New Zealand Warriors halfback Tanah Boyd has stamped his authority as the best player in the game over the opening fortnight of the season, claiming the early lead in Zero Tackle’s NRL MVP.

After claiming maximum votes in Round 1, Boyd backed it up in Round 2 by playing a starring role in the Warriors’ home win over the Canberra Raiders, with Andrew Webster’s side getting off to a flying start despite not having Luke Metcalf available.

Round 2 saw an even mix of unanimous man of the match performances and split decisions.

Jonah Pezet for the Eels, Jarome Luai for the Tigers, Sua Fa’alogo for the Storm and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow for the Dolphins were the easy decisions for our four-person judging panel.

In the other games, Boyd, Leka Halasima, Naufahu Whyte, James Tedesco, David Fifita, Dylan Edwards, Blaize Talagi, Nathan Cleary, Bradman Best and Sandon Smith were all rated as best on ground by at least one judge.

The big scores for Dylan Edwards and Harry Grant mean they round out the top three at the end of a fortnight, while Sua Fa’alogo’s perfect 20 has him knocking on the door.

As a reminder of how this works, our panel, comprising Zero Tackle founder Matt Clements, journalist Leo Twemlow, and writer Dan Nichols, alongside myself as editor, will cast votes on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis from each game of the premiership season.

Here are the Round 2 votes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top ten

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