Top 50 Player Lists

This week we count down the top 25 players in the NRL. Without further ado, the top 25 players of 2012.

25. Alex Glenn (Brisbane, 50)

Without question one of the most underrated players in the game, the Broncos backrower is in the top 50 for the second straight year following another excellent season where he topped Brisbane's tryscoring list with 13 (leading all forwards) and was one of the few big names at the club to play up to his ability. He also finished behind only Tony Williams and Dave Taylor in tackle breaks by forwards. Glenn is the kind of player you build a team around.

For the fifth year, Making The Nut presents the top 50 players in the NRL. Rankings are based on contribution and performance at club level in 2012 though rep performances are noted. The performance of the team is also strongly considered.

A quick note: The number in the bracket is where the player finished last year with a * indicating they didn't play in 2011. In part two, I will provide the table of where players have finished in each of the four years.

Without further ado, players 50-26 of 2012. 

Here we are again. Another season done and dusted. After 201 games played by 472 players, I list the top 50. There will be arguments, there will be criticisms but this is the list of the top 50 players in the game in 2011.

Players 50-26

25. Chris Houston (Newcastle, -)
The Newcastle backrower made a magnificent return after missing 2010 over a drug trafficking charge. Houston was the Knights’ best forward, a hard running threat on the fringes who could bust a line when on song yet a player who was always in the thick of it defensively. Houston averaged 35 tackles and 80 metres a match and was a genuine 80-minute forward who was stiff not to get an Origin call-up this year. He will surely get the nod in 2012.

Here we are again. Another season done and dusted. After 201 games played by 472 players, I list the top 50. There will be arguments, there will be criticisms but this is the list of the top 50 players in the game in 2011.

A quick note: The number in the bracket is where the player finished last year with a * indicating they didn't play in 2010. In part two, I will provide the table of where players have finished in each of the four years.

Rugby league fans should take note: this is the most definitive list in ordering rugby league talent anywhere. No other publication will lay it out so explicitly and no other writer will delve so deep. No punches are pulled and no feelings are spared. These are the top 50 players from 2010 in order of contribution, importance and ability.

Some big players have missed out. Brett Kimmorley, Ben Hannant, Greg Inglis and Johnathan Thurston have fallen from the top ten all the way out of the top fifty. Kimmorley’s form took a sharp turn south this year while Hannant’s season was hampered by injury. Greg Inglis turned up overweight this year and did very little for the Storm while Thurston couldn’t lift the Cowboys off the bottom of the table. Anthony Watmough, Ben Creagh, Zeb Taia, Michael Ennis, Josh Morris and Michael Jennings were other high profile casualties to drop out. This isn’t a list that panders to the stars and gushes over reputations. This is a list based on what gets done on the football field and nothing else.

After the rousing success of last year’s list, where Kurt Gidley led the rankings of the top fifty players in the NRL, that saw a steady stream of hate mail arrive in my letter box until Christmas, it has been decided high in the Punting Ace offices that the NRL Top 50 will become an annual tradition at Punting Ace. “It is good for business” said Kirley. “And at any rate, it is always good fun seeing you wage a war on so many fronts”. Indeed.

And it will be war as this is the definitive list. In my mind, there is no debate. This is it. It would seem wishful thinking, however, to believe that every reader will provide the same deference to the list. At any rate, here is the list.

Rugby league season is over. The depression has set in. We still have a World Cup, which will be grand. It isn’t the same, however, and now is the time to start considering strange adventures to dull the pain. Like a trip along the Amazon where there is every chance you will be kidnapped for your kidneys just for sport and some dinner money by strange moustachioed gentlemen with a taste for cocaine and a severe disdain for personal hygiene.

Before I head for the hills, however, some analysis is required. For personal sanity and nostalgia, if nothing else.