Yes, I have seen him play. And no, he doesn’t appeal to me predominantly as a ball player. He is quite good down the business end of the field, which, I grant you, is something we have lacked, but we still need to get down that end.
I’m not one to blindly focus on game stats, in fact I barely check unless something is really apparent during the game, but let’s take a look at his Line Break Assist numbers. In the past three seasons he has managed 46 LBAs from 69 games (.667 per game). One man put into space every 3 halves of football.
For comparison:
Jerome Hughes -61/66 @ 0.924.
DCE -49/68 @ 0.721,
Cody Walker -66/70 @ 0.942,
Ben Hunt -51/67 @ 0.761,
Even the much-maligned Nicho Hynes -76/64 @ 1.188.
He’s not even the outright best at his own club:
Clint Gutherson -48/72 @ 0.667.
They’re not the worst figures, comparable to DCE and Hunt is admirable, but to say he is top tier in NRL history at that one aspect of play is extremely generous.
I did say “naturally gifted”, not “best”, and I think it’s worth noting that the youngest guy on that list is 4 years older and in his prime. To add more context, of that list, I’d say only DCE was clearly a better player than Brown is now when he was the same age, and the entire rest of the list besides Hunt are guys who weren’t established NRL halves and/or hadn’t even played first grade by Brown’s current age. Brown also got 22 of those in his 24 games in 2024, which may point to an improvement curve & is pretty good for a guy in a bad team copping heat for “not stepping up” with Moses out.
I think there’s also a bit of a team role factor in how these stats happen. The Parra attack isn’t totally built around Brown or Moses putting someone through a hole - a lot of Parra’s shapes (like at a lot of clubs) are built around getting the fullback a 3 on 2 or 2 on 1, and they end with the fullback throwing the pass to an open winger. In those shapes a lot of the halves’ LBAs are going to come from a shorter ball to a second rower, and while they could probably pump up their own stats by hitting the lead runner constantly (see: 2024 Jackson Hastings), it will often be more effective to prioritise creating the space for the outside man to make an easier run/pass decision with a bigger situation of advantage (see: Cogger in my opinion outperforming Gamble & Hastings when he got his run of games at the end of the season).
If you look at a different team like Cronulla, Kennedy is a much more limited ball player than Gutho, and Hynes’ best attribute is those big looping cut out passes he can throw both ways, so a lot of their shapes are specifically built around compressing the defence for him to throw one of those balls. The criticism Nicho has since copped is I think simply because this works a lot better against weak defensive teams than the good ones, and the other aspects of his game aren’t anywhere near as good - almost a victim of very good coaching really, he performed well under a coach who maximised what he’s best at and then he’s copping heat because a team which has consequently outperformed the quality of its roster hasn’t been able to beat teams with much better rosters. But yeah Nicho’s job in that team has been to be the key man setting up the majority of their tries and it has been a bit rough the way he’s been doing that well the whole time, but the Dally M has given people expectations he may not be able to fulfil.
If you look at it purely in terms of overall key line break involvements (so, a combination of line breaks, line break assists, and key passes which create an overlap which then leads to a break), which I think more fairly captures week to week attacking impact, Brown was equal 2nd with Cody Walker among all five-eighths in 2024 with 2.1 per game (Dearden in first with 2.5 per game). I think this more fairly captures Brown’s impact in attacking shapes etc and whichever way you slice it, we don’t have another half right now who can get close to that sort of output. There’s only a few halves who are more dangerous ball runners than him (probably just Hughes who may be the most dangerous running half in NRL history, Dearden, Mam and Hunt), and also only a few who are outright better right now as passers to go with that (DCE, probably Cody, Munster even though the stats never like him that much, I would have said Shaun Johnson before he retired, but honestly a lot of the very best passers eg Scotty Drinkwater and Latrell end up at fullback).
