50. Jaeman Salmon - I don't feel strongly one way or another. One of those players who was a star coming through the juniors but hasn't really made the same impact at NRL. He's also been at a number of clubs which for somebody his age is usually a sign that he has an attitude. Ricky did his best to turn Salmon babyface with his completely inappropriate and out of line presser but that's Salmon's biggest career highlight to date.
49. Josh Hoffman - As somebody who followed the 20s closely, I enjoyed watching Hoffman play. In that environment, he was like a mix of kamikaze Hunt with the agility of Hodges and he was just a machine coming out of trouble. In a lot of ways, he sums up that era of junior talent because he wasn't scouted by the club. Griffin brought him over from the Dolphins because the Broncos really weren't fussed on the 20s and when he did better than expected everyone got carried away. He showed enough promise in 2010-11 to earn a spot at fullback, but 2012 was the year he was found out.
He actually did well on the wing in 2013 and was one of the few highlights outside of Parker carrying the team. A lot of fans bag Hoffman for not sticking to that position, but from memory Griffin kept him in the dark about playing fullback and he just wanted transparency. He took the bullet initially because the Broncos had a crisis in the backs but when they were chasing Duges and Barba he was clearly being told fibs.
48. Steve Michaels - Put me down as somebody who rated Michaels over Darbs. I feel like I'm not alone on this either and that this was the consensus until 2009. I'm not entirely sure why either, because from what I've seen of his 07 work, he wasn't setting the world on fire. Soft runs coming out of trouble, suspect hands and not exactly great defence. Sure Darbs had a sophmore slump, but were we under mass hysteria? Granted, it took me until Origin II 2008 for me to forgive Darius after he helped Penrith get to golden point in R3 07. I went from being a low-key Boyd admirer (no more Minto! sorry you Minto minions but your boy over-stayed his welcome) to an out and out hater.
Back to Steve, the brunt of this was during the Broncos 09 slump where teams would have a field day running down the Broncos left edge. I thought Steve copped far too much blame but it was crazy how the one selection seemingly solved the issue. I still have nightmares of that Souths game where Sutton would dance past Parker and Wallace, pick up his lead runner going 100km/hr and poor Steve being posted.
47. Ben Barba - I feel like his older brother poisoned the well, so his fall from grace wasn't overly shocking. Still, if you put that aside he was one of the most exciting players of his era and the only qualm fans can have is that he didn't produce at the Broncos. Partially because he was struggling with his ankle, but also because Griffin tried to make him into a playmaking fullback instead of playing to his strengths which was his support game.
46. Mitch Moses - I've come around on Mitch. Back in the day I didn't like how he thought he was the team, try to score off of everything and then leak a crazy amount of points in defence. It was like everything was A-OK at Tigers land as long as Joey was singing Mitch's praises on the Footy Show. I especially didn't like how he left the Tigers and had a massive tantrum until he got his way. Since then he's only gotten better so to compare him to say Milford I can't help but be impressed. He still carries on a
45. Jamie Soward - The one selection that always summed Brown up to me was dropping Jamie Soward for Ben Rogers. Soward was one of the form halves of the competition in 2008 and had been an amazing get for the Dragons, yet after picking up an injury Brown just stuck with Rogers and they were quickly bundled out of the finals. One of the easiest decisions Bennett made was building the team around Soward, simplifying Jamie's game and watching the results. Should have played more Origin than he did and it's a shame his career just peetered out. He had the one good year for Penrith as Gus' back-up plan to JT, but beyond that...
44. Karl Oloapu - What a circus. From being chuffed we had him for three years, backing the release of Gray to keep him only for it to blow-up around this time last year. The craziest thing is that despite all the accusations, the NRL just ignored the problem altogether and nothing came of it once the Bulldogs signed him.
43. Robbie Farah - It's crazy to me that it took NSW until 2012 to make him a certain starter. He should have been one of the first players picked but then they started talking about Origin material when they'd lost so many series. Was he a ball-hog? Yes, but his competition was Michael Ennis who'd overrule his halves all the time. As good as Ennis was, Farah had way more strings to his bow. The way he was treated by Wests was awful and he was virtually white anted out of the club when he was just about to receive his back-end. Granted the stories surrounding Potter weren't great but Taylor clearly handled the situation horribly. I thought he was a great player to watch, his biggest issue is that he wasn't Cameron Smith and Bellamy chose Melbourne over the Tigers.
