Mr Allan Langer AM

He was 165cm tall and weighed 79kg. They said he was too small for top rugby league. How  wrong could they be!!!

Allan Langer was an absolute colossus with the Broncos, Queensland and Australia. One of the game’s very best players, a character the equal of any and loved by all.

The youngest of four sons to Ipswich rail worker Harry Langer and wife Rita, ‘Alfie’ left school at 15, worked as a delivery truck off-sider and a Council road worker before rugby league became his life.

He debuted in the Brisbane rugby league competition with the Ipswich Jets in 1986 and in ’87, still in Jets colors and a month shy of his 21^st birthday, was a surprise State of Origin selection.

As tough as old boots, as clever as a fox, and as cheeky as they come, he was born for Origin. Man of the match in the Game 3 series decider, he joined the Broncos in ’88 and in his first season was Player of the Year. He won his first Australian jumper and the rest, as they say, is history.

He played 34 Origin games for Queensland – 4^th all-time behind Cameron Smith, Johnathan Thurston and Darren Lockyer - and more than anyone has played for NSW. He captained the Maroons in 1996 and ’98 and was a member of six winning series and a drawn series.

He represented Australia 24 times, including four World Cups, and captained the Kangaroos in 1998.

He played 258 games for the Broncos – 7^th-most all-time – and captained the club a record 163 times from 1992-99, including four premierships. He was Broncos player of the year five times, one of five players to score 100 Broncos tries and won the World Club Challenge twice.

In 1992, when the Broncos won their first premiership, he won the old Rothman’s Medal as the best player in the competition, the old Ron McAuliffe Medal as Queensland’s best Origin player and the Clive Churchill Medal as the best player in the grand final.

He won the Dally M Medal as the game’s best in 1986 and was Queensland’s Origin best again in 1996 and ‘98 after missing the 1995 and ’97 series due to Super League. After a sudden Broncos retirement mid-1999 he played two years with Warrington in England.

And then there was that moment … the moment when, under a cloud of secrecy, he was called home by Queensland coach Wayne Bennett to play in the 2001 Origin series decider. It was all hush hush. The story only broke after he boarded a plan in London – under a false name.

He was 35 – too old they said this time – but he set up two tries and scored the clincher to mastermind a magnificent Maroons win. The Sydney Telegraph headline read “BLOODY ALF”.

He was Origin man of the match for the fourth time in his final game at 36 in the drawn decider in 2002 – a staggering 11 years and 46 Origin games after his first such award. So much for too small!

Picked at halfback in the Queensland Team of the Century in 2008 and named a Queensland Icon in the State’s 150^th year celebrations in 2009, he’s a Hall of Famer with Sport Australia, the Australian Rugby League, the National Rugby League and the Broncos. He’s such a favorite they named a bar after him in the Leagues Club at Red Hill and built a statue of him at Suncorp.

An inaugural inductee to the Queensland Sport Hall of Fame in 2009, he now joins the very best of the best as the fourth rugby league Legend alongside Arthur Beatson, Wally Lewis and Mal Meninga … the 21^st Legend overall … ALLAN ‘ALFIE’ LANGER A.M.