RECORD breaker Chris Hicks has managed something that no other Warrington Wolves player has been able to do since Brian Bevan played for the club.
The former Manly Sea Eagles winger has crossed for a hat-trick in successive matches, with the first one helping Wolves destroy Bradford Bulls 58-22 on April 17 and the second one being completed in the first half of Sunday’s 40-18 home success against Huddersfield Giants.
Fellow Australian Bevan was the last Wolves player to achieve such a feat back in 1961, with his second successive hat-trick being the 101st and final one of his illustrious career.
And, like Bevan, Hicks has become a Warrington Wolves record holder.
The 30-point haul from three tries and nine conversions at Odsal a fortnight ago was the most ever scored by a Wolves player in an away game in any competition.
The previous best was 28, achieved by Lee Briers at Hull Kingston Rovers in 2007 and another Australian, centre Dave Brown, at Rochdale Hornets in 1938.
Hat-trick hero Hicks has a long way to go though to break the record for the Wolves player with the most number of hat-tricks in a season.
Unsurprisingly with his world record try scorer status, that honour lies with Bevan with 11 hat-tricks in one season.
Hicks, who is joint second in the engage Super League try-scoring charts with 10 in 11 rounds, is in his second season with Wolves and signed a new contract a fortnight ago to keep him at The Halliwell Jones Stadium until the end of 2010 at least.
In his first season in England, Hicks became the first Warrington player to score points in every match of a season and was an immediate hit with fans as he became the first player in the club’s history to score tries in seven successive matches at the start of a season.
He ended 2008 as Warrington’s leading points scorer, amassing 234 from 19 tries and 79 goals in 30 appearances and a total that would have been much higher had he not become the club’s first-choice kicker until eight games into the campaign. His try tally may have been even higher had he stayed on the wing rather than stepping in as emergency full back due to the injuries to Chris Bridge and Stuart Reardon.
Hicks joined Warrington on the back of a Grand Final appearance with Manly at the end of 2007.
It was recorded that Hicks clocked 10.55 seconds for 100m while with the Sea Eagles but his game is as much about strength as it is speed.
He has great upper body strength developed from being a great trainer in the gym.
Hicks started out as a junior with Taree in New South Wales, earning brief representative honours with NSW Country in the City v Country game of 2002.
He became one of the best performing backs of the NRL while surprisinglly staying out of the gaze of the representative selectors.
His first-grade career started out at Penrith in 1997 as a central part of Royce Simmons’ Panthers team but drifted out of the side during John Lang’s reign in 2003.
A return to regular football with Manly then revitalised his career.
He was Manley’s ‘best and faiirest’ award winner in 2004 and went on to enjoy four years at Brookvale, helping the club recover its status as one of the Australian game’s giants.
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