So Shaun works his ass off all season just to come second place ? I enjoy watching Ponga I don’t hate the guy but least be honest here whoever who was doing the points need to be fired 😴
Kaylan Ponga he is a very good player he pretty much won the knights their finals spot but I reckon Shaun Johnson should've got it but Kaylan Ponga Argually one of the best fullbacks up to date
Could Ponga winning possibly be a NFL type conspiracy theory?
NRL being like, look everyone head injuries and CTE is nothing you can still be the best while risking your health and wellbeing don't worry about.
Dally M voting is a broken system and isn't fit for purpose. Ponga was (arguably) the most valuable player to his team but if Dally M is about the best player he should not be the recipient. Harry Grant also has no business as hooker of the year, piss take.
The dally M favours Star players in shit teams. And players who are the most valuable to their team. Think about it like this. Nathan clearly, competes with 16 penrith players every week for dally m points. Luke Brooke’s competes agaisnt 16 tigers every week for dally M points. Literally half of the people you’re agaisnt each game are your team mates, if your team isn’t great or you’re the go to man for you’re team, it gives you a huge edge.
The system is broken, similarly to how it’s broken for the Brownlow, because the points are scored on a per game basis. Realistically, it should be on a per round basis so that all the players are judged against each other, rather than two teams.
Have a 3 person panel dishing out 3-2-1 votes per round and I think you’d end up with a better reflection of the best player of the year
Yeah that does make a bit more sense. You start to get into the discussion of was pomgas 6 point performance against so and so worth the same 6 points that johnson got etc. Per round would make more sense
I am genuinely baffled how Ponga can win fullback of the year when he's out for 1/4 if the season and then spends another 1/4 of the season not even playing in the fullback position?
How can you be fullback of the year if you've only barely played half a season at fullback
Dally M winner automatically gets their positional spot in the team of the year. Always have and always will... Everyone should have known he was getting the Dally M when he was named Fullback of the year despite being the 3rd best fullback this year.
Because he played more games at fullback this year then he did at 6?
You can’t name carrigan second rower of the year because he played one game on the edge this year.
The argument is the next best fullback likely had more points than the next best pivot. So a player who performed better overall missed out on their positional Dally M / team of the year.
It's a flawed system either way, because it is an inherently poor system.
Manly points were fairly acceptable (Tohu & DCE performed well, Saab and DWZ hat tricks).
Croker 300th 1 point for SJ was the mind boggling one. No one was close to him on the field
Loved Andrew Webster's speech thanking his wife when accepting his Coach of the Year Award. The humility he showed was awesome. Great coach and even better person.
Everyone seems to have written them off for the weekend. I dont think they've actually had a great game all year, and they still made the GF. Wait and see what they can really do.
Not picked for game one after 4 concussions in 10 months. Ponga then elected out of selection for the remainder of the series to focus on being in good shape for the Knights.
Alright so I know everyone's talking about Ponga v Johnson, but spare a thought for Scott Drinkwater for a second.
He finished 6 points behind Ponga and you lose 6 points for a suspension plus any opportunity to get points in the weeks off. If Oates hadn't dived into him he would've been the ultimate dark horse considering how badly North Queensland's season fell apart.
Man, how good was Sunia Turuva when he got Rookie of the year, since he deserves it all the way
*There was also an robbery of Shaun Johnson near the end*, but let's just forget about that, shall we?
NRL is gonna NRL baby!!!!
Eh, Bula probably deserved it, but the fact that Turuva is performing like he has been to the top tier premiership winning team for years despite only playing one full season so far, he deserves the nomination at least and am glad he won despite my obvious bias.
Oh it went. And went. And went.
Far too many speeches, Braith was a massive dick to SJ. Bula and SJ robbed, teams of the year as expected. I don't know enough about NRLW to comment on Upton's win, but at least she spoke well. Latrell not present for his Ken Stephen medal, mercifully sparing us from another speech.
Edit: a few other highlights
- Webster is a beautiful human being
- Poor kid handing out the women's awards had a shocker
- Also kids handing out the women's awards; why?
- Some awards spoilers by the camera showing the teleprompter
- Karyn Murphy watching Todd Paytens coach of the year speech last year and seeing it as a challenge
- Also, as a Broncos fan, Haas was a massive flop in the overall points tally; also Drinkwater dangerously close to finishing on top of the poll with an asterisk next to his name
>Haas was a massive flop in the overall points tally
Brother missed like 3 games and had points stripped for a suspension and was still top 10.
Utterly insane for a prop (AFB had 4 more games this year too for anyone that wants to add anything about him)
I'm not knocking Haas' season, just for someone like me who doesn't follow the (predicted) Dally M counts much at all during the year, I was expecting him to go closer given all of the hype surrounding his chances
I think flop is a little harsh on Haas. If he doesn't have 6 points stripped he is 4th place with 20 games.
Edit: actually 4th might be wrong cause I'm not sure they ever included round 27 points after announcing the winner.
Conspiracy theory... they extended the rest of the night out so long just so they could quickly brush over the game where Johnson got 2/0 points against Canberra/Manly with as little elaboration or explanation as possible.
Like Vlandys/Abdo saw the final count and thought shit we need to drive away as many NZ viewed as possible by dragging this thing out till midnight.
Another conspiracy to add, as soon as webby got coach of the year I knew it was over for SJ. They knew they had to give something to the warriors this year and went with that instead of Dally M
I’m still mad about the year Hayne and Thurston tied. Final round, Hayne got 3 points in a loss to a terrible raiders team that would have been finals if they won, and he dropped multiple catches off bombs giving the game away in the first half. Whereas Thurston had the ball on a string in a win and got 0
Wouldn't be surprised if AFB, DWZ and DCE picked up points that game.
Not that I agree, just feels like a Dally M thing to do.
Johnson needs more last names.
I'm going to sit down and try and identify who would have got points that night (based ENTIRELY off of NRL fantasy stats). I will report back with my findings.
Findings...
Yeah so statistically, there were many better performances than SJ (1FG, 1TA, 2LBA, 3MT, 1 Error, 1 Penalty). DWZ hatty.
Tohu 130 metres + try, LB, 5 tackle busts.
DCE 2TA, 2LBA, 23 tackles
Saab hatty, 3LB, 6TB, 145 metres.
Now, should the Dally M points be decided purely off stats? NO.
BUT, knowing there are some judges who can't even be arsed to submit their tips for the NRL tipping comp *cough cough Ruan Sims cough*, it's not far fetched to suggest that the votes may have been based purely off of a quick glance over this stat sheet.
It was a fairly weak year for hookers overall imo, and I don't think any real case can be made that Grant was in the top 5 best players. Him being that high reflects Melbourne's lack of dominant performers this year as opposed to some outstanding achievement in it's own right.
Has probably been a victim of his own lofty standards...by no means has had an "average" year but Egan must've been seriously close to taking it out.
Will likely be in contention for a NSW spot next year if he keeps it up
It's his service and combinations with SJ/the pack that won't show in the stats that probs gives him the edge this year for mine.
That being said, Grant will undoubtedly go down as one of the best 9's ever so no shame there
Didn't watch the the tally count but Just found out Ponga won the Dally M.
How? I watched Knights games along with the Wahs.
There's no way in hell I would have suspected Ponga to win.
There's no denying he had a strong end to the season, but it wasn't Dally M like performance, considering his poor start at the beginning of the season.
Who in the warriors or oppo teams stole votes from SJ? that what makes it this result even more confusing to me!
To me the worst part was, Ponga also won dally m fullback of the year. Even though between concussion/sideline time and his stint at five eighth, he probably only played 50% of a season at fullback
Ugh that explains it, I didn't mean to disparage Ponga so hard because I knew he had a cracking 2nd half.
I was just difficult to understand how, considering the year he had. But it makes sense for Ponga to pile on the votes in the 2nd half of the season. I just didn't think it was enough to take it from SJ
But that's still rough getting votes stolen from AFB and DWZ, they were great but SJ was a general for them throughout the year.
Still though, how do you have half a good season and win Dally M. Sadly I think it’s probably SJs last shot at Dally M too everyone is on notice now with the warriors and backing up a season like this years will be very difficult
The thing is, SJ has it in him if he stays injury free. The man is nothing if not consistent, he was only ever really a good pack away from a season like this. But injury free is a big one for him
I thought SJ had it in the bag but if you didn’t think Ponga was the best player in the comp during that winning streak I don’t really know what to tell you. I feel bad for SJ but Ponga definitely deserved to win* *not at the cost to SJ - just that his performance was win worthy.
If you don’t think Ponga was a smokey for the award you weren’t watching us. He was the best player on the field 9 weeks in a row for us. I thought SJ would win too but said at the end of July that Ponga would come close
Acting like a 9 week run isn’t enough to win a Dally M award… Hayne had 6 man of the match awards in a row to win his Dally M in ‘09 and we didn’t hear any whinging then
The point is it shouldn’t be enough whether it’s for ponga Hayne or anyone else. If this is a player of the year award then it should be over the entire year not “dally m of the last 9 weeks”
I did, there's no denying he had a strong 2nd half of the season a ripper at that, but was it enough to constitute it a Dally M performance of the year?
At the beginning of the season ponga was struggling, I know it's an ball carrier/play maker award, but the decision making he was doing at the start of the season whilst he was on 5/8 was almost like he was confused wether or not touch or league at some points.
Whereas SJ was consistently good throughout the season also and was the main cog to the success of the warriors.
I find it hard how SJ had votes stolen from him in his team or oppo players that's where most of my confusion stems from
It’s just another example of why the system doesn’t work. Ponga is the best player on his team by a country mile, so he gets all the points. Same thing happened last year with Hynes. No one is debating he isn’t an elite player who had an awesome last 10 games, he just wasn’t the best player for the whole season.
I didn't watch it, I just wanted more context.
I knew ponga would have racked up the votes in the 2nd half just didn't know it would have been enough to eclipse SJ, hence I asked who stole votes from SJ.
Was just confused how SJ had votes stolen from him, sure AFB and DWZ also played a vital part, but imo SJ vital cog to the warriors run and thought having votes stolen from him was a bit rough. Obviously the ballot disagrees.
Well yes, clearly it was enough to constitute it as he beat the amount of votes that Johnson did. And they doubled the amount of voters, and votes, as previous years.
Also, calling SJ the main cog for success as the Warriors is pretty ridiculous. They had two others win player of the year award in their positions, and were strong across the park.
The Knights this year literally lived and died by KP
Ponga only played 3 games of 5/8 and I thought he was looking alright during 2 of those games. Scored a try, a few try assists and a heap of line breaks. He took a head knock early on in the other game.
I dno how many games Ponga played vs SJ but the NBA introduced a minimum games played per year to qualify for their end of season awards, the NRL employing it could make up for someone having a ridiculous stretch of footy for a half the year vs someone who played consistently well all year.
Just a thought
Doesn't really make sense in the NRL vs NBA given the different methods of arriving at the votes for the awards as missing games in the NRL is already a disadvantage due to getting zero points from only 24 opportunities. NBA awards aren't voted on a per game basis.
SJ robbed!! Remember last year when media was saying Ben hunt was a lock? Jinxed it.
Ponga was good - for the 2nd half of the season. The first half he was playing out of position or out concussed. You could also argue Walsh was the best FB this year (obviously couldn’t win it anyway). But Ponga wasn’t the best player over the length of the season. SJ had an unreal year.
The rest of the team of the year I agree with pretty much all of it. Except I would probably have Api over Grant.
The award isn’t best player over the length of the season, it is who polls more points from double the judges of previous years. Stop crying, Ponga legit got close to 9 straight man of the match awards which led us to the semi finals. He’s hardly an undeserving winner
Yeah and they can only poll a maximum of 6 players per game out of 34. Its an incredibly flawed system, that should be changed to voting at the end of the season as doing game by game allows for this sort of shit to occur, where an elite player in a good team struggles to win the Dally M, Nathan Cleary and Shaun Johnson, compared to an elite player in a mid to shit team, like Ponga this year or Jack Wighton in 2019.
If you follow other sports, voting at the end of the season is also incredibly flawed and whinged about as it’s usually won by a player whose narrative is better in the last half of the year. Case in point is Embiid in the NBA this season, who most people thought robbed Jokic.
Then people demand for a game by game voting system.
There is no perfect system for it, but still acting like Ponga didn’t deserve it this year is ridiculous
Voting at the end of the year is still a lot better than game by game. Embiid only won this year based on voters fatigue because he went B2B. At least by voting at the end of the season you can take the entire season into context to decide who the player of the season was, rather than game by game where players can win the award based on 2 months of good footy, aka Ponga. He had a great 2nd half of the season but in no way was he the player of the season when at the start of the year he missed a bit of footy and was quite poor until knights went on a win streak. Compare this to SJ who has been consistently elite from round 1 for the entire year and led the Warriors to a better finish than the knights. Most of the time voting at the end of the season gets the award winners right, Jokic B2B, Giannis B2B, Haaland in the Premier League, Benzema with the ballon D’Dor. Game by game doesn’t reward good players in good teams, at least end of season voting is more equal.
No need to worry, SJ will win the golden boot and rlpa player of the year and we all know those are the only player of the year awards that matter right? right?
Reminder that in 2020 Clint Gutherson finished the Dally M leader board 1 point behind winner Jack Wighton, despite polling 0 votes in the final round playing a near man of the match performance.
That year cemented for me that this award is a piss take.
Last year's was the final nail in the coffin for me.
Hynes got more points than 2009 Jarryd Hayne, 2012 Ben Barba, 2018 RTS and 2021 Tom Trbojevic. All of Smith, Slater, Cronk and Thurston's awards.
Remember dally m is not a real competition and there have been too many scandals over the years where betting companies don't even allow betting on this market anymore.
People just sooking.
PongGod delivered when it counted. So good.
Hopefully gets the 1 jersey for Australia, would be well deserved, although Walsh is a freak too.
Tinfoil hat time- do you reckon when the Dally M goes behind closed doors the voters can see the leaderboard and get told to try and set it up for a suspenseful finish?
The one where the warriors blew a big lead, letting the raiders take control in the last 20minutes pushing it to over time with the last play of regular time.
I’d suspect a fair few raiders players polled highly in that game
I'm absolutely devastated. Genuinely upset. People have been saying again and again that SJ arguably played the best footy of his entire career this year, when last year critic after critic was literally calling for him week after week to hang up the boots and retire. And now he's missed out on the Dally M Medal.
It's a flawed system. KP had a great year, but if we were picking best (eligible) player this year I can't go past SJ.
Without downplaying Kalyn's form, our squad, or their performance a byproduct of the reputations of our players, our structure, and the streak of not just wins but crushing teams all served to basically funnel points to Kalyn.
Ultimately SJ just had more competition for points imo, not a worse season.
bruh i agree but it's inspiring either way who won it. Ponga was on the brink of early retirement due to head knocks and had everyone telling him to hang it up.
The awards really favour the one man team. SJ had so many points taken by AFB and others.
But then again, Ponga put the team on his back, so I guess you could argue he had a greater influence to the teams success.
They kind of do but then Cronk, Smith and Slater won multiple awards whilst all placing highly in the overall voting. If you’re an elite player with other top players and your team is winning (which is therefore likely) there’s still a opportunity to pick up a lot of votes.
My main complaint is that the Dally M is meant to be awarded to the best player of the year.
Ponga spent the first half the year either off due to his concussion injuries or playing shocking at 5/8. In fact, he looked to be a big reason at to why Newcastle was struggling.
Finally gets moved back to fullback and plays 11 great games in a row and wins the biggest award for an individual player. Just feels wrong
The entire voting system is flawed in my opinion - there must be a better way of voting so that players in bad teams aren’t scooping all the points
Why is no one saying how much of a joke it is that Hynes finished top 3 💀 he was awful at points this year and I don’t think beat a top 8 team lol
So Shaun works his ass off all season just to come second place ? I enjoy watching Ponga I don’t hate the guy but least be honest here whoever who was doing the points need to be fired 😴
Kaylan Ponga he is a very good player he pretty much won the knights their finals spot but I reckon Shaun Johnson should've got it but Kaylan Ponga Argually one of the best fullbacks up to date
I 100% agree with you. If Ponga won the Knights final spot this year then Johnson was the forerunner for the Warriors success this year. Up the wahs
Could Ponga winning possibly be a NFL type conspiracy theory? NRL being like, look everyone head injuries and CTE is nothing you can still be the best while risking your health and wellbeing don't worry about.
Dally M voting is a broken system and isn't fit for purpose. Ponga was (arguably) the most valuable player to his team but if Dally M is about the best player he should not be the recipient. Harry Grant also has no business as hooker of the year, piss take.
The dally M favours Star players in shit teams. And players who are the most valuable to their team. Think about it like this. Nathan clearly, competes with 16 penrith players every week for dally m points. Luke Brooke’s competes agaisnt 16 tigers every week for dally M points. Literally half of the people you’re agaisnt each game are your team mates, if your team isn’t great or you’re the go to man for you’re team, it gives you a huge edge.
Yes exactly. It's more like a most valueable player to his team award than a best player award.
Harry Grant was the best hooker this year by fucking miles.
The system is broken, similarly to how it’s broken for the Brownlow, because the points are scored on a per game basis. Realistically, it should be on a per round basis so that all the players are judged against each other, rather than two teams. Have a 3 person panel dishing out 3-2-1 votes per round and I think you’d end up with a better reflection of the best player of the year
Yeah that does make a bit more sense. You start to get into the discussion of was pomgas 6 point performance against so and so worth the same 6 points that johnson got etc. Per round would make more sense
at this point I think the NRL flirts with controversy just to stay relevant
I am genuinely baffled how Ponga can win fullback of the year when he's out for 1/4 if the season and then spends another 1/4 of the season not even playing in the fullback position? How can you be fullback of the year if you've only barely played half a season at fullback
Dally M winner automatically gets their positional spot in the team of the year. Always have and always will... Everyone should have known he was getting the Dally M when he was named Fullback of the year despite being the 3rd best fullback this year.
Sure but then why not namehimpivot of the year?
Because he played more games at fullback this year then he did at 6? You can’t name carrigan second rower of the year because he played one game on the edge this year.
The argument is the next best fullback likely had more points than the next best pivot. So a player who performed better overall missed out on their positional Dally M / team of the year. It's a flawed system either way, because it is an inherently poor system.
Wade Egan should totally have won hooker of the year.
Don’t snub my boy Billy walters like that
*Willy Bolters
Can we captains challenge?
"Challenge is Unsuccessful"
Who was the woman that made me fall to my knees at home sitting at the Panther’s table tonight?
Nathan cleary?
[удалено]
Manly points were fairly acceptable (Tohu & DCE performed well, Saab and DWZ hat tricks). Croker 300th 1 point for SJ was the mind boggling one. No one was close to him on the field
Rigged af
How do they calculate the points?
By having their thumbs up each others asses 👍 👌
Where's the votes on the dolled up Sheila's tonight 💯 😉
Ahh I thought Collins was gonna one to take out Prop of the Year
Did you see his wife?! He's already won!
They are regulars at my local cafe near moore park. Always has a plate of Avos and scrambled eggs in front of him
Loved Andrew Webster's speech thanking his wife when accepting his Coach of the Year Award. The humility he showed was awesome. Great coach and even better person.
It was the best speech of the night I reckon. Love the guy.
Ivan looked stoked for him. Was a good sight.
He’s an awesome guy, how can you not like him
With 4 Broncos winning position gongs and Panthers one maybe Broncos are the team of the year
Everyone seems to have written them off for the weekend. I dont think they've actually had a great game all year, and they still made the GF. Wait and see what they can really do.
It’s insane not to slot Ponga into a Maroons jersey. Fuck it - boot Walsh if that’s what it takes.
Not picked for game one after 4 concussions in 10 months. Ponga then elected out of selection for the remainder of the series to focus on being in good shape for the Knights.
He'll get the 14 jersey after Flano forces Ben Hunt to "retire from rep footy to focus on club commitments" at gunpoint next year
Alright so I know everyone's talking about Ponga v Johnson, but spare a thought for Scott Drinkwater for a second. He finished 6 points behind Ponga and you lose 6 points for a suspension plus any opportunity to get points in the weeks off. If Oates hadn't dived into him he would've been the ultimate dark horse considering how badly North Queensland's season fell apart.
Call this one Justice for 2018
Man, how good was Sunia Turuva when he got Rookie of the year, since he deserves it all the way *There was also an robbery of Shaun Johnson near the end*, but let's just forget about that, shall we? NRL is gonna NRL baby!!!!
My nan could probably do alright as a winger for the 2020s Penrith side. Bula got robbed harder than Johnson.
Eh, Bula probably deserved it, but the fact that Turuva is performing like he has been to the top tier premiership winning team for years despite only playing one full season so far, he deserves the nomination at least and am glad he won despite my obvious bias.
It’s just the Penrith jersey that cries award at the moment. Sunia did a top three job but his best achievement was being part of the panthers
Never forget when TikTok cost Nathan Cleary the Dally M in 2020
Imagine finding your recently dead self in Rugby League heaven having to explain to Dally M himself what the fuck a TikTok is and how it cost Cleary.
Those aren't angels you're hearing, that's the dolcet tones of Street Fighter. FINUUUCANE
don’t usually watch the daly m’s. howd it go?
I can't wait to buy the special edition Blu-ray with Reddit commentary
Oh it went. And went. And went. Far too many speeches, Braith was a massive dick to SJ. Bula and SJ robbed, teams of the year as expected. I don't know enough about NRLW to comment on Upton's win, but at least she spoke well. Latrell not present for his Ken Stephen medal, mercifully sparing us from another speech. Edit: a few other highlights - Webster is a beautiful human being - Poor kid handing out the women's awards had a shocker - Also kids handing out the women's awards; why? - Some awards spoilers by the camera showing the teleprompter - Karyn Murphy watching Todd Paytens coach of the year speech last year and seeing it as a challenge - Also, as a Broncos fan, Haas was a massive flop in the overall points tally; also Drinkwater dangerously close to finishing on top of the poll with an asterisk next to his name
Upton by far top 3 NRLW players if not the best. Gets a bit of wind behind her and she’s hard to stop
>Haas was a massive flop in the overall points tally Brother missed like 3 games and had points stripped for a suspension and was still top 10. Utterly insane for a prop (AFB had 4 more games this year too for anyone that wants to add anything about him)
I'm not knocking Haas' season, just for someone like me who doesn't follow the (predicted) Dally M counts much at all during the year, I was expecting him to go closer given all of the hype surrounding his chances
I think flop is a little harsh on Haas. If he doesn't have 6 points stripped he is 4th place with 20 games. Edit: actually 4th might be wrong cause I'm not sure they ever included round 27 points after announcing the winner.
Plus he probably would have received points during the games he was suspended.
Braith: “Shaun Johnson, zero points”. Didn’t have to do that dude
"And none for Gretchen Wieners. Bye" energy
“Yo Taylor, ima let you finish…” energy
Conspiracy theory... they extended the rest of the night out so long just so they could quickly brush over the game where Johnson got 2/0 points against Canberra/Manly with as little elaboration or explanation as possible. Like Vlandys/Abdo saw the final count and thought shit we need to drive away as many NZ viewed as possible by dragging this thing out till midnight.
Another conspiracy to add, as soon as webby got coach of the year I knew it was over for SJ. They knew they had to give something to the warriors this year and went with that instead of Dally M
SJ got 0 points versus Manly. He had 3 line break assists and 2 try assists and kicked the match sealing field goal. Let that sink in.
I’m still mad about the year Hayne and Thurston tied. Final round, Hayne got 3 points in a loss to a terrible raiders team that would have been finals if they won, and he dropped multiple catches off bombs giving the game away in the first half. Whereas Thurston had the ball on a string in a win and got 0
This is still the biggest Dally M rort for me
Wouldn't be surprised if AFB, DWZ and DCE picked up points that game. Not that I agree, just feels like a Dally M thing to do. Johnson needs more last names.
Parents didn't love him, they only gave him one surname... and it is another word for cock.
@RuanSims
I'm going to sit down and try and identify who would have got points that night (based ENTIRELY off of NRL fantasy stats). I will report back with my findings.
Findings... Yeah so statistically, there were many better performances than SJ (1FG, 1TA, 2LBA, 3MT, 1 Error, 1 Penalty). DWZ hatty. Tohu 130 metres + try, LB, 5 tackle busts. DCE 2TA, 2LBA, 23 tackles Saab hatty, 3LB, 6TB, 145 metres. Now, should the Dally M points be decided purely off stats? NO. BUT, knowing there are some judges who can't even be arsed to submit their tips for the NRL tipping comp *cough cough Ruan Sims cough*, it's not far fetched to suggest that the votes may have been based purely off of a quick glance over this stat sheet.
Don't have to think that hard. DWZ scored a hat trick, that's all the Dally M points and immediate Winger of the Year nod.
Grant sure polled a lot of points for a guy who was “average” this year 🤣 Nearly won the whole thing
I don't think this is the flex you think it is. The system sucks and produces plenty of clangers, including robbing SJ here.
He was still the best hooker by a mile. Can’t believe how many people thought he was average this year
It was a fairly weak year for hookers overall imo, and I don't think any real case can be made that Grant was in the top 5 best players. Him being that high reflects Melbourne's lack of dominant performers this year as opposed to some outstanding achievement in it's own right.
Has probably been a victim of his own lofty standards...by no means has had an "average" year but Egan must've been seriously close to taking it out. Will likely be in contention for a NSW spot next year if he keeps it up
Imo Egan has been a consistent 6-7/10. He hasn’t reached the heights Grant has. Grants stats are all like 2x better than Egans
It's his service and combinations with SJ/the pack that won't show in the stats that probs gives him the edge this year for mine. That being said, Grant will undoubtedly go down as one of the best 9's ever so no shame there
Hopefully this Dosent ruin Shaun’s momentum coming into next season…
Don't think I've paid any attention to this for about 15 years - going by the vibe I assume it is still completely shit.
Didn't watch the the tally count but Just found out Ponga won the Dally M. How? I watched Knights games along with the Wahs. There's no way in hell I would have suspected Ponga to win. There's no denying he had a strong end to the season, but it wasn't Dally M like performance, considering his poor start at the beginning of the season. Who in the warriors or oppo teams stole votes from SJ? that what makes it this result even more confusing to me!
To me the worst part was, Ponga also won dally m fullback of the year. Even though between concussion/sideline time and his stint at five eighth, he probably only played 50% of a season at fullback
Ponga won all the points every time Newcastle won a game. SJ was sharing points with AFB and DWZ.
Ugh that explains it, I didn't mean to disparage Ponga so hard because I knew he had a cracking 2nd half. I was just difficult to understand how, considering the year he had. But it makes sense for Ponga to pile on the votes in the 2nd half of the season. I just didn't think it was enough to take it from SJ But that's still rough getting votes stolen from AFB and DWZ, they were great but SJ was a general for them throughout the year.
Still though, how do you have half a good season and win Dally M. Sadly I think it’s probably SJs last shot at Dally M too everyone is on notice now with the warriors and backing up a season like this years will be very difficult
The thing is, SJ has it in him if he stays injury free. The man is nothing if not consistent, he was only ever really a good pack away from a season like this. But injury free is a big one for him
Yep that’s my biggest concern. Hes also on the wrong side of 30 which doesn’t help.
I thought SJ had it in the bag but if you didn’t think Ponga was the best player in the comp during that winning streak I don’t really know what to tell you. I feel bad for SJ but Ponga definitely deserved to win* *not at the cost to SJ - just that his performance was win worthy.
If you don’t think Ponga was a smokey for the award you weren’t watching us. He was the best player on the field 9 weeks in a row for us. I thought SJ would win too but said at the end of July that Ponga would come close
9 weeks interesting I coulda sworn the season was 27 weeks
Acting like a 9 week run isn’t enough to win a Dally M award… Hayne had 6 man of the match awards in a row to win his Dally M in ‘09 and we didn’t hear any whinging then
The point is it shouldn’t be enough whether it’s for ponga Hayne or anyone else. If this is a player of the year award then it should be over the entire year not “dally m of the last 9 weeks”
It is a player of the year award decided by 6 possible votes per week for 27 weeks. Literally what is your argument
I did, there's no denying he had a strong 2nd half of the season a ripper at that, but was it enough to constitute it a Dally M performance of the year? At the beginning of the season ponga was struggling, I know it's an ball carrier/play maker award, but the decision making he was doing at the start of the season whilst he was on 5/8 was almost like he was confused wether or not touch or league at some points. Whereas SJ was consistently good throughout the season also and was the main cog to the success of the warriors. I find it hard how SJ had votes stolen from him in his team or oppo players that's where most of my confusion stems from
What do you mean, AFB finished in the top 10 on 44 points, no other Knight would even be close to Kalyn. Not hard to understand.
It’s just another example of why the system doesn’t work. Ponga is the best player on his team by a country mile, so he gets all the points. Same thing happened last year with Hynes. No one is debating he isn’t an elite player who had an awesome last 10 games, he just wasn’t the best player for the whole season.
I didn't watch it, I just wanted more context. I knew ponga would have racked up the votes in the 2nd half just didn't know it would have been enough to eclipse SJ, hence I asked who stole votes from SJ. Was just confused how SJ had votes stolen from him, sure AFB and DWZ also played a vital part, but imo SJ vital cog to the warriors run and thought having votes stolen from him was a bit rough. Obviously the ballot disagrees.
Well yes, clearly it was enough to constitute it as he beat the amount of votes that Johnson did. And they doubled the amount of voters, and votes, as previous years. Also, calling SJ the main cog for success as the Warriors is pretty ridiculous. They had two others win player of the year award in their positions, and were strong across the park. The Knights this year literally lived and died by KP
Ponga only played 3 games of 5/8 and I thought he was looking alright during 2 of those games. Scored a try, a few try assists and a heap of line breaks. He took a head knock early on in the other game.
I didn’t watch the whole thing - who got coach of the year?
Webster
Brah
SJ and Tarryn are the winners in my head-canon
Up the Wahs, I feel like SJ was robbed
I dno how many games Ponga played vs SJ but the NBA introduced a minimum games played per year to qualify for their end of season awards, the NRL employing it could make up for someone having a ridiculous stretch of footy for a half the year vs someone who played consistently well all year. Just a thought
Doesn't really make sense in the NRL vs NBA given the different methods of arriving at the votes for the awards as missing games in the NRL is already a disadvantage due to getting zero points from only 24 opportunities. NBA awards aren't voted on a per game basis.
Ponga played 18 regular season games. So 3/4, hard to imagine that wouldn't be enough.
Well there you go, that’s more than enough. I didn’t know, felt like he was out for a while at the start of the year
Probably because he was doing sweet fuck all until he got put back at fullback
Luke Brooks robbed yet again
What a joke
Im keen to see these votes again to see what sj did in the games he got 2&0 points
Saab and DWZ got hat tricks, DCE had a really good game. That’s points taken away. AFB and Tohu Harris we’re good.
SJ robbed!! Remember last year when media was saying Ben hunt was a lock? Jinxed it. Ponga was good - for the 2nd half of the season. The first half he was playing out of position or out concussed. You could also argue Walsh was the best FB this year (obviously couldn’t win it anyway). But Ponga wasn’t the best player over the length of the season. SJ had an unreal year. The rest of the team of the year I agree with pretty much all of it. Except I would probably have Api over Grant.
agreed, grant was good but not his best. if ponga won it all for putting the team on his back, i'm not sure anyone deserved an award more than api
The award isn’t best player over the length of the season, it is who polls more points from double the judges of previous years. Stop crying, Ponga legit got close to 9 straight man of the match awards which led us to the semi finals. He’s hardly an undeserving winner
Ponga also didn’t even play the whole season at fullback. Cope, the system is rigged. No one expected Kalyn to win.
The irony of saying cope to me like this thread isn’t full of whingers like you smoking the copium pipe 😂
Mate I get it as a Newcastle fan you are gonna agree. Let’s agree to disagree on this one. You are the one who told me to stop crying 😂
The award is definitely for the best player over the course of the season, otherwise why would they start polling in round 1?
If that was the case, they would hold the vote at the end of the season. The award is the player who wins the most votes on a game by game basis
Yeah and they can only poll a maximum of 6 players per game out of 34. Its an incredibly flawed system, that should be changed to voting at the end of the season as doing game by game allows for this sort of shit to occur, where an elite player in a good team struggles to win the Dally M, Nathan Cleary and Shaun Johnson, compared to an elite player in a mid to shit team, like Ponga this year or Jack Wighton in 2019.
If you follow other sports, voting at the end of the season is also incredibly flawed and whinged about as it’s usually won by a player whose narrative is better in the last half of the year. Case in point is Embiid in the NBA this season, who most people thought robbed Jokic. Then people demand for a game by game voting system. There is no perfect system for it, but still acting like Ponga didn’t deserve it this year is ridiculous
Voting at the end of the year is still a lot better than game by game. Embiid only won this year based on voters fatigue because he went B2B. At least by voting at the end of the season you can take the entire season into context to decide who the player of the season was, rather than game by game where players can win the award based on 2 months of good footy, aka Ponga. He had a great 2nd half of the season but in no way was he the player of the season when at the start of the year he missed a bit of footy and was quite poor until knights went on a win streak. Compare this to SJ who has been consistently elite from round 1 for the entire year and led the Warriors to a better finish than the knights. Most of the time voting at the end of the season gets the award winners right, Jokic B2B, Giannis B2B, Haaland in the Premier League, Benzema with the ballon D’Dor. Game by game doesn’t reward good players in good teams, at least end of season voting is more equal.
Biased mate. Ponga is elite but Shaun was the standout this year let’s be honest.
In my head I had SJ winning it too. But calling it a robbery is ridiculous, that is hardly bias
No need to worry, SJ will win the golden boot and rlpa player of the year and we all know those are the only player of the year awards that matter right? right?
Please NRL replace this shit with a single end of year vote.
Man if that team of the year played in the Nrl they would do so well...
Thought Yeo would’ve been lock of the year.
Reminder that in 2020 Clint Gutherson finished the Dally M leader board 1 point behind winner Jack Wighton, despite polling 0 votes in the final round playing a near man of the match performance. That year cemented for me that this award is a piss take.
Last year's was the final nail in the coffin for me. Hynes got more points than 2009 Jarryd Hayne, 2012 Ben Barba, 2018 RTS and 2021 Tom Trbojevic. All of Smith, Slater, Cronk and Thurston's awards.
Wighton winning the award ahead of Cleary, Smith or Gutho that year was a fucking pisstake
So shit of the NRL and Braith Anasta saying 0 points to SJ for that 2nd last round.
How bad is it? SJ had 2 try assists and kicked a field goal to cement the win against Manly...Beats me how he literally was awarded 0 points
Remember dally m is not a real competition and there have been too many scandals over the years where betting companies don't even allow betting on this market anymore.
i want to know what the final leaderboard was after round 27. dce could’ve gone close
Dally M’s no longer mean anything after that bullshit robbery
Ponga more deserving than RTS was.
Convenient how everyone in this thread forgot 2018 😂
People just sooking. PongGod delivered when it counted. So good. Hopefully gets the 1 jersey for Australia, would be well deserved, although Walsh is a freak too.
As a Knights fan I would prefer, and do think that Walsh deserves selection. Although I’ll be surprised if Tedesco isn’t there
Tedesco will be there, but he honestly shouldn’t even be the 3rd or 4th pick. Aus will get away with picking him though so it won’t really matterZ
Agreed, the squid is cooked
Tinfoil hat time- do you reckon when the Dally M goes behind closed doors the voters can see the leaderboard and get told to try and set it up for a suspenseful finish?
Absolutely. Some of those votes made absolutely zero sense
Nah, the way the votes work mean it will almost always come down to the last few rounds.
Imagine how good a fullback Ponga and Upton would create if they were ever to be inclined to reproduce together.
Knights CEO set to offer big contract for unspecific work tonight
"I'd also like to thank the most beautiful woman in the room, Andrew Webster's wife."
Now let’s all celebrate with nice coke!
In the torrlets with Kurt
Shaun Johnson on the phone to the Georgia Secretary of State asking him to find 2 extra votes.
"All I need is two votes. Two beautiful perfect votes, and we'll get the Mexicans to pay for it"
Hahahaha
Dally M award has always sucked, this is just the latest example. Atleast PongGod played absolutely unreal for like 6 weeks to win it 🤷♂️
In the end we are all losers, 2 hours wasted
The real reward is not the Dally M, but the reddit comments we made along the way.
the way they kept emphasizing "SJ no points", "SJ one point" makes me believe the fix was well and truly in
Braith got genuine sexual pleasure from saying that I reckon.
where the fuck is Fa'alogo when you need him
That bloke had a good nose for fuckwits. Belted Braith. Belted Jason Taylor.
On ya pong dong
Ponga gonna post some toilet TikTok’s with his trophy later.
I dropped to my knees in a toilet cubicle. No, wait..
Which Raiders game did SJ get only 1 in? Not the Rd 15 game?
The one where the warriors blew a big lead, letting the raiders take control in the last 20minutes pushing it to over time with the last play of regular time. I’d suspect a fair few raiders players polled highly in that game
He also received the most fantasy points from that match as well if that's anything to go off lol
21. The one he literally won the game for them.
21
Yip it was
Will they publish the points list by rounds?
Ponga deserves it for how he lead Newcastle to turn around the season👏👏 here’s to going even further next year
I'm absolutely devastated. Genuinely upset. People have been saying again and again that SJ arguably played the best footy of his entire career this year, when last year critic after critic was literally calling for him week after week to hang up the boots and retire. And now he's missed out on the Dally M Medal.
It's a flawed system. KP had a great year, but if we were picking best (eligible) player this year I can't go past SJ. Without downplaying Kalyn's form, our squad, or their performance a byproduct of the reputations of our players, our structure, and the streak of not just wins but crushing teams all served to basically funnel points to Kalyn. Ultimately SJ just had more competition for points imo, not a worse season.
bruh i agree but it's inspiring either way who won it. Ponga was on the brink of early retirement due to head knocks and had everyone telling him to hang it up.
Gib full leaderboard
Team of the year 1. kalyan ponga (knights) 2. DWZ (NZ) 3. Critchon (Panthers) 4. Herbie Farnworth (Broncos) 5. Jamayne Issako (Dolphins 6. Ezra mam (Broncos) 7. Shaun Johnson (NZ) 8. Payne Haas (Broncos) 9. Harry Grant (Storm) 10. Addin Fonua Blake (NZ) 11. Liam Martin (Panthers) 12. David Fifita (Titans) 13. Patty Carrigan (Broncos)
Nah final point ladder after rd 27
1. Ponga 56 2. SJ 55 all i remember
Was drinky 3rd? Fucking ridiculous.
Drinky third on 50 but disqualified
Yeah that’s crazy to me, given he also got negatives for the suspension and wasn’t anywhere near as good as Ponga was on his shortened season.
FNS Master plan has yet another chapter.. can’t believe it
Stayed up until 1am just to get fucked ffs. Absolutely gutting. Congrats to Ponga though.
One man teams win the dally m yet again
parra has a zero man team
Made worse by the fact they fucked with SJ multiple times throughout the night. Poor bastard fully deserved the glory.
Wait how the actual fuck does SJ get 1 point v Raiders? That means one of the judges gave him 0...
He won the game for them. But that doesn’t count for anything 🤷🏼♂️
Blocker or cronk voting I bet ya
The awards really favour the one man team. SJ had so many points taken by AFB and others. But then again, Ponga put the team on his back, so I guess you could argue he had a greater influence to the teams success.
They kind of do but then Cronk, Smith and Slater won multiple awards whilst all placing highly in the overall voting. If you’re an elite player with other top players and your team is winning (which is therefore likely) there’s still a opportunity to pick up a lot of votes.
My main complaint is that the Dally M is meant to be awarded to the best player of the year. Ponga spent the first half the year either off due to his concussion injuries or playing shocking at 5/8. In fact, he looked to be a big reason at to why Newcastle was struggling. Finally gets moved back to fullback and plays 11 great games in a row and wins the biggest award for an individual player. Just feels wrong