Pass the hot wings: Why NRL’s fringe dwellers are the centre of attention

Xavier Coates showed brute strength and athleticism to score the match-winner for Melbourne on Thursday night. He did likewise when he flew through the air against the New Zealand Warriors in round two, sending the internet into meltdown in the process.

Yet Coates says he is still ribbed by Storm teammates for being a winger.

“I still cop the jokes around the club; how wingers don’t do much – it’s an ongoing joke that will never stop,” Coates says. “I feel like we do a fair bit in the game.”

The old rugby league saying that wingers hang out with footballers should surely be consigned to history after their Superman acts to start the season.

You only had to watch Ronaldo Mulitalo pick up all six Dally M points when he scored two tries and set up another couple against South Sydney last Saturday.

Or Zac Lomax being the standout player a day later when having a field day against Wests Tigers at Campbelltown Stadium. Or again on Friday night when shifted back to the centres against the Warriors.

On the flipside, a team like Parramatta have been struggling because they do not have that powerhouse winger carting them out of trouble early.

So what has changed? Why are wingers now so prominent? And could they finally be considered part of the team?

The 2010 rule change in which the corner posts were no longer deemed touch-in-goal paved the way for wingers to start launching themselves into the air and producing spectacular finishes.

The ever-improving kicking games from halves, including pinpoint floating bombs, means wingers not only have to hold their nerve under the high ball but often outleap their rivals to score themselves at the other end of the field.

Ronaldo Mulitalo scores a spectacular try in the corner for the Sharks.

And the importance of getting downfield to start your sets has forced wingers to resemble front-rowers – with footwork and personalities.

Even though people marvel at his acrobatics, Coates says he has done the most work on his yardage game in recent years.

The introduction of set restarts in 2020 also meant wingers were taking more hit-ups to help the forwards overcome the extra defensive workload.

Although he continues to be asked about that Warriors try, which he knows will “become part of Storm history”, Coates was more focused on metres gained.

“The one negative in my game was I was getting dominated coming out of the backfield,” Coates says.

“The last couple of seasons I’ve also put on too much weight, thinking that would help me with my carries. I got up to about 108kg. But I’m playing around 104kg now. And the four kilos difference has helped me move around the park more.”

At most NRL clubs, when it comes to landing on a figure for players, they rely on a salary cap benchmarking document.

The document, which was published by this masthead last year, broke down what the best players earn in their respective positions.

Halfbacks were the best paid; wingers the worst. The top five wingers averaged $451,602, compared to the top five halfbacks who took home an average of $1,095,460.

Colleague Roy Masters wrote earlier this month that it might be time wingers were paid more than centres, whose top five players averaged $614,680.

It is a notion supported by Steve “Slippery” Morris, who won the Dally M winger of the year award in 1984 and 1987. Morris avoided the usual barbs about his position because he regularly headed infield to play as a first and second receiver.

“I was fairly well looked after when I played, but I know when [sons] Josh and Brett played, wingers didn’t get as much as the others,” Morris says. “But I think that will change.

“They do a lot more work today. They finish tries, they bring the ball back and they have a lot of pressure on them trying to catch some of those kicks.

“I’m glad I’m not playing when I watch them put the ball up high like they do.

“When you look at a guy like Zac Lomax, I can’t believe he’s complaining about being on the wing because that’s where he’s now playing his best footy. He’s not stuck in the one spot and can run a lot more.”

Morris played when corner posts were out of play. A player couldn’t touch them while scoring a try, so he was never required to double as a part-time contortionist on his way to the corner.

For the record, while he loved Coates’ finish against the Warriors, his all-time favourite remains his boy Brett’s finish for the Dragons against Cronulla in 2014, “when he caught the ball and virtually went head-first into the ground”.

Long-serving Eels winger Luke Burt, who weighed only 71kg when he debuted as a 17-year-old in 1999 and went on to score a club-record equalling 124 tries, cannot believe how the body shape of wingers has changed so dramatically in such a short time. He knows because he is now head coach of Queensland Cup heavyweights Burleigh.

“And that’s because play one and play two are so important, and you need that big, powerful body to get the ball back downfield as far as you can,” Burt says.

“The set restarts and back-to-back sets have also made wingers more important, as they need to get in and help out the middles with more carries due to the amount of defence required from those set restarts.

“I think you will see the pay gap between wingers and centres start to close. If anything, the elite wingers will be paid more. A lot of decisions need to be made in that position – they’re very important in the modern game.”

Canberra boss Don Furner has been in the code more than 20 years and accepts for the first time that top-shelf wingers deserve to earn more than $500,000.

“They certainly weren’t getting that five years ago,” Furner says. “Centres used to be worth so much more than wingers, but they’re very similar now. Wingers now take 20 hit-ups, and leaping into the air to score and save tries. You’ll see that [pay gap] shown in the cap.”

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