1) Steve Rogers - easiest selection to make for any position. Steve was THE most complete footballer I've ever seen. He had it all and then some. Played first grade at 18 and it was like watching a young Bobby Fulton. He had awesome speed and accelleration, a body swerve at pace and scored tries for fun. On top of this he was THE best defensive centre I've ever seen as well. When Sharks played Parramatta he ALWAYS got the better of fellow Australian centre Mick Cronin. I doubt the stats even exist from back then, but if they did I would guarantee his missed tackle numbers would be up with the very best in the game today. He had a way of letting an opponent get to the outside of him then waiting for the fend. When the fend was pushed out he'd chop down on the arm, pin it to the guys side, wrap his arms around the player and before the poor opponent knew what had happened his face was slammed into the turf. All that was missing was some rope to tie the guys feet and arms together and Steve raising both hands in the air. Big guys didn't faze him either.... I recall a spear tackle (yeah...remember those ?) he put on Manly's Pommie forward Phil Lowe. Lowe used to like to run hard out wide at the opposition centres and crash through them. Rogers picked the giant Brit up and threw him at the ground like a rag doll.When he was moved to lock he won awards in that position too. Sensational player.... very good goal kicker (though for such a fluid mover in attack his kicking was oddly mechanical looking) and a highly respected captain.
2a) Daylight ( NO...not Matt Daylight)
2b) Andrew Ettingshausen - it's no put down to say ET wasn't as good as Rogers.... no one was. On the other hand, ET was such a graceful runner and as fast as almost anyone in his time. His partnership with "Sparkles" was one of the lingering memories of going to watch the Sharks play. They were both NSW and Australian International superstars at the time.... and they were both Sharkies. The pretty boy image was just a smoke screen for a tough and genuine footballer and it didn't hurt the club that he brought about 2000 young gals to the ground simply by being named in the team. Fast, flamboyant and fabulous... that's our ET.
3) Mark McGaw - tall and rangy, Mark was like an early version of Blake Ferguson and about as good as Ferguson could be (if Blake sets his mind to it). ET was the pace and Sparkles was the power and together they made going to Endeavour Field fun.
4) Paul Taylor - back in the early days when Tommy Bishop was captain-coach at Cronulla there was a dynamic young centre called Paul Taylor. This guy was all class with outstanding attack and solid defence. I've no clue what happened to him (I was 11-14 yo at the time and media wasn't as informative as it is today) but in the few years he played with the Sharks he was a top class centre and to me a clear choice at number 4 behind our three champions.
5) Eric Archer - solid high quality rugged player who played in both our 1973 (centre alongside Steve Rogers) and 1978 (2nd Row) Grand Finals.
Honorable mentions to Chris McKenna, Russell Richardson, Nigel Vagana and Ben Po..... hmmmm..... nevermind. An old boxer's nickname just came to mind for some obscure reason.... Roberto "Hands of Stone" Duran.
