Telstra Tracker: Weary legs don't bother ice-cool Flanagan
Roosters halfback Kyle Flanagan's ice-cool penalty goal to level the scores at the death against Melbourne last week was a mighty show of composure and skill.
To make it even more impressive, Telstra Tracker data has revealed the 21-year-old slotted the tricky 78th-minute kick despite having running almost 10 kilometres during a taxing encounter.
In the thrilling 84-minute golden-point loss, Flanagan travelled 9.9 kilometres - more than anyone across round eight.
Roosters coach Trent Robinson said Flanagan's instincts took over when the heat was on to kick the penalty.
"You try and train for big moments as much as possible, whether that's increased pressure at training, visualisation, all of that stuff. But you can't beat that moment," Robinson said.
"In that moment there's not time to think. All he could do was act. And what he did was, he walked towards the ball, he picked up the ball and said I'm going to take this. To nail the goal, that's incredible training for big moments, that was really pleasing.
"We recruited him for that, we knew he was a high-quality goalkicker. And then I'd like to think that the influences around him [at the Roosters] have helped develop that as well.
"It shows the desire to act when the time comes. The whole 'fight, flight or freeze' type attitude, it was fight. You don't have time to think and he went 'ok I'm going to take this'. That's what you want from all your players, you want it from your kicker."
The ex-Shark has been a constant fixture in the Telstra Tracker's weekly "maximum distance" top five. Round eight was his fifth entry on the leaderboard and the second time he's topped the league.
Flanagan has displayed a great willingness to keep moving in support in 2020. He is ranked eighth for all supports among halfbacks and has scored several tries from backing up, including one last week.
Flanagan's halves parner Luke Keary, Panthers No.7 Nathan Cleary and Dragons five-eighth Corey Norman ranked equal second for distance covered last round with 9.8km apiece.
Raiders hooker Josh Hodgson and Knights general Mitchell Pearce (9.6km each) tied for fifth.
In other results, Storm flyer Josh Addo-Carr recorded the round's top speed with 34.7km/h. (Brisbane's Xavier Coates and South Sydney's Alex Johnston still jointly own this season's record with 36.9km/h.)
Knights centre Bradman Best (34.6km/h), Roosters veteran Josh Morris (34.5), Coates (34.2) and the Gold Coast's Tyrone Peachey (33.6) filled out the leaderboard.
Meanwhile, Dragons teenager Jason Saab topped the high-speed efforts (bursts of 20km/h or more) chart for the second straight week.
After posting 42 high-speed efforts in round seven - equal with Ryan Papenhuyzen - the towering winger ranked outright first with 37.
The man inside him, centre Zac Lomax, came in next with 35 high-speed efforts, followed by Canterbury's Dallin Watene-Zelezniak (32), North Queensland's Tom Opacic (31) and Dragon Adam Clune (31).
