You'd be a Johns fan, right? Musta been hard not to say fat black s**t...Yeah by who? Some big fat chicken eating African American chick from Kentucky?
x 100 FTWI'll see your Sean Rudder and raise you Shane Perry.
I'll make this plain and simple, when on his drugs.. ooops i meant game, Johns there are very few better. Johns peak skillwise was higher, but could only manage a couple of peaks in his career. Lockyers career though, has consisted of SUSTAINED EXCELLENCE at a very high level. Maybe not peaking as high as Johns, but sustained in more than flashes here and there.
Want someone to stake your life on? D. Lockyer. Want someone to win an unwinnable game once every 5 years? A. Johns.
indeed.To be honest, this thread shows how fickle some of us fans are. Lockyer, strings together a few good games, and this is all up in the air again. Lockyer has a few sh*t ones, and suddenly he's not fit to lace Johns' boots.
the thing that irks me the most about people bringing up Buderus and Johns and their relative skills to each other is that one day it's Buderus made Johns look good... a few days later it's Johns made Buderus look good... all depending on who you ask.
Johns played in two positions also at rep level, he played hooker cause he wasn't even good enough to be starting halfback.
Thats something i actually loved about Johns. He wasnt an athlete in the slightest. Had a bit of size I guess, particularly later years, but not particularly quick or even fit by modern standards, yet he had the sharpest footballing mind. Always a few plays ahead of the game, always putting players through holes, creating space and, like the true champions, would dictate the pace the game was played at - slowed the game to exactly what he needed.Lockyer does things with the ball in hand that Johns could only dream of.
Johns performed kicks that Lockyer could only dream of.
Johns head on defence was better than Lockyers.
Lockyers cover defence was better than Johns.
Johns was slow, Lockyer is/was fast.
I think it comes down to the type of footballer you prefer in their respective positions.
As a half back, I rate Langer and Stuart better than Johns.
That said, neither of those two were as versatile to cover other positions like Johns could.
Johns was great but others were better and Lockyer is one of those.
Sorry the Origin Record is 10-5 in Johns favor with 3 Series wins to Johns, 1 to Lockyer and 2 drawn - this is when Origin was very competitive.
Johns still holds a much higher winning percentage to Lockyer too - we are comparing players/leaders/game winners right... not teams? Haha. Johns sits around 60% Origin win rate. After 2 wins this year Lockyer has finally won more Origins than he has lost - awesome team arround him and sh*t blues side to face and all.
Spot the double standard.
Lockyer's record should be taken with a grain of salt because of his opposition. But Johns' record is fine. Even though he featured when Queensland were torn apart by Super League and played against some average looking Queensland sides.
Not taking anything away from Johns, Origin is Origin, but let's be fair here.
Lockyer, Langer, Webcke, Tallis, Sailor, Civoneceva, Walters, Price, Carroll, Renouf, Smith, Sing, McKenna, Tuqiri, Rogers.
Some of the players that would have played beside, most of them a bulk part, Lockyer when Johns was opposite Lockyer between 1998-2005. Yup a terrible time for QLD stock wise and a team we can certainly compare Creagh, Gidley and co to.
You are normally a good poster Pete, but you lost the plot on the 'torn apart QLD team' line.
The current NSW side would kill for the class of 2 or 3 of the players i named above.