NRL fittest, fastest, strongest 2021: Rugby league’s strongest ever man Odell Manuel
It’s a power game dominated by big forwards, but, in a stunning twist, the strongest man in NRL history is a winger. See rugby league’s greatest ever athletes.
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Odell Manuel is a name for the true NRL trainspotter but the former Raiders and Warriors winger holds the distinction of being the strongest rugby league player of all time.
Sure, the big weights only started going up after Manuel retired when he took up powerlifting, and in his playing days he wasn’t a standout on the steel — that honour goes to former teammate Lesley Vainikolo.
But the numbers speak for themselves. Manuel, a former Australian powerlifting champion, is the greatest workout warrior the sport has ever produced.
“All my best lifts were in comps, they were 470kg for the squat, 265kg for the bench and 405kg on the deadlift,” Manuel said.
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“I always tell people that with powerlifting that if you trained for it you’d be surprised what you can do.
“But in footy I was just a winger and I wasn’t big like Wendell Sailor. I played with some bigger guys but I wasn’t one of the bigger lifters in the team. It was something that came up later.”
A chronic knee injury forced Manuel to retire in 2006 after 58 first grade matches but he stayed in the gym to keep fit before a group of powerlifters told him to give the new sport a try.
“I trained for three months and went to my first comp and my total would have got me into the World Championships. It was only a novice comp, but it made me realise I should give it a go,” Manuel said.
“Then I did my second comp and I became number one in Australia, so I thought I better keep doing it.”
Manuel eventually became a multiple time Australian champion and went to the World Championships before retiring from the sport in 2019.
Despite reaching greater heights in his second career he still believes making first grade is the top accomplishment of his sporting life.
“Playing NRL is still the ultimate for me. It’s hard to make the NRL, only one per cent of players make it and even though I probably didn’t do as well in the NRL as I did in powerlifting it was still a huge achievement,” Manuel said.
“When I became the top lifter in Australia, and I don’t want this to come out the wrong way, but I always felt like I could do that. When I got it it was still exciting, but I kind of knew I could do it.
“In NRL you want to win the premiership but it doesn’t mean you’re going to win the premiership.
“But I knew with powerlifting that I could be number one, because I saw the lifts and thought I just needed a little bit of time.”
At 43, Manuel doesn’t squat or deadlift anymore because of knee injuries, but he’s still throwing up weights any NRL player would be proud of.
“I still do a lot of upper body stuff, bench and shoulder press and all that. Just recently I did 14 reps on 180kg and I was doing about 20 reps on 180 when I was training, so I’m not too far off,” Manuel said.
“The players today are freaks, because I know that when you’re running you burn muscle.
“Doing that and still doing 200 on the bench is freakish. Running is a lot harder – or it is for me, anyway.”
RUGBY LEAGUE’S GREATEST EVER ATHLETES
David Hala
Hala broke the bench press record at Brisbane when he hoisted 187kg in 2011 and the powerhouse prop was one of the best ever specimens to come through the Broncos.
However injuries were not kind to the Tongan international and he managed just 39 games for the Broncos and Titans from 2009 to 2016 before retiring at 27.
He late pursued a career in shot put.
Joven Clarke
Clarke, who played with South Sydney from 2002 to 2006, is quite possibly the fastest rugby league player ever to lace on a boot.
In 2002 he clocked his personal best of 10.49 seconds over the 100 metres. For context, Matt Shirvington put up 10.31sec to win the Australian title that same year.
At just 73kg, size was always an issue for Clarke but he retains a special place in the hearts of certain fans after he was immortalised as the fastest player on the old Rugby League PS2 video game.
PART I: YOUR CLUB’S FITTEST, FASTEST, STRONGEST PLAYERS
PART II: YOUR CLUB’S FITTEST, FASTEST, STRONGEST PLAYERS
Kelepi Tanginoa
Marty Taupau has a reputation as the NRL’s king of the gym, but Tanginoa came for the crown during his stint with Manly from 2017 to 2019. Tanginoa hit a bench press of 200kgs at the Sea Eagles and one of the strongest players in the league during his time with Parramatta and North Queensland. He currently plies his trade with Wakefield Trinity in England.
Darren Clark
Clark finished fourth in 400 metres at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics and earned a gold medal in the same event at the 1990 Commonwealth Games before giving rugby league a try with Balmain the following year. Despite scoring a try with his first touch in a trial match, Clark didn’t play first grade but he did cross the stripe 11 times in reserve grade before returning to athletics the following year. He holds the Australian 400m record to this day.
Leon Bott
Bott burst onto the scene as an 18-year old in 2005, scoring 13 tries in 24 games for Brisbane with his blinding speed fast making him a fan favourite. With a personal best of 10.89s over the 100 metres there were few players who could get near Bott but he never replicated the success of his rookie year, playing just two more NRL games before switching to rugby.
FITTEST, FASTEST, STRONGEST: THE INCREDIBLE LOCK REVOLUTION
When you watch Connor Watson play for Newcastle, you’re looking at the future.
Pound-for-pound the strongest player at the Knights, as well as one of the fittest, the 177cm, 89kg Watson has jumped between fullback, halves and hooker — until finding his home in a position that has undergone something of a rugby league revolution.
It wasn’t so long ago that a lock was just another prop forward with a fancier number. Then the likes of Victor Radley and Cam Murray helped redefine the role, with a trend towards a player with greater mobility who could pass the ball.
It’s not that every lock has to be exactly like those two — in fact, that would kind of miss the point of it all.
The only thing all the NRL locks have to have in common is they bring something different to the table, and for Watson it’s his speed and athleticism.
It’s a drastic change from the homogenised style of forward that once pervaded the NRL and it’s beginning to show on the ladder — if you don’t have a lock that can do something different, you risk getting left behind.
“The sides that are playing three front-rowers are a bit behind those that aren’t,” said Fox League expert Greg Alexander.
BELOW: YOUR CLUB’S FITTEST, FASTEST, STRONGEST PLAYER
“I think you’re behind if you don’t have that type of player in the middle.
“You can see how dangerous fullbacks are when they get in and around the ruck and Connor sort of presents that same threat to the defence.
“Look at Ryan Papenhuyzen, he started in first grade coming off the bench and playing in the middle and he was always a threat because of his speed.
“I’m not saying Connor is that quick but out of all the 13s he probably is the quickest.”
After years of switching between the halves, hooker and fullback, Watson has at last found a position that best suits his talents. Like Tyrone Peachey at the Titans, he would have likely ended up there years ago only it didn’t exist as it does now.
“You can see how dangerous fullbacks are when they get in and around the ruck and Connor sort of presents that same threat to the defence because of his speed and footwork, and he adds some ball-playing into the mix as well,” Alexander said.
“If you haven’t got that type of player in your team, you need to think about manufacturing one or buying one.”
Manufacturing Watson into a lock is just what the Knights did, with a huge effort needed from the player himself and the club’s performance staff to make such a transition.
Watson is the strongest player pound-for-pound at the Knights, as well as one of the fittest, and he attacked the transition with serious intensity. It wasn’t as simple as bulking up — if Watson just stacked on size he’d lose some of the speed, footwork and ability to change direction that made him dangerous in the first place.
“It’s a highly unique role and it’s a pretty prized role now in the NRL,” said Knights head of performance Balin Cupples.
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“The middles are a little bit different in terms of how many collisions they take, how often they get off the ground, how much they have to get off the ground, how much up and back they have to do at higher intensity.
“It’s not adding an extreme amount of weight, it’s 2-3 kilos of good, lean mass that helps him with the collisions and the change of role.
“That goes with your gym program and your nutrition and Connor is super consistent in terms of his preparation outside of football.”
As a fast-twitch athlete, Watson has a quick metabolism, so to build muscle he also had to eat more frequently.
The whole process seems to have suited him, with Watson taking an active role in the transition along with the performance staff.
“If he puts his mind to it Connor goes for it all,” said Cupples.
“He seeks information, he’ll come to me or the rest of the performance staff with questions, or he might recommend a podcast, he’s someone who is educated in chasing elite performance.”
The Knights have struggled for consistency amid a heavy injury toll to the backline but their forwards have been a shining light, especially their middles. Watson has also helped bring energy off the field, which Cupples believes is crucial in managing the arduous nature of a long season.
“He has a really good relationship with Klem, they’re always at each other and pushing each other,” he said.
“He knows when he’s putting up good numbers, he lets people know and they come back at him — it’s a good feeling in that middles group at the minute, they’re all competing.
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