Deciding the next two NRL immortals is going to be a fairly tough task!

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The National Rugby League recently released a shortlist of 10 players under consideration for becoming the next Rugby League immortals.

Legendary Canberra Raiders' player and the current head coach of the Australian national rugby side, Mal Meninga is one of the primary contenders for the top 2 players to be named as the next NRL Immortals.

Apart from him, other popular players - Darren Lockyer, Dally Messenger, Dave Brown, Norm Provan, Ron Coote, Ken Irvine, Brian Bevan, Duncan Hall and Frank Burge have also made it to the list of 10.

Now everyone is speculating who will be those top 2 players eventually! In fact, if you look around you might also find betting markets related to the same. On a side note, anyone interested in such prop bets and/or rugby betting in general, must really make good use of Betting Bonuses 2018 and make his/her every penny count. A section of people believe that there can be no Immortals without Messenger, Brown and Burge.

A bit about the candidates

Dally Messenger is the other player (apart from Meninga) who is the front-runner and a favourite for the prestigious honour. In fact, the award given to the best player of the rugby season is named - the Dally M - after him. Dally was among the first few pioneers of the rugby game.

Meninga on the other hand had gotten 155 Brisbane Rugby League games under his belt before he moved to Canberra Raiders and spent a good 9 years there. He also played 84 Test matches and 42 Origins while Darren Lockyer spent his entire career at the Broncos, appearing 62 times for the Australian national team and 38 times for Queensland.

Frank Burge used to be termed as the try scoring machine and had grabbed 153 of them in 151 games he played for Glebe. That apart, he grabbed 46 in 36 games during his appearances for the Australian national side.

Ron Coote, the South Sydney player has played for the green and gold 42 times in total. There is a ‘Ron Coote Cup' that is contested for between Sydney Roosters and South Sydney!

Coming to Ken Irvine, he is recognised as one of the best centres to have ever played the game. He is another one among the top favourites to grab the honour. Ken has put on the national jersey 33 times during the 50s and 60s. He scored 33 tries in total, at an average of one per game in that time frame.

About the Immortal concept

Formerly a property of the Rugby League Week, the immortal concept was taken over by the National Rugby League after the collapse of the publication in the year 2017.

Rugby League Week had introduced the concept way back in 1981, starting with a group of 4 legendary players who they believed were the best in the rugby history.

These 4 people that pioneered the immortal concept work Johnny Raper, Clive Churchill, Reg Gasnier and Bob Fulton.

Wally Lewis and Graeme Langlands were added to this list in the year 1999, with Arthur Beetson named the seventh immortal in the year 2003. The last and eighth immortal to be added to the list was Andrew Johns.