Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame and Immortals

[Frank McWilliams]

Becoming an immortal should not only be based on actual football career, it should be the main consideration but should also include what players have done and achieved since retirement which in turn means that a period of time must pass before decision is made.
Players such as Ron Coote have long since retired and should have been inducted by now or no longer considered, we should be looking at top players and there achievements from 10-20 years prior to retirement. Players that have retired recently, 10 years or less should not come into consideration to allow for reassessing the career and achievements of those and others to assess the deserved recipient of this award.
A absolute must is that living immortals should be consulted on nominations and selections of future immortals.

 

[HarVeeGee13]

Ron Coote, hahahaha. The guy who got his nickname specifically based on the widely held belief he was only the second best player *in his position* of his era.

Nice to see the Immortals concept finally tip the hat to guys who played in the 60's though.

I think it should have been Lockyer or, if you wanna go a bit further back, my old man and his brothers will tell you Brett Kenny is the clear standout from 1980-2000 who's not already in there.

 

[mozza]

Yeah I thought Kenny would’ve been a logical choice. I’ve only see highlights but I’ve heard a lot of people say that he was better than Wally Lewis.

 

[Still_Nutty]

Played some juniors football with Bert at Guildford leagues and even then (10s, 11s and 12s), he was the most naturally gifted footballer I’ve ever seen.

I was lucky enough to see his entire career at Parramatta and he was just a level above those he played against, be it at a club, state or international level.

Whilst he had great defence and a great passing game, for me, it was his ability to carve up a defence that was his signature.

He had a running style and swerve that actually allowed him to accelerate as he changed direction and ran around defenders, it was just poetry in motion.

He was also the greatest intercept player you will ever see - he made an art form of it!

During those glory years at Parramatta he had Peter Sterling as the general on the inside of him, Mick Cronin was the inside centre, with the ‘zip zip man’ Steve Ella playing outside centre and ‘Ekka the wrecka’ Eric Grothe Snr as the winger..,still the best club back line I ever saw in their prime.

From memory, he was the only NSW 5/8 that had a winning record over all against Wally Lewis, when they went head to head at State of Origin level.

In the 3 grand finals they won from 1980 - 1986, he actually scored 2 tries in each of the first 2 premiership games and crossed the line twice in the 1986 grand final to be contentiously denied tries both times by Kevin Roberts…with still Parra going on to win the lowest scoring grand final in history at 4-2.

If you get a rainy day or a late night with crap on TV, do yourself a favour and watch this collection of ‘Brett Kenny Rugby League Highlights’ on YouTube (

) - this is a 30 minute video of highlights across his career that gives you a sense of why he is rated by many, including me, as the best 5/8 to pull on a boot.