All jokes aside, because of how hated he is as a coach now, he'll never get his due as a player... but Stuart is unquestionably one of the best and most skillful halfbacks to ever lace a boot. Incredible football mind
It's lucky no one ever thought of the 40-20 when he was playing.
He was, in my opinion, the best halfback I’d seen until Andrew Johns.
Stuart n Langer is always a natural comparison. Both were awesome and very different styles (ahh … the good old days when players had their own style and a licence to create… much like car makers..not the drones we see much of today…). For me, Stuart was the best in club football by a nose, Langer best in origin by a nose… and Stuart at internationals maybe. They were so even..
But Stuart’s long passing and enormous boot was second to none. He could stretch a defence in all different ways.
Those two, and Johns, are the best 3 halfbacks I’ve seen, with Thurston a whisker behind. In Thurstons favour was longevity, although his last season wasn’t that great. But he was also the “last” of the great playmakers at 7… before the “attack of the drones” that we now see.
