Roosters winger Ryan Hall stuck in longest tryscoring drought of his life
Ryan Hall has forgotten more about tryscoring than most players will ever know, but despite playing on a team that scores points for fun he just can’t cross the line.
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Roosters winger Ryan Hall has scored more than 250 tries in his illustrious career but right now he’d be tempted to trade them all for just one more
The 33-year old is one of the greatest tryscorers in modern rugby league, playing on a team that scores tries for fun but nine games into his NRL career Hall just can’t break his duck.
Case in point was the Tricolours big win over North Queensland, when late replacement Matt Ikuvalu scored five tries, more than doubling his career tally in a single night.
But Hall? He was stuck in the cold on the other side of the field, and once again finished with no four-pointers to show for his efforts.
For a moment late in the game, it looked as though Hall had done it when he plunged over off a Josh Morris pass, but it was ruled forward and Hall’s drought continued.
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Hall didn’t just catch and fall over the line in England either — he was, by any measurement, the best winger the country has produced in the last decade. He won the Lance Todd Medal as man of the match in the 2014 Challenge Cup Final, he made the Dream Team four times and won six premierships with the Rhinos.
“There’d be some fans who don’t appreciate how great his record is. At one stage the Leeds fans nicknamed him WBW — which stood for World’s Best Winger, and he could back it up with the numbers,” said Fox League’s Andrew Voss.
“His Test record is amazing, 36 tries in 38 Tests for England. He just finds the line, and it must be so frustrating for him, to the point it’s become a running gag among his Roosters teammates.
“He’s done more than everything in the game, in terms of what you can achieve in the northern hemisphere.
“I have a lot of followers on Twitter in England and there were that many people getting up early to watch Ryan Hall specifically in that game.
“They’re not getting up to watch the NRL, they’re getting up to watch Ryan Hall and they sat through another 80 minutes where his team won easily but Ryan can’t find the line.
“He’s not past it, it’s been a bit unfair on him — he was coming off a knee reconstruction when he arrived in Australia, so he probably feels like he’s not quite at 100 per cent. There’s still the greatness of him there that can be on show.”
Hall hasn’t played poorly during his time with the Roosters — he’s clocked more than 100 metres gained in every match he’s played for the Tricolours, and his work rate remains strong.
But for whatever reason, the ball never seems to come his way close to the line. In six of his nine games the Roosters have scored more than 24 points, and Hall was a part of their crushing 59-0 win over the Broncos earlier this year but even then the footy just never got to him at the right time.
After crossing in his final game for Leeds in August of 2018, Hall has not scored since. Not in his nine games for the Roosters, not in three reserve grade matches for North Sydney and not in two Tests for Great Britain.
But we might be approaching the end of Hall’s run of outs. Daniel Tupou is expected to miss at least the next few weeks and Hall will get a consistent run of first grade for at least a month.
“He’s trying his heart out, but it’s a drought. You’ll hear the cheers from the north of England when he does score,” said Voss.
“This could be it, and I hope I’m the bloke calling it when he finds the line cause I think I’ll run straight out and have some sort of British beer to have a drink for him.”
There is a parallel for Hall’s funk, albeit from almost 80 years ago.
A skinny, balding winger named Brian Bevan played eight matches for the Roosters from 1942 to 1946 and didn’t cross the stripe at all.
He then joined Warrington in England and became the greatest try scorer rugby league has ever seen or will ever see, dotting down an incredible 757 times in 662 matches.
He was later named in the Australian team of the century and had a statue erected outside Warrington’s home ground in his honour.
— Ando (@ando4285) July 10, 2020
Is Hall the victim of some kind of cosmic realigning? Are the mysteries of the universe conspiring to put him on the same path as Bevan, but in reverse? Is there something truly mystical at play? Or is it just rotten, awful luck, a quirk of statistics? It’s impossible to confirm or deny either way.
“The future is bright if history was to repeat in that unusual way,” said Voss.
“But judging by the look on his face when it was called back for a forward pass, I think he’d be happy with just one.
“It’s like Greg Chappell when he was on a run of ducks — I think he’d be happy with just one run, just to get off the mark.”