I agree, Jason Smith in his prime was one of the best players in the World.
Sinfield has never been close to that.
He was the sort of player that Coaches love, gets the job done and gives his all every game.

Jason Smith provided the on field ability to mask McRae's failings off it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just about everything Hull was created by him.

I agree he had far more to his game than Sinfield, but Scully was equally good. It's hard to say who was the better, because Scully worked with better coaches, whilst Smith had to take more responsibility and pretty much got the team to perform in the manner he wanted.

As a Rovers fan it pains me to say it but i thought Jason Smith was a quality, quality player. Toughness combined with great skill, a combination so many players crave.

You are right, he was as hard as Nails.
He was targeted by Coaches in the NRL as a playmaker and he shrugged off all of the extra attention and got on with it.
One of the best natural players of his generation.
He probably does not get the recognition he deserves even in Australia as the 5/8, & Lock combination player in Australia does not get much credit as its seen as a 5/8 that gets too big and has to move into the pack like Brad Fittler or Greg Bird or many others.
Australia prefers pure 5/8's with the build of a centre like Brett Kenny, Laurie Daley or Lockyer in his prime with pace and the ability to unlock defences on their own or pass it wide to free running Centres.

Lyon
Sculthorpe
Cunningham

Moran, hands down. Mathers pushes him close too.

Knights or Tigers.

Sculthorpe was absolutely awesome and someone i admired greatly (Even if he did play for that shower)
Radlinski, Farrell and Cunningham honourable mentions.

i will hold you to that, i think souths or the storm.

Dale Cardoza

Henry Paul is as good as any Ive seen over a prolonged period in SL. Surprised he hasnt been mentioned.

Henry at his peak was the best at Bradford. I think i would pick him or Cunningham.

I agree the points system is both ridiculous and contrived and can only be used as a rough guide to success rather than ability. There is however an obvious correlation, inasmuch as the better players tend to be poached by the bigger and more successful teams.

I think if the question is 'who is or has been the best superleague player?' then you have to also factor in consistency over the period of superleague. Once you do this it's hard to see past Keiron Cunningham, but there are many others who would get admirable mentions.

After Sam? Hard to say. Probably Keiron Cunningham. For my team (Wire) its been Briers by a country mile.

How is the points system contrived? Care to come up with a better one? Whatever type of points system you use to determine success you would probably come up with the same top 4. The points system was purely to show success of players and was not an indicator of who is the best player. As previously stated success can be measured in one way or another but a persons view on who is the best player is completely subjective.

No, I wouldn't care to come up with a better system. I don't think I could contrive it any better than you or the original designer of the system.

Just as a couple of examples though:
I could contrive to boost Kevin Sinfield's score and add extra points for captaining winning teams.
I could add points for international call-ups and captaincy (surely a measure of success) as a contrivance to boost JPs score.

Perhaps if the thread had a different title some of this confusion may have been avoided. Maybe something along the lines of 'How do you measure success?' ...otherwise the points system is just a spectacular red herring.

An absolute gem of a player - pity his league career was cut short.

Farrell/Sculthorpe/Lyon/Cunningham

Paul Deacon's record also speaks for itself.

Henry Paul.

You still havnt given a reason why you think the points system is contrived. But adding points for international caps would be a good idea as it is a measure of success.

Lots of confusion between 'Best' and 'Most Successful'.

Without adding any filters of minimum umber of games played etc etc., then its

Best : Johns
Most Successful: Without doing the maths, probably Sinfield

Actually in general, I think you'll find I have. You'll also find I illustrated the point with 2 examples.
Others have picked out areas much more specific to this table in particular.

Possibly there is a subtle difference in our understanding of the word. Would it help if I said the points system is hopelessly flawed, inasmuch as it is too easy to skew the formula in favour of your own. Why not for example recognise Saints players' achievement in not just winning the GF 4 times, but in getting so close to it so many times
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In any case you appear to have omitted the category 'MBE', which is worth approximately 15 billion points

The top 5 players based on this are:

Jamie Peacock - Approximately 15,000,000,175 pts with 1MBE, 7GF, 2CC, 3WCC, 7DT, 4LL, 1MOS, 34IC
Kieron Cunningham 171 pts with 4GF, 7CC, 2WCC, 6DT, 6LL, 23IC
Paul Wellens 163 pts with 4GF, 5CC, 5LL, 2WCC, 1MOS, 3LT, 3DT, 1HS, 22IC
Leon Pryce 158pys with 4GF, 6CC, 3WCC, 6LL, 3WCC, 1HS, 1LT, 1DT, 23IC
Sean Long 156 pts with 4GF, 5CC, 5LL, 2WCC, 2DT, 1MOS, 3LT, 21IC