Jumping Marlin wrote:Serious question. They say forwards mature late 20’s.
Why is it that this is true for some but not others. Eg Aaron Woods was actually pretty decent as a young buck and got worse with age. Klemmer the same.
Woods was kind of different in that he always had good stats (run metres, offload) but took a while for clubs to realise that his more "advanced" stats were pretty bad (metres per hit up, play the ball speed, post contact metres). He was quite good at staying on his feet in a tackle, but would try to fight for an extra 1-2 metres which would allow the defense line to get set and in turn make the next hit up ineffective. Was a solid clubman that played a role soaking up minutes in a long season (Ala Eisenhuth, Ofahengaue, Twal currently do) but should have been nowhere near a rep jersey.
Klemmer seemed to drop off due to a change in role. In his time at the Bulldogs he was a short stint firebrand in the Spencer Leniu mould. When he joined the Knights he was still capable of this role but due to terrible squads and the emergence of Saifiti boys, Klemmer was tasked with being the big minute man while the other young guys couldn't be trusted for bulk minutes. For some reason this pushed him out of rep consideration despite still remaining an excellent player IMO. Drop off in final year at Knights/current Tigers stint looks to be a combination of all those miles on the legs catching up, as well as drop in attitude due to playing in another low table team
In general I tend to agree that most forwards seem to peak from around 26-30 in the NRL. In the junior ranks they seem to get by on being the biggest/fastest/strongest forwards until they hit NRL where everyone is just as talented. It then typically takes about 100 games to gain experience and fall into a role. Development paths like Moale are more the norm than guys like Haas who are generational talents