His Origin performance had zero impact not once trying to impose himself or let it be known he has arrived.
Playing in a comfortable way that will always show great post contact metres while playing along the right corridor will make the average fan happy is not going to progress his game to the next level that makes him useful in Origin also.
The problem is he can play in a technically flawed way and still generate great numbers that can be shoved in the critics faces to "shut them up" but come the big games like Origin or when Manly are down in the dumps he will go missing and not be all that productive.
Beautifully light footed, soft hands, agile and can hit defensively with the best of them but also and to be expected being a big body does fatigue fast and you can see him hide himself catching a breath more than he should when the pace is up.
Cronulla exposed this big time and targeted our sluggish tired forwards on the inside who can't keep up, Jake and Oka were also targeted after turning back in from the open side of play.(The big writing on the wall that showed where Manly were really at was the early stages of the Titans game at home, it's just that the Titans fatigued fast and couldn't maintain the speed of play that saved us)
Sure the Dogs game was a massive effort but he had absolutely nothing in the tank and running on fumes for a large period. On his haunches feeling thankful he survived after the game sure is great to see leaving nothing in the tank but to me he is only a 60min player, he needs to improve his fitness an extra 10% in my eyes.
I wouldn't even start him for the first 20mins so we get explosive high energy levels out of him at the back end of the half with a good rest at half time and the first 20mins of the second half hopefully generating a points buffer before he starts to fatigue away in the last 20.(obviously with the makeup of our squad and interchange hard to do until there is a squad overhaul in the forwards)
Enough "dribble" as i could go on for ages on a boring technical tosser crusade, will save the DCE rushing out of the line theories for another time because i feel there is more than meets the eye both very negative and a somewhat unselfish reasons behind it.