Who is the best player in the NRL right now?
Latrell Mitchell’s 26 points against Wests Tigers had the accolades piling up — but is the Roosters flyer really better than, say, Luke Keary, Cooper Cronk or Cameron Smith? VOTE IN THE POLL.
Opinion
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Latrell Mitchell scored 26 points on Saturday and, among the accolades, was crowned the best player in the game.
It was hard to argue if you looked at the stats.
Mitchell scored 26 points against Wests Tigers and next best around the NRL was Kalyn Ponga with 20, ahead of both Adam Reynolds and Reuben Garrick with a mere 18.
On the evidence provided, surely he had to be the best player in the game.
Although it might be Luke Keary.
Keary, in theory, could have scored 27 or even 28 points over the weekend but he was so busy helping his teammates.
He leads the NRL in try assists with 12 and also in try contributions with six.
It could be reasonably argued that if Keary was not so busy helping Mitchell get to his 26 points and had hung on to the ball a little more, he too might well have had a haul worth bragging about.
Keary scored a try, had a try assist and two more try contributions against the Tigers.
He could be the best player in the game at the moment.
It depends where you are looking.
No team can win the game without good go forward up front, so on that measure David Klemmer might just be the best player in the game.
Klemmer has run for 1382m this season, more than any other player in a list that includes James Tedesco. Tedesco is second with 1370m.
Klemmer is going so well that after him you have go down to St George Illawarra’s Paul Vaughan in ninth place to find a player who is not in the back three on the list of the game’s best yardage men.
But Klemmer, who has four tries for just 16 points in his career, fewer than Mitchell scored on Saturday night, is an unfashionable pick. Could he really be the best player in the game?
It could be Cameron Munster.
Munster had an off night against Cronulla on Saturday so he could hardly have challenged Mitchell’s 26 points. But he has done enough over the first eight rounds to lead the Dally M Player of the Year leaderboard.
The Melbourne five-eighth began the season with a blitz. He is relentless and unfashionable.
He stole the ball three times against Penrith, almost inventing a new stat category for himself. And when many people sit down and look at the game’s future, Munster is the player they focus on.
But Munster said the other day that the only leaderboard he cared about was the competition ladder, so it seems the Dally Ms might not be so important after all.
Cooper Cronk could be the best player in the game.
Cronk won the premiership with Melbourne in 2017. He then left the Storm last year to play for the Roosters, where he won another premiership.
While no team has won consecutive titles since the Broncos in 1992-93, no player has switched clubs and gone back-to-back since Johnny Mayes (Manly, Easts) in 1973-74.
If winning is what matters most then surely Cronk, with his influence over a team, is the best player in the game.
Some say it most definitely is Cameron Smith.
Smith, who would not look out of place filing tax returns, has only 230 run metres for the year (269th in the NRL), has run only 23 times all season (equal 275th), has three try assists (equal 30th), no tries (equal last), no linebreaks (equal last), two linebreak assists (equal 44th) and 52 post-contact metres (equal 281st).
What they can’t measure, though, is influence; on the result, among the team, for a club.
If you sat 16 coaches down, or 16 chief executives, and asked them, regardless of the needs of their own roster, what player they would sign, most would still plump for Smith, even at 35.
But would that be for just this season or an extended deal?
There is little doubt Smith would dominate any short-term conversation. Long term, at 35, not as much.
And that makes Mitchell, at 21, so attractive.
In his debut season he was compared to the great Greg Inglis and the comparisons have not stopped.
Mitchell is a hell of a player and, at the right club, like where he is now, could well be the game’s best player.
It changes depending on one simple truth.
It depends on what you value.
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