Monday Buzz: Should Paul Gallen be considered as a future Immortal? Blog with Buzz from 9am
RUGBY league legend Bob Fulton believes NSW skipper Paul Gallen should be considered a future Immortal. Blog with Buzz from 9AM.
RUGBY league legend Bob Fulton believes NSW skipper Paul Gallen should be considered a future Immortal.
Yes, it’s a huge statement but one Fulton — himself an Immortal — has the credentials to make.
He genuinely believes Gallen should now be recognised as NSW’s best-ever State of Origin forward.
Better even than old champions Glenn Lazarus and Bradley Clyde.
“We talk about Darren Lockyer, Greg Inglis, Cameron Smith, Johnathan Thurston and Billy Slater as future Immortals, which is fair enough too,” Fulton said.
“It’s just that I’d include Paul Gallen in that company too. He’s the best NSW Origin forward I’ve seen.
“He’s played magnificently for Australia over a long period of time in the back-row and front-row. He can play 80 minutes.
“All the players want to play with him. He’s the man you’d want to go to war with.”
It’s interesting that only two forwards — Johnny Raper and Arthur Beetson — have been named among the eight Immortals.
The others are flashier, more brilliant players who touched the football more often during their wonderful careers.
Even without a premiership — and at this stage an Origin series win — Fulton points out that a lot of greats retired without the grand final success they probably deserved.
Steve Rogers, Tommy Raudonikis, Wayne Pearce and even Wally Lewis. The same with Blocker Roach, Paul Sironen and Andrew Ettingshausen.
Gallen is likely to be the next because not even a Sharks tragic like me is expecting one in the next two seasons.
This brings us to Wednesday week and the return State of Origin game at ANZ Stadium. No player deserves victory more than our inspirational captain. A tough, uncompromising and totally committed football player who has given everything to the Sharks, the Blues and Australia.
The last couple of years have been desperately hard on the Cronulla enforcer.
The fact he missed Origin III last year with a busted knee. The ASADA scandal and all the rumours that he was involved in it.
His team currently sitting on the bottom of the table.
This is the biggest Origin game in Sydney ever.
Bigger even than 1985, when the mercurial Steve Mortimer kissed the SCG turf after the Blues won their first series.
For eight painful years we’ve watched the Maroons dominate like no side since St George and their 11 premierships in the 1950s and ’60s.
They keep telling us NSW don’t have the passion that Queensland have. Paul Gallen will prove otherwise on Wednesday week.
And no one will be more deserving of lifting the shield in front of 84,000 fans. Just ask Bob Fulton.
POOR RECRUITMENT LEAVES SHARKS FLOUNDERING
I’M not in the habit of bagging the Cronulla Sharks but something needs to be said about their recruitment.
This year they signed Daniel Holdsworth, Matt Prior, Eric Grothe and Blake Ayshford.
In fairness to Grothe, he has been injured for much of the year. But the others have been awful.
At the same time the club allowed local juniors Tyrone Peachey and Chad Townsend to leave.
Boom Michael Lichaa, another local junior, is off to the Bulldogs next year.
Peachey is playing sensational football at the Panthers and is shaping up as the buy of the year.
He is 12 months off becoming an Origin player.
As much as this club desperately needs coach Shane Flanagan back, it also needs a better recruitment plan.
The locals from a very strong junior league should be encouraged instead of being allowed to go elsewhere.
The strategy of signing older and more experienced players is fine but not at the expense of these outstanding youngsters.
Saturday night’s performance against St George Illawarra was inept and unacceptable. Sure, they didn’t have Paul Gallen, Luke Lewis, Todd Carney and probably half the salary cap.
No side should be beaten 30-0 by the Dragons. It’s now two weeks in a row they haven’t scored a point.
Better recruitment would provide better depth for situations like they confronted against the Dragons.
HIGHLIGHT
THE Penrith Panthers and their surge to the top of the competition ladder. I was one of the few who tipped them to make the finals this year and give the premiership a real shake.
LOWLIGHT
GREG Inglis’sankle injury in Perth. It would be so much nicer to beat the Maroons at full strength so they can’t use injuries as an excuse.
MATT GETS CALL-UP
WHEN was the last time a TV station had to drag someone out of the crowd to call a rugby league game? When flu-suffering Fox Sports caller Warren Smith almost lost his voice on Saturday in Wollongong, luckily local boy Matt Russell was in the crowd and came to the rescue to call the second half.
DYLAN’S ELECTRIC
WHEN was the last time we saw a young centre with as much promise and potential as South Sydney’s Dylan Walker?
His try against the Warriors on Saturday night was sensational. This kid will play for Australia for sure.
ABOUT TIME
WARREN Ryan’sretirement from the ABC’s rugby league broadcasting is overdue.
The national broadcaster needs analysts and experts more in touch with the modern game. The future of the Warren Ryan Medal — the ABC’s player-of-the-year award — is now in doubt.
Originally published as Monday Buzz: Should Paul Gallen be considered as a future Immortal? Blog with Buzz from 9am