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Home / Sport / League / NRL

League: Crockett rockets right to the top

Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis
Contributing Sports Writer·
31 Mar, 2007 05:00 PM5 mins to read

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Michael Crockett has four tries already this season. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Michael Crockett has four tries already this season. Photo / Paul Estcourt

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KEY POINTS:

In Australian rhyming slang, 'Betty Crocker' means a shocker. So having a Betty usually means a player isn't doing well at all.

But it just might be that new Warriors winger Michael Crockett gives a slightly different twist to the slang by the end of this season -
rhyming, as his name does, with 'rocket'. After a halting start to his NRL career, Crockett has rocketed to the top of the NRL try-scoring stakes.

Admittedly it's only after two games but Crockett's 11-tries-in-10-games streak suggests he offers more than just being in the right place at the right time - fine skill though that is.

Betty Crocker didn't exist - she was a fictional front for the baking products company - and Warriors fans could have been forgiven for not knowing Crockett existed either.

Injury was the main reason. As Crockett looked for a foothold in the NRL, a broken ankle, then a badly snapped hamstring and then a troublesome hand injury meant he was restricted to a few appearances. Eight, to be exact, in two years, spending much of his time in reserve grade struggling to break in at the Storm and his last club, the Tigers.

Crockett scored seven tries in eight matches for the latter but, such was the competition that he was surplus to requirements and off contract when the Warriors' interest - and particularly that of coach Ivan Cleary - was piqued.

In his first two matches for the Warriors, Crockett has instantly signalled three things:

He is quick, notably over the first 20m to 30m, and is a good finisher.

He is a good sideline-hugger and a good judge of when to come inside.

He is another example of the "new" Warriors - a club trying to develop their youth and looking to make value buys of good talent, as opposed to big-ticket, marquee players.

Crockett's four tries so far have all been finisher's efforts in that he hasn't beaten man after man on his way to the tryline.

But the Warriors are all about efficiency so far this season and Crockett, perhaps as befits a man who wondered if a regular first-grade season would ever come, is playing down his exploits thus far.

"I'd have to say that even at the Tigers [where he scored seven tries in eight matches] Benji Marshall, Brett Hodgson and the guys inside put me into good positions and I didn't have to do that much.

"It's been the same at the Warriors. The guys inside me have created things and I haven't had to come inside and look for the ball too much. It's been good playing with Tony Martin, too. He's a very experienced player, he talks well and he's been good for me."

Crockett is not one given to the provocative, expansive statement. Anthony Mundine, he's not.

So he thinks a bit when asked if he ever thought about giving up; if he thought he'd never make it into first grade on a regular basis.

His careful answer suggests that he maybe thinks it's a bit early to assume he's arrived at that point but he agrees: "Yeah, probably. I definitely had some real low patches. But my father, Dave, he played a lot of football and a few premier games for Parramatta and he's a real footyhead. He kicked me out of bed a few times and kept me going."

He is 24 now and was 23 when he made his first grade debut - a reasonably advanced age given the emergence of wingers such as the Storm's 17-year-old powerhouse Israel Folau and the blazing speed and agility of Greg Inglis, 19 when he made his Storm debut.

It was at the Storm that Crockett spent the majority of his time when he was injured - a long, frustrating injury spell when he simply never advanced before moving to the Tigers.

"You know, I don't think too much about all that stuff, really. It wasn't much fun at the time but now I am scoring tries and that's great - but you can't expect always to be scoring them. So it's up to me to play well and keep putting myself in positions to score.

"But you can only do what you can do and I know from what's happened in the past that things don't always go your way - and you have to be able to deal with that."

Against the Storm today, he'll have to be able to deal with Folau - the new Inglis, if you like. Inglis' move from wing to five-eighths still has the jury out at present but Folau is also scoring tries.

From his time at the Storm and his travels to various NRL clubs, Crockett knows a lot of the Melbourne players. "I'd say I know about 13 of the 17 game day side pretty well," he said.

"I've known Greg Inglis for about five years when we used to play Colts together in Brisbane Norths for a while. Yeah, he's a good player but I don't dwell much on all that. I haven't really played that much first grade football and I think it's just up to me to focus on my game."

Eleven tries in 10 matches seems like pretty good focusing.

Crockett is keeping wingers such as Patrick Ah Van and Todd Byrne in the background at the moment and, if he keeps on scoring tries, he will have the faithful at Mt Smart rising to their feet faster than Betty Crocker ever got a cake to rise.

Top try-scorers

* Michael Crockett (Warriors) 4

* Israel Folau (Storm), Matthew Bowen (Cowboys), Nigel Vagana (Souths), all 3

* Andrew Ryan (Bulldogs), Ashley Graham (Cowboys), Brenton Bowen (Cowboys), Brett Kearney (Sharks), Brett White (Storm), Chris Walker (Titans), all 2.

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