With Riki I think I was a bit disappointed about the effort areas... he brings it with kick chase (last night's kicking wasn't helping him), but mostly he looks like he's going through the motions and focussing on very basic things... kick chase, defence on the edge, running decoys (but never really expecting to get it).
I noticed a lot of 'walking' last night after completing the tackle and moving out of marker or getting back into the defensive line... this is an issue with Piakura as well.
It's like once the ball is past them or the job is done then they switch off... at one point early in the first half they went at his right edge and he was in the tackle, but was left on the ground.
That ptb they went straight to his blind side for a quick ptb and then went there again, because he was still getting back onside... that's 3 ptb's where he was left on the ground, out of the play and then on the backfoot getting back the 10m.
He didn't show enough intent to get off the ground, knowing that they would for sure go the blind (teams always do it when they see the backrower out of the play... it's like an automatic trigger nowadays), but even then he left his defensive edge vulnerable for 3 tackles and they almost scored... I think he ended up making the tackle on the 3rd because they targetted him on the backfoot in the defensive line making up the 10m.
You need to be more urgent than that.
Compare that to X who was always moving.... at times he was caught out laterally by footwork, but he kept moving even if he was beaten.
Some of the quotes I've heard from former origin players is just about always moving your feet... X showed that last night, Riki looked lacking in that to me, and Piakura was lacking it plenty last year (the most notable being the try through him when he had his back to the ptb 2m from the goal line... an absolute negative IQ play when it comes to footy basics).
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