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So I wrote this series of yarns, see, about the top one hundred rugby league players since 1980, a year which marked the end of the Bobby Fulton Era, the beginning of State of Origin, and effectively when I can remember watching footy.
And apart from forgetting Michael O’Connor, one of my favourites and a Canberra boy from my old footy club and a bloke I’ll say g’day to on occasion, it came out pretty well.
And it was cracking good fun.
For it’s been a golden era, I reckon. There was The King and Big Mal, Bert and Baa Lamb. There was Alfie, Laurie and Freddy. There was Boxhead and Locky.
There was Holy Joseph Johns.
Latterly there’s been Billy Slater, Cam Smith and Cooper Cronk. There’s been mighty GI and dear sweet Jarryd Hayne The Plane.
But above all of our modern day marvels sits one man – Johnathan Thurston, the great ‘JT’.
And so, just because, a paean to the man.
For in these fractious and vexed modern times in which we live, times in which we can all get a little bogged down and consumed with the steaming minutiae of this Greatest Game of All, all the “trade windows” and “collective bargaining agreements”, and all the “scandals” and all that shit, it’s good sometimes to take stock and smell the flowers and consider what you’ve got.
And what you’ve got is Johnathan Thurston, the King of Queensland.
What more can you say about him? The man’s owned seasons. He owns a thumping big premiership ring, he gave another one to Steve Price and he’s got a Clive Churchill Medal.
He owns all the player-of-the-year awards. He’s been playing for Queensland since 2005, the year he first won the Dally M.
The Maroons have lost two series in the 12 Thurston’s played.
And today he owns all of Queensland, and the hearts of all in Australia and greater Planet Rugby League. How about him? What a player. What a good bloke. This goofy kid with a thatch of messy hair is The Man. The King. Owner of everything.
They’re comparing him to Andrew Johns.
Johns! No-one’s seen a better halfback than Joey. There hasn’t been one.
And they – the Experts – reckon JT is up there with Johns. Considered better than Langer, Stuart, Holman, Raudonikis, Sterling, Smith, all of those magnificent sevens who probably won’t be touched on the forehead by the magic wand of immortality.
Some say he’s even better than Johns. The best they’ve ever seen.
Better than Johns…
Yet like my top hungee list, it’s a subjective argument that we’ll leave for another time. For the Experts. And anyone else wants a crack.
For now we’ll just say: JT! How about him? The ball in two hands, the man is a master, a craftsman. He knows the Steeden, knows its dimples and weight and shape and its very feel. His passes never miss. He never drops the ball.
How do you never drop the ball? What is he, a robot? Are you a robot, JT?
He’s not a robot. He’s flesh and blood and balls.
Go back a couple years, to the 2015 preliminary final against Melbourne Storm, when he was busted, groin hanging out, yet on one leg was able to feint and conjure and put his mate – almost his soul mate, how well they combine – Gavin Cooper – over for the match-defining play.
It was the play that shouted: We are Cowboys! And we are going to the grand final after being stiffed by the gods for so long!
And so to that epic, epic decider. How about that game? That finish! That last try! That delicious back-handed pass that Michael Morgan dished to Kyle Feldt to tie up the match, well, how about it?
I’ll tell you how about it – it doesn’t happen without Thurston.
YouTube it, that last minute, that last set. Thurston handles the ball four times. He passes the ball four times. Try as they might, the mighty Broncos can’t get him. He beats a thundering Adam Blair hit. He stiffly fends off Adam McCullough to keep the dream alive. He’s belted low and hard by Corey Parker but flops a piece of perfect for Morgan who … well, you saw what Morgan does. Fair old play.
And then, those glorious elongated minutes which allowed us to sit back and suck up what we’d just seen, and hang on to the person next to us, and say, ‘how about this it’s incredible?!’ as he prepared for the most important shot for goal of his life.
Every goal he’d had a crack at from his first in the backyard in Brissie, they all led up to that one moment. That shot for goal.
He started in and smacked a searing, stinging low draw that curled and curled and… straightened up! What? Hit the post! Boom! Golden point. Extra time.
And we dived back into the cruel sea.
And Ben Hunt fluffed the kick-off. And there was no-one else on earth you’d prefer to shoot for field goal.
Immortal? Surely.
But we’ll leave that debate to the historians and legacy-makers, the learned men and conversation shapers of our National Rugby League – the body that bought Rugby League Week so it could own the Immortals – and do with it what they will.
Treat it well, administrators.
In here we’ll describe Thurston with a piece of Australian rules nomenclature: the champion.
It’s the mark of the truly great player. Thurston is a champion. And he didn’t need another premiership ring to prove it.
That we’re all very pleased he has it is another mark of the man. Good for him.