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Isn’t it nice that the NRL has embraced the spirit of Christmas, and delivered a dual Dally M to Johnathan Thurston and Jarryd Hayne?
Lovely.
It was a seriously close tussle between the two best players in the competition, with the lurching process of counting the votes, as well as Russell Crowe’s deep, deep voice keeping us on tenterhooks.
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I would have to advocate the use of an actor to the AFL for their night of nights, as having Russell reading the votes gave it all a greater sense of drama than Gillon McLachlan’s first effort did last Monday. He and Demetriou have the whole “J… Selwood” thing downpat, but the brilliance of Russell’s intonation, changes in volume had the crowd gathered in raptures.
So it was, that by the final round, only two players in the top ten scored points. Those two happened to be right at the pointy end of the vote count. One and two, in fact.
Russell first advised us cautiously that Jarryd Hayne had scored two points in the Eels’ loss to the Raiders, meaning while his team lost its finals chance, he had taken the Dally M lead from Thurston. But after what seemed an inordinate amount of time, we were delivered the news that Thurston, too, had scored points in the final round of voting, awarded a point for their victory over Manly in the final round of competition.
And so the Medal was shared, and while we can lament the fact that Robert Lui played out of his skin in the final game of the season against Manly, meaning Thurston couldn’t win outright. Or that if Semi Radradra has scored less than 19 tries and Hayne more than 20 he might have had it in the bag. But I think we have a fair result, and there’s a lovely symmetry about it.
Both are Origin stars, and where Thurston was slightly cooler in the Origin cauldron than he has been in previous years, Hayne was red hot.
Rightfully, having led his NSW side to their first series victory, Hayne nabbed player of the year (as well as top try scorer).
But Thurston enjoyed the NRL spoils at the end of the year, bouncing back to lead the North Queensland to an amazing run of nine wins from 10 games, falling out of the race in an extremely tense final against the Roosters.
Hayne’s NRL exploits can’t be ignored either. This was the year he found that same consistency of brilliance that he had in 2009.
His bullet passes across the face of his centres found their mark more often than not, and played a big part in Semi Radradra’s debut season haul. To be fair to Radradra, he played a big part in it too, but it is Hayne’s creativity that sparked the Eels’ resurgence this year.
He is the one player who can actually do it all himself. 20 tries attest to that. Perhaps the most physically gifted player in the competition, it is exciting to see the Eels surrounding Hayne with strong ball runners, allowing him options to pick his passes, or go himself.
The scary thing about Jarryd Hayne is he’s only 26 while Thurston, 31, has declared he still has three years left in him.
Thurston, on the other hand, was the inspiration for a Cowboys team that looked unstoppable heading into the finals. While that proved not to be the case against the Roosters, it seems like Thurston’s money short balls and scampering line-breaks are becoming more common as he gets older, not less.
But sharing is caring, so while these two players might be very different, they both wear the same label, and medal, today.
Hayne, who now has two gongs, surely has a strong chance of claiming the record? Andrew Johns and Thurston now have three each, the record. Hayne joins some pretty illustrious company on two Medals, including Peter Sterling and Cliff Lyons.
If Thurston plays for three more years and the Cowboys roster stays as strong as it is, he’s every chance. Another Dally M could go a long way in determining just how Johnathan is remembered.
If Hayne plays as well as he did this year, he’s every chance of nabbing four as well. As a viewer of rugby league, I hope he can.
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