BREAKING: Brisbane head coach Kevin Walters has publicly send a brutal warning to the NRL about their criteria of immortal making” after taking a look at Brisbane star boy quality…
Brisbane coach Kevin Walters is adamant that the NRL go “back to the future” and name rugby league legend Allan Langer the next Immortal. Langer will be a candidate for the 14th Immortal, which will be enshrined at a Hall of Fame event next month. Other possibilities include former players Ron Coote, Darren Lockyer, Billy Slater, Jonathan Thurston, and Cameron Smith.
Langer had a stellar 25-game Test career and won four man of the match honors for Queensland in 34 Origin games over a 15-year period. With his 258 club games played and four premierships won while captaining the Broncos (including a Clive Churchill medal in 1992), this is an incredible accomplishment for a football player who was only 165 cm tall.
It is pretty clear in my head that Allan Langer is very much underrated as far as elite players go and Immortal players,” Walters said.
“There is nothing he didn’t do on the field for the Broncos, whether it was captaining the club to four premierships or captaining Queensland to series wins or for Australia.
“Locky would be another one but I have got Alf in front of Locky at this stage. I am not saying Locky can’t be an Immortal in the future but right now Alfie is the one.
“They have got a statue of him (at Suncorp Stadium). All they have got to do now is make him Immortal. Cameron, JT and Billy have only just recently retired. We’ve got to go back to the future.”
Walters played alongside Langer at the Broncos and for Queensland and Australia with him.
“He was known as ‘the money man’. That was a thing amongst all the players at the Broncos through that era,” Walters said.
“A lot of us would go to the bank and put our card in and there was no money coming out. He always had something, particularly late in games. When he went to the machine there was always something coming out.
“Two things (stand out). His unpredictability on the field. Sometimes Alfie didn’t know what Alfie was doing but it just seemed to work.
And just the size of him. I think he was 67 kilograms in his first State of Origin game and most of that was all ticker. For the size of him I think he achieved enormous things, and there was his mental strength and his capacity to want to win.
“Alfie brings people together and he brings the game together.
“If you ask a lot of people their thoughts, the fans, I am sure Alfie would be right up there.”
In 2018 Wayne Bennett said Langer deserved Immortal status.
“I believe he is the best Bronco and the most influential player in my time here,” Bennett insisted.
“”He was a star for a decade. In my opinion, he was the best player in the game for a decade.”Joey (Andrew Johns) was a wonderful player. It was just that Alf got lost in it all … but if he’d been down in NSW, Alf would have been Immortalised, there is no doubt about that.”
