KEY POINTS:
It's often said that attack is the best form of defence but it's certainly not the way Micheal Luck approaches his rugby league.
The 25-year-old executed an exhausting 44 tackles in each of his past two games and, but for the bye last weekend, would sit comfortably among the NRL's leading tacklers.
Stats don't tell the full story but they are a useful guide and, going into today's match-up with Souths, Luck averages 36.4 tackles a game. This takes on more significance when you consider he plays on average 58 minutes a game and roughly half of that time is spent on attack.
Canberra's Alan Tongue is the undisputed tackle king and last season he broke the NRL record for the most tackles in the season with 1040, or 43.5 a game. He leads the stats again in 2007 - although the fact he plays for the hapless Raiders means he has more chance than most to improve his numbers. Luck is quickly developing a reputation to rival Tongue and fellow workaholic Nathan Hindmarsh.
"He's the glue for our forward pack," Warriors coach Ivan Cleary says of Luck. "He does a lot of stuff that would go unnoticed by the man in the stand, but it doesn't go unnoticed by us.
"It's not the most fashionable role but it's very valuable. Someone has to make the tackles and the fact he's doing it gives time for others to do the things they do."
The Warriors 34-14 win over the Cowboys a fortnight ago was a case in point.
Steve Price deservedly won the accolades for his superb metre-eating display against the north Queenslanders but Luck's 44 tackles were equally significant. It wouldn't have been a surprise if the Warriors skipper shared his handle of Lion Red with Luck after picking up the man-of-the-match award.
"I will gladly make those tackles so Pricey doesn't have to because he's a lot better attacker than I am," Luck says after another intense tackling session at training. "If there's a tackle to be made, I just try to make it.
"I don't measure my game on how many tackles I make, more how many I miss. If I make 50 and miss eight, that's not a good game for me."
For the record, he's missed six so far this season, five in the 13-10 defeat to the Sea Eagles. Balance that, though, with the fact he also made 44 in that game in an exhausting 76-minute arm-wrestle with the NRL leaders.
It was no coincidence that Luck's selfless approach helped him earn the Clubman of the Year award in 2006. And it was less of a coincidence that he was one of only two players who appeared in each of the Warriors' 24 games last season.
The loose forward is, though, attempting to become a more complete player.
"I would love to be seen by opposition coaches as something other than a defender," he says. "I would love to think they might see me as a danger in attack as well.
"I'm working on it... I would like to do more offloading. It's about having the confidence to do it rather than getting the ball and just hitting it up."
