Alex Seyfarth #232

[Charred]

Something to think about with the crackdown coming!

Yeah the crackdown on the “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”, where they specifically cited the “increased incidence of shoulder to head contact by defenders”.

So what are Seyfarth’s stats on “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”? I can tell you. It’s 0.
- His first penalty. Wrapping arm to tackle Knights player, ends up slightly high around the neck. Not direct, not forceful, but high and a penalty.
- His second penalty. Lazy arm around neck of Eels player. Again not direct and not forceful.
- His 3rd dangerous tackle penalty. Definitely direct contact onto the head of the player, but forceful? No. The crackdown specifically says “direct forceful contact”, so it wouldn’t have been a bin. You could try argue otherwise, but the NRL specifically mentioned 4 instances which were quite obviously done by Luai, Riki, Gilbert and Mahoney. Dangerous Tackle does not equal Sin Bin.

I will say his minutes per penalty (76) is still quite poor and needs improving ASAP but the same applies to multiple players in our team (TDS, May, Doueihi, Samuela, Luai, Turuva all under 106 mins).

Anyway, hopefully our Sri-Lankan-Slovenian-English-Spanish-Australian player, Alex Seyfarth has a great game for Multicultural Round!

 

[Canadian Club]

Yeah the crackdown on the “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”, where they specifically cited the “increased incidence of shoulder to head contact by defenders”.

So what are Seyfarth’s stats on “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”? I can tell you. It’s 0.
- His first penalty. Wrapping arm to tackle Knights player, ends up slightly high around the neck. Not direct, not forceful, but high and a penalty.
- His second penalty. Lazy arm around neck of Eels player. Again not direct and not forceful.
- His 3rd dangerous tackle penalty. Definitely direct contact onto the head of the player, but forceful? No. The crackdown specifically says “direct forceful contact”, so it wouldn’t have been a bin. You could try argue otherwise, but the NRL specifically mentioned 4 instances which were quite obviously done by Luai, Riki, Gilbert and Mahoney. Dangerous Tackle does not equal Sin Bin.

I will say his minutes per penalty (76) is still quite poor and needs improving ASAP but the same applies to multiple players in our team (TDS, May, Doueihi, Samuela, Luai, Turuva all under 106 mins).

Anyway, hopefully our Sri-Lankan-Slovenian-English-Spanish-Australian player, Alex Seyfarth has a great game for Multicultural Round!

Are we still making excuses for him? He’s a senior player, he needs to be better end of story.

 

[Aceshigh]

Yeah the crackdown on the “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”, where they specifically cited the “increased incidence of shoulder to head contact by defenders”.

So what are Seyfarth’s stats on “direct forceful contact on the head/neck of opponents”? I can tell you. It’s 0.
- His first penalty. Wrapping arm to tackle Knights player, ends up slightly high around the neck. Not direct, not forceful, but high and a penalty.
- His second penalty. Lazy arm around neck of Eels player. Again not direct and not forceful.
- His 3rd dangerous tackle penalty. Definitely direct contact onto the head of the player, but forceful? No. The crackdown specifically says “direct forceful contact”, so it wouldn’t have been a bin. You could try argue otherwise, but the NRL specifically mentioned 4 instances which were quite obviously done by Luai, Riki, Gilbert and Mahoney. Dangerous Tackle does not equal Sin Bin.

I will say his minutes per penalty (76) is still quite poor and needs improving ASAP but the same applies to multiple players in our team (TDS, May, Doueihi, Samuela, Luai, Turuva all under 106 mins).

Anyway, hopefully our Sri-Lankan-Slovenian-English-Spanish-Australian player, Alex Seyfarth has a great game for Multicultural Round!

I thought that was a bs penalty , CNK played for that penalty running straight at Seyfarths shoulder , he had nowhere to go

 

[Charred]

Are we still making excuses for him? He’s a senior player, he needs to be better end of story.

Nice rebuttal!
I don't know exactly what excuses I made so please enlighten me.

Your original post was a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent".
Premise 1: The NRL are cracking down on direct forceful contact to the head/neck, which are recorded in the database as dangerous tackles.
Premise 2: Alex Seyfarth has the most dangerous tackles.
Implied Conclusion: Therefore Alex Seyfarth will be sin-binned a lot.

This is just as valid as saying.
If I steal some of your money you won't be able to buy a Ferrari.
You do not have the money to buy a Ferrari.
Therefore, I stole some of your money.

I provided objective statistics and examples in my post. There are no excuses. I even said his rate of penalties is still concerning. However, if you are going to single out one player for having poor statistics in one area you may as well be consistent and apply your criticism fairly to all players in the team.

I've even made a google sheet recording the games, minutes, penalties, ruck infringements and errors of every player who has played so far this year (does not include trials), as they are generally the best examples of ill-disciple and also the rate of giving the opposition another set.
-Currently Alex is 4th in minutes per penalty at 76 behind Latu (1 game, 33min/pen), TDS (4 games 54.5min/pen) and Sam Fainu (4 games, 66.5min/pen).
-He is 6th in minutes per ruck infringement (RI) at 304 minutes per RI behind TDS (54.5min/RI), May (4 games, 91.3min/RI), Pole (4 games, 113min/RI), Luai (4 games 160min/RI) and Api (3 games, 177min/RI).
- He is 4th in combined minutes per penalty OR ruck infringement at 60.8 behind TDS (27.25 min/P&RI), Latu (33min/P&RI) and May (45.67min/P&RI)
- He is 16th in minutes per error at 304. The only people below him have not made a single error and these guys have played between 127 and 271 minutes less than Seyfarth.
- He is 9th in minutes per negative play at 50.67 behind TDS (21.8), Latu (33), Bula (3 games, 33.7), May (34.25), Pole (37.67), To'a (3 games, 38.67), Luai (45.7), Doueihi (3 games, 48).

Based on the above it makes absolutely no sense why people are continually criticising Seyfarth for his discipline or whatever, but neglecting to apply the same criticism to other players in the team. This is a team sport and Seyfarth is currently far from being a major issue in this side.

I thought that was a bs penalty , CNK played for that penalty running straight at Seyfarths shoulder , he had nowhere to go

I don't like it either when players slipped into an accidental high tackle or similar, but if the refs are being consistent then it was 100% a penalty. We didn't lose that game because of the penalty though. We lost because we were unable to capitalise on our momentum for the 15 minute period before the Warriors scored their 4th and then could not effectively deal with the pressure of being 2 points down with 6 minutes to go.

 

[Canadian Club]

It doesn't need a deep dive, he isn't a first or second year player its been 6-7 years now in FG. I'm not discrediting anything you wrote or even your point of view. I agree with some points you have made previously and you've done some great analysis. I'm simply raising concerns that a player who has been poorly disciplined in the past is still having the same issue of conceding penalties. And the reason i'm singling him out in this thread is because this is the Alex Seyfarth thread? Im trying to stay on topic, I have issues with other players but this isnt the place for that? The fact is, he does give away a lot of penalties, cut it however you like.

The 'we' i was referring to is a collective 'we', so not sure why you took it that way (unless you are Alex undercover lol). At the end of the day we have a player who is now a senior player and his discipline is still an issue after all these years. I said it's something to think about, because it is exactly that. In terms of the other members of the team, I'm personally not as concerned with guys in their 1st or 2nd season of first grade. They're not senior players, they're still learning the game and as you would very well know, its very different for a undersized hooker in the middle as it is for essentially any other position. Hookers are always higher up the penalty count because of their size and tackle attempts. Also very unfair including Latu, he's only played half a game and isnt even playing in his preferred position, you expect that to happen.

Also, no issues with errors this year, he's been better with his errors and deserves credit there. The main point here is, I don't want to get to the end of the season and Alex has 24 penalties against his name because thats where it is currently trending.

 

[Charred]

It doesn't need a deep dive, he isn't a first or second year player its been 6-7 years now in FG. I'm not discrediting anything you wrote or even your point of view. I agree with some points you have made previously and you've done some great analysis. I'm simply raising concerns that a player who has been poorly disciplined in the past is still having the same issue of conceding penalties. And the reason i'm singling him out in this thread is because this is the Alex Seyfarth thread? Im trying to stay on topic, I have issues with other players but this isnt the place for that? The fact is, he does give away a lot of penalties, cut it however you like.

The 'we' i was referring to is a collective 'we', so not sure why you took it that way (unless you are Alex undercover lol). At the end of the day we have a player who is now a senior player and his discipline is still an issue after all these years. I said it's something to think about, because it is exactly that. In terms of the other members of the team, I'm personally not as concerned with guys in their 1st or 2nd season of first grade. They're not senior players, they're still learning the game and as you would very well know, its very different for a undersized hooker in the middle as it is for essentially any other position. Hookers are always higher up the penalty count because of their size and tackle attempts. Also very unfair including Latu, he's only played half a game and isnt even playing in his preferred position, you expect that to happen.

Also, no issues with errors this year, he's been better with his errors and deserves credit there. The main point here is, I don't want to get to the end of the season and Alex has 24 penalties against his name because thats where it is currently trending.

Good response. 100% get where you are coming from. I think you and I both agree that Seyfarths penalties are his biggest flaw overall and a cause for concern. The main issue I have is that from the posts I have seen, you exclusively call out Seyfarth for his penalties and no one else, even though you claim to have issues with other players but I have not seen a single post of you demonstrating this at any stage during the season.

‘We’ has multiple definitions. From google I assumed you used it by the following definition “used condescendingly to refer to the person being addressed.”, except I don’t think you were condescending. My specific reasoning for thinking this, being you quoted my post. Anyway, not sure why this is being mentioned and no, I am not Alex Seyfarth. Agree with most of the rest of the points in your 2nd paragraph though except I think games is better than seasons as a rank of seniority. Seyfarth still only played 74 games (6th season), but I guess we are a fairly young and inexperienced team overall so he is probably considered a senior player. TDS is in his 3rd season but only played 15 games. I made sure to include games played of each player the first time they were mentioned so any statistics from a small data set would be obvious as demonstrated by the case of Latu.

Neither do I want the 24 penalties and I really hope it improves. It’s just not worth ignoring Sam Fainu is tracking at the same rate.

 

[Canadian Club]

Good response. 100% get where you are coming from. I think you and I both agree that Seyfarths penalties are his biggest flaw overall and a cause for concern. The main issue I have is that from the posts I have seen, you exclusively call out Seyfarth for his penalties and no one else, even though you claim to have issues with other players but I have not seen a single post of you demonstrating this at any stage during the season.

‘We’ has multiple definitions. From google I assumed you used it by the following definition “used condescendingly to refer to the person being addressed.”, except I don’t think you were condescending. My specific reasoning for thinking this, being you quoted my post. Anyway, not sure why this is being mentioned and no, I am not Alex Seyfarth. Agree with most of the rest of the points in your 2nd paragraph though except I think games is better than seasons as a rank of seniority. Seyfarth still only played 74 games (6th season), but I guess we are a fairly young and inexperienced team overall so he is probably considered a senior player. TDS is in his 3rd season but only played 15 games. I made sure to include games played of each player the first time they were mentioned so any statistics from a small data set would be obvious as demonstrated by the case of Latu.

Neither do I want the 24 penalties and I really hope it improves. It’s just not worth ignoring Sam Fainu is tracking at the same rate.

Exactly right, the whole issue I have been trying to get across is that his discipline is a cause for concern and as a senior player who is playing big minutes, he needs to be better and hasn't done enough to address it.

I do have issues with other players, and I have called out Doueihi and To'a on multiple occasions for their awful defense. But I see all those three players the same. Decent players who definitely deserve to be in NRL top 30 squads, but probably shouldn't be in your starting 13 (based on current performances) if you want to challenge for a premiership.

Its unfortunate but the reality for guys like Seyfarth, Twal, Hetherington, Ray Stone's etc the worker type players don't get the same leeway as the star players and athletically gifted players (as they are rarer to come by) who can impact a game in many other ways. Rightly or wrongly, you can't afford to be seen as ill disciplined or a liability in any way (not saying this for Seyfarth but for any of those types of players). That is just the way the league is these days. That's why its the athletic freaks and instinctive players getting NRL contracts at 17 and going straight from Ball to First Grade, not the hard working-no frills kids. Those kids usually have to work their way up through every grade and won't get to the NRL until they're in their 20s.

You're looking way to deeply into the we thing. Its just to say 'we' as a fanbase, which includes me. I say he is a senior player as he was identified as one by Benji in the preseason, and yes hes one of the older players at the club and is one of the longest serving players. TDS, yes 3rd season but wasn't part of the full time squad in 2024 and only came in for a couple games at the end of the season. He's 19, 15 games you get the point.

Yeah agree on Sam Fainu, was also going to point that out but i'm not as worried about Sam because he's just generally down on form this season imo and again, he's a young guy. He's still learning, you're going to get ups and downs from the young guys. They havn't been in the league long enough to establish if its bad habits or just growing pains/learning to play first grade. If Sam is 4-5 years in and doing the same, then he definitely deserves the same criticism.

 

[bptiger 0]

U think it’s bad here with high tackles , try watching the Gallagher rugby in England , u touch there head no matter if it’s them hitting u it’s either a yellow or red card , they have killed the game over there

 

[hank37w]

Penalties are one thing but sin binning is another and it is going to be interesting to see how consistent their interpretation is when it comes to what is deemed as, "direct and forceful contact to the head where there are no mitigating factors."

I don't see this as solving too much when we can see how inconsistent the NRL are in their interpretations with many areas of the game.

I can see player reputations coming into play with some of these decisions that we are about to witness.

 

[bptiger 0]

Penalties are one thing but sin binning is another and it is going to be interesting to see how consistent their interpretation is when it comes to what is deemed as, "direct and forceful contact to the head where there are no mitigating factors."

I don't see this as solving too much when we can see how inconsistent the NRL are in their interpretations with many areas of the game.

I can see player reputations coming into play with some of these decisions that we are about to witness.

U are 100% correct, big name players will get off and no- names will cop the full punishment, good call

 

[jadtiger]

Penalties are one thing but sin binning is another and it is going to be interesting to see how consistent their interpretation is when it comes to what is deemed as, "direct and forceful contact to the head where there are no mitigating factors."

I don't see this as solving too much when we can see how inconsistent the NRL are in their interpretations with many areas of the game.

I can see player reputations coming into play with some of these decisions that we are about to witness.

Certain players and certain clubs will get the worst of it,the complete lack of consistently from Anusleys crew will be diabolical.I used to have a lot of respect for nearly all referees but since the failed politician runs the show it is very hard to have any with what is left since Cechin was hounded out of the ranks.

 

[WesternSuburbsBoy]

Not saying he cost us the game but at the 64th minute he only had 2 runs for the whole bloody game… he needs to up his output dramatically. A 20 year old playing his 2nd game out there had almost double the runs.

 

[davey_farrell]

Tony Sukkar looked more threatening then alex ever has

 

[ancient_magpie]

Not saying he cost us the game but at the 64th minute he only had 2 runs for the whole bloody game… he needs to up his output dramatically. A 20 year old playing his 2nd game out there had almost double the runs.

He should be replaced in the team by the 20 year old

 

[watersider]

Yeah those stats are poor. I'm a really big critic of seyfarth but I actually think he's been doing well. I don't know that he's really there for hit ups. It's not like we struggle with go forward, and that's definitely not his strength, so I think he does his part in the team, which is to defend well and play either a linking role or a decoy run in attack.

My criticism of seyfarth has always been that I feel he is really weak in the tackle and always getting pushed back. But lately he's been tackling well around the upper body and even getting some dominant tackles in. Playing 80 mins and holding up an edge is a decent job. People go on about blore, but that's the exact role he does for Melbourne and with similar effectiveness. I'd replace seyfarth if we had someone better, but after a poor first match I think he's been good.

Tonight his line speed and tackling was mostly good. I don't really feel the criticism is warranted.

 

[WesternSuburbsBoy]

Yeah those stats are poor. I'm a really big critic of seyfarth but I actually think he's been doing well. I don't know that he's really there for hit ups. It's not like we struggle with go forward, and that's definitely not his strength, so I think he does his part in the team, which is to defend well and play either a linking role or a decoy run in attack.

My criticism of seyfarth has always been that I feel he is really weak in the tackle and always getting pushed back. But lately he's been tackling well around the upper body and even getting some dominant tackles in. Playing 80 mins and holding up an edge is a decent job. People go on about blore, but that's the exact role he does for Melbourne and with similar effectiveness. I'd replace seyfarth if we had someone better, but after a poor first match I think he's been good.

Tonight his line speed and tackling was mostly good. I don't really feel the criticism is warranted.

In a game where we lacked leaders & experience he could’ve stepped up & put his hand up… instead he decided to be a complete passenger. Again he’s not the reason we lost but I just thought it was very ooor.

 

[Vicious]

In a game where we lacked leaders & experience he could’ve stepped up & put his hand up… instead he decided to be a complete passenger. Again he’s not the reason we lost but I just thought it was very ooor.

Yeah but consider our attack was pretty much 2 or 3 one out hit ups up the middle, then look to play out the back which generally saw him be used as a decoy runner.
May is getting all the wraps and yes he is doing a lot of good things for us, but 50% of his hit ups are ineffective and his contact in defence drops off when he starts getting fatigued, no idea why he has to play so many minutes when we have fresh players ready to go.
Crazy why you would not play Royce Hunt at all in the 1st half.
Seyfarth was also often the first impact when defending Haas and done a reasonably good job of it.

 

[Tim Sheens]

I thought that Alex was okay and had a good first half.

 

[Lukic]

Lacks the physical attributes to be any more than a solid first grader, but he does a lot of the little things right and brings a very competitive attitude despite his athletic shortcomings.

He won't win us a title but title winning teams have players like him. Not everyone is gonna be a world beater and with his relatively cheap wage, he's definitely worth having in our 13/17.

 

[Aussielion]

Seyfarth is not a world beater but give me him over the two highly paid second row starters who were in our team last year. It is a position where we'll need a buy a player or two....but he has a dig.