Hayne for mine. In 2009 Jarryd played in 26 matches in the NRL (including finals and the Grand Final) as opposed to Tom's 18 games. Hayne did it against all the contenders that season, whereas Tom's mainly were against teams in the bottom half of the draw. Add in that Hayne dragged his team to the Grand Final, that outs him over the top in my opinion.
Both great feats in their respective seasons, just I think Hayne's was better is all.
Its a good point on games played/opposition…
Although that’s one of the reasons I lobbed for Tom. He won the Dally M medal with the “least games played” in history - won the count most weeks…scored the most tries in manly history.. he has stats like a video game.. ridiculous
The Eagles were also a complete pile of shite at the start of the year, then he comes back, they go onto make a prelim final.
Hayne played all year and his Eels finished 8th, flogged in the last round by the Dragons. I was back at Kogarah the next week where we fell in a heap and Hayne tore it up.. he took them one step further than Tom.
The quality of the comp was arguably much weaker this year than in 09.. But funnily both of them got cleverly shut down by Bellamy and the Storm in the finals (albeit the 09 Storm was … ahem… a tad over the cap).
Some of Haynes stuff was the most sublime league player I’ve ever seen. But Toms stats and what he did to turn what was a maroon turd into a maroon force is ridiculous too.