For & Against: Tom Trbojevic will be Manly's best ever fullback

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Get back to me after he has won 4 premierships and scored 2000 points for the club.
Quite frankly, I'd be happy to see him make 150 FG games at this stage.

Oh, and I should add, 150 within the next couple of years and not strung out over a decade
 
Here you go @The Wheel , This is for you feathered friend .


Tom Trbojevic's stocks are rising by the week as he leads Manly back into finals contention but where does he rank alongside the club's best-ever fullbacks?

The Sea Eagles have been blessed with a host of fine custodians dating back to Bob Batty in the 60s and early 70s, Hall of Famer Graham "Wombat" Eadie, Kiwi point-scoring machine Matthew Ridge and the Prince of Brookvale, Brett Stewart.

On current form Tom Turbo may zoom past them all but there's plenty of water to pass under the Narrabeen Bridge before that comes to pass.

Each of Manly's eight premiership sides have been driven from the back by a gun No.1 and Trbojevic will be looking to one day join that exclusive group.

Tom Trbojevic will be Manly's best-ever fullback​

For - Paul Suttor (NRL.com editor in chief)​

There are only two things preventing Tom Trbojevic from becoming Manly’s No.1 player to have worn the No.1 jersey and they’re the muscles at the upper rear of his legs that defenders are getting used to see run off into the distance.

The Sea Eagles have a proud history of superb fullbacks from Kangaroos star Graham Eadie in the 1970s, goal-kicking Kiwi Matthew Ridge in the ‘90s and prolific try-scorer Brett Stewart during their last golden era of a decade ago.

trbojevic_20210510.jpg



Trbojevic has the talent to trump them all, as long as he can stay on the field.

His purple patch in maroon over the past month since returning from his most recent hammy holiday has produced numbers that are off the charts.

No less than 13 try involvements (five tries plus eight assists) is Trbojevic's greatest four-game stretch of his career which hit the 100-game milestone in Sunday’s comeback win over the Warriors.


Trbojevic made his Telstra Premiership debut six years ago and it seems like he’s been a part of the furniture out Brookvale way for longer but he’s still only 24.

With modern sport science hopefully rectifying his muscular maladies, he’s potentially got another decade of tearing opposition defences apart and giving lazy headline writers the ongoing gift of Turbo-powered puns.

Despite an armada of top-quality fullbacks in the game, the calibre of Latrell Mitchell, Ryan Papenhuyzen, Kalyn Ponga, Valentine Holmes, Clint Gutherson and AJ Brimson, if James Tedesco was unavailable for Kangaroos duty, Trbojevic should be the next custodian off the rank for the green and gold No.1 jersey.

He’s better at making teammates better than arguably any player in the competition, including this white-hot crop of ball-players bursting in from the backfield.

With 53 tries from his first century of appearances in Manly maroon, he is still a long way from chasing down Stewart’s tally of 163.


Stewart enjoyed premiership success in 2008 and 2011, Ridge did likewise in 1996 and Eadie, an NRL Hall of Famer, spearheaded four Manly title wins in the ‘70s.

Trbojevic is yet to go close to grand final glory but has shown at Origin and Test level that he truly belongs in elite company. He’s a big-game player that would propel his team to great heights if Manly can make their way back into the playoffs.

The way he’s playing lately, they could easily keep rising up the ladder to snare a finals berth.

When he was absent and Manly started the season 1-4, coach Des Hasler was mindful of not putting too much pressure on Trbojevic to be the Sea Eagles’ saviour.

Even when his own position was being questioned despite inking a contract extension.

We heard the Hasler spiel multiple times over a few weeks that Trbojevic was not going to be the saviour, the Sea Eagles couldn’t just rely on him to turn their season around on his own and his return would not guarantee wins.

They’ve won three of the four games he’s played since.

He has been their saviour, the Sea Eagles could indeed just rely on him to turn their season around on his own and his return has all but guaranteed wins.

Trbojevic has done everything for the side apart from drive the team bus and given Manly a realistic chance of a finals run that seemed fanciful just a month ago.

If his hamstrings can allow him to keep performing such feats over the next decade, he will surely go down as the greatest fullback in club history.

Against - Martin Lenehan (NRL.com senior reporter)​

If Tom Turbo continues in his current vein of form he may well zoom past 'Wombat' and the "Prince of Brookvale" to take the mantle as Manly's best-ever fullback but there's plenty of water to pass under the Narrabeen Bridge before that happens.

At 24, Trbojevic is at the peak of his powers, and 100 games into a career that has the potential to be absolutely anything.

Should his body hold together, the gifted No.1 will rack up around 250 NRL games and a truckload of Origins and give strong chase to Brett Stewart's club record of 163 tries.

Those 163 tries came in 233 games, an extraordinary strike rate for a man whose dazzling acceleration and uncanny anticipation made him a hero to the Manly faithful across a 14-year career.

Affectionately dubbed "The Prince of Brookvale", Stewart was a central figure in Manly's golden decade from 2005-14, in which time they played in four grand finals, won two premierships and never missed the finals.

Ten years in a row in the finals. Just take a moment to soak that in and appreciate what a stunning achievement it was under the coaching of Des Hasler (2004-11) and Geoff Toovey (2012-15).

Stewart's freakish ability to sniff out a try one minute and snuff one out the next with a clasic cover tackle or bomb defusal elevated him to legend status at Manly.

And when it came to defusing bombs, there weren't too many better than Graham "Wombat" Eadie, who patrolled the back for Manly from 1971-83 and savoured four premierships along the journey.

The powerfully built Eadie was just 18 when he helped the club to their maiden premiership as part of a star-studded backline featuring Ken Irvine, Ray Branighan, Dennis Ward and future Immortal Bob Fulton.

Eadie's ability to inject himself into the backline at precisely the right moment made him a constant threat and he almost single handedly tore Cronulla apart in a man of the match display in the 1978 grand final replay.

"Wombat" played in 22 finals matches for Manly, the same number of times he pulled on the green and gold in a Test match.

Manly's other two premiership-winning fullbacks are Dale Shearer in 1987 and Matthew Ridge in 1996 ... pretty fair players in their own right as well.


It's a red-hot field Tom Trbojevic must run down if he's to one day be regarded as Manly's best-ever No.1 and right now my vote goes to the "Princ"' in a photo finish from "Wombat".

At the moment Eadie is our best ever Fullback. Snake was fabulous but Eadie could do it all. Not as fast or as flashy as Tom or Snake but just had a fabulous all round game. Snake is a close second and Turbo third... until he plays another 100 games and then I would gather he will be our greatest Fullback and player if that happens.
 
He has the potential but does not have the runs on the board yet.

When I cast my mind back to the Souths vs Manly Semi-Final in 2013, I reminded of why Snake is ahead of Turbo at this stage (I cannot comment on Eadie because I never saw him play); we were down 14 nil and Snake called a grubber from his brother and we scored against the run of play. The rest is history. In other words, when Tom changes the course of big matches (semi-finals and GFs) can be considered better than Snake. Yes, he has not really had the opportunity to do so yet, given how little we have played finals football, but that's what he'll need to do to rise to the top of the pile.

The glory days of 2006-2015 was a Manly team choc full of winners who could do extraordinary things in the heat of battle to turn a game our way; Snake (along with Killer) was the most lethal of them all. Huge shoes to fill!
 
For: Turbo could be the best player to wear the maroon and white and there have been some great ones.

What Tom has done to this team has been amazing, one player has turned the whole season around from wooden spoon contenders to a semi finals looking team.

Best player in the competition if you measure off the last four games by a margin.

Based on current form Turbo would be the NSW fullback only the custodian being a great player is stopping that.
 
He’s more talented than wombat and snake, but needs to match their records of tries and premierships before he outstrips them
Exactly

Lots of the current players are more talented than past players ( some of whom remember weren’t even professional) BUT records are what are remembered not how flashy a player was.
 
I think this can only really be a discussion between snake and tom..
Closer together so easier to compare professional athletes/footballers against other professional athlete/footballers, the game has changed with all this 6 again crap, but it's essentially the same game snake played ..

It's a 100% different game to what ridge was playing, and 10000000000% different again to when Eadie was playing.. can't really compare them..

I never saw Eadie play, but snake was the best fullback I've ever seen for my money .. ridge was great also, but I don't recall him ever tearing teams apart on the regular like snake did.. plus his defence (plus organising the backline defense structure) was second to none..
And towards the end of his career, when his knees slowed him down a step, his footy brain kicked it up a notch and his playmaking ability really shone through...

Toms got A LONG way to go to catch snake, but if he stays healthy for the next 6 years or so and keeps playing like he is, I think he has a good chance to surpass him.

Edit.... Tom needs ATLEAST 2 premierships to even be in the discussion.. I'm not bothering to factor origin or anything as snake missed much of that due to injuries, and when he did play, it was against an unbeatable Qld dynasty, tom won't ever play origin against a team the calibre of one containing Smith,Cronk,Thurston,Inglis,Slater etc etc so can't even compare
 
I love Tom and am stoked that he wears our colours....

however, I do think that the new shiny thing is gernerally seen as the best because memories fade....

snake was an absolute gun over a very long period of time.... his ability to marshal defenders and inject himself into the backline in attach were second-to-none (except Anthony Minichello and Kurt Gidley apparently - seriously wtf?)...

plus there is those 2 premierships - altho I personally don't use that as a guide because there was plenty of gun players in those 2008 and 2011 sides...

it is a VERY tall ask for Tom to reach the same heights (no impossible, but tall)...

Just as an example with trys...
Snake scored 163 tries in 233 games for Manly @ 70% (effectively)
Tom has 53 tries in 100 games (53%)
Tom therefore needs to play another 133 games (maybe) and score a try in 82.7% of those.... or he could play another 50 games and score 2.2 trys per game (might be possible on his current form)...

for mine Snake is still a stand-out
 
If he ends up better than either Snake or Wombat then happy days for us. Both of those players were best in position during their relevant eras

I posted an interesting stat in the Turbo injury thread the other day which shows how crucial Tommy currently is to this side. The full article is below

Trbojevic factor bigger than Johns and JT

From that you might surmise that Tommy is more crucial to the current side than either Snake or Wombat were to their teams. But to be considered our best ever Turbo will have to win at least one premiership and keep us at the pointy end for a decent amount of time. That hasn't happened yet, however plenty of time left in his career if he stays fit.
 
Greatest ever? Don't want to be negative but you have to also include in a season the games where he made 0 metres, scored 0 points and made 0 tackles.
 
Greatest ever? Don't want to be negative but you have to also include in a season the games where he made 0 metres, scored 0 points and made 0 tackles.
Snake had a few of those himself - as we all remember well. Similar issues, out a lot for injury and massive impact on win/loss with him in or not in the team. Our current team does not have a Jamie Lyon equivalent, one reason that Tom might be seen as having move impact when he is there or not.

I would go as far as to say that had Snake not been injured quite as much as he was, there would be no contest. That 70% try strike rate woudl probably have been over 80% and with more games played, easily more than 200 tries scored. Try strike rate is not the only measure of effectiveness, but for Snake it was a standout stat.
 
i think he's the best "footballer" to wear the number 1 for Manly, and i have no doubt if injury free will be spoke of as one of the games greatest ever fullbacks.
 
Wow you people who never saw Eadie play really have missed out on something very very special. You can check the You Tube highlights ety but those highlights are one millionth of all the great things Wombat did. Younger people might dismiss what he did - older people might forget and be enamored with the new players and yes Snake was magic - Turbo is something else. Snake is close but he is behind Eadie and always will be obviously - Turbo as I said in another 100 games will probably be better ifff he gets there. But yes gee Graham Eadie is certainly on top of the pile at the moment. I haven't forgotten what he did - there were many many games where Eadie virtually single handed won us games... single handed in a team of Internationals. That is something pretty special and rare. Maybe we don't recogniise Wombat as much because he was playing in a team of out and out superstars week in week out whereas Tom shines out playing with a good but not great team. Maybe I undervalue Snake a bit for the same reason because he was also playing in a damn good side but Wombat played in a decade plus when Manly had 15 or 16 Internationals in the side and yet he was still the very best player on the park or close to it week in and week out. That says something about just how good he was..
 
Oh me too.

Don't get me wrong that was mainly me fishing for comments.

Tom is of course a wonderful wonderful player. Maybe our next Fulton.

I was just looking up Eadie's records and noticed he rarely missed a game. In fact his worst years were, '81 he played 14 games and '82 played 15.. Starting in 71 and finishing for us in 83 (he scored 226 points that final year and played all 27 games).

I remember back in the day fearing the games Eadie was out, i will check it out and post the results.
Tommy has to take Shearer first. Then set his sights on Ridge. After that and a big after that it’s Snake. If he can get close to Wombat then hallelujah.
 

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