Clive Churchill should have gone to Stephen Crichton

[davohan123]

Personally, I think Isaah Yeo or Matt Burton should have won.

Unfortunately, the Churchill in recent years has basically been given more to the star player rather than the player who was actually best on ground.

I know he kicked extremely well last night, but for all intents and purposes that is all Nathan Cleary did ... kicked. He had zero line breaks, zero line break assists, zero try assists, and to boot he had 9 missed tackles, including one where Cody Walker just palmed him off like he was nothing before running 25 metres to score.

For mine, last night was way too much like 2015 when Thurston won. It was that "feel good" moment with dad winning as coach and son winning as CCM winner and co-captain. But neither Thurston nor Nathan Cleary deserved to win the medal.

You can add Api to that list.

He was strong last night and deserved to be in the mix.

 

[HoldenV8]

You can add Api to that list.

He was strong last night and deserved to be in the mix.

He also started throwing some horrible passes towards the end. It was like his early days with us, though I suspect that was mostly fatigue last night.

I just get the feeling that provided Penrith won, and that he got through the game OK ... they already had Cleary winning the medal before the game had even started. If Souths had won it would have been between Reynolds and Walker, with probably Reynolds winning in his last game for the club.

 

[HoldenV8]

For mine, in the last 10 Clive Churchill Medal winners, only 4 - DCE (2013), Sam Burgess (2014), Luke Keary (2019) and Ryan Papenhuyzen (2020) actually won the medal on merit. The rest were essentially given as a sweetheart "feel good" moment, on reputation, or both.

 

[The better Robbo]

Personally, I think Isaah Yeo or Matt Burton should have won.

Unfortunately, the Churchill in recent years has basically been given more to the star player rather than the player who was actually best on ground.

I know he kicked extremely well last night, but for all intents and purposes that is all Nathan Cleary did ... kicked. He had zero line breaks, zero line break assists, zero try assists, and to boot he had 9 missed tackles, including one where Cody Walker just palmed him off like he was nothing before running 25 metres to score.

For mine, last night was way too much like 2015 when Thurston won. It was that "feel good" moment with dad winning as coach and son winning as CCM winner and co-captain. But neither Thurston nor Nathan Cleary deserved to win the medal.

And as I mentioned earlier he only had 2 kicks inside his own 40m all game. He landed the kicks nicely but 4 of the repeat sets came from bunnies errors. Definitely an over exaggerated performance.

 

[HoldenV8]

Don't get me wrong about Cleary last night, his kicking game was absolutely spot on. But as @The better Robbo said, he had room to do his kicks because of the work of his forwards. But the fact that the rest of his game was very weak ... he didn't create anything through running or passing, his defence was very poor (17 tackles, 9 missed tackles), and he got lucky with 4 of his forced drop outs coming from Souths errors, sorry but there were definitely better players out there, from either side.

 

[The Indian]

Give me a halfback like Cleary or Cronk who plays the percentages, builds pressure, works to a plan, ends the sets well and takes on the line when needed..... give me that halfback anyway over the flash in the pan guy who rolls the dice and hits double 6 followed by Snake Eyes.

Cleary is a gun, plain and simple.

 

[Shells Eagles]

Cleary could have gone off in the first 5 minutes with an injury and not returned and won it.
It is usually won by the media's darling.

Agree totally. Probably would have won even if Penrith were not in GF 😂