Momentum is more critical than ever before under rules that can swing yardage battles and possession dramatically.

“Blocka [Balmain legend Steve Roach] used to always tell me, ‘We’ve got the easiest role in the game, and it’s the hardest to actually do’,” Woods says.

“Because you’re just doing the basics, running hard and tackling hard. But every few years, now, a new rule makes the game faster. And if your team isn’t going forward, you’ve basically lost the game and that running and tackling just gets harder and harder.”

When Woods debuted in first grade with Wests Tigers 13 years ago, he jokes that teammate Todd Payten – now coach of the Cowboys but then in the last season of a 259-game career – “didn’t talk to me for the first 18 months.”

“I had to earn his respect,” says Woods, who in his prime picked up $800,000 a season along with regular Kangaroos and NSW Origin honours.

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The common rugby league consensus is that, like halfbacks, props take longer than most to mature and grow into their game.

Data analysis by The Rugby League Eye Test a few years ago pegged a middle forward’s statistical peak toward the age of 27, with less drop off in output between 27 and 30 than other positions.

The impact of Covid-19 is still being felt in that regard given reserve grade competitions in NSW and Queensland – where young props cut their teeth against seasoned opponents – were cancelled in 2020 and midway through 2021.

Consecutive seasons spent in biosecurity bubbles also limited critical time spent training alongside senior teammates.

Regular programming has since resumed in the NRL. But Bulldogs supremo Phil Gould has spoken for many when he says, “I’ve never seen the player market as difficult as what it is at the moment.”

A recalibration of those lost development seasons is still another year or two away, especially for front-rowers. Gould and Canterbury are feeling this more than any club through sheer rugby league economics.

Roster analysis, provided to this masthead by one of the game’s premiership heavyweights, estimates that roughly one third of a club’s salary cap is spent on middle forwards – amounting to almost $3.4 million of an $11.25 million base salary cap.

In 2022 this masthead obtained details of the NRL’s salary cap benchmarking, which provides clubs with average and median player salaries based on position.

The rise of an elite front-row cohort – led by Payne Haas, Addin Fonua-Blake, James Fisher-Harris and Joe Tapine – had already lifted props into the third most lucrative bracket of top-earners behind halfbacks and fullbacks.

An updated document has been delayed by last year’s protracted CBA dispute and uncertainty over the salary cap.

Lucrative, seven-figure extensions since 2022 for Haas, Tapine and Fonua-Blake among others would only push the big-earners further north. But further down the chain, a prop’s true value in the market emerges.

While the median salary of the top five highest-paid halfbacks in the game was $1,095,560, halfbacks ranked 16-20 pulled in $245,353.

It’s a stark, understandable drop of almost 78 per cent in earnings given halves ideally play 80 minutes each week and clubs typically have defined front-liners and back-ups.

For props though, the top five clocked an average wage of $841,316. Front-rowers ranked 16-20 came in at $472,606, a significantly smaller slide of 44 per cent.

NRL clubs need more front-rowers to function, and those front-rowers need more time to develop to the highest level. But right now, there’s a gap in the supply.

“Unless you’ve got a Payne Haas, who was just a freak from a young age, most front-rowers don’t hit their straps until 27-28,” Woods says.

“You look at someone like Moses Leota. No one really spoke about him for a long time. I think he’s one of our premier front-rowers and he bashed Parramatta to win the [2022] grand final. He’s battle-hardened and so tough. For me, he’s the best front-rower in the game.

“It’s what we’re trying to do at Manly and it’s why I’m still playing on. I might not play every week, but Seibs [coach Anthony Seibold] has got me and a lunatic like Nathan Brown in to try and show these young guys what it takes to play in the NRL.”

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