Apologies to those on Redvee - I posted this on there earlier but I thought it deserved a wider viewing.

Whilst we are at a significant point in the history of our famous old club I thought I'd share with you a piece I clipped out of the Guardian a good few years ago (15 maybe?). 'Centipede' had a weekly column in which the greatest in a particular field were discussed. I suspect it was a different journo every week depending on the topic and I reckon this one was Martin Kelner, or maybe David Lawrenson. The week's topic was 'The Greatest Rugby Player'. Don't be put off by the length - it is an entertaining read!

CENTIPEDE – The Greatest of the 20th Century – Rugby Players

Anyone who doubts the superiority of rugby league to rugby union did not watch this summer’s test series between Australia and Great Britain. The skill, speed, vigour and excitement reduced what passes at Twickenham to ageing Sunday-side level.

It has always been so, if kept mostly secret by a combination of Unionist embarrassment and northern chauvinism. So when we talk about the greatest rugby league player of the century, we should be clear that this also means the greatest rugby player of the century.

No lumbering ambulant lighthouses here, or crab-like kicking fly-halves; here we talk of dash and guts, of entertainers; Puig Aubert, for instance, the French full back known as Pipette because of his liking for the odd cigarette from a spectator when play was upfield. Aubert, as Ray French recalls in his 100 great Rugby League players, also preferred to field high balls with one hand. He was small, increasingly round, and, in 1951, he kicked 18 goals out of 18 attempts in three Test matches against Australia. There should be an award for best nickname. Centipede.s favourite has always been Wilf Rosenberg, the South African who played with Leeds and Hull and, because of speed and calling, was known as The Flying Dentist. Not quite as snappy, though, as Martin “Chariots” Offiah; nor as evocative as that given to another Leeds winger, the elusive Australian, Eric Harris: The Toowoomba Ghost.

Harris, tall and lean,looked the part: some of rugby league’s appeal has been that many of its great players have not; Brian Bevan, frail, knock-kneed, bald, sans teeth, scored 796 tries in 14 seasons; Lewis Jones was another pale, balding one for whom you feared; Wally Lewis hardly looked like a great Australian stand-off; Garry Schofield, the Great Britain captain, seems laughably unfavoured next to today’s Australians, unlit you give him the ball.

Lewis Jones was as notable a capture from rugby union in the 1950s as Jonathan Davies in the 1980s. Wales, where the game is also played for more than fun, has always been the favourite source. Billy Boston, a winger of huge size and surprising grace, was Welsh, but like Offiah, he “turned” before international recognition at union.

The wingman, of course, has always been the prized draw of league: Offiah is in a line which also includes the great Albert Rosenfeld, an Australian who played for Huddersfield outside Harold Wagstaff, the Prince of Centres, and scored 80 tries in the 1913-14 season.

The greatest winger, unquestionably Tom Van Vollenhoven, a South African who had it all; Offiah’s pace and balance, plus sidestep, and hand-off, with 13 and a half stone behind it, and the glamour of an import from a faraway country about which we then knew little.

The greatest overall? Wingers aren’t in the game enough, forwards have the power and excitement, but rarely the subtlety and speed of body and thought. Ellery Hanley thrilled, but never made you really gasp. Not like Mal Meninga, the current Australian captain and centre, when 16 stones travelling at full pelt and a feint with the shoulder makes the full back fall over backwards 10 yards in front of him.

But still not the greatest. That has to be a northerner, for the combination of earthiness, courage, grace and wit which stamps the game. A cameo: two forwards, forgotten but probably Yorkshiremen, are frozen in the act of giving and taking a pass, while 20 yards behind them, touching down with one hand and turning with a great grin on his face, is the scrum half, stand-off, centre and cheeky chappy, Alex Murphy, Alexander the Greatest.