Quote Judder Man="Judder Man"I don't really think it's a weakness in the over reliance, we have to bring in the factor that St Helens have to rely on these 2 past men of steel due to the enormous injury situation that has occurred of the last 2 to 3 seasons.
Does metres per carry really matter it's how they effect the 80 min game, if we look at Feka of Salford without checking he probably has the best metres/carry than Graham, but Feka would only play for 20 mins.....which player would you have in your side.
The other reason for MOS is that Roby and Graham do it through hard yards, the opposition have tried to stop it for years but they have rarely been capable of doing it.
If you look at The top metre makers for Wigan, these are a full back and 2 wingers, who will be running the ball back in most of there metres, whereas Roby will be doing it in heavy traffic, they have tried to stop him but he still has made 5000 metres. On top of that he almost topped the tackle count as well.
Does it really matter if St Helens rely on him too much, this topic is about a single entity a "Man of Steel". Totally agree that Morley, Menzies, mona's fit into this category, I just think that Vomkins would be an injustice to the players mentioned.'"
I take on board what you are saying and don't disagree entirely. When you say people haven't been able to stop Roby and Graham, I don't really get it. They have great fitness levels clearly, but they make simlar yards as anyone else, it's just that their clubs demand that they stay on the pitch. I'm not criticising that as such, I was highlighting that the fact that Roby makes far more yards than any other hooker is not a clear sign that he is far better. I also disagreed with your assertion that the team worked really hard, with a high average metres per carry, when in fact the real average per player will be lower due to these two 'freaks'!
You say they haevn't stopped Roby, but there is an argument that they did, as his average carry per run is pretty low! He just gets to run it every set.
I like stats, as you can probably tell from my last post
but when the stats are so far clear of anyone else, that doesn't mean they are so much better, it means that there is something worth looking at.
Let's take the Monas v Roby debate. Monas got the MOM in the last game against Saints, although Roby was very good too. If we base the stats on their averages then it is possibly fair to make the assumption that Roby will have made 194metres and 36 tackles, and Monas will have made 95 metres and 17 tackles. Monas still got the better of that battle, so the freak stats aren't the be-all and end-all.
If we use these freak stats as the basis for their selection as MOS, then basically no other players can win this award, as no other props are used for 80m and no other team runs from dummy half like Saints do.
MOS is for the best player, not hardest working or toughest player. If that is Roby, fine, if it is Tomkins fine.
but when the stats are so far clear of anyone else, that doesn't mean they are so much better, it means that there is something worth looking at.
