Recently returned from a 7 week rugby league free trip overseas and was absolutely shocked to my core to see that NSW managed to lose Origin 1 with the Prince Pearce returning to the side. It got me thinking 'Has there ever been a less successful origin player than Pearce?' My gut said no. The general criteria I've been working off has been origin players that have played 10 or more matches with a worse win to loss ratio. I've dug pretty deep in my hunt and and have actually found four so far. I'm hoping you'll be able to point out any I may have missed so we can track the career of Pearce moving up (or down) the leaderboard (I'm not good with players from the 80's and early 90's). The worst ever origin player that I've come across in my research is Brad Thorne. I'll put the ladder up below. The method isn't perfect (it doesn't take into account series wins admittedly), if any of you have a better one I'm all ears. A few extra bits and pieces: - * denotes Super League games, I didn't see why they shouldn't count. - There are a heaps of players with a '0.5' win/loss ratio, I've just thrown a few in there as a base. - I may well have missed some obvious ones, so chip in. - In the interests of Pearce hating we might change the criteria to 15 games if NSW lose this years series 3-0 and he's retained. Paul Bowman Matches: 12 Wins: 4 Losses: 8 Wins per loss: 0.5 Robbie Farah Matches: 12 Wins: 4 Losses: 8 Wins per loss: 0.5 Dane Carlaw: Matches: 13 Wins: 4 Losses: 8 Draws: 1 Wins per loss: 0.5 Mitchell 'Prince' Pearce: Matches: 13 Wins: 4 Losses: 9 Wins per loss: 0.44 Matt Bowen Matches: 10 Wins: 3 Losses: 7 Wins per loss: 0.43 Julian O'Neil Matches: 11* (1SL) Wins: 3 Losses: 8 Wins per loss: 0.375 Kurt Gidley Matches: 12 Wins: 3 Losses: 9 Wins per loss: 0.33 Brad Thorn: Matches: 14* (3SL) Wins: 2 Losses: 9 Draws: 1 Wins per loss: 0.22 Let this thread serve as a place to discuss what aspects of Pearces existence do make him the worst origin player ever outside of this rubric. It does appear that he has played the most ever origins without having won a series (Thorn was a part of a winning series in 98)
That list goes to show that the win/loss ratio doesn't necessarily indicate a poor origin performer. Paul Bowman was always really good at origin level. I think a better indicator would be win/loss record of players in the halves. A good centre or forward can just be at the wrong point in time as they have less influence on the result than the halves.
You could make that argument about every single NSW player of this past generation given the team QLD has.
Yeah this. There is no denying the fact that Qld have been fortunate to have some seriously talented players together in the same era. Smith, Inglis, Thurston, Lockyer & Slater will be regarded amongst the all-time greats. As many stars of that calibre in the same side probably hasn't been seen since the Dragons 11 straight Premierships when they had Gasnier, Raper, Langlands, Provan and Billy Smith. To say NSW players are poor Origin players because they've lost more than they've won is a bit harsh considering the opposition they've had to face.
Its not just the fact they have had Greats but the fact they are all crucial spine players basically with high influence and ball touches vs our lot whose best were are in the backrow etc trying to play off poor unsettled influence from weak spines vs these greats especially when plenty of the previous era were against immense front row eg price civo Scott to lay a massive foundation and go forward ascendency
Yeah I thought this, is why I framed it as 'less successful player', we all know he's the worst performer.
According to a Fox article I was just reading Brett Morris is 2/10 and Duges is on his way being 1/6.
By the way, my cousin asked me to predict Pearces game last night and I said: 2 error/penalty, 19 tackles, 3 misses, 2 ineffective, 5 runs 28mactuallyChuck a line break assist in there too and we got: 5 runs for 27m 18 tackles, 6 misses, 2 ineffective 0 errors 1 penalty 0 Line break assist 1 try assist Pretty happy with that.
