Little engine that could: Jarrod Croker to play 150th for Raiders

At just 24 years of age and in his seventh season in the NRL, Raiders captain Jarrod Croker will play his 150th game in first grade on Sunday when his team travels to Wollongong to face the Dragons.

It is a remarkable achievement for a player so young and it’s a credit to his skill and durability. Since Croker’s debut in Round 2, 2009, the club has played 156 games, meaning Croker has missed only seven since his debut.

He missed two games in his first year and one each in 2011 and 2012, including the semi-final obliteration by the Rabbitohs. His worst year was 2013, during which he missed three consecutive games and presumably wandered the streets of Canberra with no idea what to do with himself.

A local boy from nearby Goulburn, 17-year-old Croker was part of the remarkable Raiders under 20s team that won the inaugural National Youth Competition in 2008. While junior success is often no guarantee of first-grade success, that team featured a remarkable six future first graders with Croker joined by current Raiders teammates Shaun Fensom and Jarrad Kennedy, along with the since-departed Joel Thompson, Josh Dugan and Daniel Vidot.

(It’s also worth noting that the Broncos team they beat in the grand final had a pretty handy line-up as well, with Josh Hoffman, Jharal Yow Yeh, Jordan Kahu, Ben Hunt, Josh McGuire, Andrew McCulloch, Alex Glenn and Dunamis Lui.)

On face value Croker is not the most physically daunting of centres. It’s no secret that he doesn’t have the towering bulk of Jamal Idris or Blake Ferguson, nor the blink-and-you’ll-miss-him acceleration of Michael Jennings or Dylan Walker, or even the top-line speed of Josh Morris or James Roberts.

Yet in 2014 he was first among centres in tries scored, fourth in line breaks and eighth in tackle breaks (trailing such behemoths as Joey Leilua, Konrad Hurrell and Idris). All this despite playing for an awful Raiders team.

Croker is also an outstanding attacking kick chaser, though needs to find a way to either avoid defenders blocking for the catcher or sell the penalty better when he gets shepherded off the ball.

In some respects the best comparison for Croker is Manly Sea Eagles captain Jamie Lyon. While it is fair to say that Lyon has the better credentials as a ball player and kicker, having spent a considerable amount of time in the halves, Croker is the more powerful ball runner at this stage of his career. Both players rely on guile, footwork and superb football brains to routinely embarrass more imposing players.

A further string to Croker’s bow is goal kicking, which he took up mid-way through his second season in the NRL. He veered between extraordinary and awful with the boot, before settling in the last two years on simply excellent.

The extraordinary was the back end of 2010 when, as a 20-year-old, he kicked 48 of 56 attempts as the Raiders made an unlikely run into Week 2 of the finals. Sadly that sequence is best remembered for the penalty shot he missed in the home semi-final against the Tigers rather than the two previous elimination games the Raiders won on the back of his perfect goal kicking.

Croker then sank to awful levels of goal kicking in 2011 and the first half of 2012 when he kicked around 75 per cent, a terrible percentage for an NRL kicker. However he has since rebounded and has kicked at 83 per cent over the last two-and-a-third seasons, putting him behind only Adam Reynolds and James Maloney among established NRL kickers.

Along with his 150th game Croker is also very rapidly approaching another milestone; 1000 points scored in the NRL. With 978 points to his name he should go past the thousand in the next few weeks. Not long after that he will pass Clinton Schifcoske (1058) for second place on the Raiders all-time scoring list, with only former coach David Furner’s 1292 points ahead of him.

Based on his scoring rate as a goal kicker he could reasonably expect to pass Furner sometime before his 200th game and on the utterly reckless speculation end of the scale on current pace he could be expected to pass Hazem El Masri on the all-time point scoring list in game 326.

The knock on Croker has always been his defence, and with good reason as the Raiders’ left side has at times been awful. Goal-line defence in particular was a challenge as Croker often got caught between sliding and pressing and ended up doing not much of anything as the opposition scored in the corner. However during his worst period Croker was often stuck with sub-standard defenders both inside and outside him.

Whether it was Sam Williams (who has substantially improved in his second stint at the club) over the bulk of 2011-2013, or the statue that was Terry Campese in 2014, the Raiders’ left-edge defence has been hamstrung by poor defenders. Moreover, Croker has had understandable trust issues with the series of gomers stationed outside him at left wing.

This season, with the improved Sam Williams and the halfback assassin Sia Soliala on the inside, plus the return of Edrick Lee on the wing, the Raiders’ defence around Croker has markedly improved.

In another parallel with Jamie Lyon, this year Croker has also taken on the responsibility of captaincy. This, given coach Ricky Stuart’s publicly known views on the value of age and experience, is a tribute to Croker’s leadership skills. He is the youngest full-time captain in the NRL (though Wade Graham may take that distinction once Cronulla part ways with Paul Gallen), and as I predicted before he was announced as captain, Croker has thrived in the role and set the tone for a resurgent Canberra side this season.

Yet for all this Croker is rarely mentioned in dispatches. Although he was 19th man for NSW ahead of State of Origin 3 last year it is always the less-credentialed Jack Wighton who is spoken of as Canberra’s potential Origin player. Croker was finally this year selected for Country after years of being overlooked, and he immediately showed his class in a dominant display in Wagga.

Even so, players with far more limited resumes such as Dylan Walker and even James Roberts are being discussed for NSW ahead of him. Sadly for Croker, he is generally seen to lack sufficient x-factor to be an Origin player.

Thankfully for Canberra, Croker’s game is all substance and no flash. This might not be enough to get tongues wagging but it has led to considerable success already and hopefully game 150 on Sunday is just a stepping stone to games 200 and 300 in the future.