To'o strong: Blues winger continues to dominate the stats
Talk about making a statement on debut.
Some had questioned whether Brian To'o could replicate his power-packed Panthers performances in the intensity of State of Origin.
He proved that his game is built for that arena with a great VB Hard Earned effort for the Blues in Wednesday night's 50-6 Maroons thumping.
The VB Hard Earned index is usually dominated by forwards, but To'o - as he's done throughout the Telstra Premiership season - bucked that trend by scoring a match-high 79 built on his 26 carries.
At club level, the average score for a winger is just 37.4, but To'o went above and beyond the baseline of hard work.
He routinely bent the Queensland defence, carrying the ball for eight or more metres on 19 occasions and busting five tackles.
On top of that, To'o bagged two tries.
They are remarkable figures but it's what we've come to expect from the affable Mt Druitt product, who was ranked fourth on the overall NRL VB Hard Earned leaderboard at the end of round 13.
To put the magnitude of that into perspective, Warriors captain Roger Tuivasa-Sheck was the second-highest ranked back in 23rd place.
With negative weighting applied to losing teams, it was no surprise to see mainly NSW players shining on the VB Hard Earned index.
Prop Payne Haas (76), fullback James Tedesco (71), centre Tom Trbojevic (58) and lock Isaah Yeo (55) completed the top five.
Maroons front-rower Moeaki Fotuaika was arguably his team's best player and that was reflected in his VB index score (54). On a night where Queensland's pack was soundly beaten, Fotuaika tallied 15 carries with eight of those resulting in a gain of at least eight metres.
