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PRENTICE: Forget the Immortals, Thurston is simply the best

21st July, 2015
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North Queensland sweat on the return of JT. (Photo: AAP)
Expert
21st July, 2015
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3210 Reads

These days, I am pretty selective about the NRL games I want to attend live and in person. I pay for the privilege, but Fox Sports do a damn good job keeping me at home in my comfy armchair.

Yet I still get lots of kind invitations to venture out and see Sydney games live.

After covering the footy week-in, week-out for just on 30 years the appeal has waned for myriad reasons – traffic is perhaps the biggest hassle.

But I elected to brave it last Monday night. It was the Manly Sea Eagles-North Queensland Cowboys game at the Brookvale Museum and I went there for three reasons.

Firstly, I was anticipating a rip-snorter game between one of the NRL high-flyers and a famous and proud team I thought more than capable of stringing together five or six wins to steal a finals berth from the depths of the cellar.

Wrong. It was never a contest, all pretty much over by half-time. Manly were terrible. I looked at their draw and it is really hard to see them winning a game between now and season’s end. And their draw does include Parramatta…

Second, I wanted to take a long, hard look at North Queensland and see, first hand, if they had the credentials to win this year’s comp. I came away convinced they will be right up there on grand final Day. And winning the whole shebang.

Thirdly – my paramount reason for leaving the comforts of home – I wanted to see the mercurial Johnathan Thurston ‘live’. Could this guy look as good in person as he does on the goggle box?

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He certainly did.

The sweetly-timed, velvet passes; shrewd kicks to carefully chosen targets; a dart here, a ball-and-all tackle there.

He’s absolutely incredible to watch and you see him embroiled in the thick of the action for 80 minutes, forever thinking, forever controlling and more often than not, changing the direction of the match.

Up until last year, Parramatta legend Peter Sterling was the best all-round rugby league player I have seen in my journalism career. Sterlo had a little pace when he started but that waned. No problem, he replaced it with phenomenal speed and an uncanny understanding of the game between his ears.

Sterling was always one or two plays ahead of the opposition. He could send through deft kicks, his passes were sublime under extreme pressure and he could back up to score the odd try if needed.

Defence was never a problem for P Sterling. He had heaps of courage and a brilliant technique that enabled him to bring down some of the code’s most feared ball runners.

Well, Thurston over the past two seasons has eclipsed Sterling in my eyes. He is the best rugby league footballer I have seen.

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Better than Lewis, Johns, Meninga, Fulton, Daley, Langer, Gasnier, Langlands, Irvine, Beetson… As Tina Turner sang: “Simply the best. Better than all the rest.”

Monday night at Brooky was nowhere near JT’s best outing of the season. He produced a three-and-a-half star performance to accompany the 10, maybe 12 five-star efforts we’ve witnessed already this year.

But 3.5 stars was more than enough to blitz a feeble Sea Eagles team that looks to be in serious strife and with a forlorn hope of playing finals football in 2015.

I loved watching the head-geared hero in the No.7 jumper from go to whoa. His football brain is second to none in the modern game and it never stops ticking, not for a nano-second.

I marvelled at his scampers through the rucks, his bullet and cleverly disguised passes, the variety of his kicks in general play along with his enthusiastic defence. If Sterling knew what would happen two plays in advance, this little guy seemingly knew one more.

Then there was his goal kicking. What a wonderful talent in this department! I’d happily pay to watch JT pilot those curving balls in and over the black dot, even at practice.

Yep, he is the best player I have ever seen and I am glad I saw him at close-hand, and live.
When the Cowboys make the grand final – I feel this will be their year – I will be there for sure to watch pure genius in footy boots.

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If you haven’t seen the magic that is J Thurston ‘live’, I urge you to leave your own comfy lounge chair and roll up at a Cowboys game.

If John Wayne is the best cowboy you’ve ever seen, I reckon this guy will take but a few minutes to rope you in and change your opinion for all time.

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