MICK Ennis will play his 250th game on Monday and the almost unanimous praise for the hooker enjoying an Indian summer is rightly flooding in.

If you only tuned in to his last 50 games that might not come as a surprise.

The U-turn in public sentiment has been as swift as it’s been deserved.

THE MENACE WE KNEW

Just three years ago the milestone would have drawn crickets or vitriol, such was the depth of ill-feeling towards a player who lives off niggle and small wins as much as Roger Tuivasa-Sheck lives off his sidestep.

Ennis has moved to Cronulla and the side has, not by coincidence, gone from wooden spooners to title contenders.

It’s a fact that’s appreciated by success starved fans and teammates but it’s accompanied by a sense of surprise that ‘The Menace’ they loved to hate has so quickly turned them around.

“Before I played with him I used to hate him, he was a menace in attack, and even when I had the ball, he’d niggle you when the refs weren’t looking,’’ Andrew Fifita told The Daily Telegraph this week.

“But it’s an honour to play with him. He’s one of the best hookers I’ve ever played with.’’

Ennis plays the kind of football that invites these statements.

Mick Ennis has always been hard to like for his on-field deeds. Source: News Limited

He’s been called “a grub” perhaps more times by opposition fans and players than any other player in rugby league history — most famously by then-Parramatta skipper Nathan Hindmarsh after Ennis’ gamesmanship sent the hard working second-rower spare.

For most of his career, the Ennis we saw on the field was the Ennis we thought we knew off it.

His deeds in club colours filled our imaginations with a man who spent his downtime kicking dogs and pushing over pensioners.

See him in your local pub and you’d be more likely to make a swift exit than sit down and offer him a beer.

THE STUNNING REVERSAL

So, what’s changed? In some ways, not much, but in other ways almost everything.

He still unapologetically uses questionable tactics on the field and rubs opposition players and fans up the wrong way.

But that doesn’t mesh with what rugby league fans of all allegiances now see every Tuesday night when they sit down for their fix of footy chat on NRL 360.

Sharks star Michael Ennis joins Ben Ikin, Nathan Ryan and Ben Glover on the Market Watch podcast to discuss ref touching, the Bulldogs pack and everything Cronulla.

The Ennis at the desk in a club polo shirt talks about the game with intelligence and passion.

He genuinely dishes praise to opposition players and coaches without flinching and adds insight and simplicity to even the most complex of rugby league issues.

He doesn’t shirk criticism and never answers with just a yes or a no.

He’s everything you thought he wouldn’t be and although it can be jarring at first, it’s difficult to maintain even the longest held negativity towards him.

On the Fox NRL Market Watch podcast this week, NRL 360 co-host Ben Ikin admitted the show had considered dropping Ennis and Benji Marshall for 2016, so fans could hear the voices of two new players.

That didn’t eventuate because “he’s a media star ... It’s been really pleasing to see a couple of great players (Ennis and Marshall) who are just starting to dabble in the media work sort of grow into it and learn the craft,” Ikin said.

Mick Ennis’s image as a friendly family man has started to shine through. Source: News Corp Australia

“Because they’re so good at what they do by the end of (2015) we felt, no way (could we lose them), there’s no two players in our code we’d rather have on that could help us dissect the issues like we do on NRL 360 than these two guys, so it’s a credit to them.”

Ennis has embraced his skill and used it to his advantage.

Not only is he feeling infinitely more warmth and appreciation inside the game at his 32nd birthday than he was at his 22nd, he’s set himself up for a potential post-footy career.

The modern media has that ability for professional athletes.

It pours so much money into the game that every rugby league player is forced to play their part. It’s just that only some of them play it well.

THE SUCCESS STORIES

Johnathan Thurston’s laugh almost instantly turned his image around when he embraced the media responsibilities that come with the captaincy bestowed upon him at the Cowboys.

Thurston is now one of the biggest commercial properties in rugby league and he’s become incredibly savvy with the way he uses every opportunity to show the fans his bright and bubbly personality.

His regular Monday night sparring with Nathan Hindmarsh on Fox Sports last year became a feature enjoyed by fans as much as the game itself.

Darius Boyd hated media duties for all of his career up until the last 12 months.

That can be attributed to the mental health issues he was battling but it can also be said that it affected the connection fans were able to have with him.

Johnathan Thurston has done a huge amount of work to turn around his image. Source: News Corp Australia

He was private and distant and the love for him didn’t flow like it does for others.

The last 12 months he’s been so different with a microphone in his face he’s been almost unrecognisable.

His warmth and honesty has come right through the lens of the camera and it’s changed perceptions about him — not only those of the public but those of opposition players who don’t know him personally.

Those are some of the success stories, with Ennis leading the way, but as a general rule rugby league still has a long, long way to go to match it with global giants like the NBA.

THE GOLD STANDARD

Access to athletes in the US is the gold standard and it never fails to amaze how easy it is to get a sharp quote or a considered opinion from Lebron James or Steph Curry — absolute megastars compared to any athlete making their living in Australia.

Why? Partly it’s because of the rules which are strictly applied by the governing body.

TV networks pay sickeningly big dollars to beam the sport across the country and around the world and you better believe they’re going to want something in return from the stars who shape it.

So, Lebron speaks to media scrums a couple of hours pre-game. He gives the host broadcaster 20 seconds at half-time.

His attitude to the media has helped Lebron James become a global superstar. Source: AP

His face is everywhere but he doesn’t only do it because he has to. Yes, social media’s changed the game and given players direct access to the fans with no filter.

But the sponsors who sign athletes to contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars still want their guy on TV and on radio and in newsprint and not only does he gets that, he enjoys using his platform to wield influence.

That’s the power of PR. It can make you loved, it can make you wealthy and it can transform a sport into a multi-billion dollar industry.

The NRL’s got a long way to go to get there.

But consider how you feel about Mick Ennis now compared to the “grub” you used to know and you start to understand how quickly that can change.

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