It only took a full season but it seems the forum has its CT replacement.
For a while I thought it was going to be Wade but his performances has made him pretty well written off across the board.
Blayke has signed long term on about 500k. If the RLPA gets it's way, and the cap goes up to about 11m next year, he will be taking up about 1/22 of our cap.
The way I see it is he is a good young hooker who provides good service and tackles well for his size.
I'd love him to have the output of Api (700k), Cook (900k) or Grant (1m), but he doesn't, yet. Cook also didn't debut till 25 and Api was barely rated till he returned to Penrith at 27. Blayke is 23 .
Blayke will continue to improve, which I think he has year on year so far. I thought this year he regularly got out of dummy half and earned us 6 agains or penalties on lazy markers.
I think he is earning his worth with us at the moment, and hopefully as his contract plays out we will be getting great value.
Players can't get better with age, this has been established.
I wanted to try and see if there was a stat for penalties earned, as I thought there was but I can't find it. Would have been an interesting one to look at.
While I was back in there I looked at a few other things...
His line breaks+line break assists is 20 (5+15), vs Grant (24), Api (21), Cook (17), Robson (13), Mahoney (10).
Blayke is right up there for total try involvements (21) except Grant (31)* is miles ahead, but Api (22), Reed (22), Cook (20), Robson (20) are all similar. *Turns out crash ball to NAS from 1m out is a good play (17 of these are TAs)...
Blayke also second for line engagement, behind Grant. A little more than Api or Cook, far more than Robson.
Other than Mahoney the rest are all pretty good with try causes and line break causes. Mahoney's total of 23 here is a bit high (for comparison Blayke/Api 15, Grant 9).
If variety is the spice of life these stats are saying Grant is streaks ahead of everyone else. He tackles and touches the ball quite a bit but pairs that with a lot more kicks and runs, and is well ahead on try contributions.
I think Blayke is a decent hooker with good chance to get better, I'm not trying to use these stats to prove he is the best hooker in the league or something, just to see where he sits statistically vs those who are up there.