Jonathan Thurston, the champion...

It's Wednesday and I love how this week has become as much a celebration of Jonathan Thurston as it has been about the build up to a Grand Final. Thurston's dominance hasn't exactly translated into success with the Cowboys but this week gives us the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to one of the best.

It's Wednesday which also means that Justin Hodges' judicial hearing was last night and that Hodges is now free to play in the Grand Final on Sunday. Of course that's pretty stupid of the NRL judiciary to allow Hodges to play, he would have been found guilty of the smallest charge during the season and would have missed a week - which I'm sure he would have copped had it been during the season. 

But as I've said before, everything the NRL has done this season has being seasoned with hers and spices of the farce variety. To expect anything less than Hodges beating his case was pretty dumb of you, I'm certainly not complaining about the NRL here because I want to see Hodges play and so I'm pretty happy that the NRL and their judiciary are a farce.

Now that we know that Hodges will play, we can look forward to one of the best low key centre battles of 2015. No one gives Kane Linnett or Justin O'Neill any love but both centres have been hugely important for the Cowboys all season long thanks to their ability to simply do their job. Hodges, along with Anthony Milford, has the most try assists for the Broncos this season with 14 which is incredible and he's the most high profile of the four centres that will be on display but his homie Jack Reed also goes pretty well.

Hodges will line up against Linnett and Linnett, according to the numbers has had a better season. Linnett's has more running metres (3234m vs 1783m), more line breaks (11 vs 3) and isn't too far behind Hodges' try assist tally (8 vs 11) but Hodges has only played 17 games to Linnet's 24 games this season which skews the stats.

Linnett leads the way in the metres made per game as he averages 134.75 metres per game compared to Hodges' 104.88m, Reed's 93.52m and O'Neill's 108.55m. 

The other side of the field has Reed up against O'Neill and this is a perfect centre battle for fans to enjoy. Reed is widely know as a strong defensive centre and he averages the most tackles per game with 16.02 (Linnett's next with 12.04), but Reed's defensive ability will be tested by O'Neill who has the most line breaks of these four centres this season with 14. O'Neill is a big dude who is quick enough to be described as  Ferrari so this battle will be one to enjoy.

Hodges makes up for his lack of tries (3) with his ability to set up others, but Reed, Linnett and O'Neill are all noted try-scorers as well; Reed and O'Neill have nine tries while Linnett has 10 tries to his name which gives us 31 tries between the four of them. 

These four players have scored 31 tries, have 32 try assists, have 41 line breaks and have made 937 tackles between them. 

It's Wednesday and I love undercover brothers like Linnett, Reed and O'Neill while I also love crafty veterans such as Hodges. This will be fun folks.