@Celtic_Tiger said in [Ultimately\.\.\.the halves\.](/post/1159336) said:
I think you’ve missed the point about Ash Taylor. The point is that a half who is generally perceived to be rubbish and on his way out is still able to produce a match turning moment of the kind I don’t believe Brooks is capable of.
Your list of tries and try assists is great and nobody is saying Brooks has never done anything good or had any good games, that would be clearly false but he hasn’t improved to anywhere near a level he should have for a player of his experience and status. His short kicking game is still frustratingly awful and our lack of repeat sets and the amount of seven tackle sets we are giving up is really what kills us in tight contests. We must be the worst in the comp.
We are sitting here this week wondering why we are displaying the same old deficiencies year on year despite changing rosters and coaches multiple times. We could start with the very few common factors through those years and Brooks is one of them.
He’s not a terrible player and he’s clearly trying his best but after years and years of mediocrity being dished up surely it’s clear that he’s never going to develop into one of the games best halves and persevering with him for years and years more will pretty much guarantee the same outcome.
I really don't understand how you say Brooks is never clutch, then I give you a list of tries and try assists in the last 6 months of rounds and you say "that isn't what you mean, you mean match-turning moments". I am unclear how tries and try assists aren't match turners; Brooks even has a few 1-1 steals and knock-downs in defence, the one I referenced on Feldt being a keen example. All that leaves if field goals (of which he has kicked a few) and 40/20s, of which Brooks hasn't kicked many for several seasons.
Ash Taylor produced one match-turning moment, good for him and his team that can barely string together 6-7 wins a year. Every half has at least 1 or 2 highlight moments, otherwise they'd never play NRL. So no, I don't understand the comparison. I personally think Taylor is more gifted than Brooks but he hasn't managed any kind of consistency, and there appear to be off-field battles for him as well. He's 2 years behind Brooks in experience but a million miles away from runs on the board.
And fundamentally, Brooks and Taylor play for teams with ordinary recent records, so it's quite difficult to be producing these match-turning moments when your team can't win more than half it's games.
I was discussing this the other night with friends - what kind of legacy would Benji Marshall have in rugby league if he played for Roosters or Storm and had enduring grand finals success? Not that Benji won't have a great legacy for the revolutionary player he has been, but he's not got that string of finals success to bolster his record. Brooks doesn't either. Cooper Cronk on the other hand has GFs up the wazoo and literally has half the skill or physical ability of Marshall, except he's a very consistent footballer and has played exclusively in rockstar teams his whole career.
Case in point where Tedesco plays for Tigers and doesn't see finals footy, moves to Roosters and wins comps in his first two seasons. Tedesco isn't even a better player than he was at Tigers, and he was already playing Origin whilst with us, it's just the calibre of players around him and his ability to inject himself rather than having to do so much of the heavy lifting.
I personally do not believe there are many better halves going around than Luke Brooks. I'm not some fanboy; I am not personally tied to Brooks, I just believe that very few modern halves have the ability to dominate matches when the rest of their team is not firing. It may be a lack of extraordinary talent in the current crop, or it may just be that the modern game suppresses the dominance of the better halves. But there just aren't many around. DCE is a good half and he gets paid WAY more than Brooks to recognise this. Munster and Keary are superior. Mitchell Pearce is probably equal. Ponga is a better footballer but he's a fullback.
Luke Brooks has literally never even been given the chance to win big games or clutch games, because we never make it. Last two finals-ready games we've had (Sharks and Raiders at LO), the halfback had nothing to do with it because we were pulverised in defence. Mitchell Moses has played finals football now and he's fallen to pieces every time, regardless of how well he might perform or not during regular season.
And lastly we get to the old chestnut - who do you replace Brooks with? If that's the strategy, if we abandon Brooks because he's no good (bearing in mind that 4 coaches in a row now have had Brooks as first-choice halfback and nobody has yet dumped him), who do we promote? Who is available in the game, or ready in juniors? I think it's a pretty big fat nobody.
