Jon Clarke may not be the perfect rugby player but he is very good. Good vision, fantastic kicking game in open play, and a great link up player. I've said for years he would be an excellent loose forward.

Also defensively very strong.

As far as your comment about the three man tackles I won't even bother explaining how this benefits by slowing the play the ball down as I seriously doubt you'd understand it.

Wrong. I responded to somebody else who used them when referring to Clarke as being excellent.

Two months ago it was "Clarke won't get near the 17 when fit" yet within 3 weeks of being fit he's in the starting 13.

How does that work?



ps you can't beat a bit of Clarkey debate to get people talking rugby instead of tickets, seats, coaches, face-paints, etc

Ha, jesus lads one at a time here .... I'm guessing we'll easily topple the 100 mark here.

Anyway, yes it benefits slowing the play the ball down but doesn't mean he's individually a good defender. Which is what I'm indicating here lets not forget.

No they didn't. They didn't mention the tries. You did. Read back.

To be fair, I should have known better than to open up this can of worms.

Wouldn't try and deny it.

Have you watched Jon Clarke in the last few weeks other than to count his missed tackles?

lovely overhand right there from TANCW...

Give you that. Replying too much here obviously.

Originally though, someone referring to him as excellent was a little elaborate, in my opinion.

Yeah, and he doesn't do any of the above.

16 runs from dummy half in 4 matches (not got stats for cup), in reality it's probably no more than 240 minutes (if that)

Mickey Higham has 104 RDH from 19 appearances.

14 marker tackles (MH has 85).

There is no stat for wayward pass.

I hate myself for doing this, as stats can be broke down in so many ways, but here goes.

Jon Clarke averaging 1.4 missed tackles a game and Vinny Anderson averaging 1.35.

Not a great deal of difference.

Yeah that pass Jon gave to Briers on his toe last week was a cracker.

Oh and check out meters made, carries and tackles.

Just like old times this.

Not sure where Vinnie comes into this to be fair.

I just knew you were going to mention that pass. (NB we did score from that move).

I have looked at meters and carries - no major discrepancy per game when you think how much rugby Clarke has missed and there are certainly not core aspects of a dummy half's game.

I want my dummy half to get the forwards moving forward and to be tight around marker. I think Clarke does that well, you only see his errors so we're never going to agree. Dummy half runs are good at times. Other players do the hard yards.

I don't only see his errors, and I've even agreed with people over certain aspects of his game, inc yourself tancw. I'm just saying I believe he is the third choice hooker in our squad.

He has played just shy of a quarter of the amount of games to that of Higham but check this ....

Meters 162 - 879 in favour of Higham
Carries 25 - 143 in favour of Higham
Tackles 61 - 411 in favour of Higham
Marker tackles 14 - 85 in favour of Higham.

When compared to Monas it's even worse.

Easy maths really.

But you're not comparing like with like. Clarke was out of action for over a year. And Clarke's game is controlling the ruck, not dummy half running. Just watch him tonight if he plays dummy half. His passing is excellent and the forwards get such good quality ball. He'll be there or thereabouts in every tackle, watching for offloads, taking the player down to slow their PTBs down.

i'd like to help out on this, but i'll be watching out for ryan atkins throwing passes into touch to de-bunk some foo' on the VT

Just refer said fool to try assist stat for centres.

don't worry... im sure saddened will be on soon enough.

Aparently he throws twice as many into touch, this is a warrington fan as well who's saying this.

also Gleeson is the best centre... the reason he doesn't have anywhere near the amount of assists is that wigan miss him out alot with long looping passes to the wings.... apparently.

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in one of your earlier posts you said you'd choose Vinny over Clarke. Merely pointing out they are similar in missed tackles but you don't even mention Vinnys.

Of course not. Clarke is the only player who misses tackles. Mathers is the only player who drops bombs. Westwood is the only player who gives away penalties. Harrison is the only player who offloads at the wrong time. etc etc etc...