Tedesco claims early overall lead in round of 20-vote performances: Zero Tackle’s NRL MVP, Round 3

Seven players recorded perfect scores in Zero Tackle's NRL MVP during Round 3, with Sydney Roosters' captain and star fullback James Tedesco taking the overall lead.

Tedesco had started the season strongly with 33 votes out of a possible 40 over the first two rounds, but a perfect 20 in Round 3 during the Roosters' win over the South Sydney Rabbitohs has seen him head to the top of the table.

There he leads Tom Trbojevic by seven votes after the Manly fullback managed a 12-vote haul despite the club's loss to the Parramatta Eels on Sunday afternoon.

Zac Hosking, who led affairs before last weekend but didn't manage a Round 3 vote, now suits in outright third spot.

Nathan Cleary, Viliame Kikau, Scott Drinkwater, Apisai Koroisau, Mitchell Moses and Kalyn Ponga joined Tedesco as the unanimous 20-vote performers during Round 3, while Dallin Watene-Zelezniak and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck split the top votes for the New Zealand Warriors in their win over the Canberra Raiders.

To remind you how this works, each week, our panel - made up of Matt Clements (Zero Tackle founder), Dan Nichols and Ethan Lee Chalk (Zero Tackle writers) and myself as editor will cast votes on each game in a 5-4-3-2-1 scoring system.

The best player on-field receives five votes, the next four, and so on. That means a player could realistically gain 20 votes in a single game, although no one was on that level in the first half of Round 1.

Here are all the votes from Round 3.

Penrith Panthers 34 defeat Brisbane Broncos 12

New Zealand Warriors 18 defeat Canberra Raiders 10

Sydney Roosters 48 defeat South Sydney Rabbitohs 6

Canterbury Bulldogs 32 defeat Gold Coast Titans 0

St George Illawarra Dragons 24 defeated by North Queensland Cowboys 46

Wests Tigers 32 defeat Cronulla Sharks 6

Parramatta Eels 28 defeat Manly Sea Eagles 24

Newcastle Knights 14 defeat Melbourne Storm 12

Top ten

RANK		PLAYER	LAST ROUND	TOTAL
1		James Tedesco	20	53
2		Tom Trbojevic	12	46
3		Zac Hosking	0	39
4		Scott Drinkwater	20	37
5		Ronaldo Mulitalo	0	35
6		Ryan Papenhuyzen	14	34
7		Izack Tago	13	33
8		Dallin Watene-Zelezniak	18	30
9		Junior Paulo	15	28
10		Valentine Holmes	11	27

Click here to view the full leaderboard.

Correct as at March 27.