{"id":950607,"date":"2026-11-03T03:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T03:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/950607\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T03:36:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T03:36:16","slug":"walsh-hughes-toia-surge-as-manuleleua-holds-slim-lead-zero-tackles-rugby-league-world-cup-mvp-week-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/950607\/","title":{"rendered":"Walsh, Hughes, Toia surge as Manuleleua holds slim lead: Zero Tackle&#8217;s Rugby League World Cup MVP, Week 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/francis-manuleleua\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Francis Manuleleua<\/a> continues to hold the lead of Zero Tackle&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/rugby-league\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rugby League<\/a> World Cup MVP after the group stage, but his lead has been chopped in a big way.<\/p>\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/rugby-league\/international-teams\/tonga\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tonga<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The lead that was big last time out though, doesn&#8217;t exist anymore, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/herbie-farnworth\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Herbie Farnworth<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/reece-walsh\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Reece Walsh<\/a> securing 20 votes out of a possible 20, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/jahrome-hughes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jahrome Hughes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/alexander-brimson\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AJ Brimson<\/a> also polled well.<\/p>\n<p>Farnworth and Brimson&#8217;s tournaments are over, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/jason-taumalolo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jason Taumalolo<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/jack-bostock\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jack Bostock<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/robert-toia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Toia<\/a> all polled well to move into the top 10 and will play in the finals.<\/p>\n<p>Toia, Hughes and Walsh all went perfect alongside Farnworth and Lebanon&#8217;s halfback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/alex-conti\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Conti<\/a> during the week of games.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the votes for Week 3.<\/p>\n<p>England vs Papua New Guinea<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand vs Fiji<\/p>\n<p>Australia vs Cook Islands<\/p>\n<p>Lebanon vs France<\/p>\n<p>Tonga vs Samoa<\/p>\n<p>Top Ten<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/2026-rugby-league-world-cup\/2026-rugby-league-world-cup-mvp\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to view the full leaderboard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#comments\" id=\"joinTheConversation\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"498\" height=\"60\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/joinTheConversation-tackle.png.webp\" id=\"joinTheConversation\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n        &#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n            &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/author\/scott-pryde\/\" aria-label=\"author-photo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/920cc6e059f24d05610b5c8512b0b2c8.png\" class=\"gravatar avatar avatar-96 um-avatar um-avatar-gravatar\" width=\"96\" height=\"96\" alt=\"Scott Pryde\" data-default=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/ultimate-member\/assets\/img\/default_avatar.jpg\" onerror=\"if ( ! this.getAttribute('data-load-error') ){ this.setAttribute('data-load-error', '1');this.setAttribute('src', this.getAttribute('data-default'));}\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scott Pryde has been Zero Tackle&#8217;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&#8217;s never-ending news cycle, and spends far too much time umpiring cricket when he isn&#8217;t at the keyboard.<\/p>\n<p>\t                &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; Francis Manuleleua continues to hold the lead of Zero Tackle&#8217;s Rugby League World Cup MVP after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-950607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}