A weakness for outside backs

Having a look at a few rugby players on the web for the first time in a while, I foundthis 2008 list of the thirty best players of the past thirty years, excluding those not eligible to play for Australia:

1. Andrew Johns
2. Wally Lewis
3. Brad Fittler
4. Darren Lockyer
5. Allan Langer
6. Mal Meninga
7. Peter Sterling
8. Laurie Daley
9. Brett Kenny
10. Bradley Clyde
11. Mick Cronin
12. Steve Walters
13. Glenn Lazarus
14. Steve Rogers
15. Gorden Tallis
16. Shane Webcke
17. Steve Roach
18. Terry Lamb
19. Ricky Stuart
20. Ray Price
21. Andrew Ettingshausen
22. Danny Buderus
23. Jonathan Thurston
24. Cameron Smith
25. Graham Eadie
26. Steve Mortimer
27. Benny Elias
28. Wayne Pearce
29. Nathan Hindmarsh
30. Cliff Lyons

Although I have not access to enough rugby league footage to tell if this list really is accurate, what I do know about rugby league (the Super League war reduced my interest in the game I must confess) I can state that the main flaw with the list is positional. There is not a single winger in that list; though wingers never win player-of-the-year awards, that should hardly mean they should be omitted.

• Eric Grothe senior would be the obvious choice to rectify this omission: for one thing he was one of only two players

Also, with fullbacks and centres, the list is not only weak but also places the few in those positions in odd places:

• Darren Lockyer
• Mal Meninga
• Mick Cronin

are all very high given the lack of outside backs in the list as a whole. Then Graham Eadie, though from my limited experience watching the sport the bets player I have seriously seen, is a little too old (he first played in 1971) to be a part of a list covering the period from 1978 to 2007.

As for inside backs, it is hard to see apart from his bad injury record (his last injury-free season was in 1989) how Greg Alexander was not preferred over Steve Mortimer or Cliff Lyons.