Nathan Merritt or Michael Gordon

[ANTiLAG]

Gordon misses more tackles than Merrit - will he let in 5 tries?

I noramlly loathe to make bold predictions as they can blow up in your face, however. I would not be at all surprised if Michael Gordon becomes the next member of the Quinn, Turner, McManus club. At least Wolfman had noted pace and try scoring ability at club level, and Monagan size and air ball ability supposedly. Oh well I'm an amateur your selectors are professionals - they know more than me.

 

[NGR]

You forgot:

Tackles:
Michael Gordon - 131 tackles - avg. 9.36 (with 1.8 missed)
Nathan Merritt - 83 tackles - avg. 5.53 (with 1.2 missed is less effective)

Errors:
Michael Gordon - 13
Nathan Merritt - 16

Hit Ups:
Michael Gordon - 28
Nathan Merritt - 14

Offloads:
Michael Gordon - 11
Nathan Merritt - 4

The Souths and Panthers play extremely different brands of football and Michael Gordon is used up the middle at the Panthers taking pressure off the forwards. Despite having the harder workload he is still averaging more metres per game according to your stats.

On paper it might not look as pretty as having tries and linebreaks. But the results are extremely effective with the Panthers scoring more points then any other team... they're just spread evenly through the side.

For an example of his work just look at the try he scored against Manly. He took a hitup for us and pushed forward a few metres. As he slowed down he got the offload away and the ball spread out to our wing for Luke Lewis to kick it back to the centre of the field where Michael Gordon was backing up to score next to the posts. About 60 metres and a few seconds after taking his hitup.

He's the safer option in State of Origin. He's a stronger defender, he doesn't need to break the line to make metres and he's a great goal kicker.

a: you say he is a safer defender, yet the stats clearly show otherwise...
b: Gordon makes far more tackles, why? Is it because he is constantly out of position, do the panthers have bad defence, maybe other teams know he is a defensive weakness... hmmm nice stat you have there ay...
c: so he does more hit ups yet creates far far less tackle breaks, line breaks, etc... That just makes merrit look better lol
d: wingers should not be offloading, they should be scoring... And to make your stat look even stupider, how many try assists has gordon got? Yet merrit makes far less offloads yet has more assists.. Seems his few offloads have actually paid off..
e: Ok i will give you the errors one, he had a shocker in terms of errors against the storm (first game i have seen him f**k up in a while). But you are going to say gordon gets it becuase he made 3 less errors than merrit :lol:

Some people on here need to do what the selectors should be doing.. Watch more souths games... No point picking someone because they can kick goals if you cant score tries...

Ah well, ignorance is bliss..

Hope qld put another 50 on...

 

[typicalfan]

bluey , what a throwaway nonsense line , due to you seeing one bad game from Merritt. please let me know which games Merritt "let in" more tries , when he scored 1 or more tries this year ?

also given the last origin game , letting in 4 and scoring 2 , would have been a major improvement on the NSW side, lol

Let in 3 and scored none last weekend. Merritt is a defensive liability it is not enough to only be good in attack, you need to defend as well.

 

[typicalfan]

a: you say he is a safer defender, yet the stats clearly show otherwise...
b: Gordon makes far more tackles, why? Is it because he is constantly out of position, do the panthers have bad defence, maybe other teams know he is a defensive weakness... hmmm nice stat you have there ay...
c: so he does more hit ups yet creates far far less tackle breaks, line breaks, etc... That just makes merrit look better lol
d: wingers should not be offloading, they should be scoring... And to make your stat look even stupider, how many try assists has gordon got? Yet merrit makes far less offloads yet has more assists.. Seems his few offloads have actually paid off..
e: Ok i will give you the errors one, he had a shocker in terms of errors against the storm (first game i have seen him f**k up in a while). But you are going to say gordon gets it becuase he made 3 less errors than merrit :lol:

Some people on here need to do what the selectors should be doing.. Watch more souths games... No point picking someone because they can kick goals if you cant score tries...

Ah well, ignorance is bliss..

Hope qld put another 50 on...

Gordon has defended a lot at centre this year when Jennings was not 100% and was very good down that side. Your guessing is pretty far off.

 

[joseph1]

Im a Merritt fan. Missed the game on the weekend though, what happened? Sounds like he had an off game. Poor timing to coz it probably cost him his spot. Hes done more on attack for a greater period of time and consistently than any of those other wingers. If NSW want better attack Merrits their man hes a try scoring freak, a bit like Lachlan Coote who everyone seems to love (who just seems like the new Preston Campbell). Maybe Timana and Mundine are right.. people seen to hate Merritt without justification.

 

[NGR]

Gordon has defended a lot at centre this year when Jennings was not 100% and was very good down that side. Your guessing is pretty far off.

It actually makes my point stronger.. Theres heaps of reasons he could have made more tackles.. As it turns out it was because he played centre... Thus the stat presented was irrelevent..

 

[ANTiLAG]

It actually makes my point stronger.. Theres heaps of reasons he could have made more tackles.. As it turns out it was because he played centre... Thus the stat presented was irrelevent..

So you were originally justifying his selection via stats and not by watching games? Interesting technique. Normally I would be critical but looking at some NSW selections in the last few years this technique would be an improvement on the "origin build" strategy.

 

[typicalfan]

It actually makes my point stronger.. Theres heaps of reasons he could have made more tackles.. As it turns out it was because he played centre... Thus the stat presented was irrelevent..

No it makes your point weaker because it is tougher defending at centre than on the wing and that fact he did it well suggests his defense is sound.

Compare that to Merritt and Champion that let a one legged Inglis and rookie O'Neill torch their side of the field 3 tries and O'Neill dropped another with the line wide open.

Fact is the go forward Issac Luke and Sam Burgess give for the bunnies the two best players for them and also who can't play for NSW allows Champion and Merritt to be very dangerous. Merritt is a try scoring machine, he is Blacklock the 2nd but his defense is a bit fragile.

Champion has issues but has improved a lot this year and I hope he continues to play well his jersey will happen in the next year or two if it remains strong.

 

[Yosh]

I think NGR is plain out wrong.

I think Gordon will go okay. Not your Origin level player but will do a decent job of covering. Covering till Uate is finally eligible haha!!!

Anyways. Form and all that won't count one bit on Origin night. Some guys are made for Origin, others aren't. I personally can't say that Gordon is much better than Merritt or vise-versa. We'll see on Wed if Gordon was the right choice or not. If he goes okay, we might be seeing him there for a long time to come!

 

[abpanther]

Why all the hate on Gordon?

Sure you can make a case for Merritt being in the side, but all this sh*t about Gordon being out of position and not being a good defender is rubbish, anyone who has actually watched him play will know that...

 

[mxlegend99]

Gordon misses more tackles than Merrit - will he let in 5 tries?

He also makes a lot more tackles then Merritt. At the end of the day he is more effective though, in missing a lower percentage of tackles.

a: you say he is a safer defender, yet the stats clearly show otherwise...

WTF is the go with people only looking at half of the statistic? He makes a lot more tackles then Merritt while not missing many more. His percentage of tackles made vs tackles missed is better. Which makes him a safer defender.

b: Gordon makes far more tackles, why? Is it because he is constantly out of position, do the panthers have bad defence, maybe other teams know he is a defensive weakness... hmmm nice stat you have there ay...

Why? Because he is a TEAM player. He quiet oftend defends in the centres with Walsh on the wing outside of him. A lot of his "missed tackles" are a result of covering for other players missed tackles. He does a LOT of cleanup work at the Panthers.

Obviously you have never seen him play if you think he's a defensive weakness.

c: so he does more hit ups yet creates far far less tackle breaks, line breaks, etc... That just makes merrit look better lol

How does that make Merritt look better? He makes less metres despite making a lot more linebreaks/tackle breaks. That means that when he isn't breaking the line or tackles he's pretty much going nowhere. :sarcasm:

Michael Gordon is running it up the middle and dragging the opposition with him. He's incredible strong and has great leg drive. His runs take pressure off the forwards and his offloads quiet often lead to great second phase play. As witnessed last Friday night.

d: wingers should not be offloading, they should be scoring... And to make your stat look even stupider, how many try assists has gordon got? Yet merrit makes far less offloads yet has more assists.. Seems his few offloads have actually paid off..

Firstly... any player that believes they can create some second phase play safely should be offloading. It's especially effective when 3+ defenders are in the tackle and the team can exploit the gaps in defence.

The try assist only applies to the person who threw the last pass. In second phase play the ball can go through several sets of hands and another player will end up with the try assist despite the fact that it all started with someone else. :roll:

ie. Michael Gordon scored against the Sea Eagles from a second phase play he created. Kevin Kingston grabs the try assist despite doing nothing except grabbing the Luke Lewis kick and passing to Gordon immediately.

e: Ok i will give you the errors one, he had a shocker in terms of errors against the storm (first game i have seen him f**k up in a while). But you are going to say gordon gets it becuase he made 3 less errors than merrit :lol:

Likewise many stats can be heavily inflated in a single game. For instance Michael Gordon had 8 missed tackles against the Wests Tigers earlier in the season. Which makes his overall stats look worse. Despite missing so many tackles he had a strong defensive game making 20 tackles with 8 one on one tackles. He was saving the blokes around him in that game. On paper it looks bad, but watching the game you clearly see that the stats don't tell the whole story.

Some people on here need to do what the selectors should be doing.. Watch more souths games... No point picking someone because they can kick goals if you cant score tries...

Ah well, ignorance is bliss..

Hope qld put another 50 on...

It must be. Souths fans seem to be extremely happy despite not actually knowing anything about opposition players. You rely on stats to tell the story and then only pick the half that back up the story you want them to tell :sarcasm:

Watch a few other teams play and then see how their players go with the roles that the coach gives them. Nathan Merritt would be absolutely useless on the wing at the Panthers as the ball very rarely goes out wide to provide him with the opportunity to break the line or score tries.

Likewise it's unlikely he would get many opportunities like that in the NSW team playing on the wing outside of Beau Scott in a gameplan which doesn't involve sweeping backline movements. Brett Morris is a try scorer and he has yet to be effective in Origin. Michael Gordon will atleast be able to provide something if his centre doesn't get him the ball.

 

[Bumble]

Merritt dominates in all the relevant stats but yeah, Gordon's better because he has more hit-ups and offloads...:lol:

They're wingers ffs. What nonsense. I have nothing against Gordon (In fact, I said in another thread he should be one of the first players Souths look at signing for 2011) but Merritt has consistently been the best finisher in the NRL for the last five years. Most of that time in a well beaten side.

His continued snubbing is an absolute disgrace. Those stats (you know, the ones that actually matter for wingers) are damning.

 

[1 Eyed TEZZA]

Merrit needs to up his work rate IMO. If he showed that he has the fitness to keep on working and at the intensity of an Origin match, im sure he would be selected.

Merrit has the makings of being a star player. He needs to show at club level he wants that.

 

[mxlegend99]

Merritt dominates in all the relevant stats but yeah, Gordon's better because he has more hit-ups and offloads...:lol:

He also makes more metres, less errors and is a more effective defender. He also has 6kg on Nathan Merritt which could come in very handy while trying to stop a rampaging Greg Inglis.

They're wingers ffs. What nonsense. I have nothing against Gordon (In fact, I said in another thread he should be one of the first players Souths look at signing for 2011) but Merritt has consistently been the best finisher in the NRL for the last five years. Most of that time in a well beaten side.

Whether he's the best finisher or not.. what good is a great finisher in a team that doesn't spread the ball or provide opportunities for their wingers?

With Beau Scott at right centre the attacking opportunities will be limited to non existent. The bulk of the right wingers work will be in kick returns and dummy half runs. Possibly coming in to take hit ups and help the forwards.

I can't see any way that he will get nice early ball and have the opportunity to take on Boyd or Inglis one on one.

His continued snubbing is an absolute disgrace. Those stats (you know, the ones that actually matter for wingers) are damning.

Breaking the line and scoring tries at club level hasn't helped Brett Morris as yet. Hopefully having a genuine attacking centre inside him for Game 3 will help. But we're still going to need our forwards and halves to do their job first.

If that doesn't happen it won't matter who is on the wing.

 

[Jono1987]

Neither are good enough for Origin.

1. Dugan
2. B Morris
5. Hayne

best back 3 NSW have.

This.

 

[mxlegend99]

The only trouble with that back 3 is that Brett Morris is a left winger and Jarryd Hayne is either a left winger or fullback. A specialist right hand winger would more then likely do a better job on the other wing then one of those guys out of position.

Hayne certainly didn't do a very good job in Game 1 on the right side.

 

[Jono1987]

The only trouble with that back 3 is that Brett Morris is a left winger and Jarryd Hayne is either a left winger or fullback. A specialist right hand winger would more then likely do a better job on the other wing then one of those guys out of position.

Hayne certainly didn't do a very good job in Game 1 on the right side.

Personally I don't believe it should matter what side of the field players are on. Some players might prefer certain sides but if you're good enough and we're talking about SoO, the players chosen should be good enough for either side. Hayne didn't have a good game defensively in game 1 but I put that down to miscommunication between Tahu and Hayne collectively. Tahu gave Hayne no choice but to continually rush up-and-in. Hayne has played enough on the wing at every level to more than cope with the defence.

 

[Bumble]

He also makes more metres, less errors and is a more effective defender. He also has 6kg on Nathan Merritt which could come in very handy while trying to stop a rampaging Greg Inglis.

But in those three categories, the differences are very small. The attacking stats that were shown earlier showed Merritt to be miles ahead.

Whether he's the best finisher or not.. what good is a great finisher in a team that doesn't spread the ball or provide opportunities for their wingers?

With Beau Scott at right centre the attacking opportunities will be limited to non existent. The bulk of the right wingers work will be in kick returns and dummy half runs. Possibly coming in to take hit ups and help the forwards.

Lol...this is actually a very good point that I didn't think of. Can't see Gordon getting much ball with that glorified back-rower on his inside.

I can't see any way that he will get nice early ball and have the opportunity to take on Boyd or Inglis one on one.


Breaking the line and scoring tries at club level hasn't helped Brett Morris as yet. Hopefully having a genuine attacking centre inside him for Game 3 will help. But we're still going to need our forwards and halves to do their job first.

If that doesn't happen it won't matter who is on the wing.

I agree with you that it doesn't really matter...but the thing that pisses me off is that Merritt has earned his chance. He's been in the league for 7-8 seasons now and has proved himself in the last five of those to be a very reliable and effective winger. Whilst (as I said) I am a Gordon fan, for him to be given a chance first with little to no logic behind the choice is just another slap in the face for Merritt, and for Souths.

Similar to Anasta and then due to injury, Kris f**king Keating being picked for City ahead of Sutton. QLD and NZ have no problems picking Souths players...why do the Blues?

 

[Bobby DIGital]

I voted Merritt this time around.

 

[G-ROCK]

Firstly i have nothing against michael gordon, from the games ive seen he is a solid player and a great goal kicker. The idea that he got picked ahead of merritt cause his goal kicking ability is complete and utter sh*t.
NSW cant score any trys, they havent been losing by 2 points they've been losing by 20 its a joke.

I agree with others, Kevin Gordon is much better choice then michael gordon, but its a disgrace that merritt didnt get a run.

Im not going to bother posting the stats, you already know merritt is the most consistent try scorer, he is up the top every year, from a side that constantly misses out thats pretty damn good.

All this crap about merritt not putting in effort and workload. thats all it is... crap. Meritt, isaac Luke and luke stuart every single game put in 100%. When souths were behind the 8 ball last year against tigers, merritt was the one who showed the urgency to get the ball charged down in field goal attempt, then a play later he kicked the winning goal.
"his too small, he needs to be bigger" is another crap statement. HE IS A WINGER FFS. everytime ive seen inglis run at him when souths vs melbourne, merritt has always brought him down every time. over the try line he gets under and holds the ball up, and when inglis has palmed him off merritt has chopped him at the legs, which is what every other winger and centre in NSW origin has failed to do before, Merritt backs up all the time. he was fullback last year and scored something like 19 tries, he is a winger this year and already has 13.

and what is with people posting Hit-ups stats, mate you're off your head. They are wingers, wingers need to be quick and have a freakish ability to score tries, thats just what a winger is. Thats what merritt is.

Im not going to be blind, merritt did have a pretty dud game last weekend against storm, he had a blunder with wesser at the back with neither of them showing urgency to get the ball. both had pointed the finger at each other (however the fullback should be there, thats his job).
he narrowly missed a try which he semi blundered. He took one defender out who passed to it may have been inglis on the inside who scored, merritt took his man but thats all he could do he had no support.
The only thing you could blame him for in that game is maybe the missed try and the thign with him and wesser at the back.

Last weekend they said if merritt has a good game this w.e he'll definatly get picked, unfortunatly for him he had a off game, i think the pressure got to him, it was a very unusual game for merritt, i havent seen him have a game like that at all. ever. If the sides playing bad, merritts always playing good.

But to end this rant, im shattered for merritt that he didnt get picked, he deserved it over everyone else, obvisouly you dont get picked on form and ability, i dont know what they look for, but its obviosuly not working.
Dont know why beau scott is still there, jennings is a good selection.

I'm happy merritt didnt get picked, because now he will just be worrying about souths, and everyone will see at the end of this year when he tops the try scoring list that NSW made a mistake once again.