Jun 17th, 2019

Jun 17th, 2019

Of all the State of Origin snubs Canberra Raiders hero Jarrod Croker has endured, this must be especially bruising.

Croker was just passed-over in favour of his Raiders teammate Jack Wighton, who will play left centre for NSW. Croker’s position.

Wighton plays five-eighth for Canberra, having switched from fullback. He has not played in the centres for years and has 21 NRL games to his credit in the position.

Croker has 243. He also has 120 tries and 706 goals for 1,892 points.

Nearly a decade younger than all-time leading point-scorer Cameron Smith (2,488), Croker may surpass the Storm legend’s record if he stays fit. He will also be firmly inside the top-10 all-time try-scorers.

Every player on both of those lists has been afforded the honour of playing for their state or country. Except for Croker.

Jarrod Croker: point-scoring machine. (AAP)

The Canberra star, 28, is a wonderful footballer. He’s clever in attack, scoring a try every other game. An 80 per cent goal-kicker, who's been the NRL's leading point-scorer in three seasons (2012, 2015, 2016). A sound defender, though critics have leapt on the smallest lapses to justify his exclusion from the Origin arena.

Throughout a stellar career, his only representative jumpers have come for the Prime Minister’s XI (2) and NSW Country (2). Both are often dispensed as token nods to players deemed not quite good enough for the real thing, and it would be criminal if Croker ended his career in that category.

This could have been the moment, with Latrell Mitchell axed right when it seemed he’d fill the jersey for a decade. Croker meets the key criteria: he's in form and he's playing for a winning team.

Instead, Wighton was picked out of position, though he is a left-sided player and a beautifully versatile footballer. To rub it in, the right centre - Tom Trbojevic - is also playing out of position.

Jarrod Croker celebrates a Raiders try with Jack Wighton this season. (AAP)

The conundrum with Croker, obviously, has always been his rivals. The man who filled the NSW left centre position most often over the course of his career is Michael Jennings, who offered elite speed and rarely played a bad game for the Blues. He scored six tries from 18 games, a stat which doesn’t do justice to the headaches he caused Queensland.

The 2017 series was a rough break, when Jarryd Hayne – picked largely on past deeds at wing and fullback – filled the left centre spot and proved a defensive liability.

Mitchell dazzled when thrown in at age 20 last season, winning a series; surely not his last despite this setback.

And now Wighton, who impressed NSW coach Brad Fittler with his strong ball-running in game one; enough for 'Freddy' to overlook his late intercept pass for a crucial Dane Gagai try.

Legendary Blues boss Phil Gould reckons Wighton is a ready-made Origin left centre, and there are no better judges of such things in rugby league. Gould is a long-time mentor to Fittler.

"I wouldn't hesitate to play him at left centre in the NSW team, ever," Gould said of Wighton on Nine’s commentary as Canberra beat the Broncos in Round 6. Gus spoke it into existence.

Jack Wighton played on the left as a replacement five-eighth in his Origin debut. (AAP)

Croker’s size is sometimes raised as an issue, with Origin a significantly more physical game than NRL footy. He weighs 93kg and stands 184cm.

Wighton weighs 93kg and stands 189cm. Jennings is 96kg and 180cm. Only fractional differences. Though if he were playing this series, Croker would be up against a 100kg, 190cm Queensland centre in Will Chambers. Mitchell tops them all at 102kg and 193cm.

The last instance of an outside back finally being picked for NSW on sheer weight of NRL achievements didn’t exactly go well, either. That was Rabbitohs hero Nathan Merritt (90kg, 181cm), who despite a 154-try NRL career was mauled when he finally got an Origin game on the NSW wing in 2013.

Concerns that Croker is a fine NRL combatant but not an ‘Origin player’ have clearly prevailed. Otherwise, he would surely have been given a chance. It now seems unlikely that such a chance will ever come.

"He's not underrated in my eyes, he is a huge part of our club. He is a very consistent football player," Stuart said of Croker after he played a key hand in Canberra beating the Sharks last week.

"The poor bugger doesn't get the accolades he deserves.”

Jarrod Croker playing for NSW Country in 2015. (AAP)

If Mitchell regains even a semblance of his best form, he will be NSW’s first-choice left centre for the foreseeable future. Croker will be left to rack-up honours in the NRL, potentially finishing as the greatest point-scorer rugby league has ever seen.

To do that, he would surpass an incoming Immortal in Smith. He would move past Mick Cronin, Daryl Halligan, Johnathan Thurston, Jason Taylor, Andrew Johns and Hazem El Masri.

He would be No.1 on a list of legends – yet the only player among them to never wear a major representative jersey.