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- 1Wally Lewis
Wally Lewis, nicknamed "the King," played 31 State of Origin games for Queensland between 1980 and 1991 and captained the team in 30 of them, winning a record eight Man of the Match awards in the series that Queenslanders still regard as the format's golden era. He also played 33 international tests for Australia between 1981 and 1991 and captained the national team from 1984 to 1989, while collecting three Dally M Representative Player of the Year awards, in 1982, 1984, and 1988, plus the Dally M Five-Eighth of the Year award in 1988. Lewis's standing in Queensland rugby league was formalized after his retirement with a bronze statue erected at Lang Park, and the medal now awarded to the best player in each State of Origin series was renamed the Wally Lewis Medal in his honor. His combination of a record eight State of Origin Man of the Match awards and his sustained national team captaincy through the 1980s has made Lewis one of the most decorated and celebrated figures in Australian rugby league history.
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0 - 2Andrew Johns
Andrew Johns captained the Newcastle Knights to both of the club's premierships, in 1997 and again in 2001, and he won the Dally M Medal as the NRL's best player three times — back-to-back in 1998 and 1999, then a third, unprecedented time in 2002. In 2012, Johns was named the eighth Immortal of Australian rugby league, the sport's highest individual honor, and the first Immortal selected specifically for his performances in the modern NRL era rather than the earlier competitions that shaped the game's first Immortals. Johns's later public disclosure of his struggles with bipolar disorder and substance use during his playing career added a candid, widely discussed dimension to his post-retirement public profile, contributing to broader conversations about mental health among professional rugby league players specifically. His combination of a third, unprecedented Dally M Medal in 2002 and his 2012 selection as an Immortal has made Johns the player most frequently cited by fellow professionals as the greatest halfback in the sport's history.
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0 - 3Billy Slater
Billy Slater retired from the Melbourne Storm in 2018 with 190 career tries, the most in club history and the third-most in NRL premiership history behind only Ken Irvine and Alex Johnston, across 319 games that ranked third in Storm history behind teammates Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk. He won the Clive Churchill Medal as the best player in an NRL grand final twice, in 2009 and 2017, part of a career that included four grand final wins and five Dally M awards recognizing his individual excellence at fullback. His long-running partnership with Smith and Cronk formed the spine of one of the NRL's most sustained modern dynasties, with the trio playing together through most of Slater's 14-season career before all three retired within a few years of each other. Slater's combination of two Clive Churchill Medals and his club-record 190 tries has made him one of the most statistically decorated and widely admired fullbacks in NRL history.
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0 - 4Cameron Smith
Cameron Smith broke the NRL's all-time games record during the 2017 finals series, passing Darren Lockyer's mark when he played his 356th first-grade match, and he became the first and only player to reach 400 career premiership games before retiring after his 430th and final game on Grand Final Day 2020. He captained the Melbourne Storm in every one of his more than 250 games as skipper since taking over the role in 2008, leading the club to three premierships across eight grand final appearances, including a title win in his own 19th and final top-grade season. Smith finished his career as the NRL's all-time leading point-scorer with 2,786 points, a record built from nearly two decades of goal-kicking and playmaking from the hooker position for the same club. His combination of the NRL's all-time games record and his status as the competition's all-time leading point-scorer has made Smith one of the most statistically dominant and durable players in the sport's history.
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0 - 5Johnathan Thurston
Johnathan Thurston won the Dally M Medal, awarded to the National Rugby League's best player, a record four times, and his combination of exceptional kicking accuracy and creative playmaking made him one of the most complete five-eighths in the sport's modern history. His leadership of the North Queensland Cowboys to their first-ever premiership title in 2015, including kicking the match-winning field goal in extra time of the grand final, remains one of the most celebrated individual moments in recent rugby league history. Thurston's status as one of the most prominent Indigenous Australian athletes in rugby league made him a significant public figure well beyond his on-field achievements, and his advocacy work supporting Indigenous youth extended his influence into broader Australian social causes. His combination of a record four Dally M Medals and his historic 2015 premiership-winning performance has made Thurston one of the most statistically dominant and widely beloved individual players in modern rugby league history.
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0 - 6Mal Meninga
Mal Meninga is the only player in rugby league history selected for four Kangaroo Tours, in 1982, 1986, 1990, and 1994, and the only player to captain two of them, playing 46 tests for Australia — 23 of them as captain — across an 86-appearance international career. As Queensland's State of Origin coach starting in 2005, Meninga led the Maroons to an unprecedented eight consecutive series wins between 2006 and 2013, a run of interstate dominance without parallel in the format's history. He later coached Australia's national team from 2016, leading the Kangaroos to World Cup titles in both 2017 and 2021, giving him major representative-level success as a coach that mirrored his playing career's own representative honors decades earlier. His combination of a record four Kangaroo Tours as a player and eight consecutive State of Origin series wins as Queensland's coach has made Meninga one of the most decorated figures in rugby league history in both roles.
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