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Opinion
The 25th season of the NRL is done and dusted so to commemorate the first quarter-century of this instalment of the premiership, The Roar is looking back at the 25 best players and moments in 25 categories.
We have already gone through the best fullbacks, locks, players to never make Origin, coaches, captains, halfbacks and Grand Final moments of the era.
Now it’s time to look at a position which is not a position but if you don’t have a good one, it can be very costly – the goal-kicker.
There have been so many sharpshooters over the past 25 who have contributed to the art of goalkicking becoming a science.
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The standards for goalkickers has now risen so high that a strike rate of 75% is a bare minimum of what’s acceptable and the elite kickers are all well over 80%.
Each player has been judged on their collective efforts from 1998 onwards, not including their efforts prior to that season, or if they’re an active player, up until 2022, without speculating on how their career might play out over next season and beyond.
(Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images)
1 Hazem El Masri
2 Adam Reynolds
3 Nathan Cleary
4 Daryl Halligan
5 Johnathan Thurston
6 James Maloney
7 Andrew Johns
8 Matthew Ridge
9 Michael Gordon
10 Jarrod Croker
There’s only one “El Magic” – he stands alone at the top of the goalkicking summit when you combine overall consistency, skill, strike, class under pressure and that illogical but often tossed up premise of the player you’d want kicking a goal if your life depended on it. El Masri’s magnificence with the boot, the second all-time scorer with an 82% career strike rate, would have been even greater if he didn’t have to wait until his sixth season at the Bulldogs to inherit the kicking duties from fellow winger Daryl Halligan.
Reynolds enters next season seventh all time in points scored with 2042 and will probably finish in the top three or even higher if he extends his contract at the Broncos past 2024. As cool as can be in pressure situations, his radar-like accuracy – also at 82% for his career – won South Sydney many extra games and it’s a shame he wasn’t able to land a late sideline effort in his last match as a Rabbitoh in the 2021 Grand Final to likely force extra time.
Adam Reynolds. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
Cleary is the other modern master who has been above 80% in five of his seven seasons at Penrith, peaking above 90% in his second year. At 24, he has the potential to obliterate the goals and points records set by Hazem El Masri and Cameron Smith for individual seasons and overall career.
Halligan’s career strike rate comes in at a tick under 80 but his outstanding accuracy from all over the field and longevity as the original superboot alongside Matthew Ridge make his claims impossible to ignore. The mere mention of his late-game strikes from the SFS sideline in the 1998 finals for Canterbury are enough to curl Parramatta fans into a ball to this day.
Thurston is another whose career mark was just under 80 but his greatness was his coolness. An unusually large curler of the ball from right to left, he still managed to swing the Steeden in from acute angles and like Reynolds, he’s ironically known for a famous miss when he hit the upright in the 2015 Grand Final but he at least got the chance to make up for that rare error.
Maloney’s impact as a player was under-rated and his efforts as a goal-kicker shouldn’t be either. Although he bounced around five NRL clubs, he delivered consistent excellence from the kicking tee even though his laconic nature meant he rarely talked himself up. A career strike rate above 81% shows he was truly elite.
Johns didn’t seem to train much for a skill that came naturally to him early in his career and a career clip of 75% suggests he could have landed more than he did but whether it was for Newcastle, NSW or Australia, he stepped up when needed more often than not to hammer the final nail into the coffin of rival teams.
(Photo by Darren England/Getty Images)
Ridge, if we’re only using the NRL era as a guide for these rankings, is difficult to judge as he only played 33 games in 1998 and ‘99 before he hung up his boot. He nailed 34 of 39 attempts in final season at 87% and was the forerunner to superboot era with career strike rate of 80.22 so he has to be in the top 10.
Gordon is another player who was better than remembered, like Maloney, and also had a few stops along the way but his career strike rate of 81% is up there with the best. In 2009 he piloted an astonishing 57 of 61 kicks through the sticks in a season disrupted by a three-month ankle injury.
Croker has been like clockwork for Canberra for more than a decade with his left boot turning four points into six at better than 80%. He is third all time for points with 2244 and has two years left on his deal but won’t catch Smith (2786) and will need to have better luck with injuries to reel in El Masri (2418).
11 Cameron Smith
12 Luke Burt
13 Todd Carney
14 Aidan Sezer
15 Gareth Widdop
16 Trent Hodkinson
17 Craig Fitzgibbon
18 Jamie Soward
19 Michael Witt
20 Luke Walsh
Smith was the great accumulator who worked on his kicking to finish his career above 75% and be more than reliable for the Storm over nearly two decades.
As was Burt at the Eels, a 78% striker, who went about his business without fuss while adding plenty of tries on the wing as well.
Carney’s goal-kicking, like most aspects of his career, has an element of the what-if factor. He was a proven clean striker at the Raiders, Roosters and Sharks, averaging over 78%, but foolishly ended his NRL career with an ill-advised shot at Northies.
Todd Carney playing State of Origin. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Sezer may seem a high ranking but he finished his career with an elite 82% clip even though during his prime years at Canberra he was only the back-up to Croker.
Widdop and Hodkinson each struck at better than 77% while Fitzgibbon was a fraction behind them but showed you didn’t have to play in the halves or outside backs to bang over goals from anywhere.
Soward’s strike rate was surprisingly lower than you’d think at 72.4% but during his peak at St George Illawarra, his left boot was a massive advantage for the team that marched all the way to premiership glory in 2010.
Witt and Walsh had truncated careers but both finished above 80% before switching to the less intense Super League to extend their time in the professional ranks.
21 Jason Taylor
22 Reuben Garrick
23 Brett Hodgson
24 Mitchell Moses
25 Pat Richards
Taylor, like Halligan and Ridge, started off in the mound of sand era before becoming one of the early difference makers when it came to goal-kicking, primarily during his lengthy stint with North Sydney, finishing above 75%.
Garrick and Moses are active players who are likely to only get better while Hodgson and Richards are a couple of old Eels/Wests Tigers who came from different ends of the goal-kicking spectrum.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Hodgson was steady as she goes while Richards had one of the biggest boots seen in the NRL era and wasn’t always the main kicker for his team but could land goals from long range that others wouldn’t even consider.
There’s a bunch of goal-kickers over the past 25 years who have been noteworthy but either didn’t have a lengthy career with the boot or their strike rates weren’t comparatively as good as the players ranked above them.
Clinton Schifcofske, Ryan Girdler, Jamie Lyon, Corey Parker, Luke Covell and Josh Hannay were reliable performers for many years but were all below 75%.
Ben Walker hit at better than 78% but despite being top pointscorer in the NRL in 2001 with 103 goals in his haul, was not his team’s first-choice kicker most of his career.
Mark Riddell gets a shout-out for uniqueness with his famous salute style at the Dragons while a fellow St George Illawarra hooker, Michael Ennis in 2005 bagged 44 from 51 but was rarely a first-choice kicker at other stops later in his career.
Latrell Mitchell is under 75% and has the potential to rise up the rankings, Jamayne Isaako (80.2%) could do likewise if he cements a spot at the Dolphins while Ivan Cleary (76.2%) should not be overlooked for his efforts but his playing achievements are again being overshadowed by that pesky son of his.