NRL: Success is simply a matter of good Luck

Michael Luck. Photo / Getty Images

Micheal Luck has made 4444 tackles in his NRL career.

That's 4444 times he's ploughed into an opposition player, picked himself up from the turf, trotted back 10m and readied himself to do it all again.

Last season he did it 957 times, 959 the season before that. Both years he was the NRL's top tackler.

This year he's on course to break 1000, as long as he stays healthy, having already made 469 tackles at an average of 47 a game.

What makes Luck special is that he can do it for 80 minutes. Ninety minutes in the case of the Melbourne match, when he made a lung-bursting 74 tackles in one game.

Last weekend he put in a game-high 57 in the Warriors' hard-fought 14-0 win over the Wests Tigers and he has often crept into the 60s.

"I take some pride in topping the tackle counts but, in an ideal world, I wouldn't have to make that many," Luck says in his typically laconic Aussie drawl.

"I would love for us to have the ball for 60 sets and win by 40 points. Then I would only have to make 20 tackles. I would love that. But, as it turns out, we're not winning like that and tackling is my job in the team. That's what it is."

Luck isn't just a tackler. He's also made 1380 hit-ups in his time, which means he's experienced 5824 collisions. That's a lot of car crashes.

One of the biggest hits on Luck came from Fuifui Moimoi earlier this season, when the Parramatta prop put a hit on the Warriors back-rower that measured 13.4 G-forces - nearly three times the force experienced by Formula 1 drivers at top speed. It left Luck concussed and bystanders wincing.

NRL teams have been quick to use GPS technology this season, which provides data on things like distance covered by players, heart rates and the G-force of a collision.

Data shows Luck runs about 10.5km a game and that second-rower Ben Matulino has recorded the biggest hit at the club, a tackle that registered in the high 13Gs.

Dave Gerrard, a professor of sports medicine at the University of Otago and former Olympic swimmer, said Luck was unlikely to suffer later in life because of the big hits and load on his body.

"He's going to feel sore and bruised most weeks," Gerrard says, "but there's not any long-term detriment to the body. There's far more chance of that if he badly damaged a knee or shoulder joint. That's a legacy in later life, that accelerated degenerative joint disease.

"But what he's doing each week is like running up and down a paddock for 10km and every 50m running into a brick wall, doing five press-ups and bench pressing 100kg.

"Their bodies are trained to absorb those forces and run those distances, but we are only human."

As it turns out, Luck is one of the most durable players in the NRL. He played 70 consecutive games for the Warriors after making his debut in 2006 and has missed only three games in four years.

The 27-year-old is a qualified personal trainer - he completed the course when his Cowboys career was stalling - and learned the importance of looking after himself. The most important thing, he says, is attitude.

"You do all the training to give yourself the best chance but at the end it's all about attitude," he says.

"You can be the fittest guy or the strongest bloke in the world but if you don't have the right attitude you might as well not even go out there.

"That's what I work on the most. I work on the little things because I'm not someone who is going to be able to run 100m and score a try.

"I'm not going to be able to do a magic chip and chase - as much as I would like to try.

"It's what I can bring to the team, a positive mindset every week and attitude to work hard and it's what I try to impress on others. They might be more gifted but if they work hard they will get even better results."

It's often said that every team needs a Micheal Luck. At Melbourne he goes by the name of Dallas Johnson. Parramatta have Nathan Hindmarsh and the Bulldogs have David Stagg.

They are often referred to as tackling machines or objects with big engines. But they are made of flesh, like everyone else.

And sometimes Luck feels all of his 4444 tackles.

THE LUCKY NUMBERS

Micheal Luck

Age: 27

Games: 161

Tries: 11

Tackles: 4444

Hit-ups: 1380

* Luck has made an average of one tackle for every two minutes of his NRL career.

* His 74 tackles against Melbourne earlier this season was an NRL record for one game.

* He has topped 50 tackles in a match three times already this year.