I personally don't rate Smith anywhere near the all time best players. He's the best hooker going around at the moment, but Melbourne always seem to have a free reign to slow down the play and to experiment with different wrestling techniques that always wind up getting banned after a season. During Smiths time in the game I've yet to see him play inm a team that other clubs wouldn't envy having on their rosters and the facts are that most of the premiership wins he's been involved in have been ones where the club was significantly cheating the salary cap.. Even at origin level he's always had great players to use. I don't rate Andrew johns as highly as a lot of people do either. Johns was brilliant to start his career, but went to shit for the last 4 seasons he played. The media have built these guys up to a point where it's just easier to compliment them than to risk pointing out their faults and face ridicule from those who can't see past media hype.
Thurston would go in the running in my opinion. Even in some rubbish Cowboys teams he's always been a standout. Most halves require a good forward pack to set a platform and for many years the NQ pack were less than average.
Smith is among a group of players that will live off his hype for a long time after he retires though and that makes me a little bit sick..
I see where your coming from, but you cant discount someones ability because of the quality of the company they played with. For starters, he has never played without them, whether it be melbourne, QLD or Australia. Therefore there is no way to quantify whether he would be any worse without them. I cant help but feel that Cam Smith would make any team he played in better.
Agreed, melbourne won grandfinals illegally and should not have been able to keep that team together. But individually he has won many awards also.
Out there question, do you think Fiji or Tonga could have made the final with Cam Smith pulling the strings? Probably.
In any case, my vote goes to Thurston. But Cam Smith is almost neck and neck.