You need to understand the history of the concept for it to make sense. RLW were offering a run of port and got a committee together to put some faces on the bottle to sell it. One of the rules they put in the decision making process was that the judges had to have seen them play, so that automatically disqualified anyone who played before 1940 roughly. So the concept went forward (without the port as the the concept itself grew legs) and a succession of people have been elevated, using the same rules as the first group.
Last year the NRL bought the concept from RLW when they went broke and are now putting in place a set of rules that hopefully will more accurately reflect the contribution of the nominees on and off the field. At the same time the "not going back" rule has been scrubbed. For mine Dally Messenger was the greatest league player of all time and basically the reason why we even have a rugby league comp in the modern day. He should have been the first picked, but back then selling port was more important.....and the 4 immortals were household names.
i understand the origins of the "immortal" concept in league with it being a RLW concept before it being bought by the game... i also knew that pre-WWII players were not included as the judges did not have an opportunity to watch them play... and i don't really have an issue with that policy for two reasons
firstly, how to properly judge players from the formative stages of the game and when the rules were so different and there is no or very little film of such exploits... that is not to say that i am not appreciative of what the likes of Messenger, Brian Bevan, Dave Brown, Horder etc. achieved, but it is too difficult a task IMO to elevate and distinguish between these players without actual people that watched them and/or film of them... and i do not limit this to Rugby League... for example, i am a big football fan and i am always interested in reading about the likes of Sindelar, Meazza, Leonidas etc. but i do not believe they can be judged in the same manner that post-WWII players like Di Stefano, Puskas, Kubala, Pele, Cruyff, Maradona etc. can
secondly, it skews the award if it is done one way for 35+ years and then it fundamentally changes with a change of ownership
it is what the Hall of Fame is for which has been owned by the game from the outset