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Legendary journalist Roy Masters describes a rugby league Immortal as “a footballer whose name will not die”.
While that description is generic, at least Roy has given us a criterion, something the games fans are still waiting to see since the NRL have claimed ownership rights to the Immortals.
A brand new combination of judges will sit down on Tuesday this week to decide who will be the ninth and tenth Immortal.
Selecting a learned and impartial group of judges is just as important as naming the next two Immortals.
With the exception of Bob Fulton, Ian Heads and NRL CEO Todd Greenberg, all of the judges are from either Channel Nine (Ray Warren, Gus Gould, Andrew Johns, Wally Lewis) and Fox Sports (Steve Crawley, formely at Nine).
The NRL have done these judges no favours as several of the candidates are linked professionally to the judges and the swearing in of immortality would be good for business, not to mention payback under the ‘ol mate’s act’.
If the ‘pub’ theory is ‘it is not what you did, but who you know’ then surely Lockyer is a dead cert.
Can you imagine his mates (Rabs, Gus, Joey and the King) sitting next to him on the weekend during the telecast and not voting for him?
It is fanciful and grossly unfair to the judges that the NRL could not employ a head hunter to recruit judges with no perceived bias.
It does not matter who they select they will inherit innuendo of wrong doing.
The current eight Immortals were all judged only for their feats on the footy field as a player, something most fans embraced.
Significantly, the prestigious award is not judged on ‘best and fairest’ and include off the ground achievements and or misdemeanours.
Had the award included best and fairest, we would need to define the word ‘fairest’, but clearly three of the current Immortals including Johnny (bowler hat) Raper, Graeme Langlands and Andrew Johns would be considered controversial selections.
(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)
The original owners of the award, Rugby League Week, got it right when they defined the Immortals for on-field achievements only.
There are surely few pub disagreements over the current list and the challenge for the new owners, the NRL, is to not tarnish the current standing of the award.
The NRL must get two points correct if they want buy in from the fans.
1. The criteria for the award must only be attributed to what the players did on the field.
2. They must ensure the judges are not biased (linked to any organisation or player under consideration) and have a resume to fit the task.
Point one is easy to achieve, but point two is already tarnished as we have former coaches, broadcasters and media as judges who freely admit that they have personal favourites who they have worked with or coached.
The NRL are already set up to attract controversy by selecting judges who are closely ‘aligned’ to contenders.
Again no one would criticise the credentials of judges like Fox Sports boss Steve Crawley and Channel Nine’s Gus Gould, but they are either workmates or close friends of contenders Lockyer and Mal Meninga. Johnathan Thurston, Billy Slater and Cameron Smith have all had Nine gigs this year.
Any judge that is linked to an employee of a candidate should become ineligible.
It is not that hard.
If the NRL dig hard enough they will find many knowledgeable students of the game who are impartial and would make a decision based on history, facts, video and analytics analysis.
Stats guru David Middleton was part of the Joey Johns panel, and is an obvious candidate even though he works for Nine he is perceived as ‘neutral’, as should be The Roar’s very own Tim Gore, who has been an NRL statistician since 1999.
Also every major Corporate Bookmaker has their very own rugby league experts who are that knowledgeable they are tasked each week to rate every player and team and frame a market for the public. This is a precise skill and only the very best do it.
I wonder how many of the current judges could frame a market to 105 per cent?
NRL recruitment managers would have the ideal resume, but sadly these experts will not be considered as they are not known to the media, despite arguably embracing better credentials.
I will drop off on this high horse and change the subject as the NRL will always take the easy and lazy option of choosing judges that are high profile who carry a perception of bias.
To focus on point one is most important and could undo the entire credibility if the NRL and judges get it wrong.
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The AFL is also grappling with a similar challenge of separating on and off the field.
Will Wayne Carey and Gary Ablett Sr ever make the top list?
If we believe the media then the next two Immortals will be between Dally Messenger, Mal Meninga and Darryn Lockyer.
With no video or stats available for Messenger, he can only be an Immortal based on reputation. If you are fine with that then let’s move on, but he is most famous for turning his back on rugby union for rugby league. His tries, line breaks and tackles are never mentioned.
We certainly have a plethora of information to judge our national coach Mal Meninga.
Mal is a ‘media darling’ who carries an amazing rugby league resume, as a player and representative coach.
Here’s a salient thought for the learned judges!
The understanding, and hope, is that an Immortal should only be based on what the player did on the footy field.
Andrew Johns was an easy decision as should be Johnathan Thurston and Cam Smith.
If the media are true to what they write about Billy Slater being the best fullback of all time then he also should be a shoe in as former fullbacks Clive Churchill and Graeme Langlands are already immortals.
Mal Meninga is short listed to be an Immortal even though he was not even in the best three players for the majority of his 266 games for the Raiders.
Big Mal is a remarkable coach, but is he an Immortal? (AAP Image/Paul Miller)
No one is disputing Mal’s greatness or his immense contribution to the game, but to be an immortal surely you should be the best player in your club team.
Slater has the same issue against his Storm teammate Smith, but at least he played the key position of fullback. Ditto Norm Provan who was surrounded with greats at the Dragons.
Mal Meninga played for the Raiders between 1986 to ’94 scoring 74 tries and kicking 283 goals but he had teammates who were rated as more valuable and they are not even considered.
When I rate a team I start off with the key players who are generally part of the spine, and while Mal was a highly valuable centre and a goal kicker, a higher rating went to his half Ricky Stuart and his pivot Laurie Daley.
To put it another way, if the Raiders had a late injury the line (betting) would change the most if Stuart was out, followed by Daley.
That is not a slight on big Mal, just a reality that others had a larger impact on the result of the game.
Daley himself is on record saying that the best player in his team was lock forward Bradley Clyde, others may say the best forward was Glenn Lazarus.
Laurie Daley scored more tries (87) than Mal in fewer games (244) for the Raiders.
The club have made it clear who they consider their greatest player when they immortalised Daley in bronze at Canberra Stadium.
Do you think an immortal should be the best player in his club team? Should it be the best of the best?
How many players on this short list were the ‘best of the best’ and the best player in their club team?
Brian Bevan
Dave Brown
Frank Burge
Ron Coote
Duncan Hall
Ken Irvine
Darren Lockyer
Mal Meninga
Dally Messenger
Norm Provan
I totally agree with fellow Roarer Matt Cleary when he said: “For mine, if you’re looking for your next Immortal, go with the bloke who dominated.”
So how do we measure domination?
Does Matt mean dominated in his position or just dominated the game? Let’s go with dominated the game.
If we had every video and dedicated positional analytics for each one of the ten shortlisted players, it would be easy to value each player and put them in order, but that task is only possible for the modern day greats Darren Lockyer and Mal Meninga.
Lockyer would certainly fetch a higher price than Meninga from NRL recruitment managers, but he played the key positions of fullback and pivot. If we look at the State of Origin, then Lockyer’s rating was not as high as Johnathan Thurston, Cam Smith and Billy Slater.
Darren Lockyer runs. Digital image by Colin Whelan © nrlphotos.com
For the record, Andrew Johns and Thurston are equal in my system for having the biggest negative impact on a team when they are withdrawn; Cam Smith is a close third.
Those three players all pass the Cleary ‘domination’ test.
To maximise the lauded reputation of the Immortals, the next two players named should be Thurston and Smith, but as they are still playing and are not even nominated we will have to wait.
Wait!
Why should we have to wait?
What an amazing promotion for the game for kids to go and watch an Immortal play live.
Just saying…
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