Rate the Spine: 2025 Edition

[Big Pete]

I was inspired by a post BroncosFan made about the Wests Tigers, going through the different spines last year, where would you rank them? I'll go by order of where the teams placed on the ladder.

In the case of Galvin, let's go with his initial club

1. Brisbane Broncos - Reece Walsh/Ezra Mam/Adam Reynolds/Ben Hunt
2. Melbourne Storm - Ryan Papenhuyzen/Cameron Munster/Jahrome Hughes/Harry Grant
3. Penrith Panthers - Dylan Edwards/Blaize Talagi/Nathan Cleary/Mitch Kenny
4. Cronulla Sharks - William Kennedy/Braydon Trindall/Nicho Hynes/Blayke Brailey
5. Canberra Raiders - Kaeo Weekes/Ethan Strange/Jamal Fogarty/Tom Starling
6. Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs - Connor Tracey/Matt Burton/Toby Sexton/Reed Mahoney
7. Warriors - Charnze Nicoll-Klokstead/Chanel Harris-Tavita/Luke Metcalf/Wayde Egan
8. Sydney Roosters - James Tedesco/Hugo Savala/Sam Walker/Connor Watson

9. Dolphins - Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow/Kodi Nikorima/Isaiya Katoa/Jeremy Marshall-King
10. Manly - Tom Trbojevic/Luke Brooks/Daly Cherry-Evans/Jazz Tevaga
11. Parramatta - Isaiah Iongi/Dylan Brown/Mitchell Moses/Ryley Smith
12. North Queensland - Scott Drinkwater/Jake Clifford/Tom Dearden/Reece Robson
13. Wests Tigers - Jahream Bula/Lachlan Galvin/Jarome Luai/Api Koroisau
14. South Sydney Rabbitohs - Latrell Mitchell/Cody Walker/Jamie Humphreys/Peter Mamouzelos
15. St George Illawarra Dragons - Clint Gutherson/Lyhkan King-Togia/Kyle Flanagan/Damien Cook
16. Gold Coast Titans - Keano Kini/AJ Brimson/Jayden Campbell/Sam Verrills
17. Newcastle Knights - Kalyn Ponga/Fletcher Sharpe/Jack Cogger/Phoenix Crossland

 

[Big Pete]

Let's work our way from the bottom.

I'm going with the Dragons as the worst spine. Gutho and Cook in the twilight of their careers and a miserable halves pairing. The only thing saving them here is Jacob Liddle and some good set plays from the Flanagan Sr. braintrust, otherwise they'd be on struggle street.

Newcastle is a one-man band and Ponga was awful this year. I'd say Sharpe has potential, but it seems like the new coach disagrees with me with the Smith signing, so they're next.

I'd go South Sydney next. Even if you swapped Mitchell out for Gray, it's still an inexperienced line-up and Walker is playing like latter day Cliffy Lyons if he didn't have unlimited interchanges.

Warriors were the major surprise packets for me. Egan was the only player I rated and he struggles with the physicality of the game. Was a real testament to their gameplan that they nearly made the Top 4.

I could be overrating them, but I thought the spine was one of the few things the Coast had going for them. It's just that they lost Kini for the bulk of the season and it completely nullified one of their biggest strengths. With Kini on the field, they're a dangerous team.

The Eels next. It really goes to show how much value Moses brings to the team that he can elevate a spine that consists of two rookies and an enigmatic five-eighth to fringe Top 8. Without Moses, they're a bottom 4 spine, easy.

I would have said Canberra after that. Weekes and Strange had potential but had yet to accomplish anything and both Fogarty and Starling were at best good club players. A more well rounded spine than the others, but enough to put them at a disadvantage.

I would have had the Tigers after that. It's largely well rounded but the Galvin-Luai combo didn't look great on paper and while Bula had potential still looked a work in progress and a little enigmatic for my liking. Api was the only player I'd be confident in and even then he's getting on and plays his own style.

Where are we with the count? 9? I'd go the Bulldogs here. I don't think it came as any shock that Ciraldo lost faith in his spine and ultimately pulled the pin before they got anywhere. They're good club players but none of them have proven themselves on the big stage - at least not in those positions. I still rate Burton and he'd be a mainstay in my rep teams, but it's fair to say that he's yet to make his mark at 6.

Roosters 8th with the caveat that Walker wasn't expected to be at his best after his knee reco. With Tedesco and Watson there, they still had plenty of class but I don't think anyone expected Tedesco to be the Dally M player of the comp and to carry them. Savala was a surprise too and immediately solved their biggest issue.

Dolphins would have been my pick for the best spine in the competition, they had an unreal year guiding the team around the park. Going in I didn't know what to expect and thought they could be in for the classic post-Bennett hangover.

Ever since they lost Fainu, Manly just haven't been as strong as they ought to be in the spine. Still, they had a spine that should have got them into the finals and it seems like they're on the down-turn.

Dearden is one of the best halfbacks in the world and on paper he has plenty of support around him. However Robson seemed checked out, Drinkwater still has a tendancy to play soft and the coach has no faith in Clifford even though he was clearly the best option they had.

Their spine comes across more like bridesmaids than actual contenders, but the Sharks are still very good across the board. It's just in practice unless Brailey is carrying the team, Trindall and Hynes don't jive and Kennedy isn't as clutch as he ought to be.

Edwards and Cleary are doing the heavy lifting, but Kenny is a fringe Origin player and Talagi was a likely prospect. The 6 was the big question mark but you could have put a carbon rod there and most judges would have Penrith right up there.

Unpopular opinion on a Broncos board, but I would have said Melbourne had the best spine on paper. Munster, Hughes and Grant are the three best in their position and Paps had done everything bar played rep football. Has there ever been a better 'club' player in the history of the game? Throw in Wishart and Pezet as depth and their spine was clearly the heart and soul of that franchise.

What counted against Brisbane especially heading into 25 was that we didn't know where Ezra's head was at. Melbourne also had runs on the board, yet we hadn't seen how Hunt would combine with his team mates or if he had more than a couple of good games at dummy half in him like he'd shown at rep level. They were still easily a Top 4 side and most bookies had them as a Top 3 contender so I think second is fair.

TL;DR

1. Melbourne Storm
2. Brisbane Broncos
3. Penrith Panthers
4. Cronulla Sharks
5. North Queensland Cowboys
6. Manly Sea Eagles
7. Dolphins
8. Sydney Roosters

9. Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
10. Wests Tigers
11. Canberra Raiders
12. Parramatta Eels
13. Gold Coast Titans
14. Warriors
15. South Sydney Rabbitohs
16. Newcastle Knights
17. St George Illawarra Dragons

 

[KateBroncos1812]

I would have had the Tigers after that. It's largely well rounded but the Galvin-Luai combo didn't look great on paper and while Bula had potential still looked a work in progress and a little enigmatic for my liking. Api was the only player I'd be confident in and even then he's getting on and plays his own style.

The Tigers should be renamed the sheep. I was browsing the Tigers forum man especially the broncos vs Tigers match. The pussies fans are jealous of Adam Reynolds and his kicking skills and they were complaining about how good we were put together

 

[BroncsFan]

I'll give it a go

I decided to rank the players based on their position and then see what the order is based on the average position for my ranking... it came out like the below.

Obviously there would be issues with this approach, because it treats every position and rank as equal, but a lot of the fullbacks are far better players compared to the equivalents at other positions.

I think there's a bit of an issue when it comes to the 6 and 7's... someone like Dearden is in the 7 jersey, but Clifford is doing all the kicking, so realistically Dearden is the 6 and Clifford is the 7.

Dearden is an elite 6, but middle of the pack as a 7 when you compare him with guys like Cleary, Moses, Reynolds, Katoa, etc.

This also happens with Nicho/Trindall and Hugo/Walker... as a 6 Hugo is pretty shit, if your main expectation of a 6 is to be a running/attacking threat... as a 7 Nicho is pretty shit if your main expectation is kicking and getting around the field... but flip them from 6 to 7 and vice versa and they would go up the ranks.

Anyway my ranking came out like the below. Big surprise packet for me would be Dolphins, they look to have a really well rounded spine.

I'm not too surprised about the bottom 4 though.

1 Melbourne Storm
2 Brisbane Broncos
3 Dolphins
4 Penrith Panthers
5 Parramatta
6 Wests Tigers
7 Sydney rorters
8 Canberra Raiders
9 Manly
10 South Sydney Rabbitohs
11 Cronulla Sharks
12 North Queensland
13 Warriors
14 Gold Coast Titans
15 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
16 Newcastle Knights
17 St George Illawarra Dragons

My ranking of the positions (this also assumes they are completely healthy)

 

[BroncsFan]

I'll give it a go

I decided to rank the players based on their position and then see what the order is based on the average position for my ranking... it came out like the below.

Obviously there would be issues with this approach, because it treats every position and rank as equal, but a lot of the fullbacks are far better players compared to the equivalents at other positions.

I think there's a bit of an issue when it comes to the 6 and 7's... someone like Dearden is in the 7 jersey, but Clifford is doing all the kicking, so realistically Dearden is the 6 and Clifford is the 7.

Dearden is an elite 6, but middle of the pack as a 7 when you compare him with guys like Cleary, Moses, Reynolds, Katoa, etc.

This also happens with Nicho/Trindall and Hugo/Walker... as a 6 Hugo is pretty shit, if you're main expectation of a 6 is to be a running/attacking threat... as a 7 Nicho is pretty shit if you're main expectation is kicking and getting around the field... but flip them from 6 to 7 and vice versa and they would go up the ranks.

Anyway my ranking came out like the below. Big surprise packet for me would be Dolphins, they look to have a really well rounded spine.

I'm not too surprised about the bottom 4 though.

1 Melbourne Storm
2 Brisbane Broncos
3 Dolphins
4 Penrith Panthers
5 Parramatta
6 Wests Tigers
7 Sydney rorters
8 Canberra Raiders
9 Manly
10 South Sydney Rabbitohs
11 Cronulla Sharks
12 North Queensland
13 Warriors
14 Gold Coast Titans
15 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
16 Newcastle Knights
17 St George Illawarra Dragons

My ranking of the positions (this also assumes they are completely healthy)
View attachment 37176

My revised ranking if I switch Dearden/Clifford, Walker/Hugo and Nicho/Trindall

1 Melbourne Storm
2 Brisbane Broncos
3 Dolphins
4 Penrith Panthers
5 Sydney rorters
6 Parramatta
7 North Queensland
8 Wests Tigers
9 Cronulla Sharks
10 Canberra Raiders
11 South Sydney Rabbitohs
12 Manly
13 Warriors
14 Gold Coast Titans
15 Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
16 Newcastle Knights
17 St George Illawarra Dragons

 

[TimWhatley]

I'll go by order of where the teams placed on the ladder.

Winning the premiership doesn't actually mean we finished first but I like your optimism

 

[Dash]

1. Broncos
2-17. Who gives a toss.

 

[Big Pete]

Winning the premiership doesn't actually mean we finished first but I like your optimism

Well, where they finished the season.

Premiers
Runners Up
Semi Finalists

etc.

 

[Sproj]

What it does heavily imply though is that The massively underperformed. Also that the Warriors and Dogs overperformed.

Or could you make an argument the spine is not as be all and end all as it once was?

What I think would be interesting is ranking wing combos, I suspect in current league, your wing metres or perhaps I should say back five metres might arguably be just as or perhaps more, important.

 

[Big Pete]

It's an interesting way of looking at things Bfan and putting together my own list it's clear that some positions are more stacked than others.

Fullback is deceptive in so far that the Top 10 or so are established greats of the game. Then it's just a matter of whether you rate proven club players over high ceiling prospects. I don't think there's a huge gap between the best and worst fullback, at the same time it's not 2021 anymore where the standard was ridiculous.

Five-Eighth on the other hand I'm struggling with. Munster was coming off his worst season and was still the best pick. Dearden was his biggest competition but since the positional swap, it's down to a bunch of players that had or still have big question marks over them.

Onto your point Sproj and I was actually thinking about how certain spine positions carry more weight than others. For instance you'd take a gun Halfback every day over a gun Five-Eighth.

Still, a spine can only do so much. If we were rating the spine on actual performance, I think the Dolphins are right up there if not the best. However they lost their entire forward pack and once they lost Herbie that was all she wrote.

 

[BroncsFan]

Five-Eighth on the other hand I'm struggling with. Munster was coming off his worst season and was still the best pick. Dearden was his biggest competition but since the positional swap, it's down to a bunch of players that had or still have big question marks over them.

Five eight is an absolute shitshow to rank.

I think Munster and Dearden are the top 2, and then 3-10 could be argued just about anyway you want.

Ordering by ranking players was more about removing bias I might have and seeing where it all lands... it was probably going to be a starting point and then tinker from there, but it ended up alright I think.

Might be interesting to see where it lands by ordering regardless of position

 

[Big Pete]

Here's how I'd rank the individual players.

Note this is how I saw them going into 2025.

I'd say Latrell was the toughest player to rank. I could have easily ranked him behind Kini, but I had to respect what a locked in Latrell could do.

We all saw that first hand when the Bunnies played the Broncos.

I agreed on every #1 pick, except for Edwards who I thought coming off of '24 had knocked Teddy off the top spot. The Dally M judges agree with you and I think history will agree as well, but this was the small window where Edwards was the best.

 

[BroncsFan]

Here's how I'd rank the individual players.

Note this is how I saw them going into 2025.

I'd say Latrell was the toughest player to rank. I could have easily ranked him behind Kini, but I had to respect what a locked in Latrell could do.

We all saw that first hand when the Bunnies played the Broncos.

I agreed on every #1 pick, except for Edwards who I thought coming off of '24 had knocked Teddy off the top spot. The Dally M judges agree with you and I think history will agree as well, but this was the small window where Edwards was the best.

View attachment 37188

The spine ranking for the above ends up as per below, which is not far off your original.

Dolphins and titans dropped, Souths and knights moved up a fair bit

	Player Ranked	Original
1	Melbourne Storm	Melbourne Storm
2	Penrith Panthers	Brisbane Broncos
3	Brisbane Broncos	Penrith Panthers
4	Cronulla Sharks	Cronulla Sharks
5	Manly	North Queensland
6	North Queensland	Manly
7	Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs	Dolphins
8	Sydney Roosters	Sydney Roosters
9	Dolphins	Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
10	Wests Tigers	Wests Tigers
11	Parramatta	Canberra Raiders
12	South Sydney Rabbitohs	Parramatta
13	Newcastle Knights	Gold Coast Titans
14	Canberra Raiders	Warriors
15	Warriors	South Sydney Rabbitohs
16	Gold Coast Titans	Newcastle Knights
17	St George Illawarra Dragons	St George Illawarra Dragons

 

[kman]

I know its hard to put off hard player spines but any team that had Reece Walsh as Number 1 had to be at the top. Im all the way Broncos for number 1.

 

[kman]

The spine ranking for the above ends up as per below, which is not far off your original.

Dolphins and titans dropped, Souths and knights moved up a fair bit

	Player Ranked	Original
1	Melbourne Storm	Melbourne Storm
2	Penrith Panthers	Brisbane Broncos
3	Brisbane Broncos	Penrith Panthers
4	Cronulla Sharks	Cronulla Sharks
5	Manly	North Queensland
6	North Queensland	Manly
7	Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs	Dolphins
8	Sydney Roosters	Sydney Roosters
9	Dolphins	Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
10	Wests Tigers	Wests Tigers
11	Parramatta	Canberra Raiders
12	South Sydney Rabbitohs	Parramatta
13	Newcastle Knights	Gold Coast Titans
14	Canberra Raiders	Warriors
15	Warriors	South Sydney Rabbitohs
16	Gold Coast Titans	Newcastle Knights
17	St George Illawarra Dragons	St George Illawarra Dragons

Panthers are down the list with next to rookies as their spine imo.

 

[Big Pete]

Dolphins and titans dropped, Souths and knights moved up a fair bit

Not surprised by the Knights and Rabbitohs - that's the Ponga and Trell influence and I'm ranking both those players with a pencil.

The Dolphins were a shock to me and highlight the flaw of individually ranking these players. If we did it in tiers, they'd all be relatively high. Fullback in particular was rough, there's a big difference between how I value Kini and an untested Sharpe for instance.

Those rankings are based on how I would have valued them heading into '25.

Post-25 it's a different matter. Doing a cursory glance, players like Strange, Weekes, Metcalf, Katoa would be the big winners. DCE, Trell, Robson, Luai would have plummeted.

Let's see that in action for halfback:

That's not as dramatic as I thought. If you were basing it purely on '25 then guys like Fogarty and Metcalf would leapfrog a few players. Luai's position was always very tentative and was based on his performances minus Cleary where he seemed to play better.

If you really wanted to hammer home the point, you could certainly argue that Sexton and Humphreys strung together better seasons.

In fact let's have a look at that just using NRL.com Fantasy Scores as a basic guide.

It's an interesting way of looking at things. Hughes and Moses for whatever reason really didn't rate well, whereas Campbell really lit it up.

 

[Big Del]

Not surprised by the Knights and Rabbitohs - that's the Ponga and Trell influence and I'm ranking both those players with a pencil.

The Dolphins were a shock to me and highlight the flaw of individually ranking these players. If we did it in tiers, they'd all be relatively high. Fullback in particular was rough, there's a big difference between how I value Kini and an untested Sharpe for instance.

Those rankings are based on how I would have valued them heading into '25.

Post-25 it's a different matter. Doing a cursory glance, players like Strange, Weekes, Metcalf, Katoa would be the big winners. DCE, Trell, Robson, Luai would have plummeted.

Let's see that in action for halfback:

View attachment 37196

That's not as dramatic as I thought. If you were basing it purely on '25 then guys like Fogarty and Metcalf would leapfrog a few players. Luai's position was always very tentative and was based on his performances minus Cleary where he seemed to play better.

If you really wanted to hammer home the point, you could certainly argue that Sexton and Humphreys strung together better seasons.

In fact let's have a look at that just using NRL.com Fantasy Scores as a basic guide.

View attachment 37198

It's an interesting way of looking at things. Hughes and Moses for whatever reason really didn't rate well, whereas Campbell really lit it up.

T Dearden is a #6 and plays on the left .
How does that make him the 8th best #7 in the comp ?

Yes he played #7 in Origin . But I thought this was rating NRL players and clubs ?

 

[Big Pete]

T Dearden is a #6 and plays on the left .
How does that make him the 8th best #7 in the comp ?

Yes he played #7 in Origin . But I thought this was rating NRL players and clubs ?

That changed mid-way through the season. I'm surprised you missed it, it was one of the big storylines out of the Cowboys season.