Salford captain Malcolm Alker will be aiming to finish the season by topping the league's tackling charts for the fourth time.

The long-serving hooker leads the way with 948 tackles, with team-mate Luke Adamson second on 894 and Bradford loose forward Jamie Langley third on 854.

Eight years ago Alker became the first player in Super League to top 1,000 tackles in a season.

Machine.

I don't want to take anything away from Alker but his team spend a lot more time defending than most.

odd thing is I'am always quite pleased if we don't have a TOP tackler as such it means the work load is being shared?

Well there is THAT point yes.

Made me smile on BootsnAll when Alker said that he didn't do it on purpose. he said he reckoned that opposition coaches must see him as a weak link because they always keep running their big men at him.

Usually the case, or a key attacking player teams want to wear down. Hence Westerman and Sinfield often being their teams top tacklers, along with them being the forward most likely to be playing the whole game.

A key reson why Jonny Wilkinson wore out so badly too I guess.

From a coaches point of view i dont think its anything to be proud of. Its clear Salford rely on Alker way too much. The work should be shared and the rest of the pack should be putting there hands up and leading in a bit more. Its definately a chart you dont want to see a Leeds player topping. But it has to be said he is a hard little Boshtard!!

If teams attack Salford down the middle and around the ruck then it's the players who defend there, rather than say the second rows who might defend a little wider, who will end up doing most of the tackles.

Given how many tackles he makes, then he must be spending a fair chunk of time at marker, how many of those tackles have been chases from marker I wonder as opposed to being in the defensive line?

Clearly they do, as his team-mates are miles behind him in the tackling stats!

121 out if his 948 tackles were marker tackles.

Amazing effort and even more so now he is being spelled in games with Robbie Paul filling in at dummy half.

Funny you never hear calls for Alker to be man of steel. Strange that.

He was nominated with dunneman when harrison took them to the play-offs the year before he was sacked!

That would be 2006(?) when Wellens won it from Gareth Ellis and Danny Nutley according to [url=http://www.rleague.com/db/article.php?id=26790this[/url.

Yep that was the top 3 Alker and dunneman didn't make the final cut but were definately in the running.
I remember dave hadfield been on boots"n"all when they did a feature on harrison and how well salford had done.

Love it or hate it, its an impressive individual record.

Absolutely!!

I kind of agree, but JW will have been making 10 tackles per game at at absolute maximum. Kudos to Alker, he's abviously abit of a nutter for defending, not a shirker that's for sure!