The stage was set. Suncorp Stadium. An Origin decider. The scores locked after 55 minutes.

A chance for legends to be made, and greatness to be realised.

It was just the second tackle, with Queensland camped 30 metres out from the NSW try-line.

The ball went left as a lead run from Patrick Carrigan condensed the defensive line, opening up space for speedster Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, who made a half-break before being brought down by Dylan Edwards.

The Blues fullback quickly plugged a gap in the line after the tackle was complete before following the ball as it was quickly sent to the other sideline.

Dane Gagai probably wasn’t going to score. Bradman Best had him covered. But a desperate tackle from Edwards in cover made sure the Maroons centre didn’t pick up any extra metres.

By this point Edwards had already ran sideline to sideline in the space of two plays, and a few tackles later Queensland turned it over. Job complete.

Well, not for Edwards.

Just a few tackles later, he took a carry from dummy-half and left two defenders behind him as he picked up 20 metres, doing all this despite suffering a PCL injury in the early stages of the second half.

It was just a 70-second snapshot into an NRL career which has now spanned over 12,400 minutes. But in those 70 seconds, Edwards showed why he is the best fullback in the game.

And yet, outside of that 20-metre run, it would have been easy to miss Edwards’ defence in the lead-up, or at least how hard he had worked to make both of those tackles.

Naturally, when watching the NRL or other similar sports for that matter, our eyes are drawn towards the ball. Towards the action. Towards the breathtaking passes and highlight-reel plays.

But that is not always where games are won and lost. In fact, games can be determined by the work fullbacks are or, just as importantly, aren’t doing away from the screen.

And these split-second decisions are happening in every set and with every tackle.

In this story, foxsports.com.au spoke to current-day and former fullbacks to better appreciate the at-times hidden art of defending at fullback.

Premiership-winning halfback Cooper Cronk, who played alongside one of the game’s pioneers at the position in Billy Slater, described it as a “forever evolving game of chess” between the fullback and opposition.

But in order to understand how the position has evolved into what it is today, first we have to go back to before there was Edwards and Slater.

HOW HAS THE POSITION EVOLVED OVER TIME?

Mick Potter was signed by the Bulldogs while he was still a schoolboy fullback at St Gregory’s College Campbelltown, the rugby league nursery with Trent Barrett, Eric Grothe Jr, Ryan Hoffman, Beau Scott, Tim Sheens and James Tedesco among its honour roll of former students.

Within a few years he was already a Dally M Player of the Year as part of Canterbury’s 1984 premiership-winning team, and he went on to win titles with the Bulldogs in ‘85 and ‘88 too.

By the time Potter’s career was finished, he had won rugby league’s top individual honour again and been crowned Dally M Fullback of the Year three times.

Which is funny because Potter only got his shot at fullback because of injuries.

“It (the position) has evolved from being just a pure running player to that hybrid type player, and I was probably in that category where I wasn’t the fullback, I was a five-eighth, centre, half,” Potter said.

Back then, as Potter explained, the game was “very tight” and “very forward-orientated”. In other words, it was five hit-ups trying to get as many metres as possible and set up the kick.

In fact, Potter remembers one game when he linked up with his winger who was in some space and the emphatic message afterwards from then coach Warren Ryan was not to pass the ball.

“Because it’s a risk,” Potter said.

“You just brought it back, made as many metres as you could and then you just march down the field until you earned the right to play down the other end of the field.

“You were very conservative in your play.”

Mick Potter with his wife Megan and his Dally M player of the year trophy at the Sebel Town House hotel in 1991. Picture: Michael Amendolia.Source: News Corp AustraliaPossession back then, especially with the leather ball, was “everything” as Potter put it.

But on the defensive side of things, Potter noticed how his workrate started to increase from the 80s to the mid-90s as he went from “making no tackles to 15 a game”.

“It’s just continued on,” he added.

“Your organisational skills have to be on point for every single play because the attack now, they throw so much at you because they play so much footy.

“You’ve got to get your numbers right. Your fullback has a big responsibility there and they had less responsibility back then. But now it’s your organisational skills, your running skills to be able to position yourself in the line to then go and make a try-saving tackle on the edge or clean up a kick when a team’s in run shape.

“You have to be athletic. You burn a lot of gas.”

You don’t have to tell Anthony Minichiello that. He remembers what it used to be like when he first moved to fullback in 2003, having started his NRL career on the wing.

“It’s completely different now,” the two-time premiership winner said.

“When I first switched to fullback in defence, especially when you’re (facing) a long kicking game or something like that, you’re just having a cigar at the back until tackle four and just watching the halfback and where he is going to kick or doing some homework on their kickers.

“That was it.”

And now?

Anthony Minichiello in the early stages of his career.Source: News Corp Australia“You’ve got to do homework on their kickers plus you’ve got to do homework on their attacking structure and what set plays they do because it all comes (together) and then get the numbers right on each occasion,” Minichiello said.

“But then it comes down to game planning as well.”

For instance, Minichiello mentioned that some teams may have a certain structure that they like to play off penalties and that if it becomes a pattern, the defence will often put an extra number on the long side or wherever it may be to combat it.

Again, that goes back to the constant game of chess that Cronk was referring to and the fullback is the one making all the moves.

“It all falls on the fullbacks’ shoulders because you’re making decisions every single tackle,” Minichiello said.

That reality only really sunk in for Minichiello in the 2010 season, and it is no coincidence that was the same year Trent Robinson joined the Roosters as the NRL assistant coach.

Robinson, who Minichiello described as a “massive thinker of the game”, started to hone in on a fullback’s role in defence and then later when Robinson took over as head coach in 2013, he held extra video sessions with Minichiello just to look at other teams’ tap plays and set pieces to game plan against them.

Minichiello and Trent Robinson celebrate victory in the 2013 NRL Grand Final. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)Source: AAPAlthough before then in the early 2000s, Minichiello said not many coaches were focusing much on the defensive structures and strategies when it came to working with their fullbacks.

That is, until one kid from a small Queensland country town changed it. Minichiello said Billy Slater was “one of the best at it”.

Cronk, of course, agreed. He also singled out Darius Boyd as one of the “pioneers”.

“And now you’ve got all 17 teams doing it to some capacity,” Cronk added.

But that wasn’t something that just happened overnight.

‘CHANGED THE GAME’: THE KEY PLAYERS IN THAT REVOLUTION

Like any sport, the NRL is a copycat league. Successful strategies, like the use of ball-playing lock forwards, fast became league-wide trends.

In the case of fullbacks turning into the heartbeat of their team’s defence, it all starts with one team and one player in particular, who Potter said “probably changed the game forever”.

Storm coach Craig Bellamy previously compared Slater to “a coach on the field”, describing his organisational skills as “incredible” in an interview with NRL.com in 2018.

“Billy was leading that, there’s no doubt,” Minichiello said.

“I love the saying ‘fatigue makes cowards of you all’, just because when fatigue comes into it, that’s when you make mistakes, right? But he was one of the best at it under fatigue.”

Cronk had a front-row seat to it all, playing with Slater from his debut season in 2004 all the way until 2017, when the Storm halfback signed with the Sydney Roosters on a two-year deal.

He didn’t get to sit in on all the film work Slater did with the incumbent Storm custodian Robbie Ross. But he was a part of Melbourne’s team-wide video sessions, where they would pore over the footage to see what worked and what didn’t.

Specifically, Cronk said the Storm started to notice they were having success the more and more Slater was coming into the defensive line. It was the same case with Boyd at Brisbane.

“Minichiello was doing it under Trent Robinson at the Roosters too,” Cronk added.

“I think once you see something become effective from other teams or the players using it, that’s the snowball effect of it all.”

Billy Slater was one of the best defensive fullbacks in the NRL. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)Source: Getty ImagesSpecifically, he is referring to a trend which he said came in at the “back-end” of his time at the club but has now become so ingrained that “every team does it”.

Traditionally, every team would have 12 defenders in the line with the fullback out the back. But it gradually became more common for fullbacks to jump into the defensive line on occasion to help handle attacking sequences coming from the opposition.

Of course, if fullbacks kept doing that or were too predictable in the way they did it, that would leave them vulnerable to early kicks. But the best fullbacks in the game had a solution.

“I think what you see now is fullbacks with a really good footy IQ and the ability to go in and out of the front line to make it fill up more or have more defenders in the line so it makes it harder for teams to take advantage of it,” Cronk said.

“So, essentially it’s like a game of chess between fullbacks and the opposition.”

And in this game of chess, sometimes things don’t go to plan. A major piece can be captured, or in this case your fullback can go down, as was the case went Reece Walsh was knocked out in the Origin series opener last year.

But in chess, you always have to be thinking a few steps ahead and Slater, like any coach, already had his replacement in Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow. He also had a few words for his fill-in.

The cameras caught Slater leaving the box shortly after Tabuai-Fidow was caught out of position on a kick which led to a James Tedesco try and speaking to his new fullback, now on the sidelines.

Slater had a few words for Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow. NRL PhotosSource: The Courier-Mail“I’ve got no doubt that was around making sure Hammer was across the defensive aspect of the game in terms of making sure he had a face-to-face chat about it,” Cronk said.

“Billy does it, Darius Boyd I believe did a lot of it at the Brisbane Broncos with Reece Walsh and Minichiello was one of the best. Tedesco is obviously very good at it.

“I think all the coaches now use it as part of their coaching framework to teach the fullbacks.”

So, what exactly does the role of the modern fullback look like in defence?

Well, as Minichiello explained, it often involves a series of “split-second decisions”.

And if you make the wrong one?

“You need to work off the ball constantly, you can never walk,” former Panthers and Rabbitohs winger Josh Mansour said.

“As soon as you walk you get found out, particularly in the modern game. There’s literally nowhere to hide.”

There was definitely nowhere to hide for Mansour in his first game at fullback in the NRL.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE MODERN FULLBACK IN SETTING THE DEFENCE?

It was a home game against the Roosters on a Sunday afternoon in 2012.

Far from the premiership-winning juggernaut they are now, this was a Panthers team fighting to avoid the wooden spoon.

Mansour had been playing well in his rookie year, with four tries in his seven games. But all seven had come on the wing.

This time around he had been shifted to fullback after Luke Lewis was a late omission, causing a reshuffle in the starting line-up.

Mansour remembers a few things from that day. He remembers the win, 28-12 in Penrith’s favour. He also remembers Travis Burns getting sent off; a nine-week suspension followed.

Much earlier in the game, before Burns clipped Martin Kennedy high in the 71st minute, Mansour also remembers dropping a massive spiral bomb that came his way from Braith Anasta, who partnered Mitchell Pearce in the halves that day.

And the words Anasta had for him after that mistake? Mansour definitely remembers them too.

“I was like, ‘Oh OK, you just poked the bear’, so believe it or not, it actually brought the fire out of me,” Mansour added, laughing.

“And I ended up having a pretty good game.”

Josh Mansour spills a bomb from Anasta. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Robb Cox)Source: AAPIt turned out to be Mansour’s only start at fullback in the NRL, with the RLPA Rookie of the Year going on to play another 224 first-grade games almost exclusively on the wing.

While Mansour didn’t have an extensive history of playing fullback at the top level like many of the other players foxsports.com.au spoke to, he did play the position a fair bit in the junior grades and NSW Cup before transitioning to a full-time winger in the NRL.

It means he was able to offer a different perspective as someone who knows what is required from a defensive standpoint at the position while also, for most of his career, having to rely on someone else to make those decisions.

As Mansour said previously, the minute you start walking or ease up for a second, you’re already on the back foot and that has a flow-on effect on the rest of the defensive line.

It is why he picked “reliability” as the number one trait for a fullback, because the whole team relies on them to send retreating defenders where they’re needed in terms of numbering up properly.

Fortunately for Mansour, at least in the latter stages of his career, he had one of the best in the game at it in Dylan Edwards — and that was the 2020 version.

Current Panthers teammate Luke Garner described Edwards as “the most reliable fullback” he’s played with.

“He must be a mathematician because he always gets the right numbers on the right side and is always putting himself in the right position, whether that’s in the line or not,” Garner said.

Dylan Edwards is as dependable as they come. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)Source: Getty ImagesAlthough according to Cronk, there is one quality that sets the “good” fullbacks against the “not so good ones”; the ability to not only defend the play but then if there is a trick shot coming with a kick, for example, getting across the field to cover it.

“I think that’s the difference in terms of being able to do multiple things on one play as opposed to being just one-dimensional,” he said.

“You’ve got to have your head on a swivel to read multiple plays and I think with the good ones, that is what separates them.”

So often when a fullback is struck down by a long-term injury, be it Edwards or even Tom Trbojevic, who has spent extended time on the sidelines over the last few years, the focus is on what their team will miss in attack.

Edwards may be one of the rare exceptions given fitness and positioning are two of his strongest qualities. But in general, it is at times underestimated just how much of an adjustment having a new, and particularly young or inexperienced, fullback can be.

It is something the Sea Eagles have needed to adjust to given Trbojevic’s unfortunate run with injuries.

Tom Trbojevic has battled injuries over the years. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images“The best fullbacks, while they’re full of highlights with the ball, I’d be pretty confident in saying the best fullbacks in my eyes are good on both sides of the ball and it’s not necessarily the try saves in the corner you’re looking for,” Sea Eagles halfback Daly Cherry-Evans said.

“It’s the line organisation. The best fullbacks know when to plant themselves in the line and to create that extra number defensively.

“They also know when to be out of the line for the kicking game of the great halfbacks that they are playing against.”

But how do they know that, and what are they looking for when planting themselves in the line?

To answer those questions and more, let’s dive into exactly what goes through a fullback’s mind during a game.

WHAT DOES A FULLBACK’S JOB LOOK LIKE IN A PLAY-BY-PLAY SETTING?

‘It’s all on you’: The importance of getting the numbers right

When breaking down the fullback’s role in defence, it always starts with setting the line and, specifically, getting the numbers right.

Cowboys fullback Scott Drinkwater told the Fox League podcast that as an attacker “you’re always waiting for an opportunity where the team’s numbers aren’t set properly”.

“So you’ve constantly got to be talking and moving,” he said, jokingly adding that sometimes even means “getting into the big fellas” and “verbally abusing them”.

It is something Panthers forward Liam Martin quickly got used to playing under Edwards — and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“He sprays me that many times,” Martin laughed.

Of course, before Drinkwater made the move up north to the Cowboys, he was coming up through the Melbourne system under the tutelage of Slater.

And from those sessions with the legendary Storm fullback, who was just as loud at training as he was in games, Drinkwater learned one thing: “It’s all on you”.

“You’ve got to take that line as your line and the boys trust you to tell them where to go, so it’s very important,” he added.

“… In this game, if you don’t want to communicate you’re no chance of playing in the NRL.”

Being vocal is important according to Drinkwater. Source: NRL PhotosSource: The Daily TelegraphSo, what cues and tells are fullbacks looking for in the opposition’s attacking shape to determine how they are going to number up and whether they’ll insert themselves into the line?

Well, as Minichiello explained, in a simple scenario where the ball carrier is tackled in the middle of the field, it’s a five-five split with the fullback in position and two players at marker.

If the play is over to one side of the post or a bit further on it is a six-and-four split, three-and-seven and so on.

That is the first step. Then, you have to start looking at the opposition shapes.

“Where they’re running from and which splits you want to get,” Tom Trbojevic said.

After you have identified that, attention then turns towards looking at where the opposing team’s main attacking weapon is.

“Do I put an extra player over there to combat that?” Minichiello said.

“Now these are all split-second decisions that you have to make because there’s three people in a tackle and the third person that comes out, his job when he gets out is to look at the fullback and the fullback’s got to point where to go.

“So the fullback has got to be on for 80 minutes.”

Otherwise, one lapse in concentration could leave the defensive line short.

Minichiello had a decorated career at fullback. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Colin Whelan)Source: AAPAs for when the fullback could plug himself into the line, generally the idea is to at least show your face and then transition behind the line or otherwise stay put and thicken the front line, making the defence better equipped to handle attacking sequences.

Another occasion where the fullback would come into the line is if there was a quick play-the-ball and three players are in the tackle, but the third man doesn’t get back into the line.

“Then the fullback comes into the line to cover that person’s position,” Cronk said.

Of course, these things change the closer you get to the try-line, where you will only have the one marker and then a five-seven split.

The fullback, meanwhile, often finds themselves doing “50-metre sprints” as Minichiello put it, every time the other team spreads the ball.

“Then you’ve got to organise the line, then you’ve got to do another 50-metre sprint over to the other side, just to be in the right position,” he added.

To get an idea for exactly what all of this looks in a game, take this set in the first half of Penrith’s 28-0 win over Cronulla in 2023 and keep an eye on Edwards.

He starts by motioning to his right.

“I’m letting the retreating defence know where they need to go because they’re trying to get back in the line as quick as they can and obviously they’ve got their backs to the opposition so I need to put them in position,” Edwards said.

It is something that is easy to miss when watching a game live, especially given how fast the play-the-ball can be, but it definitely doesn’t go unnoticed by Edwards’ teammates.

“He’s a really good communicator from the back,” lock forward Isaah Yeo said.

“That’s probably harder for people to realise (on TV) but certainly the players respect that a lot, particularly the boys in the middle when they’re tired and having to go from side to side.”

For that one tackle Edwards stayed at the back but the next play, after a ruck infringement, he plugged himself into the line. Why?

“You’re just trying to show your face,” he said.

“It depends on who you’re playing and who is on the other side of the field and what sort of play they may be able to run.”

The camera briefly loses Edwards in the back on the next play before it catches him again, following the ball as Cronulla shifts it right and then on the following tackle, he is there in cover to help stop Jesse Ramien short of the line.

The ball then swings back to the left and there Edwards is again, only momentarily out of frame, but starting that 50-metre sprint Minichiello referred to.

The last tackle comes around and Edwards is telling his forwards where to go before putting himself in a perfect position to cover the grubber and get the ball back for Penrith.

Edwards is rarely out of position. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images‘Looking at him broke me’: Why fitness is the ‘greatest asset’ a fullback can have

Now, opposition teams can use a fullback’s decision-making in defence to their advantage by keeping an eye on when they come into the line to create an extra number and, in particular, if there is a pattern.

They can also generally try to “catch them out of position or being lazy”, as James Graham explained on Fox League’s coverage of Penrith’s 14-6 win over Brisbane last year, where Edwards made a crucial try-saving tackle on Selwyn Cobbo.

“They’ll start to run the ball one way and then switch it back to the other side and the fullback isn’t quick enough or fit enough rather to have that high-speed intensity running to get back to field the kick,” Graham added.

“But you don’t even dare try that against Dylan Edwards because he’s got the conditioning to just keep on going.”

Mansour learned it the hard way during his time at the foot of the mountains.

Back then Edwards was “always top of the charts” in the club’s fitness tests and, according to Greg Alexander, has only been beaten once in his 10 years at the club.

Edwards is fit as they come. Picture: Jonathan NgSource: News Corp Australia“He was the one I always tried going after as well,” Mansour said.

“The closest I got to him was 19.8 in the Yo-Yo test and I remember glancing over to him and he didn’t even look like he was breaking a sweat, he was just starting to open up.

“And I was like, ‘F*** this. Just looking at him broke me’. He’s definitely unbelievable.

“He just glides and bounces off the ground.

“I haven’t seen any other fullback do what he does to be honest in terms of his fitness and how he’s able to back up consistently, effort after effort.”

That peak fitness level which the 2022 Clive Churchill Medallist has built is the “greatest asset you can have” in any transitional sport according to Corey Parker and “very rarely”, he added “do you find Edwards out of position”, as shown in that one set against Cronulla.

How Penrith’s Gutherson ploy shows the ‘art and science’ of defending at fullback

Although there are times when fullbacks, including Edwards, are caught out of position. Cronk compared it to a “game of cat and mouse”, and it starts out very simple.

You will see teams putting in early kicks to try catch fullbacks out. That will be especially true when the defence is down to 12 players, because the fullback will need to spend more time defending in the line trying to get the edges even.

As Cronk said earlier, the best fullbacks in the game are the ones who can both defend in the line and leave themselves enough room to then also cover kicks or trick shots.

Or in the case of Clint Gutherson, he leaves enough room in the tank. Cronk called him a “pure effort” player.

But while Gutherson may be “pure effort”, there was one instance in Parramatta’s 2023 qualifying final against Penrith where the Eels fullback was found out.

Although ‘found out’ probably isn’t the right term because this was more a case of coaching genius from Ivan Cleary than anything else.

Cronk, still just as much a student of the game as he was during his playing career, was commentating for Fox League and still remembers the exact play.

Penrith used Clint Gutherson’s work ethic against him. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images“Let’s say you’re going down a short side and the fullback covers you,” he said.

“Instead of kicking down that short side you then kick back across to the nearest post where someone else is chasing through. You try and use the work ethic of those fullbacks against them.”

And that is exactly what the Panthers did to Gutherson, who started to run towards the right edge as Penrith went left through the hands from Isaah Yeo to Nathan Cleary.

“He kicked the ball back across the ruck to Dylan Edwards to score a try,” Cronk said.

“That was the art and science of it right there. The fullback is in the line to try and cover and then Gutherson moved across.

“I’ve got no doubt Ivan Cleary and the Penrith Panthers knew that and used it against Gutherson and scored a try that night.”

In some ways, having your own workrate used against you is a compliment and either way, every player has some weakness or tendency that the opposition can use to their advantage.

Just ask Latrell Mitchell and Reece Walsh.

Mitchell and Walsh: Examples of game-planning against specific fullbacks

For Mitchell and Walsh, the fact teams have a specific plan against them speaks to just how talented they are and the way momentum swings with every play they make.

As Mansour put it: “You want to eliminate their best players from the game”.

In the case of Mitchell, he doesn’t necessarily have the high workrate of other fullbacks in the game, but there are plenty of things he can do which many at the position, if any, can’t.

“He’s probably one of the best that can pick a three-on-two pass. He’s obviously a damaging ball runner as well,” Mansour said.

“Every player’s got a weakness essentially but it’s how we implement a game plan to exploit that which ultimately comes down to execution.”

In Mitchell’s case, Mansour said “the biggest thing” the Panthers wanted to make him do was run as much as he could.

“Because the more we can make Latrell run for balls and less time of him catching on the full and having 20-metre run ups, the less devastating he will be,” he added.

In terms of executing on that plan, it meant targeting one corner of the field in particular because they knew Mitchell would carry the ball with his left hand and fend with his right.

“And when he came out of one particular corner he wasn’t able to use his fend,” Mansour said.

Latrell Mitchell typically fends with his right hand. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)Source: Getty ImagesBroncos fullback Reece Walsh is another player that teams have quickly come up with game plans for and while Mansour wasn’t at Penrith when Walsh debuted, he did spend another two seasons at South Sydney and now works in the media, which means he still consumes plenty of rugby league and notices trends.

In the case of Walsh, he likes to defend in the line, especially when the Broncos are close to their try-line, which leaves him exposed to short kicks in behind.

And in a similar vein to Mitchell, while Walsh is one of the most electric attacking fullbacks in the game, teams have found a way to minimise his involvement.

“(If you) get him full of confidence, then Reece can do so many devastating things to your football side,” Mansour said.

“But if you can really be physical with him and try and eliminate his game early on, he pretty much won’t have the exact same impact as he would have if you give him time, space early on in the game.”

Mansour said teams should try be physical with Walsh early. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)Source: Getty ImagesFULLBACK: A ‘DAMN HARD POSITION’ IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

While both Mitchell and Walsh have their weaknesses, it isn’t like any other fullback in the league is without their own flaws. Edwards included.

For so long, Edwards couldn’t pass the ball like Mitchell or Walsh — and he still can’t. But he can do more than enough now.

He won’t ever be the perfect fullback, but he’s the perfect fullback for Penrith and while he was long counted as one of the NRL’s most underrated players, that is no longer the case.

Now Edwards is properly rated. Just look at his price tag, and Edwards is well worth every cent of the reported $3.4 million, four-year extension he signed with the Panthers in 2023.

“Probably with the market the way it is, you put your value in your fullback because he is virtually another halfback for you,” Potter said.

“He’s your organiser for your numbers. He has to do all the brave plays with the catches. He has to tackle 120, 130 kilo front rowers that come at him at the line. He has to be brave and dive on loose balls at the back of the field.

“So it’s a damn hard position and it’s probably going to get harder.”

Fortunately for Mansour, his experience in the position at the NRL level was limited to just one game.

But, at least until the end of 2020, he got a first-hand look at Edwards’ growth from one rainy night in Bathurst to another one in Homebush, but this time on rugby league’s biggest stage.

“It’s a position where it holds most of the responsibility and the most pressure. There’s so many big moments that revolve around a fullback,” Mansour said.

“Don’t get me wrong the halfback is definitely up there as well, but in terms of the fullback having to put your body on the line, counting numbers, making sure you’re not stuffing up your short sides… there’s just so much concentration and awareness.

“You really need to think about everything.”

Which takes us back to Cronk and that game of chess.

A constant back-and-forth of fullbacks, halfbacks and coaches being outsmarted and outplayed.

A series of minor moves that make a major difference.

A game which is as mental as it is physical, and which the champion halfback said is “forever evolving”.

“It is a science and some teams have made a real art form out of it,” Cronk added.

“Some players like Gutherson are pure effort because they’ll be in the line and then flying around the side to make a last-gasp tackle.

“That was probably Billy’s greatest strength, being able to cover a winger on one side of the field and then within the next play get to the other side and make a double effort. Tedesco does the same.

“That’s just the new level fullbacks need to be at.”

A new level that, with fullbacks like Potter, Minichiello, Slater and now Edwards, we have an even greater appreciation for.