Dave Middleton's Rugby League Annual

[bones]

Segeyaro in for Smith

 

[manlyfan76]

Shayme Haynes drop in form has seem him drop off the list after being one of the roosters best in their premiership year.

 

[Bandit]

^^^ Roosters gonna struggle next year, without Hayne.

 

[HoldenV8]

Ok I will admit I am the most biased person here, but Jamie gets Dally M centre of the year and can't make this team??

Dylan Walker had a good season, but the 4 nations showed me he is still well below international standard. And whilst I like Michael Jennings.....he can't pass!!! Imagine being a winger outside of him? You may as well have a picnic, you'll never get passed the ball! Jamie is seriously the pick of modern days centres.

Exactly. The Rorters winger (and on that side its Tupou) gets most of his tries from kicks, not by having Jenning's make the last pass. 99/100 Jennings will go for the try himself.

Dally M Centre of the Year (again) and can't make this team. With the exception of Matt Scott, did they pick this team just from those who made a Four Nations squad?

 

[bones]

The 2015 Annual is available now for those who like to collect these. @bob dylan

 

[bob dylan]

The 2015 Annual is available now for those who like to collect these. @bob dylan

Thanks @bones Will pick mine up tomorrow.

 

[Jerry1]

It's out today ($18.95). Interestingly, Jamie Lyon did not make their team of the year. The centres are Greg Inglis and Josh Morris.

That's it then - defo his last season...

 

[Rex]

RE: 2012 Rugby League Annual

I tweeted Middleton with "How did Inglis make your team of the year at centre? He only played there twice for Souths + 4 Rep games. Just 6 games all year".

He replied with "Good enough for QLD and Australian selectors to name him in their 'teams of the year' so good enough for me."




I just remembered Inglis played fullback in Origin 3 as Slater was out injured. So he played centre in just 5 games.

Middleton is a statistician. A very good one, an excellent one. But nothing more than a mindless number cruncher, blessed with a fantastic memory for details. There are technicians and there are professionals. The difference is that technicians rigidly follow rules. They need certainty of assumptions and can't operate in situations of ambiguity. Professionals are willing to back their good judgement and thrive in situations of ambiguity. Middleton is the former.

By his own admission in his responses to Bones above, he is apparently incapable of independent, critical thought and by default seeks to follow rules set by others. His ridiculously inflexible treatment of Menzies as two club player, for the purposes of his statistics shows his inability to see the forest for the trees. He is a slave to rules, not a user of them. He has no business selecting teams of the year, a task requiring judgement.

Wouldn't even pick up his books except to gather statistics.

 

[Killer03]

One interesting stat in the annual is the most successful halves in recent years and no 3 was Ox/Killer. I think that combination was terribly underrated. Sure they had a great team around them, but they were a very good halves combo.

 

[HoldenV8]

Sorry to bump this a bit but......

I was going through some old books of mine and happened across Middleton's 1996 and 1997 annuals (which covered the 1995 and 1996 seasons). In those there is an archive of each Team of the Year to that point. So, here they are (Manly players in italics).

1987
Gary Belcher (Raiders), Dale Shearer (Sea Eagles), Peter Jackson (Raiders), Michael O'Connor (Sea Eagles), Steve Morris (Roosters), Cliff Lyons (Sea Eagles), Peter Sterling (Eels), Ian Roberts (Rabbitohs), Royce Simmons (Panthers), Peter Tunks (Bulldogs), Les Davidson (Rabbitohs), Hugh McGahan (Roosters), Wayne Pearce (Tigers).

1988
Garry Jack (Tigers), John Ferguson (Raiders), Peter Jackson (Raiders), Michael O'Connor (Sea Eagles), Andrew Ettingshausen (Sharks), Wally Lewis (Broncos), Allan Langer (Broncos), Paul Dunn (Bulldogs), Ben Elias (Tigers), Sam Backo (Raiders), Paul Sironen (Tigers), Gavin Miller (Sharks), Wayne Pearce (Tigers).

1989
Gary Belcher (Raiders), Michael Hancock (Broncos), Tony Currie (Broncos), Mal Meninga (Raiders), John Ferguson (Raiders), Phil Blake (Rabbitohs), Ricky Stuart (Raiders), Steve Roach (Tigers), Kerrod Walters (Broncos), Glenn Lazarus (Raiders), Paul Sironen (Tigers), Gavin Miller (Sharks), Bradley Clyde (Raiders).

1990
Gary Belcher (Raiders), Michael Hancock (Broncos), Mal Meninga (Raiders), Andrew Ettingshausen (Sharks), John Ferguson (Raiders), Cliff Lyons (Sea Eagles), Peter Sterling (Eels), Steve Roach (Tigers), Ben Elias (Tigers), Glenn Lazarus (Raiders), Paul Sironen (Tigers), John Cartwright (Panthers), Bob Lindner (Magpies).

1991
Michael Potter (Dragons), Rod Wishart (Steelers), Mal Meninga (Raiders), Andrew Ettingshausen (Sharks), Willie Carne (Broncos), Peter Jackson (Bears), Allan Langer (Broncos), Craig Salvatori (Roosters), Steve Waters (Raiders), Martin Bella (Sea Eagles), David Gillespie (Magpies), Mark Geyer (Panthers), Bradley Clyde (Raiders).

1992
Michael Potter (Dragons), Willie Carne (Broncos), Steve Renouf (Broncos), Paul McGregor (Steelers), Michael Hancock (Broncos), Brad Fittler (Panthers), Allan Langer (Broncos), Glenn Lazarus (Broncos), Steve Walters (Raiders), Mark Sargent (Knights), John Cartwright (Panthers), Trevor Gillmeister (Broncos), Bradley Clyde (Raiders).

1993
Michael Potter (Dragons), Willie Carne (Broncos), Mark Coyne (Dragons), Brad Fittler (Panthers), Noa Nadruku (Raiders), Kevin Walters (Broncos), Ricky Stuart (Raiders), Ian Roberts (Sea Eagles), Steve Walters (Raiders), Glenn Lazarus (Broncos), Bob Lindner (Steelers), Paul Sironen (Tigers), Brad Mackay (Dragons).

1994
Brett Mullins (Raiders), Rod Wishart (Steelers), Steve Renouf (Broncos), Ruben Wiki (Raiders), Sean Hoppe (Bears), Greg Florimo (Bears), Ricky Stuart (Raiders), John Lomax (Raiders), Steve Walters (Raiders), Ian Roberts (Sea Eagles), Dean Pay (Bulldogs), Bradley Clyde (Raiders), Brad Fittler (Panthers).

1995
Tim Brasher (Tigers), Rod Wishart (Steelers), Steve Renouf (Broncos), Terry Hill (Sea Eagles), Sean Hoppe (Warriors), Laurie Daley (Raiders), Andrew Johns (Knights), David Gillespie (Sea Eagles), Steve Walters (Raiders), Mark Carroll (Sea Eagles), Gary Larson (Bears), Steve Menzies (Sea Eagles), Brad Fittler (Panthers).

1996
Tim Brasher (Tigers), Rod Wishart (Steelers), Craig Innes (Sea Eagles), Andrew Ettingshausen (Sharks), Brett Dallas (Bears), Laurie Daley (Raiders), Geoff Toovey (Sea Eagles), Mark Carroll (Sea Eagles), Jim Serdaris (Sea Eagles), Glenn Lazarus (Broncos), Daniel Gartner (Sea Eagles), David Fairleigh (Bears), Brad Fittler (Roosters).

Book ended nicely by Manly premierships 😀

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Middleton is a statistician. A very good one, an excellent one. But nothing more than a mindless number cruncher, blessed with a fantastic memory for details. There are technicians and there are professionals. The difference is that technicians rigidly follow rules. They need certainty of assumptions and can't operate in situations of ambiguity. Professionals are willing to back their good judgement and thrive in situations of ambiguity. Middleton is the former.

By his own admission in his responses to Bones above, he is apparently incapable of independent, critical thought and by default seeks to follow rules set by others. His ridiculously inflexible treatment of Menzies as two club player, for the purposes of his statistics shows his inability to see the forest for the trees. He is a slave to rules, not a user of them. He has no business selecting teams of the year, a task requiring judgement.

Wouldn't even pick up his books except to gather statistics.

I tend to agree, however Middleton has a point.

If you included all Menzies' NE appearances, then logically (mine anyway!) you have to include the NE towellings to M-W's. And you would have to include St George's 15 premierships to SG-I's one premiership; Wests' four and Balmain's 11 premierships to WT's one title, etc.

You could take that even further, with the records indicating that the NE were the proud holders of eight premierships (6 Manly, 2 Norths). And that organisation lasted officially for just three seasons.

And we wouldn't want any of that.🙂

 

[Rex]

I tend to agree, however Middleton has a point.

If you included all Menzies' NE appearances, then logically (mine anyway!) you have to include the NE towellings to M-W's. And you would have to include St George's 15 premierships to SG-I's one premiership; Wests' four and Balmain's 11 premierships to WT's one title, etc.

You could take that even further, with the records indicating that the NE were the proud holders of eight premierships (6 Manly, 2 Norths). And that organisation lasted officially for just three seasons.

And we wouldn't want any of that.🙂

Identity is a funny thing.
Companies repeatedly do exactly what you are ridiculing. They buy some tiny, unprofitable business started in 1912, purely because it was formed in 1912, so they can then claim they've been serving Australia for over 100 years. If a wine company takes over, or merges with, another wine company who's won awards, do you have any doubt they'll include those awards in their achievements? Do you see that as a distortion?
If I change my name by deed poll, does that mean I am a different person? If a footy club changes its funding ownership structure (which is what happened in the JV and also what happened with say Penn) does that mean it is a different club?

Do the NRL currently treat player achievements differently from club achievements?
Yes. The NRL already treats clubs differently from individuals. eg They stripped the Storm of their premierships, but let the players keep their premiership rings.

Why is Menzies a one-club player?
Manly retained the licence during the term of the Northern Eagles. So on that basis alone, Menzies always played for Manly. Plus, in reality Menzies never, ever switched clubs. To suggest he did is a distortion, and is not seeing the forest for the trees.

Is the NE part of Manly's history?
The NE period was an ugly period in Manly's history, forced on us by Murdoch's greed. We got $8m to move to Gosford and merge and we needed that bribe to survive - which we did. I am sure that both Norths and Manly saw this as a simple exploitation of a financial inducement to help survival, not as a genuine merger. As much as we may want to disown this period, it is part of our rebuilding from the scourge of SuperLeague - so it is part of our history.

Overall
The issues of how to treat club records, and how to treat individual player records, are two very separate issues. They need to be treated with common sense, and with intelligence, not distorted by meaningless rigid mental rules.

 

[bones]

I tend to agree, however Middleton has a point.

If you included all Menzies' NE appearances, then logically (mine anyway!) you have to include the NE towellings to M-W's. And you would have to include St George's 15 premierships to SG-I's one premiership; Wests' four and Balmain's 11 premierships to WT's one title, etc.

You could take that even further, with the records indicating that the NE were the proud holders of eight premierships (6 Manly, 2 Norths). And that organisation lasted officially for just three seasons.

And we wouldn't want any of that.🙂

Counting Menzies' tries as being all for the one club situation is completely different to St George Illawarra's and Wests Tigers premiership tallies.
Wests and Balmain were both competing for the premiership for many years. Just like Illawarra and St George were both playing in the premiership as seperate entities from 1982 to 1998. This was effectively giving them two chances of adding a premiership to the joint venture clubs tally. Did Balmain ever play against Wests in a grand final?
It's right that the Tigers and Dragons have only one premiership each.
Steve Menzies only ever played for one club each season. He wasn't doubling his tally by scoring tries for Manly as well as Norths. Steve Menzies never played against Manly. St George played against Illawarra and Balmain played against Wests.

 

[HoldenV8]

For the record, Western Suburbs played Balmain in the 1948 Grand Final played in front of 29,122 at the old Sydney Sports Ground.

Wests won 8-5.

 

[Hamster Huey]

I tend to agree, however Middleton has a point.

If you included all Menzies' NE appearances, then logically (mine anyway!) you have to include the NE towellings to M-W's. And you would have to include St George's 15 premierships to SG-I's one premiership; Wests' four and Balmain's 11 premierships to WT's one title, etc.

You could take that even further, with the records indicating that the NE were the proud holders of eight premierships (6 Manly, 2 Norths). And that organisation lasted officially for just three seasons.

And we wouldn't want any of that.🙂

I think the club records stand as seperate, but player records seperated to allow those that featured in both the stand-alone entity, followed by the JV (and vis-versa) are recognised as one-club players.

 

[Go manly]

RE: 2012 Rugby League Annual




His response: "Yet you have no issue with me selecting Bret Tate on the wing - 23 games at centre for NQ and 3 games on the wing for QLD"


I tweeted back: " only because I wasn't aware of it. Now I do (have an issue with it). Another ridiculous decision"

Made my day
Fucn Classic and called him out for the tool he is
Champion bones
Go manly

 

[bob dylan]

Middletons a nut case.