Record and milestones set to fall in 2019

Author: Dan Talintyre
Timestamp: Thu 27 Dec 2018, 10:00 PM

With new Head Coach Michael Maguire in charge for his first season at the club, the 2019 Telstra Premiership season is certainly shaping as a big one for Wests Tigers and their fans.

Beginning 2019 with three consecutive home games for the first time in 15 years, Wests Tigers fans certainly won't be short of talking points right throughout the season with an array of individual records and milestones potentially set to fall.

Perhaps the biggest milestone immediately on the radar is the infamous 300-club that both Benji Marshall (289 games) and Robbie Farah (282 games) could join.

In addition to being two of the most-capped Wests Tigers players of all time, both Farah and Marshall could join an illustrious list in the 300-club with only Chris Heighington (201 games for Wests Tigers), John Morris (72 games for Wests Tigers), and Scott Prince (73 games for Wests Tigers) featuring amongst the 33-man list of 300-gamers with appearances for the club in their career.

Joining them in the Wests Tigers record books in 2019 could be fellow Life Member Chris Lawrence, who requires 23 more games to become the second player to reach 250 games for the club. With Farah reaching the mark last year, the local junior Lawrence could join him should he feature in almost every game in 2019 with Marshall (222 games for Wests Tigers) needing a finals finish to reach the mark.

Chris Lawrence celebrates 200 NRL games for Wests Tigers in 2017.

Speaking of personal statistics, David Nofoaluma could also be in for a special season with just one more try required to reach 50 NRL tries for his career.

Should he score three tries in the year, the Campbelltown flyer will also pass Pat Richards for the most tries scored by a Wests Tigers winger in history.

As a team, Wests Tigers require 91 more goals for 1,500 goals in club history and 593 more points for 10,000 career points scored. Both of those are close enough to their season averages throughout history — averaging 74.1 goals and 495.1 points per season — and could certainly be reached in season 2019.

And those wanting extremely quirky statistics, we go back to Robbie Farah who enters the 2019 season currently sitting at 9,462 career tackles — meaning he requires 538 more tackles to reach 10,000 for his career.

Averaging that number out over the 24-game regular season, that would mean Farah needs to make 22.4 tackles per game in the coming season. Given how frequently Farah finds himself making tackles, that feat is certainly a possibility!