4 sleeps to go

Only 4 more sleeps to go now, and number 4 on the countdown. Funnily enough, after seeing two members of the big three revealed in the countdown, we come across a guy who once rode shotgun with them as part of a "big four" who is now making enormous waves outside of Melbourne, you've no doubt figured out who I'm talking about, or your eyes immediately were drawn to the picture and large font when you opened the page to begin with anyway, so here he is...

#4 Greg Inglis

2012 proved a very rejuvenating year for the 26 year old Rabbitohs giant, not that his career needed rejuvenating. After the Bunnies began the season with two losses, Inglis was shuffled into fullback where he spent a large portion of his first two seasons with Melbourne. The results were immediate as the Bunnies trounced Penrith 40-24 with GI crossing over for a try. From there, you could not slow the big man down, his scorching form in the number 1 jersey leading a Rabbitohs charge towards the top of the competition. The only people that would prove capable of putting a halt to Inglis would be the judiciary who would ban Inglis for three weeks as a result of one of the most devastating hits we have seen in years from GI on the Dragons Dean Young. This blemish would squash any Dally M hopes Inglis may have had, but Inglis would once again put together a fantastic season, leading the Rabbitohs to a third place finish on the ladder, and eventually bowing out to the Bulldogs in the Preliminary Final. Not quite a Premiership, but a return to finals footy for a starved Rabbitohs fan base. Inglis would once again be a standout on the representative scene, scoring a try while playing centre in an Australian Test victory over New Zealand, as well as once again starring in Queensland's Origin series win, playing the first two games at centre scoring in each and then moving into fullback for game three for an injured Billy Slater. Games off wouldn't stop Inglis from dominating statistically, 4th in the NRL in line breaks with 23, 3096 metres, and leading the NRL in tackle busts with 162. Yes, despite the games off, Inglis still managed more tackle busts than anyone else in the NRL. He even put over a match winning field goal against the Tigers just to cap it off.

Reasons for banning the shoulder charge exhibit A

As with Billy Slater, and the three more players who will follow, I genuinely believe you can make an argument for Inglis or any of this group as the best player in the NRL. I have my opinion of who the number 1 is, but if you tell me you believe Inglis is the top dog then it's an entirely valid opinion. Let's take a look at the long list of career achievements from GI...

• RLIF Rookie of the Year
• Clive Churchill Medal
• Dally M Five Eighth of the Year
• Dally M Representative Player of the Year 2008 and 2009
• Peter Frilingos Memorial Award
• RLIF Five Eighth of the Year
• Golden Boot Award
• Harry Sunderland Medal
• RLIF Centre of the Year
• Ron McAuliffe Medal
• Wally Lewis Medal

He's appeared in 157 NRL games and scored 98 tries which is a fantastic strike rate, but his international strike rate is even better, scoring 19 times in his 21 appearances for Australia. But perhaps the most impressive, amongst all of the fantastic accolades Greg Inglis has earned, is his efforts in State of Origin. Through 18 Origin games, Inglis has never been part of a losing Origin campaign, playing a part in 7 straight Queensland Origin series victories and in 2012 claimed Inglis the all time record for tries in State of Origin, currently standing alone with 14 Origin tries. Unsurprising from the man who scored twice in his Origin début, twice in his second Origin game, ending up with 5 tries in his first three Origin appearances, and it should come as a shock to nobody to see Inglis receiving multiple awards for his representative level exploits.

At just 26 Inglis is already an Origin legend

If you aren't familiar with the full extent of GI's career, you may have noticed something peculiar when reading through his list of accomplishments, and that's the fact that he won Dally M and RLIF honors as five-eighth of the year, while also earning centre of the year respects later in his career. Of course, he's now also playing fullback and did a stand up job of that in a Queensland jersey, and started his Origin career playing on the wing for Queensland. That is the extraordinary ability of Greg Inglis, the versatility to be elite anywhere in the backline. He has the speed and agility to play on the wing, the strength and defense to play in the centres, the skill and kicking game to be recognized as the best five-eighth in the world when he was wearing the number 6. There is nothing that Greg Inglis cannot do, and not only can he do it, but whatever he has done, he has been one of if not the best at it. There are other players in the NRL with the versatile skill set to be able to play multiple positions, but to have been able to succeed at the highest levels in four positions is incredible. That would be enough to make Inglis one of the games best players, but then consider this, he is 195cm and 105kg. He is huge, bigger than most second rowers, bigger than many props as well. If you wanted to put Inglis into the forwards, he'd blend right in, and he's got a hell of a crunching tackle on him . Greg Inglis is the prototype for the perfect Rugby League player, if you could craft a footy player from the ground up, this would be the guy, he's the LeBron James of Rugby League blessed with the perfect physical attributes for his craft. No player in the NRL is more capable of covering basically every position on the field. The guy is built like a second rower, offloads and hits like a second rower, passes and kicks like a five-eighth, runs and finishes like a winger, catches like a fullback, he does everything. The perfect combination of size and speed and he has the best fend in the business, how often have you seen him plant that big right hand into a blokes chest and dispatch them like he's swatting away a fly, in the NRL, Internationally and in Origin. Few others have the ability to make Origin defenders look like junior players, he is the most physically gifted player in the NRL. His kick returns from fullback are unfair, someone so big and so fast getting plenty of space to build up speed and run straight into defenders, there's few scarier prospects for an NRL defense and he's one of the last guys you want to run towards either with his enormous size and strength enough to introduce even the biggest ball carriers to the grass.

What NSW nightmares are made of

At 26 we could now be seeing Inglis start to round into what will be the prime years of his career, a scary prospect considering the incredible destruction he has already unleashed on the Rugby League world. After establishing himself in the number 1 jersey in 2012, a full off season of training dedicated to remaining in the number 1, and the appetite that a close but not quite close enough finals campaign can bring should see Inglis terrorize the NRL once again. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if 2013 becomes the year of GI and we see him take the Dally M award. Expect GI to be monstrous, expect the Bunnies to once again be a force.

Check back in tomorrow as we move on to number 3, no more League free Sundays, I for one can't wait for a bit of Sunday afternoon footy, after the Thursday, Friday and Saturday footy of course. As always, I'm on Twitter @WellsNorthShore so drop me a tweet with comments, criticisms, or just to talk league.

19 sleeps to go

Finally we've broken through into the teens now, and over a third of the way through the countdown. With the World Club Challenge not being on until Saturday morning for those of us in Australia and New Zealand, that means after today there's only one more Saturday left without footy on our TV, everything is going swimmingly! so let's move on to number 19 on my list of the thirty top players in the NRL...

#19 Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor copped a fair bit of criticism around the 2012 Origin period and found himself out of the team come game 3 of the series and I'm sure a few people will disagree with me having him here. This year he joins a Titans team to create an absolutely loaded back row situation, joining Origin regulars Ashley Harrison, Greg Bird, Nate Myles and supplemented by the likes of Mark Minichiello, Luke Douglas, Luke Bailey. Much is being made of the Sharks forward pack this season and with good reason, but this Titans group may well be in the mix for the strongest forward pack in the competition. For all of the detractors that were chiming in about Dave and his place in the Queensland team, let's take a look at what he did for the Bunnies in 2012...

• 19th in the NRL in line breaks with 14
• 15th in the NRL in runs with 335
• 14th in the NRL in metres with 3104 (giving him an average of 9.2 metres per carry)
• 17th in the NRL in tackle busts with 85
• 6th in the NRL in offloads with 41

and Dave isn't exactly the type of bloke to log huge minutes to pad his stats, what he does is make impact, and those are impact stats. Metres, line breaks, offloads, tackle busts, that's how the big man stamps his print on the game.

While that appears to be a young child, it's actually a full grown woman

At only 24, Taylor is preparing to enter what will be his 8th year in the NRL, yet another one of these young players who feel like they have been around forever, but that's because in this instance, Taylor really has been around a long time already. But even when the man known as Coal Train first appeared in the NRL, he didn't look the least bit out of place, that's because he's an absolute mountain of a human being. In a competition full of plenty of big blokes, Taylor still stands out as one of the true big boys, standing at 185 and a hulking 123kg. But he's not just big, he's strong as an ox, which is why he's putting up the type of stats I presented earlier, the metres, the tackle busts, the strength to free up his arms for the offload, that's his calling card. I'd wage there's very few in the competition who could take on Big Dave in an arm wrestle, he's one of the few in the competition who makes a habit of manhandling opponents, tossing legit professional athletes around like he got lost and wound up at schoolboys game.

Big Dave says no

As if his imposing figure and tremendous strength wasn't worrying enough for opponents, the most freakish thing about Dave Taylor is that he's one of the biggest men in the competition, yet is loaded with skill. Sure, he can just run straight at your defense all game, and he'll break through it too or sap the life out of your defense trying, but trapped inside the frame of the big man is a guy who fancies himself as halfback or five-eight material. For his size, his ball skills are fantastic, Dave could get by as a rampaging front rower who just lugs the ball up, but he's so much more than that. He's got the offload, but he's also just a really good passer in general, the defense can't just simply brace themselves for the bus that is about to run them over because Dave may well be part of a play designed to exploit just that. Now there's several good ball playing backrowers in the comp, though at quite the size of Taylor is a rarity, but to cap it off he's got some skill in his feet as well. He's surprisingly agile for a man his size, though he isn't stepping around like he's Matty Bowen, he moves pretty well, about as graceful as a 123 kilos is ever going to move and he's got a bit of a kicking game. He's not going to chew off big raking kicks for you, but he isn't shy about putting a grubber in, and he's good at it too. If you wanted to make an overpowered player on Rugby League Live 2, Taylor would serve as a pretty good prototype.

How would you approach this situation?

For Taylor now it's all about finding consistency, maintaining his fitness, maintaining his health. 2012 saw him earn his first international cap with Australia, and was the third year in a row he was part of Queensland's Origin campaign, seeing him now up to 6 Origins. Earlier in his career there was questions about his work ethic and his weight, but he seems to have put those to rest. Of course he's still a heavy bloke, but he always will be, you could feed him lettuce sandwich's and water and that wouldn't change. In recent times he's looked in very good shape and seems to be fully committed to his training. So from here it's just about cutting down the errors to fully capitalize on his potential, remembering again that he's only 24, so he's still a young bloke who can work out the kinks. If he can do that, the world will be at his feet. 

If there was ever a bloke who looked like he'd chop a good tree

Check back in tomorrow for number 18, hopefully everyone enjoyed the first week of Super Rugby, right? if you have any comments or criticisms direct them to me at @WellsNorthShore 

20 sleeps to go

With 20 sleeps to go, we close in on the end of yet another Friday night without our Friday Night Footy fix, but these times are soon coming to an end! With the Charity Shield on Friday the 22nd, that means we only have to endure one more Friday evening without a game before the NRL begins. On that positive note, let's move on to number 20 in my list of the top 30 players in the NRL, with the first Englishman to enter the fray

#20 Sam Burgess

Big Sam is another young bloke who it feels like has been on the scene for 10 years. At just 24, he enters his fourth year in the NRL, after spending four years in the UK Super League for Bradford where he made his début in 2006. Burgess is only a fresh 24 year old at that, celebrating his birthday a little over two months ago in December of last year, by the time he celebrates his 25th birthday, he'll have four years of Super League and four years of NRL footy under his belt. Throw in an international career for the UK and England that began all the way back in 2007 and a spot in the NRL All Star game before he even played a game in the NRL and you've got a phenomenal resume for someone of such a young age.

19 year old Burgess obliterates Kiwi powerhouse Fuifui Moimoi

It didn't take very long for the 196cm, 116kg man-child to prove that his monstrous style of play was going to translate to the NRL. Capable of playing anywhere in the forward pack, Burgess spent the majority of his first season at the Rabbitohs in the second row, his second year was decimated by injury restricting him to only four games, his third season saw him transition into predominantly a front rower. His approach to the game however, regardless of the number on his back, remains the same, he does it all. With his huge frame and great strength, he carries the ball ferociously, he was 18th in the NRL in runs with 329 despite missing 6 games. He's also a fantastic offloader, 9th in the NRL, again despite missing a handful of games. He racks up tackles and minutes like they are going out of fashion, he's almost Gallen like in the way he can go out and play a complete forwards game seemingly without need for rest, which has seen him become a huge hit with Dream Team and Supercoach players. Worst of all for opposition teams, he hits like an absolute truck, earning the nickname "The Hitman"...

The hardest hitting Englishman since Ricky Hatton

What's left now for Burgess is to obtain a championship or two, something that has eluded him throughout his career so far. But at only 24, it seems just a matter of time until he finds premiership success, his Rabbitohs outfit certainly made a strong crack at it in 2012.  Burgess has also been hampered injury wise so will no doubt be hoping to put forth a complete season in terms of the number of games he can be on the pitch for, and one can only imagine what kind of damage he can do if his body doesn't slow him down. There's really nothing more for this guy to work on, he's the complete package, he's got plenty of years left in him, he's going to be one of the elite players in the competition for years to come. Along with being an exceptional player on the field, he seems to be a complete stand up character off the field also, and he's proved a great hit on the Footy Show

Check back in tomorrow as we break into the teens, at least the Super Rugby has started right? give me a tweet if you have any comments @WellsNorthShore

Don't punish shoulders, punish recklessness

The thunderous blow from Rabbitohs, Queensland and Australian superstar Greg Inglis on Dragons lock Dean Young once again has ignited the debate surrounding the shoulder charge in the game with many crying out to see shoulder charges outlawed.

As a Warriors fan, I watch week in week out Ben Matulino lay out opponents with his shoulder. Big Ben certainly has the reputation nowadays of being one of leagues true hitmen and he puts opponents on their backside with regularity. Despite this, I struggle to think of incidences where Matulino has connected with an opponents head, I struggle to think of when he has been suspended or even been put on report, I struggle to think of times where I've been genuinely concerned about the consequences of a hit he has thrown. I love to see a big hit, to see a bloke get smashed, as I'm sure most League fans do, but I do not like seeing someone get injured one bit, no matter how much of a grub they may be. Ben smashes people, but he smashes people in the way the game is meant to be played. I have little doubt that if he wanted to take the suspension that he could be having people carried off the field regularly, but he doesn't, he just continues to deliver the big, perfectly timed, clean shoulder to ball runners who are unfortunate enough to have themselves lined up. That's the difference, Matulino makes shoulder hits as a League play, he doesn't shoulder charge because he wants to injure people. To me, it looked quite clear that Inglis wasn't thinking about making a League play, he was thinking about absolutely destroying Dean Young and in doing so he went beyond the laws of the game and will be sitting on the sidelines for three weeks.

Shoulder charges are not the problem, reckless play is the problem. Why should we punish the Ben Matulino's of the world by taking away a part of his arsenal that is effective, clean and entertaining? perhaps if the punishments for such reckless play were stricter, we'd see more players who made a point of ensuring that if they are going to drop the shoulder, they do it right. Sure GI now sits for three weeks, but what about in the game, what happens to the guys doing these hits? a bit of a telling off and being placed on report, worry about it next week. If the refs began to start sending more blokes off the field for hits like that, we'd be seeing a lot more coaches ensuring that their players weren't making these types of hits, not when the consequences could be so costly. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the report system because I want to see the game played with an even number of guys on the field, that is how it is meant to be played, but if players knew being sent off was a very real possibility, would they want to run the risk of making a hit like Inglis did? or would they just focus on making a League play instead of hurting someone. Or perhaps if the refs had the power to eject a player from the game while still allowing his team to play at full strength? no coach is going to want to deal with playing with one less guy on his team the rest of the game, especially if it's one of his stars, and I suspect the players themselves wouldn't want to be thrown out of the game either, so maybe they'd be a little more careful and show a bit more respect for the game itself and the guys they are playing against.

The shoulder charge issue always brings out the concussion brigade in full force nowadays. As a fan of American Football, I'm well aware of some of the tragic results of concussion that have come about over there. I agree wholeheartedly that concussions are a very serious issue and we need to ensure that the guys out there destroying each other for our entertainment need to be taken care of. But why does it take somebody being smoked on a shoulder charge for the issue of concussion to once again come up for discussion. I was under the impression that the NRL was meant to be cracking down on issues around concussion this year, of course, it wouldn't be the first time we've heard that. Instead of worrying about shoulder charges, let's worry about the guys that we see every week getting absolutely hammered, taken off, and they're back on the field ten minutes later. Can Farah even remember playing Origin? he certainly wasn't all there after the blow he took, but of course "that's Origin", except I see it every weekend in the NRL also. The sideline reporter will offer us an update, "yeah he's just a bit groggy but he'll be back", we all know that groggy is just a nice word to use instead of the dreaded "c word". It's OK, he's just groggy, he'll be right, sounds a lot better than well actually he's away with the fairies but we'll spray some water on him and shove him back on soon. If we're that worried about concussions and the aftermath of them, then stop the guys we see leaving the field not even knowing what direction they're going from coming back onto the field. For all of the concern over the Inglis hit and concussions, Dean Young is on the Dragons team list for this week. I'm no doctor, but are we meant to believe that his brain is ready for another round so quickly? as someone who is genuinely concerned about the concussion issue, this is a much bigger problem to me and it happens all the time. Sure, some will say that if it wasn't for the shoulder charge Young wouldn't be in the situation. Fact is in this game people are going to get hurt and even without shoulder charges we are still going to see some people knocked out, we're still going to see some people "a bit groggy". Young was getting driven off the field a week ago, I guess his brain made a quick recovery, plenty of time to worry about it once his career is finished though I suppose.