Tedesco the king of hard-working backs

Forwards across the game dominate the VB Hard Earned leaderboard with their workloads earning recognition, but at the Sydney Roosters it is James Tedesco who is the leader of the pack.

Tedesco is one of only three outside backs that rank in the top three for their respective clubs according to VB Hard Earned data with Will Hopoate (1194 points) and Michael Gordon (1114 points) also included.

The Roosters recruit had a slow start to the year by his own admission but has found his comfort zone to shape as one of the biggest threats heading into the Telstra Premiership finals.

Tedesco will feature in Friday night's mouth-watering match-up between the Roosters and arch rivals South Sydney in another chapter of the book of feuds.

The NSW fullback has been electric since returning from State of Origin duty and is now third behind teammate Blake Ferguson and Cowboys wrecking ball Jason Taumalolo in terms of running metres 3361 to his name.

Add 11 line breaks, 112 tackle breaks and seven try assists to his name and it's fair to see where his points are coming from.

On Friday night he'll no doubt be out to get the better of NSW teammate and Rabbitohs back-rower Angus Crichton, who will join the Tricolours next season on a lucrative deal.

Crichton ranks as the side's best in 2018 and 11th overall on the VB Hard Earned leaderboard.

Like Tedesco, Crichton had a quiet start to the season following a finger amputation in the off-season, but has returned to form following Origin to shape as a key man for the Rabbitohs on the right edge.

The 22-year-old has six line breaks and four assists to his name, and has been defensively sound with a 90.8% tackle efficiency rate.

The VB Hard-Earned Award index number assigned to a player each game is calculated by doubling the amount of runs a player makes, plus adding in the amount of tackles, support plays and decoys, along with offloads, tackles breaks and charge downs.

Players lose a point for each missed tackle, four points for each error and penalty they concede and eight points for a sin binning.

Manly forward Jake Trbojevic maintains his position on top with 1655 points. Knights workhorse Aidan Guerra (1556 points) moves into second spot to overtake Ryan James.

A knee injury to Eels prop Daniel Alvaro will see him slide out of the top 10 over the coming weeks.