Warrington Wolves star Matt Dufty builds his perfect player, including hardest hitter and speedster

In a new feature coming to Love Rugby League in 2024, we’re asking players – past and present – to build their perfect rugby league player. 

There are five categories that fit the bill for the perfect rugby league player: passing, kicking, speed, tackling and rugby IQ.

Our first guest on My Perfect Player last week was Wigan Warriors captain Liam Farrell: next up is Warrington Wolves full-back Matt Dufty. We asked the Australian speedster to build his all-time player from the five key attributes above: all hypothetically speaking of course, we didn’t actually send him to a laboratory.

Without further ado, here is Matt Dufty‘s Perfect Player..

Rugby IQ

I’m going to go with Billy Slater. He was just everywhere, he caught balls on the full, always in support, always there to finish off tries.

I was lucky enough to play against him once or twice. We beat them (Melbourne Storm) actually, it was 20-18 at home in Kogarah so it was a pretty special moment for me to be fair.

Passing

I’m going to have to go with Darren Lockyer. He was my favourite player growing up, he just used to put it on the money all the time. That Aussie team was pretty impressive, a stacked team.

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Kicking

Cooper Cronk. He used to put it right on the money.

Speed

There are loads of rapid players but I’ve played with Josh Addo-Carr and I’ve seen him run first hand.. He is impressive, he’s rapid, so I’m going to go with the Foxx.

Tackling

Steve Matai. When you were running out of the back of shape and he was jamming.. It was the most scary situation you could be in! He could hit, he could bury his shoulder in deep.

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