NRL 2024: Who is the most important player at your club?

No matter how well-gelled some teams are as a unit, each NRL side has a most influential player through which their premiership hopes rely on. See your club’s most important star.

Stephen Crichton’s impact on a resurgent Bulldogs has been hailed as club-defining with the captain emerging as the most influential player in the game.

The lofty claim has been backed by Canterbury coach Cameron Ciraldo, who described the high-profile Penrith recruit acts as an extension of the Bulldogs coaching staff.

Softly-spoken and selective when sharing his views and opinions with the wider-public, Crichton takes on a completely different persona within the Bulldogs inner-sanctum.

“He’s as good as a coach,” Ciraldo said of Crichton’s impact.

“When they talk about Billy Slater, Cam Smith and Cooper Cronk, and how they were the best on-field coaches of the Storm, well, Stephen is one of our best coaches of our team.

“He’s an extension of our coaching staff.”

Rated the world’s best centre at Penrith last season, Crichton was chosen as captain of the Dogs just week after arriving at the club.

The decision came as a surprise with Crichton taking over from 2023 co-captains Reed Mahoney and Matt Burton.

However, the call has been justified with Crichton wasting little time on inflicting his impact and leadership at the Dogs by making the teammates around him better players.

“He understands our coaching system and is as good as anyone in our club in helping deliver that,‘’ Ciraldo said.

“Critta’ is forever helping our younger players.

“He’s with them in the video room, he’s guiding them out on the field.

“He contributes in team meetings and he’s relentless in his preparation.

“On his day off this week he was in Belmore in our ice baths, stretching and getting his body right.

“I said last year repeatedly that it wasn’t the system that was the problem, it’s a system that relies on teamwork to be effective and we just didn’t have that cohesiveness in the group, for a whole number of reasons.

“This year we have had ‘Critta’ come in and help with the culture and help drive our standards.

“You would’ve seen we were up 36-6 (against the Knights) and he was rallying the troops about our defence and reaffirming no more tries.

“Our trainers didn’t really need to do anything because ‘Critta’ was already delivering the message.”

After spending last season in the bottom four for points conceded, tries conceded, line breaks conceded and run metres conceded, the Bulldogs sit after the first eight rounds of this season among the top-four best clubs in the NRL.

They tackle a Wests Tigers side at Accor Stadium on Saturday that will be eager to break a four-game losing streak.

For all the hype and expectation of a brighter season, the Wests Tigers have crossed for a competition low 18 tries this season and are the only team without a try scored from inside their own half.

Ciraldo said the Bulldogs would be ready for a hungry Wests Tigers side, while putting a cap on the increasing promise over his own side.

“We’ve only won three games, no one’s getting ahead of ourselves here. There’s a lot of hard work to be done and it starts this Saturday,” Ciraldo said.

Originally published as NRL 2024: Who is the most important player at your club?