N.C.
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Okay so we're a quarter of the way through the season and it's time to take a quick look at how the players and the team are holding up.
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The back three
Tedesco with a massive 32 tackle breaks and 6 tries to his name is the obvious standout. His running game is in good shape with an average 11 runs for 109 metres per game.
I questioned Richards' longevity at the start of the season but he's so far been proving me wrong pretty much every week. He's also pulled out 6 tries and has a sound running average of around 11 runs for 80 metres each game. Pundits have him in career best form and the only way to argue otherwise wouold be to say he's at his consistent best. Long may he remain evergreen - we struggled without him in the latter part of last year and when he's as fit as he is at the moment, it's not hard to see why.
Naiqama has been a good pick-up for us but many lament the fact he is not Koroibete. Naiqama's bagged 2 tries in his 6 games and one of them required more than just a stroll to the line. He had a pretty rough game against the Dogs but other than that he's looked okay in defence. He's averaging 11 runs for nearly 99 metres a game.
As I mentioned after his debut against the Dogs, Hoeter looks set to offer a good depth option. Nofoaluma hasn't managed to overcome his injury setbacks as yet and it may be some time before we see him make a push to regain his first grade spot.
Centres
Things have been pretty quiet for Lawrence and Simona this year, with neither really firing yet. Simona had a break-out match, scoring 2 tries last week, while Lawrence is yet to even break the line let alone cross the chalk. Arguments abound as to whether Lawrence remains a first grade standard centre - it's possible that he's just no good anymore, but it's also possible that his halves aren't really putting the ball in his hands at the right moments.
Halves
It's been a stop-start run for Brooks, while Moses is yet to find his feet at all. Key statistics are telling - Brooks has 4 try assists to Moses' 1, and 1 linebreak assist to Moses' 0. Obviously they are both young, and relatively new to first grade, but... did I mention that I've been sort of missing Blake Austin? How much longer before we can say we made the right call there?
Dummy half
I've had a couple of things to say about Farah over the last couple of weeks, and it occurred to me to check his stats against the corresponding period last year. He's running a lot less and tackling a little bit more, but he's also not been playing the full 80 each week. He's obviously playing to a different plan, and says it's to do with letting the new halves take more control. Well, no disrespect Robbie, but I reckon you might need to step in there and help them out a little more than you have been. Just every now and again.
Interestingly he's taken 10 minutes or so off during all but 2 games this year, which you would assume is all part of our planning-for-Origin strategy. When Farah is off, Halatau has been stepping in to dummy half. He's been around long enough to know this job, even if he's nothing special at it. Beats the hell out of blooding another rookie.
Forwards
What is there to say about Woods and Galloway right now? Woods is averaging 21 runs for 195 metres each game, with 31 tackles - I mean what is all that about? The guy is just a machine. Galloway looks a little less impressive but he's averaging 14 runs for 131 metres each game, with 27 tackles. Any self respecting plodder would be happy with those numbers in first grade. Both have played the same number of minutes. Seumanufagai, Buchanan and Sue are holding their own in the prop rotation from the bench with, importantly, some pretty low error and missed tackle counts.
Taupau has found a home for himself at number 13 and has been playing some good, hard footy up the guts as well. He runs hard, tackles hard, and has a good hard laugh about it when he knocks someone over on his way back onside. Honestly, that's just the kind of player you want holding your pack together, isn't it...?
Sironen is coming along in leaps and bounds and it looks as though he's found a good backrow partner in Lovett. Both are running nice lines around the edge of the ruck and as the halves start to build in confidence there will no doubt be many tries chalked up to these two behemoths. For the time being, though, they've had to stick with just running at the line. Sironen is yet to make a linebreak and Lovett has recorded just the one, which resulted in a try. It probably came off a forward pass but we wont mention that.
A couple of others who have made their debut - making a total of 21 players who have taken part in the 6 games this year - are Santi and Liolevave. Santi looked a little out of his depth during the first 4 matches in which he took part, and he hasn't been seen since. Liolevave had a solid debut in round 4.
You'd expect any major shake-up of this team will come through injury rather than any youngsters pushing their way into contention. I guess that's to be expected when the team is mostly made up of those kind of youngster as it is.
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All in all it's a good start to the year. There are those games against the Bulldogs and the Warriors that we'll always look back on and wonder... and of course I hope we don't see too many more games like that this year. Because if we find ourselves in tenth place having actually fought tooth and nail for every premiership point we end up with, it will be too easy to focus on games like those and say "we were a better team than tenth so we should sack the coach/captain/halfback/forwards/cheerleaders/mascot/chief executive officer".
But it least it would give us something to talk about while a couple of rubbish teams fight it out in the grand final...
http://nrlobserver.com/content/first-quarter-progress-report-tigers
