Former Cronulla and NSW captain PAUL GALLEN writes exclusively for Wide World of Sports and will appear on 100% FOOTY on Monday night, alongside Phil Gould and James Bracey. Watch from 10pm AEDT on Nine!
Jason Taumalolo has the best chance of becoming an Immortal of any forward since Arthur Beetson.
His agility, power and speed make him so hard to handle. He produces that at least 20 times per game. Every run counts.
That's what makes him so good.
He doesn't play the 80 minutes, he does take a rest, but on one hand that makes the stats more remarkable. Those massive numbers don't come from a full game.
Last Thursday, he made 345 metres from 26 runs against the Bulldogs, with 114 post-contact metres. That's historic stuff. He's an unbelievable player.
It was a huge story when the Cowboys signed Taumalolo to that 10-year, $10 million contract. It was big money at the time. Still is.
Yet just look at what he's doing now. You can't say that they got him cheap, but he's absolutely providing value. He's worth that money every day of the week to their team.
While Jason is by no means a loud person, he has also been an influential player off the field. Look at what happened with Tonga and the impact on international footy.
Taumalolo and Andrew Fifita - who is a loud person! - deciding to play for Tonga was huge. Fifita gave up big money by leaving the Australian team when he was probably the game's premier front-rower. Taumalolo would have made a decent sacrifice, too, by leaving the New Zealand team.
You only have to look back four months for the impact they've made. A Tongan team beating the No.1 side in the world, the Kangaroos. Who would have thought?
Taumololo's decision certainly breathed new life into international rugby league. That is another part of his legacy, on top of a 2015 premiership and a rare Dally M Medal win for a forward in 2016.
Having said all that, I think that he's still a long way off being named an Immortal.
He debuted in 2010 and in those early years, he certainly wasn't anywhere near the player that he is now.
In 2015, when he won the comp with the Cowboys and also Dally M Lock of the Year, he was actually dropped to the bench for the last two games of the regular season.
It took him a few years to find himself, to develop that huge engine and workrate that he now brings every week.
It's a testament to his hard work that he's been able to build himself up to that level. He's obviously had a couple of pre-seasons there where he absolutely ripped in, worked on his fitness and enabled him to produce the performances we see now.
Since 2015-16 to now, he's just been unbelievable.
Most of the current talk about future Immortals is about guys like Johnathan Thurston and Cameron Smith. They were in every game, had a huge influence every single time they went on to the field.
That, for me, is the only way that you can be mentioned as a possible Immortal. You have to be a deciding factor in the outcome of every game you play. You have to be in the top two players for your team every week.
At this stage, Jason Taumalolo is that for the Cowboys. I just question whether he will have the long-term success that some of those other guys have had.
The Cowboys missed the eight last year and I think that they will again this season. A lack of team success may end up hurting his chances.
WHERE DO TITANS GO FROM HERE?
I like Gold Coast's new coach Justin Holbrook; what he brings to that team and what he's trying to do up there.
Unfortunately, a lot of footy is simply the cattle you've got at your disposal.
For me, the Titans always used to be a tough team. They were hard to beat, in every game, never giving up.
We're only in round two of the competition, so it's far too early to write them off, but I just don't see the toughness in their forward pack or the rest of their team. It wasn't there last year and I haven't seen it yet in 2020.
Recruitment and retention is a really difficult thing at a struggling club. You've only got to look at their best player, Jai Arrow, having signed a contract more than a year out to leave the club. Who can they then sign off the back of that? I'm not sure.
It's really hard to attract and keep quality players and when you do, you have to pay them the big money. Overs money, or they're probably gone.
Then there's the risk that those contracts just don't work out as you'd hoped. They've thrown some big money at players, Ash Taylor being the obvious one, when they seemed like the next big thing coming through.
Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. They've had problems with a lot of their players on big dollars, which would hurt any club.
You throw injuries on top of that, which mostly just comes down to luck, and your roster begins to look very skinny, very quickly. That happened to the Titans at times last year, on their way to getting the wooden spoon.
In fairness, they've played two decent teams - Canberra and Parramatta - in their losses so far this season; but it's really shown in the end result. They were nowhere near being in those games.
TURBO'S PLAY OF THE WEEK
I've got to give a play of the week for this round after what Tom Trbojevic did against the Roosters.
Knocking that ball out of Luke Keary's hands ... unbelievable.
'Turbo' had three or four try saves in that game. To not give up on that particular play, when Keary was already over the tryline, just looking for somewhere to put the ball down and Tom somehow knocked it out, it was just outstanding.
The play of the week by a mile, and it won Manly the game.
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/paul-gallen-column-jason-taumalolo-immortal-case/9a88722d-f532-406f-86db-6e7c2d454d31
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