The Fantasy King: Ode to A Hooker

By Mick 'the King' Adams

Looking at the stat sheet in my morning Origin post-mortem I didn’t have too much of a problem with Luke Lewis as man of the match, or as it’s been rechristened “the hardest working player” award. WTF is that all about anyway? It sounds like a consolation prize you’d hand out to the doughy uncoordinated kid at the under-10 presentation arvo. I should know- I was that kid. If the man of the match was given out to the hardest working player every year then Gary Larson, with his 80 tackles and two-and-a-half dodgy hit ups per game would have won the award six years straight back in the 90s. It’s almost worth having Channel 9 retaining the TV rights to see all the new and spectacular ways they manage to keep fucking up such a beautiful product. 

Anyway, before going off on that tangent I was going to make the point that I thought Robbie Farah would have made a more worthy recipient of the award, whatever you want to call it. His distribution was outstanding, he was a tackling warhorse, his kicking game added a spark to the NSW attack and he was able to effectively mute the impact of Mitchell Pearce’s continued impotence. As good as that Blues victory was, the last twenty minutes were very troubling. If we are four points behind with 10 to go in a potential decider, where is the gamebreaker? Maloney showed flashes in his debut but Pearce, the seasoned Origin campaigner, is yet to display any sign that he can be that player.

Farah on the other hand, after a false start a few years ago, now looks built for Origin football. It’s not surprising that his resurgence on the field has coincided with his lofty position at the top of the fantasy leader board. He had a horror year in 2012, ironically the same year as his return to meaningful representative football. Besides the tragic loss of his mum there were some injury concerns and, especially early on in the year, some spotty form as he came to terms with a Tigers team that were no longer the contenders they had been for two seasons previous. His fantasy value took a hit, with some well below average scores sprinkled in amongst his usual high production.

This year the Tigers have become an outright laughing stock. The Adam Blair fiasco may be the most talked about aspect of this club-in-crisis™, but it is by no means the only disaster. The perplexing Braith Anasta signing was bad enough but now comes the news that they are in the market for George Rose and Dene Halatau? I had a lot of sympathy for Mick Potter given the NSW Cup squad he was given the keys to, but it’s hard to defend him if these reports are true.

That Farah has produced such consistently great Supercoach scores (only two games below 70; zero below 50) in the midst of this chaos says a lot about his abilities, as well as his character. He is averaging over 41 tackles, which while impressive is par for the course given the position he plays. However, at an average of 6.7 runs a game he lags behind only fantasy breakout James Segeyaro (8.1), Isaac Luke (7.8) and Cameron Smith (7.1). The man he replaced as NSW hooker, Michael Ennis, averages only 3.9 runs per match. Not surprisingly Ennis is by and large a dud fantasy option (he’s been pretty great lately though- averaging 64 in his last five starts).

Farah and Smith are in a class of their own amongst hookers in terms of effectiveness both sides of the ball (Smith also averages over 40 tackles per game), but Smith doesn’t come near Farah in terms of attacking stats this season. Farah has 12 try assists to Smith’s 5, and also outpoints him in tackles breaks (15-12); forced dropouts (12-7); offloads (13-12); linebreaks (4-2); and linebreak assists (a massacre at 15-6).

Of course, to work out why Farah’s attacking stats are so far ahead of Smith’s one need only consider the merits of each player’s respective team. And then have a look at the form of Farah’s old mate Benji. Admittedly the besieged 5/8 has four tries to Farah’s zero, but he has a paltry 3 try assists for the year. Three. To put that into context, that’s one less than Reni Maitua. That Marshall’s career nadir has come when Farah has stepped his game up to another level is a tragedy for Tigers fans, although as discussed their problems run much deeper than Benji’s poor form.

It’s a long established fact that the Tigers are not a good team when Farah has to do too much, and indeed he is a far more effective player when his role is to support an attack rather than carry it, but fantasy squads are reaping the benefits. As an owner of Farah in one of my leagues (and as a Dragons supporter who enjoys watching the Tigers lose) it would be great to see this continue. However, as a footy fan with the upmost regard for Farah as a player and a man, I would much rather see his fantasy scores take a hit.

Postscript: I wrote this before learning of the first half injury he played through, leaving him in doubt for game two. My admiration of his toughness and leadership has only grown.