Who's the best player to lace a boot and play rugby in the Central West?
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Where do you begin?
Props rule (just ask them) but the backs get all the plaudits, right? Forwards win games and it's the backs that determine by how much - we've heard all of that before.
So, we thought we'd give it a crack.
After weeks of research and plenty of deliberation, we've put together a list of the best 50 players to play across the Central West Rugby Union's top tier in the last 25 years.
From Emus' 1999 premiership triumph right through to this year's undeniable run to the finals in 2023 by the rampant Bulldogs, we've selected the best of the best, and ranked them. The list is elite.
Over the course of the next week we're trot out 10 players at a time until Friday morning when the top 10 is announced.
Today, we're kicking it all off with players 50 through to 41, and they're pretty decent - well, better than decent - players as well.
50 Dave Hodder - Forbes
Captain of Forbes' incredible 2003 Blowes Clothing Cup premiership win.
Played a number of positions across the backline, but best known as a fullback. Would often turn defence into attack.
A former Central West player of the year, he commanded the respect of his peers and opposition throughout an era of the game when gun outside backs were dominating the competition.
Was named in Forbes' 'test team' in 2008 to mark 40 years of the Platypi and a snippet from that announcement in the Forbes Advocate that year said Hodden "had a great ability to entertain the sideline with magic rugby skills".
49 Peter Fitzsimmons - Bulldogs
Has captained Central West to back-to-back Caldwell Cup victories and the Bulldogs to a Blowes Clothing Cup premiership - not bad.
Has made the shift from backrower to hooker in recent years but it's his work running the ball that ensures the Dogs' captain is one to watch whenever he takes the field.
Has matured from a young firebrand into a true leader, and while ever he's in Bulldogs colours the club will be at the top of the Blowes Clothing Cup tree.
48 Chris Miller - Cowra
One of the best second-rowers to emerge out of the region in the last decade. Big, strong and in control at the set piece, the 'Gooch' has skippered Central West and donned Cockatoos colours.
One of the big reasons Cowra surged up the competition ladder in the last five years after the club was almost relegated to the region's second tier competition.
The Eagles eventually claimed a COVID-hit title in 2021: "Truth be told, we'd been working towards this for a long time ... it's just come in a different way," Miller said at the time.
47 Shaun McHugh - Roos
A mainstay at Roos over the course of the last 10 years, and co-captain of the last Dubbo team to hold the Blowes Clothing Cup aloft in 2014.
Like a giant spider getting around the field, McHugh's long limbs make him a genuine handful on the field and ensure he dominates at the set piece.
A former Central West player of the year.
46 Anthony Begg - CSU, Orange City
A New South Wales Country Cockatoos five-eighth instrumental in one of the all-time great Blowes Clothing Cup premiership seasons.
Anthony Begg was without question one of the best five-eighths to play, at multiple clubs, over the course of the last 25 years of the Blowes Clothing Cup.
Begg starred with CSU Bathurst as a key figure in the students' last premiership-winning side in 2004, knocking off Emus in the decider.
He then returned to the Central West and was picked to represent the Blue Bulls despite not having signed with a club. He later linked with Orange City, and was a key man in the Lions' 2010 season - a year which signalled the return of the Orange club to relevance, and eventually multiple premierships down the track.
A tremendous boot and calm under pressure, it's little wonder everywhere Begg went success followed.
45 Charlie Henley - Emus
Has there been a better try-scoring hooker in the Central West ... ever?
Henley can find a meat pie, almost on a weekly basis, and when he does he invariably nabs two or three of them at a time. In 2019, his first year at the club - and in side that's boasted a backline including Tom Green, Lachie Harris, Tom Joseph, Carter Hirini and Levi Russel - Henley was on top of the try-scorer's list and didn't play the opening month of the season.
His work around the field has been unmatched by other hooker's across the Central West in the last five years.
44 Paul Miller - Bulldogs
Paul Miller was one of those players where, invariably, the bounce of the ball just seemed to go his way. He had a funny knack of making things happen on the footy field.
A decorated representative player with the Blue Bulls too, Miller also coached the club's first grade side in 2010 while playing - a year the club went on to win the Blowes Clothing Cup.
A hard-running inside centre who has all the skills in the world, Miller was a phenomenal player. Oozed class.
43 Mark Baldwin - Roos
Out of everyone who appears on this list, Mark Baldwin has played probably the least amount of rugby in the Central West.
Injury cruelled the Roos' star breakaway from making a serious impact on the Central West, and indeed lift the Dubbo club to the heights of the mid-2000s.
But his class on the field was undeniable. Captained Randwick's Shute Shield side before heading west to Dubbo. Easily one of the classiest and toughest No.7s to run around in this zone.
42 Luke Brown - Narromine
It's hard to imagine the glory years at Cale Oval without thinking of Luke Brown.
'Bomber' captain-coached the Gorillas' 2009 premiership side and was a constant in the centres or on the side of the scrum in red and black for over a decade.
Tenacious, tough, unrelenting and a champion, Brown is undoubtedly one of those players you'd hate to play against but love to play with. And, by any measure, that's the mark of a great player.
41 Charlie French - Forbes
French has been the premier loosehead prop not just in, but beyond the Central West since landing at the Platypi in the mid-2010s.
A premiership winner with Forbes in 2017, French remains an automatic Blue Bulls selection each year, and his mainstay status in the NSW Country side was rewarded with the a captaincy nod in 2022.
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