The team was great tonight, at least for the last 65 minutes. And Reubs easily had his best game in a Manly jumper.....
But I want to give a shout out to probably our most improved player this year and that's Lachlan Croker. Look, he's not a hooker. He's basically been thrown into the dummy half role because with Manase's legal troubles, we simply needed someone there and Des seems to like his game more than he does Cust's.
Yes, at times last year and early this year he was almost hopeless. A definite fish out of water and we all seemed to lament (especially in the first month of this year) that Des wasn't playing Cust more (for a moment or two, the more desperate of us, including myself, even wished we'd kept Danny Levi.....we beg forgiveness lol). But, gradually this year Croker is starting to make the position his own (at least, until or if Fainu comes back). His defense in the middle has definitely been the strongest part of his game, making an average of around 45 tackles every week with very little in the missed tackle column. But his dummy half play is also on a curve upwards. His delivery is getting better and he's getting more confidence in when to run and where to pass to. And tonight we also saw him finally bringing out his kicking game as a solid third option with DCE and Foz.
Don't get me wrong, when and if Fainu comes back then Croker will be back to being the backup dummy half. And he's not exactly about to challenge Cook or Api for the NSW hooking job. But the job he is doing for Manly in the #9 jumper is definitely improving week by week and he's definitely a very solid part of why we've won 7 from our last 9 games.
