The long awaited list of the top ten rugby league players revealed

RUGBY league's most closely guarded secret can be revealed today - just who made the list of rugby league's 10 greatest ever players.

RUGBY league's most closely guarded secret can be revealed today.

The game's 10 greatest players have been hidden for four years to avoid embarrassment after the naming of the Team of the Century in 2008 - when four of the top 10 failed to make the starting side and were relegated to the bench.

The discrepancy has been blamed on the simmering factional feuds within the game, with some judges convinced bloc voting destroyed the integrity of the voting process.

The top 10 lends weight to claims retired Newcastle halfback Andrew Johns should be inducted as the eighth Immortal when judges cast their votes in Sydney today.

The top 10 players are: John Raper, Clive Churchill, Bob Fulton, Graeme Langlands, Reg Gasnier, Arthur Beetson, Wally Lewis, Dally Messenger, Frank Burge and Johns.

Ten greatest rugby league players mk II

The players were ranked once votes of the 130-strong college of judges chosen to pick the game's top 100 players were collated.

NSW Rugby League chief executive Geoff Carr is aware of the rumours of bloc voting for the Team of the Century and said there was little room in the secret ballots to fix results, but conceded it was not impossible.

"The process was really good. If people lobbied votes beforehand, that's where it might have been let down," Carr said.

Former Western Suburbs and St George coach and now newspaper columnist Roy Masters was a judge when the voting panel met at The Rocks before casting their secret ballots. This week he wrote: "It was very clear to me the Queensland contingent voted as a bloc."

Carr said he believed Fulton and Langlands failed to break into the team because "they received a lot of votes in more than one position".

Gallery: Rugby League's ten greatest players revealed

Video: Controversy Central - who should be next Immortal

NRL Talkback: Should Joey Johns be the next Immortal? Have your say from 12:30pm Wednesday

"A couple made the bench when, realistically," he said, "they should have made the team if they were voted for in one position."

Fulton polled votes as a five-eighth and centre, while Langlands polled votes as a centre and fullback. Wally Lewis was named five-eighth in the Team of the Century while the centres were Reg Gasnier and Mal Meninga. Fullback was Clive Churchill.

Another source involved in the process said he believed there was no organised bloc of the Queensland judges, saying: "That's just how they think."

Johns is the only player in the top 10 who could be made the eighth Immortal.

The first seven are already Immortalised. Messenger and Burge are ineligible because they played before World War II, one of the Immortals' original stipulations.

The top 10 was intended to occupy a special place in the rugby league museum which is due to open soon at Rugby League Central. However the list was sealed once positional votes were cast.

"The top 10 was a chance to legitimately nail our legends because we're opening this museum," Carr said.

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