- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Having kicked things off with the lowest of our top 50, we continue today with the players The Roar’s Experts rate as between 40-31.
Click here to read Part 1, counting down from 50 to 41.
40. Angus Crichton
Don’t they love Angus? Russell Crowe wanted him. Nick Politis wanted him. The entire sport of rugby union wanted him. But there can be only one and that’s usually Big Nick. And thus in 2019, we could have Crichton running off Cooper Cronk with James Tedesco out wide and Sonny Bill Williams in support.
And there, friends, will indeed go the neighbourhood.
For the moment though, the Bunnies have one more season of rock-n-roll from the barnstorming backrower. And there’s a lot to like about that for Bunny People, because there’s a lot to like about Angus, a man who’ll maraud through opponents.
Ben Kennedy redux; a one-time union man with a body built for rugby league sin. Top rig.
Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
39. Jordan Rapana
My man Jordan. How about him? Two tries on debut for Gold Coast Titans in 2008. Two years on a mission riding a bike around Wales in a crisp, white shirt.
Then another few years in the wild west, roaming among the Wilderpeople of Cousin Rah-Rah. And then, boom – into the Raiders of 2014 because he had the chutzpah to ask them if he could.
Today he’s among the very best wing-men in the game.
The very best? You bet. Last two years, in all pertinent man-markers, Rapana has been top of the pops or thereabouts: line breaks, tackle breaks, metres, meat pies, one-handed leaps into the in-goal to slam down the footy and score, Air Jordan walks among the best in the game. He’s a ripper, Rapana.
And if (and granted it’s a big ‘if’ given the fractious, sub-conscious de-coupling that was their right-side attack in 2017) Rapana can ice the work inside by Jack Wighton, Blake Austin, Elliott Whitehead and Rapana’s broseph, holy Joseph ‘BJ’ Leilua, and do it with anything approaching the alacrity of the 2016 carny act, the Raiders are top four with a bullet.
Did it once – why not again, as at least one shrewd judge who’s hoovered up the 20-1 like so many pavlovas would tell you. Scoff at will.
Jordan Rapana is a delight to watch. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)
38. Tohu Harris
A black-bearded hard-man, hard-wired in the Ways of the Force, the big chunk of tofu made of rock is a super-fit backrow wrestle man and lynchpin equally adept at hitting a short ball off a half or charging into the meat of the maelstrom. He’s a beauty, Tohu.
And while his game may appear simple – cart it up, run it wide, do bad things at the ruck, dare the referees to ping you for it; and repeat – a man must be mad-fit, committed and self-sacrificial to rip it off.
Harris is that man. And he’s a very able lieutenant in Storm Land, where team is all and selflessness is non-negotiable. And the Tofu Rock Man or whatever they call him is not known for negotiation. He just plays, hard, every contest, every minute, every match, week after week until he’s on the podium holding up the jewels – and smiling for the first time in a year.
[latest_videos_strip category=”rugby-league” name=”League”]
37. Jack Bird
Lot to like about the rugby league of J.Bird, who for mine shares a Blues five-eighth and utility bench spot with Matthew Moylan – these people attack and to win, the Blues need to score more points than Evil Queensland, so help us Turvey Mortimer.
The Bird Man? Fair old player, isn’t he. He’s tough, he can run. Lick of pace. Heap of footy smarts. And the nark of the mongrel. People hate playing against these people. And thus your grandad would describe him, as he’d describe Josh Reynolds, as “a bit of a goer”.
Damn straight. He’s a goer, Bird Man.
Jack Bird (AAP Image/Paul Miller)
36. Mitchell Pearce
Told a story about the Knights for Inside Sport the other day and went up to Newcastle to watch them train in-game simulation at Mayfield near Wests Leagues. And there, in the ridiculous heat, I kept a beady eye on dear, sweet marquee Mitchell Pearce. And I will tell you this for very little: he has not forgotten how to play.
For there he was among those tasty, new Knights, throwing short balls to giants who ran at gaps that quickly closed. “Double king on four!” he commanded like Maximus in the circus, and big men ran angles; crash-test dummies on convincing decoys. It was Pearce as you’ve seen him for a decade – the general, the quarterback, ripping off skill at pace.
How can you knock him? The man’s a gun. He’s tough. He plays at the gain line. He doesn’t hide five metres back, throwing hay-makers, an untouchable. He plays at the line, throwing bodies at the line, his own included. Thus he’ll wear a hit. He’s tough. He’s respected for it. He’s played 238 first grade games, for Jesus Christ’s sake. People can (somehow) forget that. The damned fools.
Nathan Brown wants Pearce to improve, sees improvement in him. Pearce wants that, too. He says he’s got nothing against the Roosters. “No hard feelings at all,” he says.
But he is human. And he was miffed. And he will want to prove bastards wrong.
Mitch Pearce (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
35. Aaron Woods
Rolly-polly metre-eater who seems to waft into games and waft into the defensive line, and waft off back to the bench in an almost ethereal way. Aaron Woods seems like a big, cuddly, oversized black bear, such is his ethereal wafting.
In reality though, Woods is among the most damaging prop forwards in the game. More in common with James Graham’s deft touches than the blood-gargling charges of ‘The Kergan’, David Klemmer, Woods has soft hands and a short ball, and is like a one-man bearded wall in defence.
Bummer he’s not with Wests Tigers, though. He was a good fit at Leichhardt. Their club should cultivate local heroes, not punt them. The silly moos.
Aaron Woods (Image: Joe Castro/AAP)
34. Josh McGuire
Chunky, middle-of the-road warrior who keeps earning Origin caps because he doesn’t appear to get tired or injured – or stop.
Doesn’t appear to be a nice fellow.
Doesn’t have to be.
Josh McGuire of the Broncos. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
33. Suliasi Vunivalu
There used to be a superhero (well, there probably still is, given they don’t ever die) called the Silver Surfer who was a bit like the liquid metal guy in Terminator II, except he got about on a surfboard in space. True story.
And if they’re casting about for a body double for the Silver Surfer’s running with a rugby league ball scenes, they could do worse than bring in Suliasi Vunivala, the super-weapon of Fiji.
Seriously? Seriously – Suliasi is the nation state of Fiji’s most powerful weapon. They don’t have guns, or tanks or submarines, anything like that. They defend themselves with Suliasi. Trot him out. Put him out.
I’m done here.
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
32. Jesse Bromwich
I didn’t put Jesse Bromwich in the top 50, because I forgot. Reckon I’d have had him in the mid-teens somewhere, because big bopping Jesse Bromwich is an absolute axe-man. He’ll belt into you, defence or attack. You don’t get a soft hit. You just get belted every time.
And you know what he’s bringing to the party now? Footwork. Yep – footwork. Saw it in a trial against Huddersfield, this floating sort of hot step one might better associate with the hep-cat following, but which was ripped off at considerable speed by a man who gives little change from 120 kilograms.
Aaron Woods doesn’t have that step. Nor does David Klemmer. Matt Scott? Jared Waerea-Hargreaves? The mighty ‘Swede’ from Heartbreak Ridge, Raiders big lump Shannon Boyd? Tell ‘em, Gus: No, they don’t.
None of the big yins who so verily rumble about in this man’s National Rugby League have a floating hot-step they can rip off at pace while charging into the maelstrom.
But Jesse Bromwich does. And he plays for Melbourne Storm. And they don’t need to get better.
Jesse Bromwich (Image: NRL Photos)
31. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck
The most exciting thing in the NRL outside Kalyn Ponga and Ray Warren’s top octave, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is all pinball wizardry and hot-stepping man action, and when he … does stuff, it makes you think, Wow, that’s really good, isn’t it? How about that? How does he do that? I can’t do that. Can you do that? No-one can do that! Who can do that? Nobody. Nobody except for Roger Tuivasa-Sheck: the amazing do-stuff guy.
This stuff’s writing itself.
And now it appears our RTS will continue playing for New Zealand Warriors and not New Zealand All Blacks, and thus he will, hopefully, be fit and firing, and lift the Warriors out of their eternal morass.
Hopefully he’ll also be inspired to new and exciting acts of derring-do by that punk kid Ponga, who Newcastle people are saying cannot be tackled by one man alone, and even two will battle.
RTS? Go to it. Be the do-stuff man.
AAP Image/David Rowland