Walker (34) and Reynolds (33) have seen it all before though, and lead a clutch of Tom Brady-esque playmakers in the game right now, with Daly Cherry-Evans (35), Ben Hunt and Shaun Johnson (both 33) all playing the best footy of their careers as they grow slower in the legs but quicker between the ears.

The Walters tale speaks to a point dual-international Mat Rogers made recently after Walker spoke of potentially playing on until the age of 38 or 39, and surpassing Paul Gallen as the oldest player in NRL history.

“You play until you don’t want to [play] or you’re non-productive,” Rogers, whose own career traversed two codes until the age of 35, said on SEN radio.

“That’s what stops you. If you don’t want to play and you’re productive, then don’t play. And if you’re not productive then [your club] is going to get rid of you.”

Modern medicine, high-performance managers, training techniques and all the rest of it can keep old legs moving, when in times past they couldn’t keep up with younger models.

Between the ears is where the true difference lies for 2024’s ageless 30-plus cohort, with Reynolds and Walker as instructive as any.

Walker came to first grade late at 26 and is making up for lost time with the nous and playmaking creativity honed in the two decades before his NRL debut.

“He’s got the best reaction time and ability to change something at the last minute, and still pick the right option, that I’ve ever seen,” Keaon Koloamatangi says of Walker, after switching edges for Souths this year to run off the veteran five-eighth.

Cliff Lyons, who played for Manly until he was 37 and sees more of himself in Walker than any player since, explains the craft so simply you’d think you’re half a chance of replicating it.

“It’s about holding the ball up and getting everyone to look at the football,” Lyons told this masthead in 2022.

“They all become visualised on one player, not the outside players. You drag players in and create a hole, sacrifice yourself for the better.”

Reynolds plays with the same impish zeal for the game in distinctly different fashion, managing, cajoling and kicking Brisbane around the paddock and to within 20 minutes of a premiership last year.

His sacrifice is an 85kg body that cops the battering one can expect as one of the NRL’s smallest players. Reynolds has invested in a home sauna and pool as he prioritises recovery in his later years.

The slight from Souths – that his 30-year-old body could only cash contracts one year at a time – has been cited so often as motivation that its impact is now overstated.

Reynolds is a competitor and already a coach in a halfback’s boots, so much so Brisbane have been preparing for his eventual shift onto their staff from his first season at the club.

Playmakers and props have always matured later than their peers in other positions, and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves closes in on his 300th NRL game as the oldest player this season, one month older than fellow 35-year-old Cherry-Evans.

Canberra’s Josh Papalii is 31, eyeing the triple ton too (he’s currently sitting on 284 appearances), and will trigger a 2025 option in his Raiders contract if he gets there – playing 75 per cent of games in the past two seasons after a ruptured biceps last year followed his Origin retirement.

It won’t matter if he keeps playing like he did in their season-opening upset of Newcastle. Canberra will sort an extension much sooner.

Papalii’s good mate Jarrod Croker is a pertinent example of how quickly the end can come for any player. As soon as all-time pointscoring records were mentioned, his body started to break.

Across the ditch, Johnson is now entertaining playing another season beyond 2024.

“I can see myself playing beyond this year,” Johnson said last month. “With how I’m feeling right now, there’s no bit of what I’m doing that makes me wonder why I’m doing this.”

Eighteen months ago, the pandemic-enforced separation from his young family had almost broken him too. A return to New Zealand and Andrew Webster’s faith launched a new lease on life and a campaign that almost yielded the Dally M medal.

For Johnson, Papalii and countless others, the motivation changes accordingly as they mature, to the point it trumps the science in Papalii’s eyes.

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“Back when I was young, I could go out on the piss and recover pretty quickly,” Papalii says. “I can’t do that any more so I don’t, but I didn’t have a wife and three kids either. I’ve got to look after them, so that keeps me on my toes and looking after myself. It’s all for them.

“They’re the reason I get up in the morning, go to training and play games, and being professional brings that all home. They come first, and my family is why I keep playing.”

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