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With the NRL season paused, we here at Fox League thought it was the perfect time to reflect on the last two decades of the NRL era.

There’s plenty of blood and guts, last-ditch tackles, unhuman like offloads and tries that had to be seen to be believed.

We’ve done the top 15 so now it’s time to reveal the best five players of the NRL era.

Round 19

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Melbourne's Billy Slater. Source: News Corp Australia

5 - BILLY SLATER

Legendary commentator Ray Warren once described him as the ‘busiest’ player he had seen and you’d be wise to agree with Rabs.

Slater took Darren Lockyer’s yardstick at the position in the modern game and put it in an unworldly stratosphere that might not ever be topped.

He is without doubt the greatest fullback of the last 20 years and possibly of all time.

Considering at one time he was a trackwork jockey for Gai Waterhouse as a teenager, the NRL should feel blessed Slater found his way to the top of the mountain.

His dedication to his craft is exemplified by the legendary story of how he drove 20 hours for a reserve grade trial where he scored five tries.

There wasn’t a square metre of turf on any ground in the NRL that Slater wasn’t capable of appearing on in an instant to finish off a great Melbourne try and there’s never been a broken defensive line on a kick-chase he hasn’t made pay a dear price.

He sits second on the all-time try scorer’s list with 190 to go with his two premierships (two other stripped for salary cap rorts).

He has won a staggering 70 per cent of his club games for the Storm to go along with not being in a losing Australian team since 2010.

On top of that ridiculous level of excellence he was a crucial cog in eight series wins for Queensland. An attacking master and one of the great generals of a defensive line during a dominant Melbourne, Queensland and Australia career.

We will never see another Billy Slater again. Alongside Greg Inglis and Brad Fittler he is a member of the illustrious club of 250 club games, 30 internationals, 100 tries and a premiership.

Greg Inglis comes in at number 4 Source: News Corp Australia

4 - GREG INGLIS

Perhaps the most unstoppable player of the first 20 years in the NRL, Greg Inglis has become one of the best fullbacks in history and arguably the greatest centre of the modern era.

Watching Inglis at full flight is simultaneously the most scary and beautiful thing on a rugby league field. He was almost part racehorse part footballer.

As a wiry 18-year-old he showed enormous promise, and by age 20 he was terrorising teams at every level looking like a champion 200m sprinter once he got in the clear.

No one was more heavily marked by an opposition defence during his mercurial rise, just ask any number of NSW coaches and players.

Before Inglis was 23 years old he had won the Golden Boot, Clive Churchill Medal, Wally Lewis Medal, Harry Sunderland Medal, Dally M Rep Player Of The Year (2008, 2009) and Dally M Five Eighth Of The Year.

In that time he also amassed 15 Tests and 10 Origins for Queensland.

League fans may never see a more accomplished player at that age again.

If Thurston wasn’t the best individual signing of the NRL era, it has to be Inglis moving to South Sydney. He immediately lifted the profile of the club and made them a contender, which resulted in the Rabbitohs winning their first premiership in 43 years in 2014.

Alongside Slater and Fittler he is a member of the illustrious club of 250 club games, 30 internationals, 100 tries and a premiership.

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Darren Lockyer. Source: News Limited

3 - DARREN LOCKYER

He was perhaps the only player along with Greg Inglis to be recognised as the best player in the world at two different positions.

Lockyer has the accolades to back it up after becoming the only player in history to win the Golden Boot award in two different positions (fullback and five-eighth).

He also won premierships in both positions and dominated for Australia in both the five-eighth and fullback jersey. Before Billy Slater it was Darren Lockyer who changed the fullback position.

Once Lockyer hit his prime in 1998 he was almost impossible to stop with his speed rivalling anyone in the game at the time and his ball-playing ability matching any top line playmaker.

It didn’t matter what level he played at he almost always came up with the right play when his team needed it the most.

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So many of Brisbane’s greatest moments have his fingerprints all over them with late-game field goals and countless match winning decisions to put teammates over for a try.

His performance in the 2003 Ashes against Great Britain with more than 30 players ruled out through injury is the stuff of legend, breaking British hearts in three consecutive Tests.

He also lead Queensland with distinction through a dominant era and had the most decorated international career of any player during the first 20 years of the NRL retiring as the Kangaroos’ most capped player (59 Tests) and highest tryscorer (35).

Rugby League Immortal Andrew Johns. Source: News Limited

2 - ANDREW JOHNS

To watch Joey dissect an opposition when he was in the mood was an out-of-body experience. Perhaps no man in the NRL era could lift the ceiling of a representative team single-handedly like Johns did in 2005 when he was recalled for game two of the State of Origin series.

Johns transcended the halfback position and as a result he was named at halfback in the Team Of The Century and is the game’s eighth Immortal.

He posed a threat every time he had the ball whether it was with his sublime kicking, deft passing or powerful running game.

Arguably no player has played under more pressure and scrutiny in the modern era than Johns and he did so with aplomb. Playing as the game’s best player during his career in the footy-crazed town of Newcastle is a pressure only the truly elite athletes in any sport can comprehend.

He provided a catalogue of great moments for Knights fans ranging from sideline conversions to win games, engineering late comebacks, blowing teams off the park in a 20-minute period and having the guts to go down the blindside when the field goal seemed the only logical play.

He was by far the best defender to play the position in the modern era, regularly belting opposition forwards who dared to target him.

In his prime years of 1998-2002 he was undoubtedly the best player in the sport and made others rise to his greatness for team success.

This was best illustrated when he won the 2001 premiership with an unheralded prop rotation of Josh Perry, Matt Parsons, Paul Marquet, Glenn Grief and Clinton O’Brien.

Cameron Smith of the Storm takes out top spot Source: Getty Images

1 - CAMERON SMITH

Matthew Johns has said countless times Cameron Smith is the best ‘big game’ player of all time and it’s hard to mount a case against that statement.

He is simply the best player of the first 20 years of the NRL, boasting the rugby league IQ of a savant and durability unmatched by anyone in the sport.

Smith has played more club games than any man by a considerable margin and played his

400th in 2019. He has appeared in 56 Tests for Australia (second all time) and has 42 Origins for Queensland which culminated in 11 series wins.

Every commentator has joked about Smith’s physique or lack-there-of but for all the skinfold tests and measurements of weight training, Smith has proven the most important muscle required to play in the NRL is the brain.

No player has been able to dictate the tempo of a game from dummy half like Smith has and maybe no one will ever match his consistency to winning football.

No hooker has had a better kicking game or combined better with their halfback, five-eighth and fullback and no other player can come close to the impact he has had on winning.

While there has been many great attacking tandems, Smith, along with Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk became the most dangerous spine in 110 years of rugby league in Australia. At his best the Melbourne Storm were almost metronomic in their performances.

A winner of two World Cups, two premierships, four grand finals, two Dally M Medals, seven Dally M hooker of the year awards, a four-time representative player of the year, four-time Wally Lewis Medal winner, three-time captain of the year, a RLIF player of the year award as well as a Harry Sunderland medal winner. The most decorated player in the history of the game.