Monday 12 June 2017 11:30, UK
Meet Super League's in-form player - Greg Eden. The man once dubbed 'the British Billy Slater' continues to break records in this supreme Castleford outfit.
He helped himself to five tries in the 36-16 victory over Warrington, a tally that equals the club record, whilst also beating Denny Solomona's Super League record for the club, set last season also against the Wolves.
But this latest exploit is no one-off from Eden. The winger has been scoring tries for fun all season. It's his sixth hat-trick of 2017 in all competitions, five of which have come in his last six games. And Eden now has 33 tries in 19 games this campaign, including 30 in 18 Super League outings. To put that into context, that's 12 more than any other player in the league.
And it doesn't stop there. Eden scored four tries against Leigh on May 29, with his first three coming between the 33rd and 38th minute, making it a five-minute treble, the fastest Super League hat-trick recorded.
He's played in every game for the Tigers this season and has failed to score in just four, helping his side to a six point lead at the top of Super League and to a Challenge Cup quarter-final against Hull FC.
So what's next for Eden? Denny Solomona's Super League record of 40 tries and Castleford record of 42 set in 2016 is firmly in his sights. And there's still 12 league games to go.
Plus, after Solomona's acrimonious off-season departure to Rugby Union, there's few in the sport who won't want him to get there.
It has been a topsy-turvy journey to the top of the record charts for Eden. He started his career with the Tigers in 2011, before notching up another three Super League clubs in the next three seasons. But despite Eden's nomadic career path, his try-scoring ability was obvious from the off.
The winger crossed for 13 tries in 27 games for Huddersfield and scored 24 in 39 matches across two seasons for Hull KR before he was loaned to Salford. Back then, he was predominantly a full-back, armed with explosive pace and an eye for a gap, and that early career form saw Eden given the now infamous title of 'the British Billy Slater' by his then-Huddersfield coach Nathan Brown.
Such comparisons were a little premature but Eden earned a chance to emulate the great Australian full-back. He signed for NRL side Brisbane Broncos for the 2015 season. But any plans to prove himself in the club's No 1 shirt, made famous by one of rugby league's all-time superstars Darren Lockyer, were smashed to pieces by the club re-signing Darius Boyd from the Newcastle Knights in the same off-season.
Eden subsequently failed to make an NRL appearance in that first year with the Broncos, instead scoring tries for fun for Wynnum Manly, Brisbane's feeder club, where he crossed the whitewash 17 times in 22 games in the Queensland Cup.
That caught the eye of Brisbane supremo Wayne Bennett at the start of 2016, particularly handy given Bennett's recent appointment as England coach. Eden scored on his Broncos debut against Wigan in a 42-12 win in the World Club Series, earning him a start on the wing for three of the first four NRL games of the season. But he added just another three games to his tally, struggling in particular in a round 14 game against Canberra Raiders.
Four days after that performance, Eden announced his intentions to return home, signing a two-year deal with his hometown club, Castleford Tigers. With the NRL experience under his belt, Eden was initially expected to take up the full-back spot for Castleford in 2017. But when Zak Hardaker also arrived in the off-season, Daryl Powell started with Eden as one of his wingers, leaving the new recruit with the daunting prospect of emulating the record-breaking fallen hero Solomona.
How he's done that. Eden is now eyeing an England debut in this year's World Cup, earning a call-up to the most recent training squad, picked of course, by his former Broncos coach Bennett. Before that, there's silverware to be won with the Tigers and individual records still to be broken.
Don't bet against more history being made by Eden and his Castleford team-mates before the end of 2017.
