parraeels2010 just started this thread to see how many pages it will get to. Fire is desperately trying to troll at every chance (if you don't mind my advice Fire, I think you need to either go full genius in defense of your team (e.g. see the next guy I talk about), or be a funny bugger to get to the next level of trolldom). Mr Fourex takes every chance available to talk up Qld and talk down NSW, especially Gallen, and has actually been pretty mild in his views on Gallen in this thread compared to some others. I think we can safely ignore their views.
Although I do agree with Mr Fourex that if we say Gallen is "comfortably" the best forward in the game (which I might do from time to time) that is really over rating him as Smith will not have anyone in history "comfortably" rated as better than him. Rather, Gallen is "comfortably" the best along with Smith- but they have totally different roles (and Scott is only a bit behind Gallen, and by the same use of "comfortably" is then "comfortably" the next best and then a host of forwards are also very good on their day, even some of the Qld ones Mr Fourex)
It is probably obvious that I'm an unabashed Gallen fan (as most Sharks fans are- so we are probably very biased when discussing Gallen) and I certainly think he is under rated.
But I do see some elements of "media darling" coming through now (as much to hype Origin I think, with Lockyer gone and Qld looking unstoppable again they have to do something to keep us interested), so it was interesting to see some here saying he is maybe inadvertently over rated. I think talk of him being an immortal is a tad early (as it is for Slater/Cronk/Smith/Thurston and the rest of the current players that are mentioned like that).
I see that some people argue that his stats, while impressive, are just stats. I agree that stats don't always tell the full story (but that really means you don't have the right ones!) but his stats are crazy good compared to anyone else, so that has to at least put him above "honest toiler".
There are some claims that because he takes so much ball he lessens the impact of others. This is a claim at least as hard to prove with incomplete data as a claim that his impressive stats make him a great player. We can't really know how good the other players would be without him, but I suspect none of the Aussie team or NSW team want to find out. But I agree that in the modern era, players are pushed by coaches as far as they can go (or should be), and if that is true, he can go a lot further than most.
But apart from his metres, which are unbelievably good but just one facet of his game, I think Gallen is under rated. For a start, many think he has only been great since Origin last year, but he has been producing "stats" well ahead of anyone else every week since 2007 (and was fine before then, but from 2007 to 2012 he has been comfortably the best metre eater, high tackling, offloading "stat" player). So I think his longevity as a great player has been under rated (and deliberately so by some people, with an anti-Sharks and anti-Stuart agenda- I'm looking at you, Gould).
His defense is under rated. Sure, he makes a lot of tackles, and many are big (without too many fancy "big hits" because he doesn't like low percentage tackles), but when you watch him play, whichever part of the field he is on (middle, or a fringe) he "shores" up and it rarely gets broken. You can see that in international matches, when he has been used quite deliberately by Sheens to shut down a threat from NZ or England and the rare times he is off the field in rep games, his team starts losing ground when defending compared to when he is on.
His attack is also under rated, IMHO, even though he scores a lot of tries, makes a lot of offloads, and has a good rate of try and line break assists, for a high impact forward. He has a reputation as a "hog" but we see it isn't true in rep or club games when he has competent halves- rather, he is a major threat that eases the pressure on the halves. Very few forwards have his ball playing skills (Bird and G. Stewart probably- but they don't have his work rate, great as they are) or off loading skills (Mateo maybe, but also not as good a worker) and he was involved in most of NSW's tries or good attacking plays last year, despite playing 80 minutes at "prop" (some of it at "prop" and a lot as a blind side fringe forward). He even has an OK short kicking game, though I'd rather he never gets to use it.
So is he over rated, under rated, or about right? I'm curious to see what others think about my favourite player; parraeels2010 probably wasn't intending a sensible thread, but it is a sensible question if you view the footage from these different camera angles.
Many here are saying that he is the best lock forward in the world, which seems about right to me, and I guess along with Smith, one of the best forwards. On current form, he is in my view one of the best few players in the world. This naturally makes him over rated as the media start calling him the next immortal. And yet I think he is under rated, because he has many aspects in his game that he produces regularly that people don't see, in large part because he is on FTA television so rarely (just a few rep games per year and maybe at club level once or twice a year when the Sharks play Brisbane).
