Wallace

[MaxPower]

Stats will tell you how often someone did something, but they won't tell you how well they did it.

 

[Blues Riff]

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

 

[franklin2323]

Gower/Presto halves combination

Perfect example. Neither was what you would call elite. Both had flaws the other had strengths to make up for the flaws. Great halves partnership

Stats show flaws in certain players. These can be hidden by players being good at other parts around them.

You brought up 2010. Burns had 6 try assists for the whole year. 32 try assists for the year from your halves won't & didn't get the job done.

Burns never passed had to get a backline movement flowing in that case. Yet Walsh got the blame & Burns was a god. Great in defence, tough but not a good half.

 

[betcats]

Perfect example. Neither was what you would call elite. Both had flaws the other had strengths to make up for the flaws. Great halves partnership

Stats show flaws in certain players. These can be hidden by players being good at other parts around them.

You brought up 2010. Burns had 6 try assists for the whole year. 32 try assists for the year from your halves won't & didn't get the job done.

Burns never passed had to get a backline movement flowing in that case. Yet Walsh got the blame & Burns was a god. Great in defence, tough but not a good half.

Burns copped plenty too. No one is saying ignore stats. But they dont measure so many things:

Leadership
attitude
clutchness(ability to perform in pressure situations)
Effort
skill
Vision...to name a few.

They wont tell u if a player can throw a 30 metre cut out pass or if he can turn a player inside out with footwork.

Just so many important things that are missed in the raw game stats.

 

[mxlegend99]

Burns never passed had to get a backline movement flowing in that case. Yet Walsh got the blame & Burns was a god. Great in defence, tough but not a good half.

Burns got better ball to Jennings then Walsh ever has. Walsh only had the bulk of our try assists because he put in the bulk of our kicks. Give Coote or Burns the kicking duties, and they rack up 20+ try assists because of the kick chase.

Wade Graham should have been partnering Travis Burns in the halves that year. They were our best halves and when they played together they created more space for their outside men. With Walsh you know exactly what he is going to do, and it makes it easy to defend him. Not so much with Burns and Graham. Likewise it will hopefully be the same with Soward and Wallace. We don't need perfect halves to win games. We just need ones who can make good decisions and give our other guys enough space to have a fighting chance. Luke Walsh always had the same plays and the only time you got a decent pass from him was when he was throwing an inside pass for someone to get hammered.

 

[mxlegend99]

Looking up Walsh stats so far in the Super League - they're nowhere near as good as I expected:

4 games
2 tries
300m gained and 7 tackle busts
1 try assist
1 40/20
5 errors
45 tackles / 4 missed tackles (this one surprised me... but looking at teammates everyone has very lowed missed tackle counts)


His team is currently sitting in first. The impressive stats are his low missed tackle count and the fact he actually runs the ball in the UK. Although him running the ball against inferior players was never an issue... he could be a god in the UK with his acceleration and a willingness to run.Nearly everytime he ran the ball here, it resulted in a linebreak and/or a try.

The disappointing stats are his try assists mostly... 4 games and he only has one to his name in the Super League? In his team James Roby has 5, Adam Swift has 3, Lance Hohaia, Johnathon Lomax, and Gary Wheeler have 2 try assists. While he sits on one along with 7 other players. Even tries scored, he is one of 10 players with 2 or more tries scored.

Looking at his stats compared to his teammates and he's hovering around the middle of the pack in nearly every area. It doesn't seem to matter when his team is the best attacking side and second best defensive side at the moment. But considering he is playing against inferior opposition and the strongest roster, you would expect him to be smashing the stats by more then that.

 

[chrisD]

I would rate both Wallace and Soward as solid steering halves, they're not going to create much off their own back but they're probably going to do a good job feeding others. Will that be enough? Do we need two halves like this or would we be better served with just the one and another more creative half? I think these are valid questions. Bennett managed it, but that Dragons team is an anomaly as far as premiers go. Souths came up short. I would feel a lot better about the halves if we had a boom impact front rower. The way Moylan plays probably has to factor into things a lot, but then Souths has Inglis.

I do think our backs and back row at full strength has more fire power than both those Dragons and Spuths team. I don't much rate Wallace's ball playing but if you consider a right hand side with Manu and Idris running at the defence it should not really take much of a ball player to exploit. On the left Whare, Taylor/Peachey which will hopefully become Cartwright/Peachey, again it's not going to take much. Really with some momentum in the middle simple distribution from the halves with Moylan out back might be enough. That's not to say it would necessarily be the best way we could go about things.

 

[Panther Pete]

Perfect example. Neither was what you would call elite. Both had flaws the other had strengths to make up for the flaws. Great halves partnership.

Gower won a premiership at half back, played State of Origin for NSW and played over a dozen games for Australia. What does a player have to do to be considered elite???

 

[franklin2323]

Gower won a premiership at half back, played State of Origin for NSW and played over a dozen games for Australia. What does a player have to do to be considered elite???

How many of rep games were at hooker? I think he played 2 at halfback. He also played plenty of hooker in an at times average Panthers team. If he was elite he would of been always 7.

 

[franklin2323]

MX. I said at the time Graham/Burns should of been our halves back then.... Yet an inferior halfback got us 2nd. Same could be the case this year

 

[murraymob]

we will need wallace playing well this weekend if soward is out

 

[mxlegend99]

MX. I said at the time Graham/Burns should of been our halves back then.... Yet an inferior halfback got us 2nd. Same could be the case this year

Our kick chase got us second. Not Walsh. Put him in another team and he has half the try assists, possibly even less.

Our best two halves this year are Wallace and Soward. John is not far behind for 3rd, but he's definitely behind. I love how you have written our halves off and results and performance can't change that. :lol: if Wallace and/or Soward have a few bad games in a row, I'll be calling for John to replace them immediately. But for now the pecking order is correct.

 

[maple_69]

How many of rep games were at hooker? I think he played 2 at halfback. He also played plenty of hooker in an at times average Panthers team. If he was elite he would of been always 7.

All about context. Gower played at the same time as a strong crop of halves. Certainly compared to Fittler, Johns and Lockyer he wasn't. The only elite halves we have now are Thurston and arguably Cronk/DCE. Gower would have played 20+ origins at halfback if he played the last 8 years.

 

[franklin2323]

Maple no doubt he had Johns to deal with. Rodwell was halfback while Gower was hooker in the early 00's. Hardly a superstar keeping him from the 7.

 

[maple_69]

No but he developed a long way as a player shortly afterwards. I know I'd take Gower over Pearce, Reynolds, Mullen, Carney and Maloney which would make him one of the best halves in the game. More an endictment on the calibre of halves we have running around than anything though.

We're certainly going to need to produce a quality half in the next few years though. If we're to continue to improve and become a contender over the next few years, we'll be under salary cap pressure and will be relying on a junior to step up. Our promising junior prospects have had an unhappy knack of never reaching their potential or turning into backrowers in the last 10 years. Hopefully Scarlett comes on.

 

[Pomoz]

Looking at his stats compared to his teammates and he's hovering around the middle of the pack in nearly every area. It doesn't seem to matter when his team is the best attacking side and second best defensive side at the moment. But considering he is playing against inferior opposition and the strongest roster, you would expect him to be smashing the stats by more then that.

I'm no Walsh apologist, but give the guy a break. He has moved countries and changed job all at the same time. Let him settle in and get adjusted to a new life and new team mates.

 

[mxlegend99]

Great game from Wallace today aside from missing a pressure kick to win. No Jarrod Choker miss, but still heartbreaking.

 

[soc123_au]

He is no Brandy, but so far I have been impressed with him.

 

[umina panther]

Some good things mixed with a few bad kicks straight to Slater. The main difference between Wallace and Walsh is Pete will take a tacke if a play isn't on. Walsh would throw the ball anywhere rather then take a hit.

 

[Panther Pete]

He impressed me tonight against a pretty handy Storm side.