Are you able to share a little more of what you're seeing, as so far I haven't seen a heck of a lot.
Of course he's still young and there's plenty of potential there, but for me he's only really doing the basics well, which is what you would expect of any young player.
He's making his tackles, keeping with the pace of the game (mostly) and has minimal errors or penalties.
The first game he came on he looked quite powerful with a few strong runs. The game against the Titans he looked like he was injured and didn't get involved much, and this last game against Penny he looked solid.
But, so far for me there's no exciting play - very few attacking stats and no 'high footy iq' that gets me excited.
This isnt me saying I think he's shit, of even a poor player. Just wondering what I've been missing
His ability to pace himself at NRL level without a performance curve peaks and troughs, or tail offs is his biggest asset.
If you go back through the big young forwards the Warriors have blooded over the years, this is actually rare, extremely rare.
I often read on here that guys in this pack get left out there too long and they should be pulled earlier, you don't really see that comment with Jacob, people aren't seeing the inconsistency that some say players like
Ford or
Jazz suffer from.
It is also rare, for an inexperienced guy, to not become part of the problem when a club is in a form slump and coping hidings in games, in that scenario, eventually, the inexperienced guys fall apart during a run of those games and have a mare, because when the teams confidence is shot, theirs usually takes a bit of a hit, and or they pull some daft risk plays under that type of pressure to try to pull off a miracle.
I notice
Laban gets overlooked when he hits the gap a lot, and I understand that as a function of our playmakers probably doing what is practised at training and not putting the pressure on him to be the receiver on those plays, but having said that, there have been a few times where if
SJ had of hit him with instead of the guy out the back, that
Laban would have scored and be seen as the next thing around here. I believe there is also an element of trust there, the old heads will take time to develop to set
Laban up when he takes those runs.
It's funny how we are looking for more than these possibly vanilla performances, in a team where, if they all played like
Laban - doing the job, nothing fancy, few mistakes, few penalties conceded, that we would probably be in the top eight right now.
I don't think the lack of Xfactor is an issue with
Laban, it is there, we have seen it his whole junior career, hard running, hard hitting, young forward, I just think he is smart enough to do what he has been told and tidy up his game, the arrival of the more sexy stuff will come when the coach says go for it.
Also
Laban has been given a hard job for a debut player, rather than a careful bench blooding role, where he gets told go out there and test their tiring pack, he has landed as a role as a grinder with the constant risk of being told you might be needed for eighty minutes, coz dudes are limping off the field left right and Center every game.
Honestly I find it remarkable that during this vile time, where heads are being called for, including the coaches, that no one has really had an excuse to turn on
Laban and blame him for his role in any of those losses, that is unusual too.....
