Francis Manuleleua continues to hold the lead of Zero Tackle’s Rugby League World Cup MVP after the group stage, but his lead has been chopped in a big way.
The Samoan second-rower is the only player in the top ten to have polled in all three weeks, and managed another 8 votes on Sunday evening against Tonga.
The lead that was big last time out though, doesn’t exist anymore, with Herbie Farnworth and Reece Walsh securing 20 votes out of a possible 20, while Jahrome Hughes and AJ Brimson also polled well.
Farnworth and Brimson’s tournaments are over, while Jason Taumalolo, Jack Bostock and Robert Toia all polled well to move into the top 10 and will play in the finals.
Toia, Hughes and Walsh all went perfect alongside Farnworth and Lebanon’s halfback Alex Conti during the week of games.
As a reminder of how this works, our panel consisting of Zero Tackle founder Matt Clements, journalists Magdalena Murdoch and Daniel Nichols, and myself as editor, will cast votes on each game during the tournament on a 5-4-3-2-1 basis, meaning a player can secure a maximum of 20 votes from each match.
Here are the votes for Week 3.
England vs Papua New Guinea
New Zealand vs Fiji
Australia vs Cook Islands
Lebanon vs France
Tonga vs Samoa
Top Ten
Click here to view the full leaderboard.
Scott Pryde has been Zero Tackle’s editor since 2021, having commenced his career in sports media during 2014. Scott is a lifelong Dragons fan, loves hard hitting sports opinion and rugby league’s never-ending news cycle, and spends far too much time umpiring cricket when he isn’t at the keyboard.