Herbert Messenger: The forgotten immortal?

Just as some more additional trivia, in 2000 the Daily Telegraph put out a magazine accompanying a long newspaper presentation called '100 Years Of Rugby League'. The top ten Australian players in 2000 were: 1- Churchill, 2 - Langlands, 3- Gassier, 4 - Messenger, 5 - Raper, 6 - Lewis, 7 - Fulton, 8 - Hey, 9 - Brown, 10 - Irvine. 'The Team of the Century', with rankings in brackets, was as follows: Churchill (1), Irvine (10, Gassier (3), Langlands (2), Horder (12), Lewis (6), Sterling (14), Beetson (18), Walsh (25), Hall (26), Proven (32), Burge (16), Raper (5). Others ranked 11-20 were: 11 - Carlson, 12 - Horder, 13 - Bevan, 14 - Sterling, 15 - Meninga, 16 - Burge, 17 - Prigg, 18 - Beetson, 19 - Thompson, 20 - Coote. Obviously there has been some revision in the succeeding 16 years or so with Brian Bevan, Ron Coote, Andrew Johns & Noel Kelly all coming into the top 17 in 2008. Any composite team today would also seriously consider Cameron Smith, Jonathan Thurston & maybe Greg Inglis.

Okay Chris, Perhaps we're both right & both wrong. From a magazine I have, 'Green And Gold Heroes', published in 1989 by David Middleton. "The Immortals are recognised as Rugby League's finest post-war exponents. Clive Churchill, Reg Gassier, Johnny Raper and Bob Fulton all had that something extra - a creative excellence that comes long all too rarely. In eight decades of Rugby League very few players could be placed in the Immortal category. Fulton, Gassier, Churchill and Raper were deemed the finest players of the 1945-81 era. Outside that span only a handful of players could qualify". Middleton then names the following other players with the class to be Immortals - Dally Messenger, Frank Burge, Harold Horder, Duncan Thompson, Eric Weissel, Tom Gorman, Dave Brown, Wally Prigg, Peter Sterling and Wally Lewis. Of these players, only Sterling and Lewis were current players (circa 1989) and only Lewis has since become an Immortal.

From Wiki. "However, it was agreed upon by the first judges in 1981 (Frank Hyde, Harry Bath and Tom Goodman), that they could only judge on players they had seen in action. " Being that Frank Hyde was born in 1916 it's fair to say that Churchill, Fulton, Gasnier and Raper may have been better than some of the pre-war players anyway. Are you saying that if Churchill had died in 1980 that he wouldn't be an immortal? Highly doubt it.

Both he & the great Dave (The Bradman of League) Brown need to be included. Years Team Pld T G FG Points 1930–41 Eastern Suburbs 94 93 194 0 667 1937–39 Warrington 93 48 91 0 326 Total 187 141 285 0 993 Representative Years Team Pld T G FG P 1930–36 New South Wales 19 9 49 0 125 1933–36 Australia 9 7 26 0 73 In 1954 In the first round match against Canterbury-Bankstown Brown scored a premiership record 45 points (5 tries, 15 goals).

No, they had to be alive to be considered an immoral.

The Immortals concept sounds great, it's a strong brand and unique to rugby league. But the management and on-going maintenance of it is just total garbage. I've lost respect for it and now cringe when I hear it mentioned waaaaay too often by commentators and opinionators, especially cringeworthy when hearing current players referred to as "future immortals", at this rate only 1 or 2 of the current crop of 'future immortals' would be selected - perhaps Thurston and/or Cam Smith, no room for Slater or Inglis there, not to mention the 20 other players called future immortals over the last decade. Part of the problem is the ad hoc nature of the accolade, and also the behind the scenes politics going on. I remember Roy Masters wrote an article on this around the time Johns was selected. There were voting blocs that formed along state lines - Qld vs NSW. Beetson was selected previously so there was no way NSW judges would select another Queenslander like Meninga, hence Johns was top choice for them. I would prefer to see the hall of fame as the pinnacle of this kind of accolade, the same as you see for say the NFL or NBA.

#Brendon Given that from 1897 to 1922 the rules of Rugby League had all of conversion, penalty, drop and field goals (and a goal from a mark) all worth 2 points (compared to a try worth 3) - then not sure you can dismiss his goal tally in favour of Try tally so readily and compare to modern day players. It was a very different game back then.

The Generations..... the once in a generation players that truly were greats for the game on and off the field...... Herbie gets his run along with so many others mentioned and Frank Burge etc, those incredible players, the team of the century. Then we have a hall of fame for players like Preston Campbell a true champion off the field and a great player on it. I dont understand why the NRL is not interested in recognising the great efforts that many of these players do off the field. Dan Hunt and Joel Thompson are great ambassadors off the field and would be a shoe in you would think.

Frank Hyde was a judge i think. Wiki says he was born in 1916 so he must have seen pre WW2 league or even been one himself.

No the premis was that the judges had to have seen them play. Which of course in 81 ruled out pre-war players.

It's a little more than just a bunch of RLW editors.

Here's the criteria. When the four original immortals were chosen in 1981 - Churchill, Gassier, Raper & Fulton, the principle premise was that they had to be alive. Therefore, any of the great players who had come before & passed on, were ineligible by the criteria. It's not that they're not good enough. They don't qualify according to the criteria. Every immortal chosen was alive at the time of his selection. Since then Churchill, Gassier & Beetson have passed on. For guys like Messenger, Brown, Hey, Gorman, Prigg, Burge, etc, etc, to be chosen as an immortal, the criteria would have to be changed. It's the criteria.

As the Immortals stand, you are sadly wrong patrick. The judges for the Immortals when it was first done only selected those players the judges gad seen in action. There were plenty of others who should be there on ability like Harold Horder, Sandy and Joe Pearce, Dave Brown and Ray Stehr to name a few. I do agree that the Hall of Fame should be better utilised. The English Hall Of Fame's latest addition was in 2015. I don't know why nothing has been added since 2007.

If anybody wants to visit Dally Messenger, pop down to the Eastern Suburbs (Botany) Cemetery. I'm sure he would love a chat (as long as you do the talking!).

We do have a proper hall of fame. It's called the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the ARL has stopped adding to it. No one has been added since 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Rugby_League_Hall_of_Fame

So Mike, I love the Dally Messenger folklore, especially a prominent player from the private school code jumping ship to play the working mans game. Given rugby league was invented in the north of England I am keen to hear your thoughts on how the game would've emerged in NSW if Dally hadn't switched codes.

I think that date was chosen because that was as far back as the selectors can remember watching a player.

Cheers Baz. I do think it needs to remain exclusive though. Plenty of other sports have a hall of fame where every man and his dog is inducted, nobody would be able to remember all the players inducted and the honour loses some prestige. Perhaps we could induct 1 player into the HOF every year and the elect an "immortal" from that list every 5 or so years.

I agree Epiq. It's way too exclusive. Instead of celebrating the careers of players inducted we all end up arguing about who is better between say Johns and Meninga - then it turns into Meninga fans bagging Johns and vice versa. For mine it's exactly the opposite of what these sort of honours should be about. The Immortals concept has jumped the shark. The NRL needs to re-launch their hall of fame and take the focus away from one magazine's awards.

Yeah - I'm pretty sure they only considered players from the end of WWII.