dive for the try line which a team like QLD aren’t going to fall for. Even last week Cook created an opportunity for our first try against the dragons yet their were no support runners because we were exhausted from all the defending we had to do. Would’ve been a try if Maloney or Trbojevic were playing though.
Which brings me to my next point about rosters. You can’t use wins as a factor of who’s a better hooker. The whole time Cook has been at Souths we have been struggling. Mcinnes didn’t fix that when he was here and neither did Farah so I don’t really know how you can use that as a point for origin contention.
You can’t just use one stat and start ranking hookers accordingly. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t fit their playing ability. Mcinnes best attribute is tackling so obviously it’s going to favour him to talk about tackling efficiency.
Penrith 87.4% Souths 87.8% StGI 89.2%
So while you may be onto something regarding McInnes, Wallace is part of a side who has a worse defence than Cook's Souths.
It's all a matter of opinion but calling Paul Vaughn 'world class' is a stretch while JDB has never been a NSW rep. In fact it is Cook who has two world class props in Sam and Tom alongside him with future NSW rep Murray. Penriths defence is improved from previous seasons but to consider it one of the best is a stretch.
You're correct that running will fatigue a player bit if this is having an impact on Cook's defensive duties, then shouldn't he either be smarter when choosing his runs or defend where there is less traffic?
McInnes runs more than Peats - always has. In fact Peats averages 10 less metres per game at 37.8m. Last year going into Origin, Peats was picked as the best of a bad bunch, Farah was coming from the bench with Souths and still being discussed. 2018 however there are blokes putting their hand up for the job and someone will unfortunately moss out.
Of the now 8 players mentioned, McInness is 3rd for average run metres behind Cook (who's average is inflated by the Penrith game where he only played the middle, Crichton and Sutton played dummy half on the edges) and McCullough (who's average is probably damaged after coming from the bench in round 1 and has returned from a knee injury)
Winning is hugely important. It becomes a habit and you only need to look at the Qld side of the last decade to see that. Every one of their spine players come from winning environments and in the crunch moments it's evident.
McInnes was never given the 80 minute role. Post-Luke he was always left to share it with Cook and if i recall correctly, he had a better success rate in the 9 than Cook did when he started over the same period. Farah has never been a winner either, Wests jagged a premiership while he was there but out side of that they were a losing club. In fact you bringing up Farah only highlights my point of why NSW need to go with a winning hooker.
Of course there are other factors involved but if a hooker can't defend, he isn't much use. Afterall, the Cook love in revolves around his running metres, one stat that majority of the other options don't feature in because it isn't that big a part of the job compared to defending
