Johnathan Thurston now equal to the great Andrew Johns, says Immortal Bob Fulton

MERCURIAL playmaker Johnathan Thurston is equal to a rugby league Immortal in the eyes of another Immortal.

BOB Fulton says Johnathan Thurston is now the equal of Andrew Johns as a playmaker.

Equal to a rugby league Immortal, in other words, in the eyes of another Immortal. Fulton, the former Australian Test captain and coach, is one of the men in league least likely to make rash judgments of leading players in comparison to past greats, so his comparison carries much weight.

“He’s now the equal to Andrew Johns – he’s the complete package,’’ Fulton said on The Continuous Call radio 2GB broadcast. Fulton’s evaluation does underline the stakes Thurston is playing for with the Cowboys, less than a month out from his 31st birthday.

“JT’’ did play in a grand final-winning team off the bench in Canterbury-Bankstown’s 2004 win.

News_Rich_Media: North Queensland Cowboys coach Paul Green fronts the media following his side's narrow defeat to the Broncos.

But he has had nine campaigns without a premiership for North Queensland.

In the NRL era since 1998, these have included Johns, Daly Cherry-Evans and Kieran Foran, Cooper Cronk, Darren Lockyer, Benji Marshall, Brad Fittler, Brett Kimmorley, Allan Langer and Kevin Walters. Some Sydney media types who pushed Johns’ barrow with such gusto in the campaign to have him installed instead of Mal Meninga as an Immortal in 2012 would have fainted on Saturday at Fulton’s suggestion on the merits of Thurston and Johns.

Thurston’s 30 Tests and 27 Origin games are already more than Johns (23 in each).

News_Image_File: Johnathan Thurston of the Cowboys.

And that’s before we take into account his essential, ever-present role in Queensland’s eight series wins.

In terms of individual honours, Johns is the only man to have won the Dally M Medal three times and he won the international Golden Boot award twice.

Thurston is a dual winner of the Dally M Medal in 2005 and 2007 and took out his second Golden Boot trophy last year, so his individual record bears scrutiny.

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Thurston tried hard in attack and defence in the loss to Brisbane last Friday night, but his sixth-tackle options were either unusually astray or well read by Broncos players.

The Cowboys are 1-1 going into a home match against the inconsistent New Zealand Warriors, who have lost their opening two games to the Eels and Dragons badly.

“We shouldn’t have put ourselves in that position. Being two points ahead, we were semi-comfortable and just lacked that mentality to get the job done,’’ Cowboys co-captain Matt Scott said.