I disagree. He played better this year than in his best years when we won the premiership. During those years he had champions around him who shared the load. He is now captain and the main go to player for the Sea Eagles. Many of his skills, his defence, his kicking game, 40/20s, repeat sets, setting up attacking and tries are superior to his previous play. He played better than Cronk this year and the stats show that. Morgan wasnt his match statistically, especially with defence and kicking. Thurston was a once in a generation player, and yet this year DCEs performances were not that far behind JT at his best. The other contenders are limited in their skills, brilliant in one or two areas, but they dont have the skill package DCE has. JT was the best, Cronk on his day a year or two back was better but in my opinion the only half seriously rising who could challenge DCE in the next few years would be Cleary, who also has a good bag of tricks